Obs. 2. That the house of God needs visiting and purging, and the reasons of it. But to proceed. Hence further we see that the house of God after some time will need visiting and purging, seeing it will soon gather soU. There will abuses and disorders creep into it, so that it will need refor- mation. And this the apostle seems to insinuate when he saith, ' The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.' The Lord saw cause for what he did. For,
1. First, — Such is the weakness of man's nature, that evil things soon discourage us ; and good things, except we wrestle with our spuits, prove a snare to the best. Even the church of God, after a long time of peace, is apt to gather corruption, as water doth by standing, and as the air itself will do if it have not the wind to purge it. And as it is in the bodies of men, if they be not curiously looked unto ; after a certain time, they will gather such a burden of humours as will rise to a distemper, so that they must be let blood or purged, &c., so it is with the church of God. Such is the infirmity of man's nature and the malice of Satan, that enemy to mankind, that the best of God's people will quickly gather some dis- temper or other, and stand in need of purging. You know a house will gather dust of itself, though clean at the first.
2. Most certain it is that the church of God cannot be long with- out some affliction, considering that it is now in a state of pilgrimage, absent from God, in another world as it were. We live in a gross, cor- rupt air, and draw in the corruption of tlie times, one defiling another. ' I am a man of polluted lips,' saith Isaiah, * and dwell with men of polluted lips,' Isaiah vi. 5 ; ill neighbours made him the worse.
Use. This should stir us up to lament the miserable estate of man's nature, that even the best of men, the church and people of God, whilst they re- main in this world, stand in need of continual purging and v»inno\nng. Crosses are as .necessary to us as our daily bread, because we carry that about us which wants them. We are as much beholden to God's correc- tions as to his comforts, in this world. The church needs keeping under, for the most part. God will not have us settle upon our dregs, Ps. Iv. 19; Jer. xlviii. 11. This should teach us to bewail our condition, and to de- sire to be at home, where wc shall need no pm'ging, where we shall be as free from sorrow as from sin, the cause of it,
Ohs. 3. That God will come to visit and purge Jus house u'hen need is. Observe we further, that as the church will stand in need of chastisements, so
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God ivill come and visit his temple ivhen need is, and but wlien need requires neither ;- for God is no tp-ant, yet he will shew that he hates sin whereso- ever he finds it, even in his own dear children and servants, Amos iii. 2.
If God should bear with the abuses and sins of his owti church and peo- ple, it would seem that sin was not so contrary to his holy disposition as it is. Therefore, in whomsoever he finds sin, he will punish it. Oiu- blessed Saviour found this true, when he took upon him the imputation of our sins, and became but only a surety for us. You see how it made him cry out, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' Mat. xxvii. 46. Those glorious creatures, the veiy angels themselves, when they kept not their o^\ii standing, God would endm-e them no longer, but thrust them out of heaven.
Obj. But why doth God chiefly afilict his own people more than others ?
Ans. 1. Whii God afflicts his own people before others. Because they are of his oicn family, and are called by his name. Num. vi. 27. Now the dis- orders of the family tend to the disgi'ace of the governor of it. The sins of the church touch God more nearly than others, and therefore 'judg- ments must begin at the sanctuary fii'st,' Ezek. iv. 6. 'I will be sanctified in all that come near me,' saith God when he smote Aaron's sons, Lev. X. 3. The nearer we come to God, if we maintain not the dignity of our profession, undoubtedly the more near will God come to us in judgment. We see the angels, who came nearest to God of all others, when once they sinned against him, they were tumbled out of heaven, and cast into the bottomless pit. Heaven could then brook them no longer.
2. Beloved, the gospel suffers much through the sides of 2^^'ofossors. What saith the wicked worldling ? These be your professors ! See what manner of lives they lead ! what little conscience they make of their ways ! &c. Little do men know how much religion is vilified, and the ways of God evil spoken of, through the loose carriage of professors of the gospel^ as if there were no force in the grace and favour of God to make us love and obey him in aU things ; as if religion consisted iu word only, and not in power. What a scandal is this to the cause of Christ ! It is no marvel God begins with them fii'st. ' You have I known above all the families of the earth, and therefore will I punish you,' Amos iii. 2. A man may see and pass by dirt in his grounds, but he will not sufl'er it iu his diniug cham- ber ; he wUl not endm-e dust to be in his parlour.