Use 1. The use of it, is first, that we should not pass a harsh, unadvised, rujid censure upon ourselves, or others, for these respects, for any great afflic- tion or abasement in this world. The world is ready to pass their verdict presently upon a man. Oh, such a one, you see what a kind of man he was, you see how God follows him with crosses. So uncharitable men judge amiss of ' the generation of the righteous.' Whereas they should set the court in their own hearts, and begin to censure there, and to examine themselves, they go out and keep their court abroad. But I say, pass not a harsh censure upon others, or on thyself, no, not for extreme dan- gers. For God now is making way for great comfort. Let God go 'on his way, without t'ly censuring of him.
Use 2. Again, this should teach us, that ire should not build ovennuch con- fidence on earthly thin/js, on the things of this icorld, neither on health of body, or on friends, or on continuance of life. Alas ! it is God's ordinary course, to strip us of all in this world. We think of great reputation ; but, saith God, I will take that from you ; you shall learn to trust in me. You think you have strong and vigorous bodies, and you shall live long, and therefore you will venture upon such and such courses. Aye, but God suf- fers his children to come to extreme dangers and hazards, that they think the sentence of death is passed upon them.
And since this is God's course with the body, and with the members, and with our head Christ himself, shall we think to have immunity, and to escape, and not look to God's order ?
The church is in great misery, and we are negligent in prayer ; we think there are many good people, and there is strong munition, &c., as if when God's people are in security, and forget him and his blessings, it were not his course to strip them of all, to sufler them to fall into extreme dangers. Have we not the church before our eyes to teach us ? Let us trust, there- fore, in nothing in this world. So much for that point.
The second thing in the first part is this, that Doct. As God's children are brought to this estate, so they are sensible of it.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 8. 121
They are flesh and not steel, ' they have not the strength of steel,' as Job saith, Job vi. 12. They are men, they are not stones. They are Christians, they are not Stoics. Therefore St Paul, as he was in extremity, so he apprehended his extremity ; and with all his heart he would have escaped if he could. He looked about to all evasions how he might escape death. God's children are sensible of their crosses ; especially they are sensible of death, as he speaks here of himself, ' We despaired even of life itself.' The word is very significant in the original. We were in such a strait that we knew not how to escape with life, so that ' we despaired of life' (t). We would have escaped with our lives, but we saw no way to escape. To make this clear, there are three things in God's children.
There is (/race, nature, corrupt nature, nature with the tang* of cor- ruption.
Grace, that looks upward, to glory and comfort. Nature looks to the present grievance, nature looks not to things to come, to matters revealed in the word, to supernatural comforts : nature looks to the present cross, even nature without sin. Corrupt nature feels, and feels with a secret murmuring and repining, and heaviness and dulness ; as indeed corrupt nature will alway have a boutf in crosses ; it will alway play its part, first or last. There are alway these three works in the children of God, in all extremities. Grace works, and that carries up, up still. ' Trust in God.' It looks to heaven, it looks to the end and issue, that all is for good. Nature it fills full of sense and pain, and makes a man desire remedy and ease. Corrupt nature stirs a man up to fret, and say, what doth God mean to do thus ? It stirs a man ofttimes to use ill means, indirect courses.
St Paul was sensible, from a right principle of nature ; and, no doubt, here was some tang* of corruption with it. He was sensible of the fear of death. Adam in innocency would have been affected, and exquisitely sen- sible, no doubt, if his body had been wronged ; for the more pure the com- plexion, I the more sensible of solution. As physicians say, when that which should be knit together, if anything be loosed by sickness, or by wounds, that should by nature not be hurt, but continue together, it breeds exqui- site pain, as to cut that which should not be cut, to disjoin that which should be together. This is in nature.
The schoolmen say (»), and the reason is good, that Christ's pains were the greatest pains, because his senses were not dulled and stupiticd with sen- suality, or indirect courses. He had a body of an excellent temper, and he was in the perfection of his years when he died. Therefore he received such an impression of grief in his whipping, and when he was crowned with thorns. That was it that made him so sensible of grief, that when he Bweat, he sweat drops of blood, and upon the cross it made him cry out, « My God, my,God, why hast thou forsaken me ?' Mark xv. 34.