Again, for another end God reveals to them the excellent estate of his children sometimes, tn keep them in better order, to awe them, that they be not\open enemies to the church, but may Jo yood service; for conceiting that there is such a happiness, and that perhaps they may partake of it, they will not carry themselves malignantly against those that are true professors.
There are several degrees of wicked men. Some are well-willers to good things, though they never come far enough. Some are open, malicious persecutors. Some again are better than so. They have a hatred to goodness, but they do not openly shew themselves ; as hypocrites, &c. God reveals these good things to wicked men to keep them in awe. The net draws bad fish as well as good ; so the net of the word, it draws wicked men, it keeps them from violence and open malice. Besides, even the majesty of the word, and the conviction of that excellent estate that belongs to God's children, it keeps them from open malice and persecution. This is another end that God aims at. What may we learn hence ?
Use 1. Seeing this is so, it should teach us that ice refuse not all that ill men say ; they may have yood apprehensions, and yive good counsel. It had been good for Josiah to have followed the counsel of wicked Phiraoh, a heathen. God often enlightens men that otherwise are reprobates. Refuse not gold from a dirty hand ; do not refuse directions from wicked men. Because they are so and so, refuse not a pardon from a man, a base creature. We ought not therefore to have such respect of persons as to refuse excellent things because the person is wicked. But that which I intend to press is this : If this be so, that wicked men may have illumina- tion whereby they discover an excellency, and likewise may have desires raised up to wish and desire that excellency.
Use 2. It should stir us up to go beyond nicked men. Shall we not go so far as those go that shall never come to heaven ? W^e see here Balaam pronounceth the end of the righteous to be happy. This should therefore stir us up to labour to be in a difl'erent estate from wicked men. Let us therefore consider a little wherein the difference of these desires is, the desires that a Balaam may have, and the desires of a sound Christian, wherein the desires of a wicked man are faihng.
(1.) These desires, first of all, they were but jlashes: for we never read
BALAAM S WISH.
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that he had them long. They were mere flashes ; as a sudden light, that rather blinds a man than shews him the way. So these enlightenings they are not constant. Wicked men ofttimes have sudden motions and flashes and desires. ' Oh that I might die the death of the righteous.' Oh that I were in such [a] man's estate. But it is but a sudden flash and light- ning. They are like a torrent, a strong sudden stream, that comes sud- denly and makes a noise, but it hath no spring to feed it. The desires of God's children they are fed with a spring, they are constant ; they are streams, and not flashes.
(2.) Again, this desire of this wretched man, it was not from an intcard jmnciple, an inward taste that he had of the good estate of God's children, but from an objective delight and admiration of somewhat that was oflered to his conceit by the Holy Ghost at this time. It was not from any in- ward taste or relish in himself that he speaks, but from somewhat outward, as a man that saw and heard excellent things, that ravished him with admiration, though he had not interest in them himself.
(3.) Again in the third place, this desire of the happiness of the estate of God's children, it ivas not working and operative, hut an uneffectual desire. It had only a complacency and pleasing in the thing desired ; but there was not a desire to work anything to that end. This wretch therefore would be at his journey's end, before he had set one step forward to the journey. It was a desire of the end without the means. It was not an operative efiectual, but a weak transient desire. Where true desires are, they are not only constant, and proceed from an inward interest and taste of the thing desired, but they are efiectual and operative. They set the soul and body, the whole man on work, partly to use the means to attain the thing desired, and partly to remove the impediments ; for where desii'e is, there will be a removing of the impediments to the thing desired ; as he that intends a journey, he will consider what may hinder him, and what may help him in it. He that sets not about these things, he never means it, for a man cannot come to his journey's end with wishing ; we can attain nothing in this life with wishing. There is a working, I say, that tends to remove impediments so far as we may, and tending to use all means to effect and bring the thing to pass. We see, then, there is a main differ- ence between the desires of this wretched man Balaam and the desires of the true chui'ch of God. To go on and follow the point a little further.