Now, this revolting from principles of religion and righteousness, to a compliance with any sinful way or person, is a treacherous oppo- sition to the God of heaven. For, —
It cannot be done but by preferring the creature before the Creator, especially in those things which are the proximate causes of deviation.
Two principal causes I have obser\'ed of this crooked walking.
(1.) Fear.
(2.) That desire of perishing things which hath a mixture of covetousness and ambition.
The first maketh men wary what they do against men ; the other maketh them weary of doing any thing for God, as whereby their sordid ends are not like to be accomplished.
(1.) Fear. When once magistrates begin to listen after " quid sequitur's," and so to withdraw from doing good for fear of suffering evil, paths of wickedness are quickly returned unto, and the autho- rity of God despised. " Let this man go, and take heed of Ceesar," John xix. 12, did more prevail on Pilate's treacherous heart than all the other clamours of the Jews. Yea, was not the whole Sanhedrim swayed to desperate villany for fear the Romans should come and take away their kingdom ? John xi. 48. When men begin once to distrust that God will leave them in the briers, to wrestle it out themselves (for unbelief lieth at the bottom of carnal fear), they quickly tura themselves to contrivances of their own for their own safety, their own prosperity; which commonly is by obliging those unto them by compliances, in an opposition to whom they might oblige the Almighty to their assistance. Surely they conclude he wants either truth or power to support them in his employment.
If a prince should send an ambassador to a foreign state, to treat about peace, or to denounce war; who, when he comes there, distrust- ing his master's power to make good his undertaking, should comply
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1 46 EIGHTEOUS ZEAL ENCOURAGED
and wind up his interest with tliem to whom he was sent, suffering his sovereign's errand to fall to the ground, — would he not be esteemed as arrant a traitor as ever lived? And yet, though this be clipped coin among men, it is put upon the Lord every day as cuiTcnt.
From this principle of carnal fear and unbelief, — trembling for a man that shall die, and the son of man that shall be as grass, forget- ting the Lord our maker, Isa. li. 12, — are all those prudential follies which exercise the minds of most men in authority, making them, especially in times of difficulties, to regulate and square all their pro- ceedings by what suits their oAvn safety and particular interests, — counselhng, advising, working for themselves, quite forgetting by whom they are intrusted, and whose business they should do.
(2.) A desire of perishing things tempered with covetousness and ambition. Llence was the sparing of the fat cattle and of Agag by Saul, 1 Sam. xv.
When those two qualifications close on any, they are diametrically opposed to that frame which of God is requhed in them, — \\z., " Tliat they should be men fearing God, and hating covetousness." The first will go far, being only a contrivance for safety ; but if this latter take hold of any, being a consultation to exalt themselves, it quickly canieth them beyond all bounds whatsoever. The Lord gi-ant that liereafter there may be no such complaints in this nation, or [that they] may be causeless, as have been heretofore, — viz., that we have poured out our prayers, jeoparded our lives, wasted our estates, spent our blood, to serve the lusts and compass the designs of ambitious, ungodly men !
The many ways whereby these things intrench upon the spirits of men, to bias them from the paths of the Lord, I shall not insist upon ; it is enough that I have touched upon the obvious caiises of deviation, and manifested them to be treacheries against the God of all authority.
Use. Be exhorted to bev/are of rela])ses, with all tlieir causes and inducements, and to be constant to the way of righteousness; and this I shall hold out unto you in two jiarticulars.
1. Labour to recover others, even all that were ever distinguished and called by the name of the Lord, from their late fearful retiu'ning to sinful compliances with the enemies of God and the nation. I speak not of men's persons, but of their ways. For three years this pco})le have been eminently sick of the folly of backsliding, and with- out some special cordial are like to perish in it, as far as I know.
Look upon the estate of this people as they were differenced seven years ago, so for some continuance, and as they are now; and you shall find in how many things wo have returned to others, and not one in.stance to be given of their return to us. That this ma}' be clear, take some pai'ticulars.
BY DIVINE PROTECTIOK 1^7
(1.) In words and expressions; — those are "index animi." Turn them over, and you may find what is in the whole heart. " Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Now, is not that language, are not those very expressions which filled the mouths of the common adversaries only, grown also terms of reproach upon the tongues of men that suffered sometunes under them, and counted it their honour so to do? Hence that common exprobration, A parlia- ment of saints, an army of saints, and such like derisions of God's ways, — now plentiful with them who sat sometimes and took sweet counsel with us. Ah ! had it not been more for the honour of God that we had kept our station until others had come to us, — so to have exalted the name and profession of the gospel, — than that we should so return to them as to join with them in making the paths of Christ a reproach? Had it not been better for us, with Judah, to continue " nding with God, and to be faithful with the saints," Hos. xi. 12, than to stand in the congregation of the mockers, and to sit in the seat of the scornful? What shall we say, when the saints of God " are as signs and wonders [to be spoken against] in Israel ?" Isa. viii. 18. O that men would remember how they have left their first station, when themselves use those reproaches unto others which for the same cause themselves formerly bare with comfort ! It is bitterness to consider how the gospel is scandalized by this woful return of ministers and people, by casting scriptural expressions by way of scorn on those with whom they were sometimes in the like kind companions of con- tempt. Surely in this we are returned to them, and not they to us.