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inglorious, he is the Spirit of glory: they are human reproaches, he the divine Spirit, the Spirit of glory and of God, that is, the glorious Spirit of God.

And this is the advantage; the less the Christian finds esteem and acceptance in the world, the more he turns his eye inward to see what is there, and there he finds the world's contempt counterpoised by a weight of excellency and glory, even in this present condition, as the pledge of the glory before him. The reproaches be fiery; but the Spirit of glory resteth upon you, doth not give you a passing visit, but stays within you, and is indeed yours. And in this the Christian can take comfort, and let the foul weather blow over, let all the scoffs and contempts abroad pass as they come, having a glorious Spirit within, such a guest honoring him with his presence, abode, and sweet fellowship, being indeed one with him. So that rich miser at Athens could say, that when they scorned him in the streets, he went home to his bags, and hugged himself there at the sight, let them say what they would. How much more reasonably may the Christian say, "Let them revile and bark; I have riches and honor enough that they see not." And this is what makes the world an incompetent judge of the Christian's estate. They see the rugged unpleasant outside only; the rich inside their eye cannot reach. We were miserable indeed, were our comforts such as they could see.

And while this is the constant estate of a Christian, it is usually most manifested to him in the time of his greatest sufferings. Then he naturally turns inward and sees it most, and accordingly finds it most; God making this happy compensation, that when his people have least of the world, they have most of himself; when they are most covered with the world's disfavor, his favor shines brightest to them. As Moses, when he was in the cloud, had nearest access and speech with God; so when the Christian is most clouded with distresses and disgraces, then doth the Lord often show himself most clearly to him.

If you be indeed Christians, you will not be so much thinking, at any time, how you may be free from all sufferings and despisings, but rather, how you may go

strongly and cheerfully through them. Lo, here is the way-seek a real and firm interest in Christ, and a participation of Christ's Spirit, and then a look to him will make all easy and delightful. Thou wilt be ashamed within thyself to start back or yield one foot, at the encounter of a taunt or reproach for him. Thou wilt think, "For whom is it? Is it not for him, who for my sake hid not his face from shame and spitting? And further, he died: now how should I meet death for him, who shrink at the blast of a scornful word?"

But wilt thou say, "This stops me; I do not find this Spirit in me if I did, then I think I could be willing to suffer any thing." To this, for the present, I say no more than this-Dost thou desire that Christ may be glorified, and couldst thou be content it were by thy suffering in any kind thou mayest be called to undergo for him? Art thou willing to give up thy own interest to study and follow Christ's, and to sacrifice thine own credit and name to advance his? Art thou unwilling to do any thing that may dishonor him, but not unwilling to suffer any thing that may honor him? Then, be not disputing, but up and walk on in his strength.

Now if any say, "His name is dishonored by these reproaches;" true, says the apostle, on their part it is so, but not on yours. They that reproach you, do their best to make it reflect on Christ and his cause, but thus it is only on their part. You are sufferers for his name, and so you glorify it. Your faith and patience, and your victory by these, do declare the power of divine grace and the efficacy of the gospel. These have made torturers ashamed, and induced some beholders to share with those who were tortured. Thus, though the profane world intends to fix dishonor upon the profession of Christ, yet it sticks not, but, on the contrary, he is glorified by your constancy.

And as the ignominy fastens not, but the glory from the endurance does, so Christians are obliged, and certainly are ready to glorify God on this behalf, that as he is glorified in them, so they may glorify and bless him who hath dignified them so; that whereas we might have been left to a sad sinking task, to have suffered for various guilts, our God hath changed the tenor and nature of

our sufferings, and makes them to be for the name of Christ.

Consider, it is but a short while, and the wicked and their scoffs shall vanish; they shall not be. This shame will presently be over, this disgrace is of short date, but the glory and the Spirit of glory are eternal. What, though thou shouldst be poor, and defamed, and despised, and be the common mark of scorn and all injuries? The end of them all is at hand. This is now thy part, but the scene shall be changed. Kings here, real ones, are in the deepest reality but stage kings; but when thou comest to alter the person thou now bearest, here is the odds-thou wast a fool in appearance and for a moment, but thou shalt be truly a king for ever.

Ver. 17. For the time is come, that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first

begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

THERE is not only perfect equity, but withal a comely proportion and beauty in all the ways of God, particularly in the sufferings and afflictions of the church. The apostle here sets it before his brethren; For the time is come, &c. In which words, there is a parallel of the Lord's dealing with his own and with the wicked, and a persuasion to due compliance and confidence, on the part of his own, upon that consideration.

The parallel is in the order and the measure of punishing. As for the order, it begins at the house of God, and ends upon the ungodly. And that carries in it this great difference in the measure, that it passes from the one on whom it begins, and rests on the other on whom it ends, and on whom the full weight of it lies for ever. It is so expressed; What shall the end be, &c. which imports, not only that judgment shall overtake them in the end, but that it shall be their end; they shall end in it, and it shall be endless upon them.

The time is come. Indeed the whole time of this present life is the time of suffering and purifying for the

church, compassed with enemies who will afflict her, and subject to those impurities which need affliction. And whereas the wicked escape till their day of full payment, the children of God are in this life chastised with frequent afflictions. And so the time may here be taken according as the apostle St. Paul uses the same word, Rom. viii, 18, The sufferings of this present time.

But withal, it is true, and appears to be here implied, that there are particular set times, which the Lord chooses for the correcting of his church. He hath his days of correcting, wherein he goes round from one church to another. And here the apostle may probably mean the times of those hot persecutions that were then begun, and continued, though with some intervals, for two or three ages.

Judgment. Though all sufferings are not such, yet, commonly there is that unsuitable and unwary walking among Christians, that even their sufferings for the cause of God, though unjust from men, are from God just punishments of their miscarriages towards him in their former ways; their self-pleasing and earthliness, having too high a relish for the delights of this world, forgetting their inheritance and home, and conforming themselves to the world, walking too much like it.

Must begin. The church of God is punished, while the wicked are free and florish in the world possibly all their days; or, if judgment reach them here, yet it is later: it begins at the house of God. And this truly is most reasonable; and the reason lies in the very name given to the church, the house of God.

There is equity in such a proceeding. The sins of the church have their peculiar aggravations, which fall not upon others. That which is simply a sin in strangers to God, is, in his people, the breach of a known and received law, and a law daily unfolded and set before them : yea it is against their oath of allegiance; it is perfidy and breach of covenant, committed both against the clearest light, and the strictest bonds, and the highest mercies. And the more particular the profession of his name and the testimonies of his love, these make sin the more sinful, and the punishment of it the more reasonable. The

sins of the church are all twice dipped, have a double dye; Isa. i, 18. They are breaches of the law, and they are ungrateful and disloyal breaches of promise.

As there is unquestionable equity, so there is an evident fitness in this. God is ruler of all the world, but particularly of his church, here called his house, wherein he hath a special residence and presence; and therefore it is most suitable that there he be specially observed and obeyed, and if disobeyed, that he take notice of it and punish it; that he suffer not himself to be dishonored to his face by those of his own house. And therefore, whosoever escape, his own shall not. You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities; Amos iii, 2. It is fit that he who righteously judges and rules all nations, should make his justice most evident and exemplary in his own house, where it may best be remarked, and where it will best appear how impartial he is in punishing sin. So he clears himself, and the wicked world being afterwards punished, their mouths are stopped with the preceding punishment of the church. Will he not spare his own? Yea; but they shall be first scourged. What then shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel?

And indeed the purity of his nature, if it be every where contrary to all sinful impurity, cannot but most appear in his peculiar dwelling-house; that he will especially have clean. If he hate sin all the world over, he hates it most where it is nearest to him. He will not endure it in his presence. Therefore, in that commission to the destroyers, Ezek. ix, 6, to which place the apostle here may have some reference, Go, says he, slay the old and the young, and begin at my sanctuary. They were the persons who had polluted his worship, and there the first stroke lighted. And in a spiritual sense, because all his people are his own elect priesthood, and should be holiness to the Lord, when they are not really so and do not sanctify him in their walking, he sanctifies himself, and declares his holiness in his judgments on them.

There is mercy in this dispensation too. Even under the habit of judgment, Love walks secretly and works.

Div.

No. VII.

2 X

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