Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

the tenderness and sense which we ought to have of the miseries and hardships of other men. Partly out of the delicacy of self-love, which makes us unwilling to sour the relish of our own sweet enjoyments, with the bitter taste of strangers' afflictions. Partly through sluggishness of spirit, which makes us unwilling to rise up from the bed of ease and pleasure, to travel in the enquiry of the state of our brethren, either abroad or at home; so that (as the apostle saith in another case) we are willingly ignorant, and are not only strangers, but are content to be strangers to their miseries and calamities.

One way or other, even Christians themselves, and such as are truly so called, are more or less guilty of the sin of the Gentiles; without natural affection, unmerciful, without bowels, without compassion.

Hence you may find, that it was one of the errands upon which God sent Israel into Egypt, that, in the brick-kilns there, their hard hearts might be softened and melted into compassion towards strangers and captives. Therefore when God had turned their captivity, that was one of the first lessons of which he puts them in mind, Thou shalt not oppress a stranger: there is the duty; which, though negatively expressed, yet (according to the rule of interpreting the commandments) doth include all the affirmative duties of mercy and compassion: and the motive follows, for you know the heart of a stranger: how came they to know it? Seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. As if

[ocr errors]

God had said, I knew thou hadst an heart of iron, and bowels of brass within thee, incompassionate and cruel; and therefore I sent thee into Egypt on purpose, that by the cruelty of the Egyptians I might intender your hearts; and that by the experience of your own sufferings and miseries, you might learn as long as you live to lay to heart the anguish and agonies of strangers and captives; that whensoever you see a stranger in your habitations, you may say, O here is

a poar sojourner, an exile, I will surely have mercy • upon him, and shew him kindness, for I myself have been a stranger and a bond-slave in Egypt.'

And upon this very account God still brings variety of afflictions and sorrows upon his own children; he suffereth them to be plundered, banished, imprisoned, reduced to great extremities, that by their own experience they may learn to draw out their souls to the hungry, and mercies towards such objects of pity; that they might say within themselves, I know the

[ocr errors]

heart of this afflicted soul, I know what it is to be ⚫ plundered, to be rich one day, and the very next day

to be stript naked of all one's comforts and accom❤ ⚫modations'; I know what it is to hear poor hunger ⚫ starved children cry for bread, and there is none to give them; I know what it is to be banished from ⚫ dearest relations, to be like limbs torn out of the body, and to lie bleeding in their separation; I know what it is to be cast into prison, to be locked up alone. ⚫ in the dark, with no other company but one's own.

[ocr errors]

fears and sorrows. the sentence of death in one's self. Shall not I pity, • and pray, and pour out my soul over such as are * bleeding and languishing under the like miseries?'

I know what it is to receive

[ocr errors]

And this argument makes deeper impression, when a Christian compares and measures his lighter burden of affliction with another's more grievous yoke; and reasons thus within himself; Imprisonment was grievous to me, and yet I enjoyed many comforts and accommodations, which others have not; I had a sweet chamber, and a soft bed, when some poor ⚫ members of Jesus Christ, in the Spanish inquisition, • and the Turkish slavery, are cast into the dungeon,

and sink into the mire; their feet are hurt in the stocks, and the irons do enter into their soul; others • lie bleeding and gasping upon the cold ground with their undrest wounds, exposed to all the injuries of

[ocr errors]

hunger and nakedness in the open air. I saw the face of my Christian friends sometimes, enjoyed refreshment in converse with dearest relations; while some of God's precious people are cast into dark and noisome prisons, and do not see the face of a Chris tian, not of a man (possibly) in five, ten, or twenty years together, unless it be of their tormenters. • had fresh diet every day, not only for necessity, but ⚫ for delight, while other precious servants of God want their necessary bread, and lie starving in the doleful places of their sorrowful confinement. Oh! ⚫ shall not my bowels yearn, and my compassions be

I

moved within me, towards such objects of misery • and compassion?'

Truly, we see it daily in case of the stone, gout, strangury, and the like evils, how experience doth melt the heart into tears of sympathy and fellow-feeling, while strangers to such sufferings stand wondering at, and almost deriding the heart-breaking lamenta→ tions of poor wretches. Brethren, that you may not wonder at this, consider I beseech you what the apostle speaks of Christ himself: It behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God. And again, We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are.

A man would say within himself, Why, what need had the Lord Jesus to invest himself with a body of flesh, that he might know the infirmities of our nature, since he was God, and knew all things? Nay, but my brethren, it seems the knowledge which Christ had as God, was different from that knowledge which he had as man; that which he had as God, was intuitive; that which he had as man, was experimental; experimental knowledge of misery is the heart-affecting knowledge; and therefore Christ himself would intender his own heart, as Mediator, by his own experience: and if the Lord Jesus, who was mercy itself, would put himself into a suffering condition, that he might the more sweetly and affectionately act those

mercies towards his suffering members; how much more do we, that by nature are uncharitable and cruel, need such practical teachings to work upon our own hearts? Certainly we cannot gain so much sense of the saints' sufferings by the most exact relation that the tongue of men or angels is able to express, no nor by all our scripture knowledge, though sanctified, as we do by one day's experience in the school of affliction, when God is pleased to be the school-master.

2. By chastisements God doth teach us how to PRIZE our outward mercies and comforts more, and yet to dote upon them less; to be more thankful for them, and yet less ensnared by them. This is a mystery indeed to nature, a paradox to the world; for naturally we are very prone either to slight, or to surfeit; and yet (sad to consider) we can make a shift to do both at once; we can undervalue our mercies even while we glut ourselves with them, and despise them even when we are surfeiting upon them. Witness that caution by Moses and Joshua: When thou hast eaten and art full, take heed thou forget not the Lord thy God. Behold while men fill themselves with the mercies of God, they can neglect the God of their mercies: when God is most liberal in remembering us, we are most ungrateful to forget him. Now therefore that we may know how to put a due estimate upon mercies, God often cuts us short, that we may learn to prize that by want, which our foolish unthankful hearts slighted in the enjoyment. Thus the prodigal, who while yet at

« VorigeDoorgaan »