And they did bind the breastplate by his rings unto the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it might be above the curious girdle of the ephod, and that the breastplate might not be loosed from the ephod; as the LORD commanded Moses.
— Exodus 39:21
And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite.
— 2 Kings 1:8
And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.
— Matthew 3:4
In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity,
— Titus 2:7
And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
— Revelation 1:13
The Third Direction for Daily Exercise to Wear the Girdle of Truth Close Around in Sincerity, by William Gurnall. The following contains an excerpt from Chapter Seven of his work, “The Christian in Complete Armour.”
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.
— Ephesians 6:14 a, b
3. Direction. If thou wouldst walk in the exercise of thy sincerity, meditate often on the simplicity and sincerity of God’s heart to his saints. What more powerful consideration can be thought on to make us true to God, than the faithfulness and truth of God to us? Absalom, though as vile a dissembler as lived, yet, when Hushai came out to him, he suspected him. ‘And Absalom said to Hushai, Is this thy kindness to thy friend? why wentest thou not with thy friend?’ II Sam. 16:17. His own conscience told him it was horrible baseness for him, that had found David such a true friend now to join in rebellious arms against him; and though Absalom that said this did offer greater violence to this law of love, yet he questioned, it seems, whether any durst be so wicked besides himself. When therefore, Christian, thou findest thy heart warping into any insincere practice, lay it under this consideration, and if anything of God and his grace be in thee, it will unbend thee and bring thee to rights again. Ask thy soul, ‘Is this thy kindness to thy friend;’ such a friend God hath been, is, and surely will be to thee for ever? God, when his people sin, to put them to the blush, asks them whether he gives them cause for their unkind and undutiful carriages to him, ‘Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me,’ Jer. 2:5. So Moses, intending to pay Israel home, before he goes up and dies on Nebo, for all their hypocrisy, murmuring, and horrible rebellions against God, all along from first setting out of Egypt to that day, he brings in their charge, and draws out the several indictments, that they were guilty of. Now to add the greater weight to every one, he, in the forefront of all his speech, shows what a God he is that they have done all this against. He makes way to the declaiming against their sins, by the proclaiming of the glory of God against whom they were committed. ‘I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God,’ Deut. 32:3. And very observable it is, what of God’s name he publisheth, the more to aggravate their sins, and help them to conceive of their heinous nature. ‘He is the Rock, his work is perfect;…a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.’ ver. 4. He chooseth to instance in the truth and sincerity of God’s heart to them, in all his dispensations, as that which might make them most ashamed of their doings. Now because this one consideration may be of such use to hedge in the heart, and keep it close to God in sincerity, I shall show wherein the truth and sincerity of God’s love appears to his saints, every one of the particulars of which will furnish us with a strong argument to be sincere and upright with God.
1. The sincerity of God’s heat appears in the principle he acts from, and in the end he aims at, in all his dispensations. Love is the principle he constantly acts from, and their good the end he propounds. The fire of love never goes out of his heart, nor their good out of his eye. When he frowns with his brow, chides with his lips, and strikes with his hand, even then his heart burns with love, and his thoughts meditate peace to them. Famous is that place for this purpose: ‘I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good, for I will set mine eyes upon them for good,’ Jer. 24:5. And this was one of the sharpest judgments God ever brought upon his people, and yet in this he is designing mercy, and projecting how to do them good. So in the wilderness, when they cried out upon Moses for bringing them thither to kill them, they were more afraid than hurt. God wished them better than they dreamed of. His intent was to humble them, that he might do them good in the latter end. So sincere is God to his people, that he gives his own glory in hostage to them for their security. His own robes of glory are locked up in their prosperity and salvation. He will not, indeed he cannot, present himself in all his magnificence and royalty till he hath made up his intended thought of mercy to his people. He is pleased to prorogue the time of his appearing in all his glory to the world, till he hath actually accomplished their deliverance, that he and they may come forth together in their glory on the same day. ‘When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory,’ Ps. 102:16. The sun is ever glorious in the most cloudy day, but it appears not so till it hath scattered the clouds that muffle it up from the sight of the lower world. God is glorious when the world sees him not, but his declarative glory then appears when the glory of his mercy, truth, and faithfulness break forth in his people’s salvation. Now what shame must this cover thy face with, O Christian, if thou shouldst not sincerely aim at thy God’s glory, and your happiness in one bottom, that he cannot now lose the one and save the other.
2. The truth and sincerity of God to his people appears in the openness and plainness of his heart to them. A friend that is close and reserved, deservedly comes under a cloud in the thoughts of his friend; but he who carries, as it were, a window of crystal in his breast, through which his friend may read what thoughts are written in his very heart, delivers himself from the least suspicion of unfaithfulness. Truly thus open-hearted is God to his saints. ‘The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.’ He gives us in his key that will let us into his very heart, and acquaint us what his thoughts are, yea were, towards us, before a stone was laid in the world’s foundation; and this is no other than his Spirit, one who knows ‘the deep things of God,’ I Cor. 2:10, for he was at the council-table in heaven, where all was transacted. This his Spirit he employed to put forth, and publish in the Scripture indited by him, the substance of those counsels of love which had passed between the Trinity of persons for our salvation; and that nothing may be wanting for our satisfaction, he hath appointed the same Holy Spirit to abide in his saints, that as Christ in heaven presents our desires to him, so he may interpret his mind out of his word to us; which word answers the heart of God, ‘as face answers face in the glass.’ There is nothing desirable in a true friend, as to this openness of heart, but God performs in a transcendent manner to his people. If any danger hangs over their heads, he cannot conceal it. ‘By them,’ saith David, ‘is thy servant warned,’ speaking of the word of God. One messenger or other God will send to give his saints the alarm, whether their danger be from sin within, or enemies without. Hezekiah was in danger of inward pride. God sends him a temptation to let him ‘know what was in his heart,’ that he might, by falling once, be kept from falling again. Satan had a project against Peter; Christ gives him notice of it, Luke 22:31. If any of his children by sin displease him, he doth not, as false friends use, dissemble the displeasure he conceives, and carry it fair outwardly with them, while he keeps a secret grudge against them inwardly; no, he tells them roundly of it, and corrects them soundly for it, but entertains no ill will against them. And when he leads his people into an afflicted state, he loves them so, that he cannot leave them altogether in the dark, concerning the thoughts of love he hath to them in delivering them; but, to comfort them in the prison, doth open his heart beforehand to them, as we see in the greatest calamities that have befallen the Jewish church in Egypt and Babylon, as also the gospel-church under Antichrist. The promises for the deliverance out of all these were expressed before the sufferings came. When Christ was on earth, how free and open was he to his disciples, both in telling them what calamities should betide them, and the blessed issue of them all, when he should come again to them! And why? but to confirm them in the persuasion of the sincerity of his heart towards them, as those words import, ‘If it were not so, I would have told you,’ John 14:2; as if he had said, ‘It would not have consisted with the sincere love I bear to you to hide anything that is fit for you to know, from you, or to make them otherwise than they are.’ And when he doth conceal any truths from them for the present, see his candour and sincerity, opening the reason of his veiling them to be, not that he grudged them the communication of them, but because they could not at present bear them. Now, Christian, improve all this to make thee more plain- hearted with God. Is he so free and open to thee, and wilt thou be reserved to him? Doth thy God unbosom his mind to thee, and wilt not thou pour out all thy soul to him? Darest thou not trust him with thy secrets, that makes thee privy to his councils of love and mercy? In a word, darest thou for shame go about to harbour, and hide from him, any traitorous lust in thy soul, whose love will not suffer him to conceal any danger from thee? God, who is so exact and true to the law of friendship with his people, expects the like ingenuity from them.
3. The sincerity of God’s heart and affection to his people appears in the unmovableness of his love. As there is ‘no shadow of turning’ in the being of God, so not in the love of God to his people. There is no vertical point—his love stands still. Like the sun in Gibeah, it goes not down nor declines, but continues in its full strength; ‘with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer,’ Isa. 54:8. Sorry man repents of his love. The hottest affection cools in his bosom. Love in the creature is like fire on the hearth, now blazing, anon blinking, and going out; but in God it is like fire in the element, that never fails. In the creature it is like water in a river, that falls and riseth; but in God, like water in the sea, that is always full, and knows no ebbing or flowing. Nothing can take off his love where he hath placed it; it can neither be corrupted nor conquered. Attempts are made both ways, but in vain.
(a) His love cannot be corrupted. There have been such that have dared to tempt God, and court, yea bribe, ‘the Holy One of Israel’ to desert and come off from his people. Thus Balaam went to win God over to Balak’s side against Israel; which to obtain, he spared no cost, but built altar after altar, and heaped sacrifice upon sacrifice, yea, what would they not have done to have gained but a word or two out of God’s mouth against his people? But he kept true to them; yea, left a brand of his displeasure upon that nation for hiring Balaam, and sending him on such an errand to God, Deut. 23:4. This passage we find of God minding his people, to continue in them a persuasion of his sincere steadfast love to them; ‘O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal,’ Micah 6:5. And why should they remember this? ‘That ye may know the righteousness of the Lord;’ that is, that you may know how true and faithful a God I have been to you. Sometimes he makes use of it to provoke them to be sincere to him, as he, in that, proved himself to them, Joshua 24:9; he tells them how Balak sent Balaam to set God a cursing them, but saith the Lord, ‘I would not hearken unto him,’ but made him that came to curse you, with his own lips entail a blessing on you and yours. And why is this story mentioned? see ver. 14, ‘Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth’—a most natural and reasonable inference from the premises of God’s truth and faithfulness. O Christian! wouldst thou have thy love to God made incorruptible, embalm it often in thy thoughts, with the sweet spices of God’s sincere love to thee, which is immortal, and cannot see corruption. Believe God is true to thee, and be false to him if thou darest. It is a solecism and barbarism in love to return falseness for faithfulness.
(b) The love of God to his saints cannot be conquered. That which puts it hardest to it, is not the power of his people’s enemies, whether men or devils, but his people’s sins. God makes nothing of their whole power and wrath, when combined together; but truly, the sins of his people, these put omnipotency itself to the trial. We never hear God groaning under, or complaining of, the power of his enemies, but often sadly of his people’s sins and unkindnesses. These load him; these break his heart, and make him cry out as if he were at a stand in his thoughts, to use a human expression, and found it not easy what to do, whether to love them, or leave them—vote for their life or death. Well, whatever expressions God useth to make his people more deeply resent their unkindnesses shown to him, yet God is not at a loss what to do in this case. His love determines his thoughts in favour of his covenant people, when their carriage least deserves it, Hosea 11:9. The devil thought he had enough against Joshua, when he could find some filth on his garment, to carry this in a tale, and tell God what a dirty case his child was in, Zech. 3:6. He made just account to have set God against him, but he was mistaken; for instead of provoking him to wrath, it moved him to pity—instead of falling out with him, he find Christ praying for him. Now improve this in a meditation, Christian. Is the love of God so unconquerable that thy very sins cannot break or cut the knot of that covenant which ties thee to him? and does not it shame thee that thou shouldst be so fast and loose with him? Thou shouldst labour to have the very image of thy heavenly Father’s love more clearly stamped on the face of thy love to him. As nothing can conquer his love to thee, so neither let anything prejudice thy love to him. Say to thy soul, ‘Shall not I cleave close to God, when he hides his face from me, who hath not cast me off when I have sinfully turned my back on him? Shall not I give testimony to his truth and name—though others desert the one and reproach the other—who hath kept love burning in his heart to me, when I have been dishonouring him? What! God yet on my side, and gracious to me, after such backslidings as these; and shall I again grieve his Spirit, and put his love to shame with more undutifulness? God forbid! this were to do my utmost to make God accessory to my sin, by making his love fuel for it.’
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