Take Up the Cross

But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the LORD, which I speak unto thee: so it shall be well unto thee, and thy soul shall live. But if thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that the LORD hath shewed me:
— Jeremiah 38:20-21

And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious.
— Ezekiel 2:7

For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee.
— Jeremiah 1:18-19

But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten. But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause.
— Jeremiah 20:11-12

The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
— Psalm 46:7

Righteous Zeal Encouraged by Divine Protection: With a Discourse About Toleration, and the Duty of the Civil Magistrate About Religion, Thereunto Annexed, by John Owen. The following contains an excerpt from his sermon.

Sermon III.

“Let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them. And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall; and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee, and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.” — Jer. xv. 19g, 20.

The words of my text having a full dependence upon, and flowing out from, the main subject-matter of the whole chapter, I must of necessity take a view thereof, and hold out unto you the mind of God contained therein, before I enter upon the part thereof chiefly intended. And this I shall do with very brief observations, that I may not anticipate myself from a full opening and application of the words of my text.

And this the rather are my thoughts led unto, because the whole transaction of things between the Lord and a stubbornly sinful nation, exceedingly accommodated to the carrying on of the controversy he is now pleading with that wherein we live, is set out (as we say) to the life therein.

Of the whole chapter there be these five parts:—

First, The denunciation of fearful wasting, destroying judgments against Judah and Jerusalem, verse 3, and so on to verse 10.

Secondly, The procuring, deserving cause of these overwhelming calamities, verses 4 and 6.

Thirdly, The inevitableness of these judgments, and the inexorableness of the Lord as to the accomplishment of all the evils denounced, verse 1.

Fourthly, The state and condition of the prophet, with the frame and deportment of his spirit under those bitter dispensations of Providence, verse 10, and 15–18.

Fifthly, The answer and appearance of God unto him upon the making out of his complaint, verses 11–14, and 19–21.

My text lieth in the last part, but yet with such dependence on the former as enforceth to a consideration of them.

First. There is the denunciation of fearful wasting, destroying judgments, to sinful Jerusalem, verse 2, and so onwards, with some interposed ejaculations concerning her inevitable ruin, as verses 5, 6.

Here’s death, sword, famine, captivity, verse 2; — banishment, verse 4; — unpitied desolation, verse 5; — redoubled destruction, bereaving, fanning, spoiling, etc., verses 6–9. That universal devastation of the whole people which came upon them in the Babylonish captivity is the thing here intended, — the means of its accomplishment by particular plagues and judgments, in their several kinds (for the greater dread and terror), being at large annumerated, — the faithfulness of God, also, being made hereby to shine more clear in the dispersion of that people; — doing not only for the main what before he had threatened, but in particular executing the judgments recorded, Luke xxi. 24, etc.; Deut. xxviii. 15–57, — fulfilling hereby what he had devised, accomplishing the word he had commanded in the days of old, Lam. ii. 17.

That which hence I shall observe is only from the variety of these particulars, which are held out as the means of the intended desolation.

Observation. God’s treasures of wrath against a sinful people have sundry and various issues for the accomplishment of the appointed end.

When God walks contrary to a people, it is not always in one path; he hath seven ways to do it, and will do it seven times, Lev. xxvi. 24. He strikes not always with one weapon, nor in one place. As there is with him ποικίλη χάρις, “manifold and various grace,” 1 Pet. iv. 10, — love and compassion making out itself in choice variety, suited to our manifold indigencies; so there is ὀργὴ τεθησαυρισμένη, Rom. ii. 5, — stored, treasured wrath, suiting itself in its flowings out to the provocations of stubborn sinners.

The first emblem of God’s wrath against man was a “flaming sword turning itself every way,” Gen. iii. 24. Not only in one or two, but in all their paths he meeteth them with his flaming sword. As a wild beast in a net,207 so are sinners under inexorable judgments; the more they strive, the more they are enwrapped and entangled; they shuffle themselves from under one calamity, and fall into another: “As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him,” Amos v. 19. Oh! remove this one plague, saith Pharaoh.208 If he can escape from under this pressure, he thinks he shall be free; — but when he fled from the lion, still the bear met him; and when he went into the house, the serpent bit him. And as the flaming sword turns every way, so God can put it into every thing. To those that cry, Give me a king, God can give him in his anger; and from those that cry, Take him away, he can take him away in his wrath, Hos. xiii. 10, 11.

Oh, that this might seal up instruction to our own souls! What variety of calamities have we been exercised withal, for sundry years! What Pharaoh-like spirits have we had under them! Oh, that we were delivered this once, and then all were well! How do we spend all our thoughts to extricate ourselves from our present pressures! If this hedge, this pit were passed, we should have smooth ground to walk on; — not considering that God can fill our safest paths with snares and serpents. Give us peace, give us wealth, — give us as we were, with our own, in quietness. Poor creatures! suppose all these desires were in sincerity, and not, as with the most they are, fair colours of foul and bloody designs; yet if peace were, and wealth were, and former things were, and God were not, what would it avail you? Cannot he poison your peace, and canker your wealth? and when you were escaped out of the field from the lion and the bear, appoint a serpent to bite you, leaning upon the walls of your own house? In vain do you seek to stop the streams, while the fountains are open; turn yourselves whither you will, bring yourselves into what condition you can, nothing but peace and reconciliation with the God of all these judgments can give you rest in the day of visitation. You see what variety of plagues are in his hand. Changing of condition will do no more to the avoiding of them, than a sick man’s turning himself from one side of the bed to another; during his turning, he forgets his pain by striving to move, — being laid down again, he finds his condition the same as before.

This is the first thing, — we are under various judgments, from which by ourselves there is no deliverance.

Secondly. The second thing here expressed is, the procuring cause of these various judgments, set down, verse 4, “Because of Manasseh, son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.”

The sins of Manasseh filled the ephah of Judah’s wickedness, and caused the talent of lead to be laid on the mouth thereof.209 Oftentimes in the relation of his story doth the Holy Ghost emphatically express this, that for his sin Judah should be destroyed, 2 Kings xxi. 11. Yea, when they had a little reviving under Josiah, and the bowels of the Lord began to work in compassion towards them; yet, as it were remembering the provocation of this Manasseh, he recalls his thoughts of mercy, 2 Kings xxiii. 26, 27. The deposing of divine and human things is oftentimes very opposite.210 God himself proceeds with them in a diverse dispensation. In the spiritual body the members offend, and the Head is punished: “The iniquity of us all did meet on him,” Isa. liii. 1. In the civil politic body the head offends, and the members rue it: Manasseh sins, and Judah must go captive.

Three things present themselves for the vindication of the equity of God’s righteous judgments, in the recompensing the sins of the king upon the people.

1. The concurrence and influence of the people’s power into their rule and government: they that set him up may justly be called to answer for his miscarriage. The Lord himself had before made the sole bottom of that political administration to be their own wills: “If thou wilt have a king, after the manner of the nations,” Deut. xvii. 14; 1 Sam. viii. 7. Though for particulars, himself (according to his supreme sovereignty) placed in many [appointed many of the kings], by peculiar exemption; otherwise his providence was served by their plenary consent, or by such dispensation of things as you have related, 1 Kings xvi. 21, 22, “Then were the people of Israel divided into two parts: half of the people followed Tibni, the son of Ginath, to make him king; and half followed Omri. But the people that followed Omri prevailed against the people that followed Tibni; so Tibni died, and Omri reigned.” Now, they who place men in authority to be God’s vicegerents, do undertake to God for their deportment in that authority, and therefore may justly bear the sad effects of their sinful miscarriages.

2. Because, for fear of Manasseh’s cruelty, or to flatter him in his tyranny for their own advantage, the greatest part of the people had apostatized from the ways and worship of Hezekiah, to comply with him in his sin; as at another time “they willingly walked after the commandment,” Hos. v. 11. And this is plainly expressed, 2 Kings xxi. 9, “Manasseh seduced the people to do more evil than the nations.” When kings turn seducers, they seldom want good store of followers, Now, if the blind lead the blind, both will, and both justly may, fall into the ditch. When kings command unrighteous things, and people suit them with willing compliance, none doubts but the destruction of them both is just and righteous. See verse 6 of this chapter.

3. Because the people, by virtue of their retained sovereignty, did not restrain him in his provoking ways So Zuinglius, Artic. 42, “Qui non vetat, cum potest, jubet.” When Saul would have put Jonathan to death, the people would not suffer him so to do, but delivered Jonathan, that be died not, 1 Sam. xiv. 45. When David proposed the reducing of the ark, his speech to the people was, “If it seem good unto you, let us send abroad to our brethren everywhere, that they may gather themselves to us: and all the congregation said that they would do so: because the thing was fight in the eyes of all the people,” 1 Chron. xiii. 2, 4. So they bargain with Rehoboam about their subjection, upon condition of a moderate rule, 1 Kings xii. By virtue of which power, also, they delivered Jeremiah from the prophets and priests that would have put him to death, Jer. xxvi. 16. And on this ground might they justly feed on the fruit of their own neglected duty. See Bilson on Obed., part 3, page 271.

Be it thus, or otherwise, by what way soever the people had their interest therein, certain it is, that for the sins of Manasseh, one way or other made their own, they were destroyed. And therefore, these things being written for our example, it cannot but be of great concernment to us to know what were those sins which wrapped up the people of God in irrevocable destruction Now, these the Holy Ghost fully manifesteth in the story of the life and reign of this Manasseh, and they may all be reduced unto two chief heads.

(1.) False worship or superstition: “He built high places, made altars for Baal, and a grove, as did Ahab,” 2 Kings xxi. 3.

(2.) Cruelty: “He shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem with blood from one end of it to another,” verse 16.

Whether this cruelty be to be ascribed to his tyranny in civil affairs, and so the blood shed is called innocent because not of malefactors; or to his persecution in subordination to his false worship, instituted as before (as the pope and his adherents have devoured whole nations “in ordine ad spiritualia”), is not apparent; but this is from hence and other places most evident, that superstition and persecution, will-worship and tyranny, are inseparable concomitants.211

Nebuchadnezzar sets up his great image, and the next news you hear, the saints are in the furnace, Dan. iii. 20. You seldom see a fabric of human-invented worship, but either the foundation or top-stone is laid in the blood of God’s people. “The wisdom” (religion, or way of worship) “that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy,” James iii. 17; — when the other is “earthly, sensual, devilish, bringing along envying, strife, confusion, and every evil work,” verse 16. Persecution and blood is the genuine product of all invented worship. I might from hence name and pursue other observations, but I shall only name one, and proceed.

Observation. When false worship, with injustice by cruelty, have possessed the governors of a nation, and wrapped in the consent of the greatest part of the people who have been acquainted with the mind of God; that people and nation, without unprecedented mercy, is obnoxious to remediless ruin.

Those two are the Bel and dragon that, what by their actings, what by their deservings, have swallowed that ocean of blood which has flowed from the veins of millions slain upon the face of the earth. Give me the number of the witnesses of Jesus whose souls under the altar cry for revenge against their false worshipping murderers212 and the tale of them whose lives have been sacrificed to the insatiable ambition and tyranny of blood-thirsty potentates, with the issues of God’s just vengeance on the sons of men for compliance in these two things; and you will have gathered in the whole harvest of blood, leaving but a few straggling gleanings upon other occasions. And if these things have been found in England, and the present administration with sincere humiliation do not run across to unravel this close-woven web of destruction, all thoughts of recovery will quickly be too late. And thus far sin and providence drive on a parallel.

Thirdly. The inevitableness of the desolation threatened, and the inexorableness of God in the execution of it, verse 1, is the third thing considerable: “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people.”

Should I insist upon this, it would draw me out unto Scripture evidences of a nation’s travelling in sin beyond the line of God’s patience, and so not to be exempted from ruin; but, instead thereof, I shall make it a part of my daily supplications, that they may be to our enemies, if God’s enemies, and the interpretation of them to those that hate us.

In brief, the words contain an impossible supposition, and yet a negation of the thing for whose sake it is supposed. Moses and Samuel were men who, in the days of their flesh, offered up strong supplications, and averted many imminent judgments from a sinful people. As if the Lord should say, All that I can do, in such a case as this, I would grant at the intercession of Moses and Samuel, or others interceding in their spirit and zeal; but now the state of things is come to that pass, the time of treaty being expired, the black flag hung out, and the “decree having brought forth,” Zeph. ii. 2, that, upon their utmost entreaty, it cannot, it shall not, be reversed.

Observation. There is a time when sin grows ripe for ruin: “For three transgressions, and for four, the Lord will not turn away the iniquity of a people,” Amos i. 9.

When the sin of the Amorites hath filled the cup of vengeance, they must drink it, Gen. xv. 16. England, under several administrations of civil government, hath fallen twice, yea thrice, into nation-destroying sins. Providence hath once more given it another bottom; if you should stumble (which the Lord avert) at the same block of impiety and cruelty, there is not another sifting to be made, to reserve any grains from the ground. I doubt not but our three transgressions, and four, will end in total desolation. The Lord be your guide; — poor England lieth at stake.

Observation. The greatest difficulty that lieth in bringing of total destruction upon a sinful people, is in the interposition of Moses and Samuel.

If Moses would but have stood out of the gap, and let the Almighty go, he had broken in upon the whole host of Israel, Exod. xxxii. 9, 10. And let it by the way be observed, of the spirit of Samuel, that when the people of God were most exorbitant, he crieth, “As for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you,” 1 Sam. xii. 23. Scarce answered by those who, if their interest be not served, or at least their reason satisfied, will scarce yield a prayer for, yea, pour out curses against, their choicest deliverers. The Lord lay it not to their charge! For us, seeing that praying deliverers are more prevalent than fighting deliverers (it is, Though Moses and Samuel, not Gideon and Samson, stood before me), as some decay, let us gather strength in the Lord, that he may have never the more rest for their giving over, until he establish mount Zion a praise in the earth.

Fourthly. Come we now to the fourth thing in this chapter, the prophet’s state and condition, with the frame and deportment of his heart and spirit under these dispensations. And here we find him expressing two things of himself:—

1. What he found from others, verse 10.

2. What he wrestled withal in his own spirit, verses 15–18.

1. What he found from others. He telleth you it was cursing and reproach, etc.: “I have neither lent on usury, nor have men lent to me on usury, yet every one of them doth curse me,” verse 10.

Now this return may be considered two ways.

(1.) In itself: “Every one (saith he) of this people doth curse me.”

(2.) In reference to his deportment: “I have neither borrowed nor lent on usury, yet they curse me.”

(1.) From the first, observe:—

Observation. Instruments of God’s greatest works and glory are oftentimes the chiefest objects of a professing people’s cursings and revenges.

The return which God’s labourers meet withal in this generation is in the number of those things whereof there is none new under the sun. Men that, under God, deliver a kingdom, may have the kingdom’s curses for their pains.

When Moses had brought the people of Israel out of bondage, by that wonderful and unparalleled deliverance, being forced to appear with the Lord for the destruction of Korah and his associates, who would have seduced the congregation to its utter ruin, he receives at length this reward of all his travail, labour, and pains, — all the congregation gathered themselves against him and Aaron, laying murder and sedition to their charge; telling them they had “killed the people of the Lord,” Num. xvi. 41, 42; — a goodly reward for all their travails. If God’s works do not suit with the lusts, prejudices, and interests of men, they will labour to give his instruments the devil’s wages. Let not upright hearts sink because they meet with thankless men. “Bona agere, et mala pati, Christianorum est.” A man may have the blessing of God and the curse of a professing people at the same time. “Behold, I and the children whom God hath given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel,” Isa. viii. 18. “Cum ab hominibus damnamur, a Deo absolvimur.”213 Man’s condemnation and God’s absolution do not seldom meet upon the same persons, for the same things. If you labour to do the work of the Lord, pray think it not strange if among men curses be your reward, and detestation your wages.

(2.) In reference to the prophet’s deportment: “He had neither lent, nor had any lent to him, upon usury.” He was free from blame among them, — had no dealings with them in those things which are usually attended with reproaches; as he shows by an instance in usury, a thing that a long time hath heard very ill.

Observation. Men every way blameless, and to be embraced in their own ways, are oftentimes abhorred and laden with curses for following the Lord in his ways.

“Bonus vir Caius Sejus, sed malus quia Christianus.” What precious men should many be, would they let go the work of God in this generation! No advantage against them but in the matter of their God; — and that is enough to have them to the lions, Dan. vi. 5. He that might be honoured for compassing the ends suiting his own worldly interest, and will cheerfully undergo dishonour for going beyond, to suit the design of God, hath surely some impression upon his spirit that is from above.

2. You have the prophet’s deportment, and the frame of his spirit during those transactions between the Lord and that sinful people; and this he holds out, in many pathetical complaints, to be fainting, decaying, perplexed, weary of his burden, not knowing how to ease himself, as you may see at large, verses 15–18.

Observation. In dark and difficult dispensations of providence, God’s choicest servants are oftentimes ready to faint under the burden of them.

How weary was David when he cried out in such a condition, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest,” Ps. lv. 6. Long had he waited for a desired issue of his perplexed state, and had perhaps oftentimes been frustrated of his hope of drawing to a period of his miseries; and now, finding one disappointment to follow on the neck of another, he is weary, and cries, What! nothing but this trouble and confusion still? “Oh that I had wings like a dove!” — a ship to sail to a foreign nation (or the like), there to be at peace. In the like strait another time, see what a miserable conclusion he draws of all his being exercised under the hand of God; Ps. lxxii. 13, “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.” And again, Ps. cxvi. 11, he saith, in the perturbation of his mind, “All men are liars;” that all the promises, all the encouragements, which in his way he had received from God, should fail of their accomplishment.

It is not with them as it was with that wicked king of Israel, who, being disappointed of peace and deliverance in his own time, cries out, “This evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?” 2 Kings vi. 33. The season of deliverance suited not his expectation; therefore he quite throweth off the Lord and his protection:— not unlike many among ourselves, whose desires and expectations being not satisfied in the closing of our distractions, according to the way which themselves had framed for the Lord to walk in, are ready to cast off his cause, his protection, to comply with the enemies of his name, “Si Deus homini non placuerit, Deus non erit.” But it may be observed, that deliverance came not to that people until Jehoram was weary of waiting, and then instantly God gives it in. When God hath tired the patience, of corrupted men, he will speak peace to them that wait for him. Thus it is not with the saints of God; only, being perplexed in their spirits, dark in their apprehensions, and fainting in their strength, they break out ofttimes into passionate complaints (as Jeremiah for a cottage in the wilderness), but yet for the main holding firm to the Lord.

And the reasons of this quailing are, —

(1.) The weakness of faith, when the methods of God’s proceedings are unfathomable to our apprehensions. While men see the paths wherein the Lord walketh, they can follow him through some difficulties; but when that is hid from them, though providence so shut up all other ways that it is impossible God should be in them, yet if they cannot discern (so proud are they) how he goeth in that wherein he is, they are ready to faint and give over. God is pleased sometimes to make darkness his pavilion and his secret place. “A fire devours before him, and it is very tempestuous round about him,” Ps. l. 3. When once God is attended with fire, darkness, and tempest, because we cannot so easily see him, we are ready to leave him. Now, this the Lord usually doth in the execution of his judgments, “Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep,” Ps. xxxvi. 6. His righteousness, his kindness, is like a great mountain that is easy to be seen, — a man cannot overlook it, unless he wilfully shut his eyes; but his judgments are like the great deep. Who can look into the bottom of the sea, or know what is done in the depths thereof? God’s works in their accomplishment are oftentimes so unsuited to the reasons and apprehensions of men, that very many who have been strong in their desires, and great in expectation of them, upon their bringing forth to light, have quite rejected and opposed them as none of his, because distant from what they had framed to themselves. It is evident from the gospel, that the people of the Jews were full of expectation and longing for the great work of the coming of the Messiah just at the season wherein he came; yet being come, because not accommodated to their pre-imaginations, they rejected him, as having neither form nor comeliness in him to be desired, Isa. liii. 2. And the prophet Amos telleth many who desired the day of the Lord, that that day should be darkness to them, and not light, Amos v. 18, 20. So in every generation many desirous of the accomplishment of God’s work are shaken off from any share therein, by finding it unsuited to their reasons and expectations.

—————
Footnotes:

207 Isa. li. 20.
208 Exod. x. 17.
209 Zech. v. 7, 8.
210 “Est quædam æmulatio divinæ rei, et humanæ.” — Ter. Apol.
211 See the appendix at the end of this sermon.
212 Rev. vi. 9, 10.
213 Tertul. Apol.

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