Gospel Knits

Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.
— Psalm 119:165

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
— Galatians 5:22

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
— John 14:27

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
— Romans 5:1

The Gospel Alone Can Knit the Hearts of Men in Solid Peace, by William Gurnall. The following contains an excerpt from Chapter Ten of his work, “The Christian in Complete Armour.”

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
— Ephesians 6:15

The doctrine we lay down is, that the gospel, and only the gospel, can knit the hearts and minds of men together in a solid peace and love. This, next the reconciling us to God and ourselves, is especially designed by Christ in the gospel; and truly those blessings without this, would not fill up the saint’s happiness; except God should make a heaven for every Christian by himself to live in. John Baptist’s ministry, which was as it were the preface to and brief contents of, the gospel, was divided into these two heads, ‘To turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,’ Luke 1:16, and ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ ver. 17; that is, to make them friends with God and one another. This is the natural effect of the gospel, where it is powerfully and sincerely embraced—to unite and endear the hearts of men and women in love and peace together, how contrary soever they were before. This is the strange metamorphosis, which the prophet speaks shall be under the gospel, ‘The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,’ Isa. 11:6. That is, men and women, between whom there was a great feud and enmity as betwixt those creatures, they shall yet sweetly agree, and lie in one another’s bosoms peaceably. And how all this, but by the efficacy of the gospel on their hearts? So ‘for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,’ ver. 9. Indeed it is in the dark when men fight, and draw upon one another in wrath and fury. If gospel light comes once savingly in, the sword will soon be put up. The sweet spirit of love will not suffer these doings where he dwells; and so peculiar is this blessing to the gospel, that Christ appoints it for the badge and cognizance by which not only they should know one another, but by which even strangers should be able to know them from any other sect and sort of men in the world, John 13:35. ‘By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.’ A nobleman’s servant is known as far as he can be seen, by the coat on his back, whose man he is; so, saith Christ, shall all men know you, by your mutual love, that you retain to me and my gospel. If we would judge curiously of wine, as to what is its natural relish, we must taste of it, before it comes into the huckster’s hands, or after it is refined from its lees. So, the best way to judge of the gospel and the fruit it bears, is to taste of it, either when it is professed and embraced, with most simplicity—and that was without doubt in the first promulgation—or, secondly, when it shall have its full effect on the hearts of men, and that is in heaven. In both these, though chiefly the last, this peace will appear to be the natural fruit of the gospel.

First. When the gospel was first preached and embraced, what a sweet harmony of peace and admirable oneness of heart was then amongst the holy professors of it, who but a while before were strangers to or bitter enemies one against another! They lived and loved, as if each Christian’s heart had forsaken his own, to creep into his brother’s bosom. They alienated their estates to keep their love entire. They could give their bread out of their own mouths to put it into their brethren’s that were hungry; yea, when their love to their fellow-Christians was most costly and heavy, it was least grudged and felt by them. See those blessed souls, ‘They sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need; and they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their bread with gladness and singleness of heart,’ Acts 2:46. More, they are more merry now they have been emptying of their bags by charity, than if they had come from filling them by worldly traffic. So notorious was the love of Christians in the primitive times, that the very heathens would point at them, as Tertullian saith, and say, ‘See how they love one another.’ And therefore, if less love and peace be found now amongst Christians, the blame lies not on the gospel, but on them. The gospel is as peaceful, but they are minùs evangelici—less evangelical, as we shall further show.

Second. Look on the gospel, as at last, in the complement of all in heaven, when the hearts of saints shall be thoroughly gospelized, and the promises concerning the peaceable state of saints have their full accomplishment—then above all this peace of the gospel will appear. Here it puts out and in, like a budding flower in the spring; which one warm day opens a little, and another that is cold and sharp shuts it again. The ‘silence’ in the lower heaven—the church on earth—is but for ‘the space of half an hour,’ Rev. 8:1. Now there is a love and peace among Christians; anon, scandals are given, and differences arise, which drive this sweet spring back; but in heaven it is full blown, and so continues to eternity. There dissenting brethren are made thorough friends, never to fall out. There, not only the wound of contention is cured; but the scar which is here oft left upon the place, is not to be seen on the face of heaven’s peace, to disfigure the beauty of it, which made the German divine so long to be in heaven— where, said he, Luther and Zuinglius are perfectly agreed, though they could not be agreed on earth. But I come to give some particular account how the gospel knits the hearts and minds of men in peace together, and why the gospel alone can do this. While I clear one, I shall the other also.

How the gospel knits the hearts of men in peace, and why it alone can do so.

First. The gospel knits the hearts of men together, as it propounds powerful arguments for peace and unity; and indeed such as are found nowhere else. It hath cords of love to draw and bind souls together that were never weaved in nature’s loom: such as we may run through all the topics of morality, and meet with in none of them, being all supernatural and of divine revelation, Eph. 4:3. The apostle exhorts them ‘to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’ And how doth he persuade them ver. 4-7. First, ‘there is one body.’ Such a one however, it is, as natural philosophy treats not of; but a mystical one, the church—which consists of several saints, as the natural body of several members; and, as it were strange to see one member to fall out with another—which all are preserved in life by their union together—so much more in the mystical body. Again there is ‘one spirit.’ That is the same holy Spirit which quickens them all that are true saints, and he is to the whole number of saints as the soul is to the whole man —informing every part. Now, as it were a prodigious violence to the law of nature, if the members, by an intestine war among themselves, should drive the soul out of the body, which gives life to them in union together; so much more would it be for Christians to force the Holy Spirit from them by their contentions and strifes; as indeed a wider door cannot easily be opened for them to go out at. Again, it presseth ‘unity,’ from the ‘one hope of our calling,’ where hope is put pro re speratâ—for the thing hoped for, the bliss we all hope for in heaven. There is a day coming, and it cannot be far from us, in which we shall meet lovingly in heaven, and sit at one feast without grudging one to see what lies on another’s trencher. Full fruition of God shall be the feast, and peace and love the sweet music that shall sound to it. What folly is it then for us to fight here, who shall feast there? draw blood of one another here, that shall so quickly lie in each other’s bosom’s? Now the gospel invites to this feast, and calls us to this hope. I might run through the other particulars, which are all as purely evangelical—as these, ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism;’ but enough to have given you a taste.

Second. The gospel doth this, as it takes away the cause of that feud and enmity which is among the sons and daughters of men. They are chiefly two —the curse of God on them, and their own lusts in them.

1. The feud and hostility that is among men and women is part of that curse which lies upon mankind for his apostasy from God. We read how the ground was cursed for man’s sake, ‘thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee,’ saith God, Gen. 3:18. But a far greater curse it was, that one man should become as a thorn and briar, to fetch blood of another. Some have a fancy that the rose grew in paradise without prickles. To be sure man, had he not sinned, should never have been such a pricking briar as now the best of them is. These thorns that come up so thick in man’s dogged, quarrelsome nature, what do they speak but the efficacy of God’s curse? The first man that was born in the world proved a murderer; and the first that died, went to his grave by that bloody murderer’s hand. May we not wonder as much at the power of God’s curse on man’s nature, that appeared so soon in Cain’s malicious heart, as the disciples did at the sudden withering of the fig tree blasted by Christ’s curse? And truly, it was but just with God to mingle a perverse spirit among them who had expressed so false a one to him. They deserved to be confounded in their language, and suffered to bite and devour one another, who durst make an attempt upon God himself, by their disobedience. Very observable is that in Zech. 11:10, compared with ver. 14. When once ‘the staff of beauty,’ ver. 10 —which represented God’s covenant with the Jews —was asunder, then presently the ‘staff of bands’ — which signified the brotherhood between Judah and Jerusalem—was cut asunder, also. When a people break covenant with God, they must not expect peace among themselves. It is the wisdom of a prince, if he can, to find his enemy work at home. As soon as man fell out with God, behold there is a fire of war kindled at his own door, in his own nature. No more bitter enemy now to mankind than itself. One man is a wolf, yea a devil, to another. Now, before there can be any hope of true solid peace among men, this curse must be reversed; and the gospel, and only the gospel, can do that. There an expedient is found how the quarrel betwixt God and the sinner may be reconciled; which done, the curse ceaseth. A curse is a judiciary doom, whereby God in wrath condemns his rebel creature to something that is evil. But there is ‘no condemnation’ to him that is in Christ. The curse is gone. No arrow now in the bow of threatening; that was shot into Christ’s heart, and can never enter into the believer’s. God may whip his people, by some unbrotherly unkindness they receive from one another’s hands, by way of fatherly chastisement —and indeed it is as sharp a rod as he can use in his discipline—the more to make them sensible of their falling out with him. But the curse is gone, and his people are under a promise of enjoying peace and unity; which they shall, when best for them, have performed to them.

2. The internal cause of all the hostility and feud that is to be found amongst men is lust that dwells in their own bosoms. This is the principle and root that bears all the bitter fruit of strife and contention in the world: ‘From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?’ James. 4:1. This breaks the peace with God, ourselves, and others. If there be a fiery exhalation wrapped up in the cloud, we must look for thunder and lightning to follow; if lust in the heart, it will vent itself, though it rends peace of family, church, and kingdom. Now, before there can be a foundation for a firm, solid peace, these unruly lusts of men must be taken to. What peace and quiet can there be while pride, envy, ambition, malice, and such like lusts, continue to sit in throne and hurry men at their pleasure? Neither will it be enough for the procuring peace, to restrain these unruly passions, and bind them up, forcibly. If peace be not made between the hearts of men, it is worth nothing. The chain that ties up the mad dog will in time wear; and so with all cords break, by which men seem at present so strongly bound together, if they be not tied by the heart-strings, and the grounds of the quarrel be there taken away. Now the gospel, and only the gospel, can help us to a plaster, that can draw out of the heart the very core of contention and strife. Hear the apostle telling us how himself and others his fellow- saints got cure of that malicious heart which once they were in bondage to. ‘For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another,’ Titus 3:3. Well, what was the physic that recovered them? See ver. 4, 5, ‘But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.’ As if he had said, Had not this love of God to us in Christ appeared, and we been thus washed by his regenerating Spirit, we might have lain to this day under the power of those lusts, for all the help that any other could afford us. Mortification is a work of the Spirit. ‘If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live,’ Rom. 8:13. And the gospel is the sacrificing knife in the hand of the Spirit. The word is called ‘the sword of the Spirit,’ as that which he useth to kill and slay sin within the hearts of his people.

3. As the gospel lays the axe to the root of bitterness and strife, to stub that up; so it fills the hearts of those that embrace it with such gracious principles as to incline to peace and unity. Such are self- denial —that prefers another in honour before himself, and will not jostle for the wall; long-suffering—a grace which is not easily moved and provoked; gentleness —which, if moved by any wrong, keeps the doors open for peace to come in at again, and makes him easy to be entreated. See a whole bundle of these sweet herbs growing in one bed, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,’ Gal. 5:22. Mark, I pray, this is not fruit that grows in every hedge, but ‘fruit of the Spirit’—fruit that springs from gospel seed. As the stones in the quarry, and cedars as they grew in the wood, would never have lain close and comely together in the temple, so neither could the one cut and polish, nor the other hew and carve themselves into that fitness and beauty which they all had in that stately fabric. No, that was the work of men gifted of God for that purpose. Neither can men and women, with all their skill and tools of morality, square and frame their hearts so as to fall in lovingly into one holy temple. This is the work of the Spirit, and that also with this instrument and chisel of the gospel, to do; partly by cutting off the knottiness of our churlish natures, by his mortifying grace; as also by carving, polishing, and smoothing them, with those graces which are the emanations of his own sweet, meek, and Holy Spirit.

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