Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;
— Luke 12:35
And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
— Isaiah 11:5
Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
— James 5:11
And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
— Deuteronomy 8:2
Sincerity Hath a Strengthening Virtue, by William Gurnall. The following contains an excerpt from Chapter Eight of his work, “The Christian in Complete Armour of God.”
‘Girt about with truth.’ Ephesians 6:14b
Use First. Therefore, sincerity hath a strengthening virtue, whereby it either preserves the soul from falling into sin, or helps the Christian fallen to rise again.
1. This affords thee, Christian, a further discovery of thy heart, whether sincere or not. Put it here upon the trial. Dost thou find a power imparted to thee, whereby thou art enabled to repel a temptation to sin, when thou hast no weapon left thee to defend thee against it, but the command forbidding it, or some arrow taken out of the quiver of the gospel, such as the love of Christ to thee, thy love to him, and the like? May be the temptation is laid so cunningly, that thou mayest sin, and save thy credit too, having a backdoor opened to let thee in to it secretly. Thou shalt hazard nothing, apparently, of thy temporal concernment; yea, rather greatly advantage it, if thou wilt hearken to the motion. Only, God stands up to oppose it. His Spirit tells thee it is against his glory, inconsistent with the duty thou owest and the love thou professest to him. Now, speak what thou thinkest of sinning, the case being thus stated. Canst thou yet stand it out valiantly, and tell Satan sin is no match for thee, till thou canst have God’s consent, and reconcile sinning against him and loving of him together? If so, bless God that hath given thee a sincere heart, and hath also opened such a window as his in thy soul, through which thou mayest see that grace to be there, which seen, is the best evidence that God can give thee for thy interest in him, and life everlasting with him. Wert thou a hypocrite, thou couldst no more resist a sin so offered, than powder fire, or chaff the wind.
Again, when thou art run down by the violence of temptation, what is the behaviour of thy soul in this case? Dost thou rally thy routed forces, and again make head against thy enemy so much the more eagerly, because foiled so shamefully? Or art thou content to sit down quietly by the loss, and choose rather to be a tame slave to thy lust, than to be at any further trouble to continue the war? The false heart indeed is soon cowed—quickly yields subjection to the conqueror—but the sincere Christian gets heart, even when he loseth ground. Uprightness makes the soul rebound higher in holy purposes against sin, by its very falls into sin. ‘Once have I spoken,’ he means foolishly, sinfully, ‘but I will not answer; yea, twice, but I will proceed no further,’ Job 40:5. This made holy David beg of God to be spared a little, that he might have time to recover his strength before he went hence. Loath he was to go beaten out of the field.Might he but live to recover his losses by repentance of, and some victory over, those sins that had weakened and worsted him, then death should be welcome. He felt like that brave captain who, wounded in fight, desired some to hold him up, that he might but see the enemy run before he died, and then he should close his eyes in peace. Deal therefore impartially with thy own soul. Which way do thy falls and failings work? If they wear off the edge from thy conscience, that it is not so keen and sharp in its reproofs for sin—if they bribe thy affections, that thou beginnest to comply with those sins which formerly thy contest was, and likest pretty well their acquaintance—thy heart is not right. But if still thy heart meditates a revenge on thy sin that hath overpowered thee, and it lies on thy spirit, like undigested meat on a sick stomach, thou canst have no ease and content to thy troubled soul till thou hast cleared thyself of it, as to its reigning power; truly then thou discoverest a sincere heart.
2. This shows of what importance it is to labour for sincerity. Without it we can neither stand against, nor rise when we fall into temptation. Whatever thou beggest of God, forget not a sincere heart. David saw need of more of this grace than he had. ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me,’ Ps. 51:10; and happy was it for him he had so much as to make him desire more of it. What folly it is to build a house with beams on fire! The hypocrite’s building must needs come to nought. There is a fire unquenched— the power of hypocrisy unmortified—that will consume all his goodly profession. He carries into the field a heart that will deliver him up into his enemy’s hands. And he is sure to be overcome to whom his own side is not true.
3. Bless God, O sincere Christian, for this grace, for it is a blessing invaluable—crowns and diadems are not to be compared with it. In this, thou hast a heart after God’s own heart; a heart to his liking; yea, a heart to his likeness. Nothing makes thee liker to God in the simplicity and purity of his nature, than sincerity. Truth is that which God glories in. He is ‘a God of truth.’ When Haman was bid to say what should be done to the man that the king delighted to honour, he, thinking the king meant no other than himself, would fly as high as his ambition could carry him; and what doth he choose, but to be clothed with the king’s own apparel royal! When God gives thee sincerity, he clothes thy soul with that which he wears himself—‘who clothes himself with truth and righteousness as a garment.’ By this thou art made a conqueror greater than ever Alexander was. He overcame a world of men; but thou, a world of lust and devils. Did one bless God, at the sight of a toad, that God made him a man and not a toad? how much more thankful oughtest thou to be, who hath made thee that wert a hypocrite by nature, which is far worse, an upright Christian? It is notable saying of Lactantius, ‘If,’ saith he, ‘a man would choose death, rather than to have the face and shape of a beast—though he might withal keep the soul of a man—how much more miserable is it, under the shape of a man to carry the heart of a beast?’ Yet such a one is the hypocrite; yea worse, he doth only under the shape of a man, nut in the disguise of a saint, carry a beastly filthy heart within him.
4. Let this encourage thee who art sincere against the fears of final apostasy. Though sincerity doth not privilege thee from falling, yet thy covenant-state which thou art in, if sincere, secures thee from final apostasy. Because thy stock of grace in hand is small, thou questionest thy persevering. ‘Can these weak legs,’ thinkest thou, ‘bring me to my journey’s end; these few pence in my purse’—little grace in my heart—‘bear my charges all the way to heaven, through so many expenses of trials and temptations?’ Truly no, if thou wert to receive no more than thou hast at present. The bread thou hast in the cupboard will not maintain thee all thy life. But, soul, thou hast a covenant will help thee to more when that grows low. Hath not God taught thee to pray for thy ‘daily bread?’ and dost thou not find that the blessing of God in thy calling, diligently followed, supplies thee from day to day? And hast thou not the same bond to sue for thy spiritual ‘daily bread?’ hast thou not a Father in heaven that knows what thou needest for thy soul as well as body? Hast thou not a dear Brother, yea Husband, that is gone to heaven, where plenty of all grace is to be had, and that on purpose on his children’s errand, that he might keep their souls, graces, and comforts alive in this necessitous world? All power is in his hands; he may go to the heap, and send what he pleases for your succour. And can you starve, while he hath fulness of grace by him that hath undertaken to provide for you? Luke 10:35. The two pence which the Samaritan left were not enough to pay for cure and board of the wounded man; therefore he passeth his word ‘for all that he should need besides.’ Christ doth not only give a little grace in hand but his bond for more to the sincere soul, even as much as will bring them to heaven. ‘Grace and glory he will give,’ and ‘no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly,’ Ps. 84:11.
5. Take heed of resting on, or glorying in, thy sincerity. It is true it will enable thee to resist temptations, and will recover you out, when in temptation; but who enables that? where grows the root that feeds thy grace? Not in thy own ground, but in heaven. It is God alone that holds thee and it in life; he that gave it is at cost to keep it. The Lord is thy strength; let him be thy song. What can the axe, though sharp, do without the workman? Shall the axe say, ‘I have cut down?’ or the chisel, I have carved?’ is it not the skill and art of the workman rather? When able to resist temptation say, ‘The Lord was on my side or else I had fallen.’ Set up an ‘Ebenezer,’ and write on it, ‘Hitherto the Lord hath helped me.’
Though God promiseth in the psalm even now cited, to give ‘grace and glory’ to the upright, yet he will not give the glory of his grace to uprightness. We have David asserting his uprightness, and how he was preserved by it: ‘I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity,’ II Sam. 22:24. He declares the fruit of his uprightness, how God bare testimony to it by rewarding him for it, in vindicating him before, and giving him victory over his enemies: ‘Therefore the Lord hath recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his eyesight,’ ver. 25. Now, lest he should set up himself, or applaud his own uprightness, to the prejudice of God’s grace, he sweetly corrects and bounds these passages, ‘God is my strength and power, and he maketh my way perfect,’ ver. 33. As if the holy man had said, ‘I pray, mistake me not; I do not ascribe the victory over my enemies within me or without, to myself and my uprightness. No, God did all, he is my strength and power; yea, it is he that makes my way perfect. If I be sincere more than others in my way, I must thank him for it; for he makes my way perfect. He found me at first as crooked a piece, and walking in as crooked ways, as any other, but he made me and my way perfect and straight.’ Had God pleased he could have made Saul as perfect as David. Had God left David, he would have been as crooked and false-hearted as Saul. The last branch of the point was that sincerity hath a comforting strength in all sorts of affliction. The applicatory improvement of which shall be only this—
Use Second. Let it teach us not to fear affliction but hypocrisy. Believe it, friends, affliction is a harmless thing to a sincere soul; it cannot be so great as to make it inconsistent with his joy and comfort. A gracious soul in the most sharp affliction can spare his tears and pity, to bestow them on the hypocrite when in all his pomp and glory. He hath that in his bosom that gives him more comfortable apprehensions of his own affliction, than standers-by have, or can have, of them. This once made a holy man, when the pangs of death were on him, to ask a servant of his, weeping by his bedside for him, ‘What she meant by he fears,’ saying, ‘Never fear that my heavenly Father will do me any hurt.’ Indeed affliction is not joyous to the flesh, which hath made some of God’s dear children awhile to shrink, but after they had been acquainted with the work, and the comforts which God bestows on his poor prisoners through the grate, they have learned another tune, like the bird that at first putting into the cage flutters and shows her dislike of her restraint, but afterwards comes to sing more sweetly than when at liberty to fly where she pleased. Be not therefore so thoughtful about affliction, but be careful against hypocrisy. If the bed of affliction proves hard and uneasy to thee, it is thyself that brings with thee what makes it so. Approve thyself to God, and trust him who hath promised to be his saint’s bed- maker in affliction, to make it soft and easy for thee. O what a cutting word will it be in a dying hour, when thou art crying, ‘Lord, Lord, mercy on a poor creature,’ to hear the Lord say, ‘I know thee not.’ It is not the voice of a sincere soul, but the voice of a hypocrite, that howls on his bed of sorrow. What then wilt thou do, when fallen into the hands of God, with whom thou hast juggled in thy profession, and never sincerely didst love? If that speech of Joseph was so confounding to the patriarchs—‘I am Joseph your brother, who you sold into Egypt’—that they could not endure his presence, knowing their own guilt, how intolerable will it be to hear from God’s own mouth such language in a time of distress. ‘I am God whom you have mocked, abused, and sold away, for the enjoyments of your lusts; and do you now come to me? Have I anything for you but a hell to torment you in to all eternity?’
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