The Crook in the Lot by Thomas Boston Pages 101-110
“I. General Directions.
Direct.
1. Fix it in your heart to seek some spiritual improvement of the conduct of Providence towards you, Micah vi. 9. Till once your heart get a set that way, your humiliation is not to be expected, Hosea xiv. 9. But nothing is more reasonable, if we would act either like men or Christians, than to aim at turning’ what is so grievous to the flesh unto the profit of the spirit; that if we are losers on one hand, we may be gainers on another.
2. Settle the matter of your eternal salvation, in the first place, by betaking yourself to Christ, and taking God for your God in him, according to the gospel-offer, Hos. ii, 19.; Heb. viii. 10. Let your humbling circumstances move you to this, that while the creature dries up, you may go to the Fountain : for it is impossible to reach due humiliation under his mighty hand, without faith in him as your God and friend, Heb. xi. 6.; 1 John iv. 19.
3. Use the means of soul-humbling in the faith of the promise, Psal. xxviii. 7. Moses, smiting the rock in faith of the promise, made water gush out, which otherwise would not at all have appeared. Let us do likewise in dealing with our rocky hearts. They must be laid on the soft bed of the gospel, and struck there, as Joel ii. 13. ” Turn to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful:” or they will never kindly break or fall in humiliation,
II. Particular Directions
1. Assure yourselves that there are no circumstances that you are in so humbling, but you may get your heart acceptably brought down to them,
1 Cor. x. 13. ” But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” This is truth, 2 Cor. xii. 9. ” My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” And you should be persuaded of it, with application to yourselves, if ever you would reach the end. Phil. iv. 13. ” I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” God allows you to be persuaded of it, whatever is your weakness and the difficulty of the task. ” For our sakes this is written, That he that ploweth should plow in hope ; and he that thresheth in hope, should be partaker of his hope.” 1 Cor. ix. 10. And the belief thereof is a piece of the life of faith, 2 Tim. ii. 1. If you have no hope of success, your endeavours, as they will be heartless, so they will be vain. ” Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees.” Heb xii. 12.
2 Whatever hand is, or is not, in your humbling circumstances, do you take God for your party, and consider yourselves therein as under his mighty hand, Micah vi. 9. Men in their humbling circumstances overlook God ; so they find not themselves called to humility under them ; they fix their eyes on the creature instrument, and instead of humility, their hearts rise. But take him for your party that ye may remember the battle, and do no more. Job xii. 8.
3. Be much in the thoughts of God’s infinite greatness ; consider his holiness and majesty, to awe you into the deepest humiliation, Psa. vi. 3—5. Job met with many humbling providences in his case, but he was never sufficiently humbled under them, till the Lord made a new discovery of himself unto him, in his infinite majesty and greatness. He kept his ground against his friends, and stood to his points, till the Lord took that method with him. It was begun with thunder, Job xxxvii. 1, 2. Then followed God’s voice out of the whirlwind, chap, xxxviii. 1, whereon Job is brought down, chap. xl. 4, 5. It is renewed till he is farther humbled, chap, xlii. 5, 6. ” Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
4. Inure yourselves silently to admit mysteries in the conduct of Providence towards you, which you are not able to comprehend, but will adore, Rom. xi. 33. ” O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” That was the first word God said to Job xxxviii. 2. ” Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge ?” It went to his heart, stuck with him, and he comes over it again, chap. xlii. 3, as that which particularly brought him to his knees, to the dust. Even in those steps of Providence, which we seem to see far into, we may well allow there are some mysteries beyond what we see. And in those which are perplexing and puzzling, sovereignty should silence us; his infinite wisdom should satisfy though we cannot see.
5. Be much in the thoughts of your own sinfulness, Job xl. 4. ” Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” It is overlooking of that which gives us so much ado with humbling circumstances. While the eyes are held that they cannot see sin, the heart riseth against them ; but when they are opened, it falls Wherefore, whenever God is dealing with you in humbling dispensations, turn your eyes, upon that occasion, on the sinfulness of your nature, heart, and life, and that Will help forward your humiliation.
6. Settle it in your heart, that there is need of all the humbling circumstances you are put in. This is truth, 1 Pet. i. 6. ” Though now for a season (if need be) ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” God brings no needless trials upon us, afflicts none but as their need requires, Lam. iii. 33. ” For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” That is an observable difference betwixt our earthly and our heavenly Father’s correction, Heb. xii. 10. ” They, after their own pleasure ; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.” Look to the temper of your own hearts and nature, how apt to be lifted up, to forget God, to be carried away with the vanities of the world: what foolishness is bound up in your heart! Thus you will see the need of humbling circumstances for ballast, and of the rod for the fool’s back ; and if at any time you cannot see that need, believe it on the ground of God’s infinite wisdom, that does nothing in vain.
7. Believe a kind design of Providence in them towards you. God calls us to this, as the key that opens the heart under them, Rev. iii. 19. Satan suggests suspicions to the contrary, as the bar which may hold it shut, 2 Kings vi. 33. ” This evil is of the Lord, what should I wait for the Lord any longer?” As long as the suspicion of an ill design in them against us reigns, the creature will, like the worm at the man’s feet, put itself in the best posture of defence it can, and harden itself in sorrow: but the faith of a kind design will cause it to open out itself in humility before him.
Case. ” O ! if I knew there were a kind design in it, I would willingly bear it, although there were more of it; but I fear a ruining design of Providence against me therein.”
Ans. Now, what word of God, or discovery from Heaven, have you to ground these fears upon? None at all, but from hell, 1 Cor. x. 13. What think you the design towards you in the gospel is ? Can you believe no kind design in all the words of grace there heaped up ? What is that, I pray, but black unbelief in its hue of hell, flying in the face of the truth of God, and making him a liar, Isa. Iv. 1. 1 John v. 10, 11. The gospel is a breathing of love and good-will to the world of mankind sinners, Titus ii. 11., iii. 3, 4., 1 John iv. 14., John iii. 17. But ye believe it not, in that case, more than devils believe it. If ye can believe a kind design there, ye must believe it in your humbling circumstances too; for the design of Providence cannot be contrary to the design of the gospel; but contrariwise, the latter is to help forward to the other.
8. Think with yourselves, that this life is the time of trial for heaven, James i. 12. ” Blessed is the man that endureth temptation ; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.” And therefore there should be a welcoming of humbling circumstances in that view, ver. 2. ” Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” If there is an honourable office, or beneficial employment to be bestowed, men strive to be taken on trial for it, in hope they may be thereupon legally admitted to it. Now God takes trial of men for heaven by humbling circumstances, as the whole Bible teacheth ; and shall men be so very loth to stoop to them ? I would ask you,
(1.) Is it nothing to you to stand a candidate for glory, to be put on trial for heaven ? Is there not an honour in it, an honour which all the saints have had? James v. 10, 11. ” Behold we count them happy that endure,” &c. And a fair prospect in it, 2 Cor. iv. 17. ” For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Do but put the case, that God should overlook you in that case, as one whom it is needless ever to try on that head; that he should order you your portion in this life with full ease, as one that is to get no more of him; what would that be ?
(2 ) What a vast disproportion is there between your trials and the future glory ! Your most humbling circumstances, how light are they in comparison of the weight of it! The longest continuance of them is but for a moment, compared with that eternal weight. Alas ! there is much unbelief at the root of all our uneasiness under our humbling circumstances. Had we a clearer view of the other world, we should not make so much of either the smiles or frowns of this.
(3.) What think ye of coming foul off in the trial of your humbling circumstances ? Jer. vi. 29, 30. ” The lead is consumed of the fire ; the founder melteth in vain; for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.” That the issue of it be only, that your heart appear of such a temper as by no means to be humbled ; and that therefore you must and shall be taken off them, while yet no humbling appears. I think the awfulness of the dispensation is such, as might set us to our knees to deprecate the lifting us up from our humbling circumstances, ere our hearts are humbled, Isa. i. 5., Ezek. xxiv. 13.
9. Think with yourselves, how, by humbling circumstances, the Lord prepares us for heaven, ” Giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,” Col. i. 12.; 2 Cor. v. 5. The stones and timber are laid down, turned over and over, and hewed, ere they be set up in the building ; and not set up just as they come out of the quarry and wood. Were they capable of a choice, such of them as would refuse the iron tool would be refused a place in the building. Pray, how think ye to be made meet for heaven, by the warm sunshine of this world’s ease, and getting all your will here? Nay, Sirs, that would put your mouth out of taste for the joys of the other world. Vessels of dishonour are fitted for destruction that way ; but vessels of honour for glory by humbling circumstances. I would here say,
(1.) Will nothing please you but two heavens, one here, another hereafter? God has secured one heaven for the saints, one place where they shall get all their will, wish, and desire; where there shall be no weight on them to hold them down ; and that is in the other world. But ye must have it both here and there, or ye cannot digest it. Why do you not quarrel too, that there are not two summers in one year; two days in the twenty-four hours? The order of the one heaven is as firm as that of the years and days, and ye cannot reverse it: therefore, choose ye whether you will take your night or your day first, your winter or your summer, your heaven here or hereafter.
(2.) Without being humbled with humbling circumstances in this life, ye are not capable of heaven, 2 Cor. v. 5. ” Now, he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.” You may indeed lie at ease- here in a bed of sloth and dream of heaven, big with hopes of a fool’s paradise, wishing to cas yourselves just out of Delilah’s lap into Abraham’s bosom; but except ye be humbled, ye are not capable,
(1.) Of the Bible-heaven, that heaven described in the Old and New Testaments. Is not that heaven a lifting up in due time ? But, how shall ye be lifted up that are never well got down? Where will your tears be to be wiped away? What place will there be for your triumph, who will not fight the good fight ? How can it be a rest to you, who cannot submit to labour?
(2.) Of the saints’ heaven, Rev. vii. 14. ” And he said unto me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” This answers the question about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the saints with them there: they were brought down to the dust by humbling circumstances, and out of these they came before the throne. How can ye ever think to be lifted up with them, ‘with whom ye cannot think to be brought down?
(3.) Of Christ’s heaven, Heb. xii. 2. ” Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God.” O ! consider how the Forerunner made his way, Luke xxiv. 26. ” Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” And lay your account with it, that if ye get where he is, ye must go thither as he went, Luke ix. 23. ” And he said, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
10. Give up at length with your towering hopes from this world, and confine them to the world to come. Be as pilgrims and strangers here, looking for your rest in heaven, and not till ye come there. There is a prevailing evil, Isa. lvii. 10. ” Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way : yet saidst thou not, There is no hope.” So the Babel-building is still continued, though it has fallen down again and again: for men say, ” The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones ; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars,” Isa. ix. 10. This makes humbling work very longsome ; we are so hard to quit hold of the creature, to fall off from the breast and be weaned : but fasten on the other world, and let your hold of this go ; so shall ye ” be humbled” indeed under ” the mighty hand.” The faster you hold the happiness of that world, the easier will it be to accommodate yourselves to your humbling circumstances here.
11. Make use of Christ in all his offices, for your humiliation under your humbling circumstances. That only is kindly humiliation that comes in this way, Zech. xii. 10. ” And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn,”&c. This you must do by trusting on him for that effect,
(1.) As a Priest for you. You have a conscience full of guilt, and that will make one uneasy in any circumstances; and far more in humbling circumstances ; it will be like a thorn in the shoulder on which a burden is laid. But the blood of Christ will purge the conscience, draw out the thorn, give ease, Isa. xxxiii. 24. and fit for service, doing or suffering, Heb. ix. 14. ” How much more shall the blood of Christ—purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God ?”
(2.) As your Prophet to teach you. We have need to be taught rightly to discern our humbling circumstances; for, often we mistake them so far, that they prove an oppressive load ; whereas, could we rightly see them, just as God sets them to us, they would be humbling, but not so oppressive. Truly we need Christ, and the light of his word and Spirit, to let us see our cross and trial as well as our duty, Psal. xxv. 9, 10.
(3.) As your King. You have a stiff heart, loth to bow, even in humbling circumstances: take a lesson from Moses what to do in such a case, Exod. xxxiv. 9. ” And he said, Let my Lord, I pray thee, go amongst us, (for it is a stiff-necked people,) and pardon our iniquity and our sin.” Put it in his hand that is strong and mighty, Psa. xxiv. 8. He is able to cause it to melt, and, like wax before the fire, turn to the seal.
Think on these directions, in order to put them in practice, remembering: if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. Remember humbling work is a work that will fill your hand, while you live here, and that you cannot come to the end of it till death; and humbling circumstances will attend you, while you are in this lower world. A change of them ye may get; but a freedom from them ye cannot, till ye come to heaven. So the humbling circumstances of our imperfections, relations, contradictions, afflictions, uncertainties, and sinfulness, will afford matter of exercise to us while here.”
Leave a Response »
“Letter CXCII
-1-.jpg)
Anglo Judaizer 