In the third and last place, I shall apply my doctrine to the sons of Levi, and that in a twofold consideration: 1. Actively; 2. Passively.
Actively, because, if we be like our Master, even followers of Jesus Christ, or partakers of his unction, then our ministry will have not only light, but fire in it,—we must be burning as well as shining lights (John v. 35), not only shining with the light of knowledge, and of the doctrine which is according to godliness, but burning also with zeal for reforming abuses, and purging of the church from the dross thereof. Which made Augustine[1413] to apply propologically to ministers, that which is said of the angels of heaven, Psal. civ. 4, “Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire.” Satan [pg 7-020] hath many incendiaries against the kingdom of Christ. O that we were Christ's incendiaries against the kingdom of Satan! If we will indeed appear zealous for the Lord, let it not seem strange if the adversaries of reformation say of us, as they said of the apostles themselves, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also,” Acts xvii. 6. Yet it shall be no grief of heart to us afterward, but peace and joy unspeakable, that we have endeavoured to do our duty faithfully.
Passively also the application must be made, because the sons of Levi must, in the first place, go through this refining fire themselves, and they, most of all other men, have need to be, and must be, refined from their dross. I find in Scripture that these three things had a beginning among the priests and prophets: 1. Sin, error, and scandal, beginneth at them, Jer. l. 6, “Their shepherds have caused them to go astray;” xxiii. 15, “From the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.” 2. Judgment begins at them, Ezek. ix. 6, “Slay utterly old and young,—and begin at my sanctuary.” 3. The refining work of reformation beginneth, or ought to begin, at the purging and refining of the sons of Levi; so you have it in the next words after my text, and where Hezekiah beginneth his reformation at the sanctifying of the priests and Levites, 2 Chron. xxix. 4, 5, &c. But as it was then in Judah, it is now in England, some of the sons of Levi are more upright to sanctify themselves than others. The fire that I spake of before will prove every man and his work.
I am sorry I have occasion to add a third application. But come on, and I will show you greater things than these. What will you say, if any be found among the sons of Levi, that will neither be active nor passive in the establishing of the church-refining and sin-censuring government of Jesus Christ, but will needs appear upon the stage against it. This was done in a late sermon now come abroad, which hath given no small scandal and offence. I am confident every other godly minister will say, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth before I do the like.
I have done with that which the text holds forth concerning reformation. The second way how Christ is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap, is in respect of tribulation, which either followeth or accompanieth [pg 7-021] his coming into his temple. Affliction is indeed a refining fire: Psal. lxvi. 10, “For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried;” ver. 12, “We went through fire and through water;” 1 Pet. i. 6, 7, “Ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise,” &c. Affliction is also the fuller's soap to purify and make white: Dan. xi. 35; xii. 10, “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried;” where the same word is used from which I said before the fuller's soap hath its name.
The doctrine shall be this: “Tribulation doth either accompany or follow after the work of reformation or purging of the house of God.” So it was when Christ himself came into his temple: Luke xii. 49, 51, “I am come to send fire on the earth. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division;”—so it was when the Apostles were sent forth into the world: Peter applieth to that time the words of Joel, “And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,” Acts ii. 19, 20. The meaning is, such tribulation shall follow the gospel, which shall be like the darkening of the great lights of the world, and, as it were, a putting of heaven and earth out of their course, so great a change and calamity shall come. The experience both of the ancient and now reformed churches doth also abundantly confirm this doctrine. Neither must we think that all the calamities of the church are now overpast. Who can be assured that that hour of greatest darkness, the killing of the witnesses, is past, and all that sad prophecy, Rev. xi., fulfilled? And if some be not much mistaken,[1414] it is told, Dan. xii. 1, that there shall be greater tribulation about the time of the Jews' conversion than any we have yet seen: “At that time,” saith the angel to Daniel, “there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.”
I make haste to the uses; and, first, let [pg 7-022] me give unto God the glory of his truth. If we have been deceived, surely he hath not deceived us; for he hath given us plain warning in his word, and hath not kept up from us the worst things which ever have or ever shall come upon his church. And now when the sword of the Lord hath gotten a charge against these three covenanting and reforming kingdoms, is this any other than the word of the Lord, that when Christ cometh into his temple, “Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.”
And for the invasion of Scotland by such an enemy after a reformation, is it any new thing? May we not say, that which is hath been? Did not Sennacherib invade Judah after Hezekiah's reformation? 2 Chron. xxxii. 1. And though, after the reformation of Asa, and after the reformation of Jehoshaphat also (2 Chron. xiv. 9; xx. 1), the land had a short rest and a breathing time, yet not long after a foreign invasion followed both upon the one reformation and the other. Nay, look what is the worst thing which hath befallen to Scotland as yet;—as much, yea, worse, hath formerly befallen to the church and people of God toward whom the Lord had thoughts of peace, and not of evil,—to give them an expected end. I say it not for diminishing anything either from the sin or shame of Scotland; the Lord forbid:—we will bear the indignation of the Lord, because we have sinned against him; we will lay our hand upon our mouth, and accept the punishment of our iniquity; we will bear our shame for ever, because our Father hath spit in our face, our rock hath sold us, and our strength hath departed from us;—but I say it by way of answering him that reproacheth in the gates, and by way of pleading for the truth of God. Some have objected to our reproach, that when the Lord required the Israelites to appear before him in Jerusalem thrice a year, he promised that no man should invade their habitations in their absence, Exod. xxxiv. 23, 24; “which gracious providence of his, no doubt (says one[1415]), continues still protecting all such as are employed by his command;” yet it hath not been so with Scotland during the time of their armies being in England. I answer, besides that which hath been said [pg 7-023] already, even in this the word and work of God do well agree; and that Scripture ought not to be so applied to us, except the Canaanites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites of our time had been all cast out of our borders (we find this day too many of them lurking there, and waiting their opportunity); for the Septuagint, and many of the interpreters[1416] read that text thus: “For when I shall cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders, no man shall desire thy land when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year:” and this is the true sense, read it as you will; for the promise is limited to the time of casting out the nations, and enlarging their borders (which came not to pass till the days of Solomon). It is certain that, from the time of making that promise, the people had not ever liberty and protection for keeping the three solemn feasts in the place of the sanctuary; as might be proved from divers foreign invasions and spoilings of that land for some years together; whereof we read in the book of the Judges. But I go on.
In the second place, let God have the glory of his just and righteous dealings. Let us say with Job, “I will leave my complaint upon myself,” [and say unto God,] “Show me wherefore thou contendest with me,” Job x. 1, 2. But, by all means, take heed you conceive not an ill opinion of the covenant and cause of God, or the reformation of religion, because of the tribulation which followeth thereupon. Say not it was a good old world when we burnt incense to the queen of heaven, “for then we were well and saw no evil.” “But (said the people to Jeremiah) since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine,” Jer. xliv. 18. To such I answer, in the words of Solomon, “Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this,” Eccl. vii. 10. Was the people's coming out of Egypt the cause why their carcasses did [pg 7-024] fall in the wilderness? Or was it their murmuring and rebelling against the Lord which brought that wrath upon them? If thou wilt inquire wisely concerning this thing, read Zephaniah, chap. i. In the days of Isaiah, even in the days of Judah's best reformation, the Lord sent this message by the Prophet: “I will utterly consume all things from off the land,” Zeph. i. 2; “And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung,” ver. 17. What was the reason of it? It is plainly told them (and let us take it all home to ourselves), because, notwithstanding of that public reformation, there was a remnant of Baal in the land, and the Chemarims, and those who halt between two opinions; who swear by the Lord (or to the Lord, which is expounded of the taking of the covenant in Josiah's time), but they swear by Malcham also, ver. 4, 5. There are others who do not seek the Lord, nor inquire after him, and many that turn back from the Lord in a course of backsliding (ver. 6); others clothed with strange apparel (ver. 8); others, exercising violence and deceit (ver. 9); a number of atheists also, living among God's people (ver. 12). For these and the like causes doth the land mourn. It is not the covenant, but the broken covenant; it is not the reformation, but the want of a real and personal reformation, that hath drawn on the judgment. Blessed are they who shall keep their garments clean, and shall be able to say, “All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant,” Psal. xliv. 17.
Thirdly, Give God the glory of his wisdom. Many are now crying, “How long, Lord? wilt thou hide thyself for ever? shall thy wrath burn like fire?” Psal. lxxxix. 46. Your answer from God is, that the rod shall be indeed removed, and even cast into the fire in your stead, but when? It shall be “when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion, and on Jerusalem,” Isa. x. 12. If the judgment have not yet done all the work it was sent for, then “they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them” (Ezek. xv. 7), saith the Lord. God is a wise refiner, and will not take the silver out of the fire till the dross be purged away from it. He is a wise father who will [pg 7-025] not cast the rod of correction till it have driven away all that folly which is bound up in the hearts of his children: “Behold, therefore (saith the Lord) I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you,” Ezek. xxii. 19, 20. He speaks it to those who had escaped the captivity of Jehoiakim, and also the captivity of Jehoiachin, and thought they should be safe and secure in Jerusalem when their brethren were in Babylon: I will gather you, saith the Lord, even in the midst of Jerusalem, and when you think you are out of one furnace, you shall fall into another; and, if you will not be refined from your dross, you shall never come out of that furnace, but I will melt you there, and leave you there: which did so come to pass; for the residue that escaped to Egypt, and thought to shelter themselves there, as likewise those that remained in Jerusalem, and held out that siege with Zedekiah,—even all these did fall under the sword, and the famine, and the pestilence, till they were consumed, Jer. xxiv. 8, 10. Let those that are longest spared take heed they be not sorest smitten. Say not with Agag, “The bitterness of death is past.” The child chastised in the afternoon weeps as sore as the child chastised in the forenoon. Remember the Lord will not take away the judgment till he have performed his work, yea, his whole work, and that upon Mount Zion and Jerusalem itself. It is no light matter; the rod must be very heavy before our uncircumcised hearts can be humbled, and the furnace very hot before our dross depart from us. We have need of all the sore strokes which we mourn under, and if one less could do the turn, it would be spared, for the Lord doth not afflict willingly: we ourselves rive every stroke out of his hand.