But, in the fourth and last place, let us give God the glory of his mercy also; he means to do us good in our latter end. It is the hand of a father, not of an enemy: it is a refining, not a consuming fire. The poor mourners in Zion are ready to say, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts” (Ezek. xxxvii. 11); we are like to lie in this fire and furnace for ever, because our dross is [pg 7-026] not departed from us; we are still an unhumbled, an unbroken, an unmortified generation; yea, many like Ahaz, in the time of affliction, trespassing yet more against the Lord, many thinking of going back again to Egypt. To such I have these two things to say for their comfort: First, There is a remnant which shall not only be delivered, but purified, and shall come forth as gold out of the fire. The third part shall be refined, and the Lord shall say, “It is my people,” Zech xiii. 9. And a most sweet promise there is after the saddest denunciation of judgment: Ezek. xiv. 22, 23, “Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters; behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their ways and their doings: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all the evil that I have brought upon it. And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God;” Dan. xii. 10, “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” After the promise of delivering those that were carried away to Babylon, there is another promise added of that which was much better: Jer. xxiv. 7, “I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God; for they shall return unto me with their whole heart;” Psal. cxxx. 8, “He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities;” Zeph. iii. 12, 13, “I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth.” Let your souls now apply these and the like promises, and cry, Lord, remember thy promise, and let not a jot of thy good word fall to the ground. Secondly, As the promises of spiritual and eternal blessings, so the promises of peace and temporal deliverances are not legal, but even evangelical. If we be not refined and purged as we ought to be, that is a matter of humiliation to us, but it is also a matter of magnifying the riches of free mercy: Isa. xlviii. 9-11, “For my name's sake will I defer [pg 7-027] mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For mine own name's sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it.” The Lord is there arguing with his people, to humble them, to convince them, and to cut off all matter of glorying from them; and among other things, lest they should glory in this, that whatever they were before, they became afterward as silver refined seven times in the furnace:[1417] Nay, saith the Lord, I have refined you in some sort, but not as silver, not so as that you are clean from your dross; but I have chosen you, and set my love upon you, even while you are in the furnace not yet refined; and I will deliver you, even for my own name's sake, that you may owe your deliverance for ever to free mercy, and not to your own repentance and amendment. A land is accepted, and a people's peace made with God, not by their repentance and humiliation, but by Christ believed on: Mic. v. 5, “This man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land.” There were sin-offerings and burnt-offerings appointed in the law for a national atonement (Lev. iv., xiii., xxi.; Num. xv. 25, 26) which did typify pardoning of national sins through the merit of Jesus Christ. We must improve the office of the Mediator, and the promise of free grace, in the behalf of God's people, as well as of our own souls, which, if it be indeed done, will not hinder, but further a great mourning and deep humiliation in the land. And so much of tribulation.
The third thing held forth in this text (of which I must be very short) is mortification. This also is a refining fire: Matt. iii. 11, “He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire;” Mark ix. 49, “For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.” He hath been before speaking of mortification, of the plucking out of the right eye, the cutting off the right hand, or the right foot, and now he presseth the same thing by a double allusion to the law,—there was a necessity both of fire and salt; the sacrifice was seasoned with salt (Lev. ii. 13), and the fire upon the altar was not to be put out, but every morning the wood was burnt upon it, and the burnt-offering [pg 7-028] laid upon it (Lev. vi. 12, 13). So if we will present ourselves as a holy and acceptable sacrifice to God, we must be seasoned with the salt, and our corruptions burnt up with the fire of mortification.
The doctrine shall be this: “It is not enough to join in public reformation, yea, to suffer tribulation for the name of Christ, except we also endeavour mortification.” This mortification is a third step distinct from the other two, and without this the other two can make us but “almost Christians,” or, “not far from the kingdom of God.” In the parable of the sower and the seed, as we find it both in Matthew (chap. xiii.), Mark (chap, iv.), and Luke (chap, viii.), this method may be observed, That of the four sorts of ground, the second is better than the first, the third better than the second, but the fourth only is the good ground, which is fruitful, and getteth a blessing. Some men's hearts are like the highway, and the hardbeaten road, where every foul spirit, and every lust hath walked and conversed, their consciences, through the custom of sin, are, as it were, “seared with a hot iron;” in these the word takes no place, but all that they bear doth presently slip from them. Others receive the word with a present good affection and delight, but have no depth of earth; that is, neither having had a work of the law upon their consciences for deep humiliation, nor being rooted and grounded in love to the gospel, nor, peradventure, so much as grounded in the knowledge of the truth, nor having counted their cost, and solidly resolved for suffering; thereupon it comes to pass, when suffering times come, these wither away, and come to nothing. There is a third sort, who go a step farther; they have some root, and some more solid ground than the former, so that they can suffer many things, and not fall away because of persecution, yet they perish through want of mortification. One may suffer persecution for Christ, not being sore tried in that which is his idol lust, yet enduring great losses and crosses in other things: of such it is said, that “the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful,” Mark iv. 19. Mark that, “the lusts of other things;” that is, whether it be the lust of the eyes, or the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life; and he speaks of the “entering in;” meaning of some strong [pg 7-029] tentation coming upon a man to catch him in that which is the great idol of his heart, and his beloved lust, whatever it be; such a tentation he never found before, and therefore thought the lust had been mortified, which was but lurking. Did not Judas suffer many things with Christ during the time of his public ministry? Did not Ananias and Sapphira suffer, for a season, with the apostles and church at Jerusalem? What was it then that lost them? They neither made defection from the profession of the truth, nor did they fall away because of persecution; but having shined in the light a sound profession, having also taken up the cross, and borne the reproach of Christ, they made shipwreck at last upon an unmortified lust.
I shall enlarge the doctrine no further, but touch upon some few uses, and so an end.
First, Let all and every one of us be convinced of the necessity of our further endeavouring after mortification. The best silver which cometh out of the earth hath dross in it, and therefore needeth the refiner's fire; and the whitest garment that is worn will touch some unclean thing or other, and therefore will need the fuller's soap. The best of God's children have the dross of their inherent corruptions to purge away; which made Paul say, “I keep under my body, and bring it unto subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway,” 1 Cor. ix. 27. It is a speech borrowed from reprobate silver which is not refined from dross, and so is the word used by the Septuagint, Isa. i. 22, τὸ ἀργύριον ἰμῶν ἀδόκιμον “Thy silver is become dross.” The Apostle therefore sets himself to the study of mortification, lest, saith he, when I have been refining and purifying others, I myself be found to be drossy silver. And as there is inherent dross, so there is adherent uncleanness in the best; and who can say that he hath kept his garments so clean that he is “unspotted of the world” (Isa. i. 27), or that he hath so separated himself from the pollutions of the world as that he hath touched no unclean thing: so that there is an universal necessity of making use both of the refiner's fire, and of the fuller's soap.
Secondly, Let us once become willing [pg 7-030] and contented, yea, desirous to be thoroughly mortified. A man's lusts and corruptions are indeed so strongly interested in himself, and his corruptions are his members, therefore, when we leave off sin, we are said to live no more “to ourselves,” 2 Cor. v. 15; and mortification is the greatest violence that can be done to nature, therefore it is called a cutting off of the chief members of the body (Mark ix. 43, 45, 47), a salting with salt, and a burning with fire (ver. 49), a circumcision (Col. ii. 11), a crucifying (Rom. vi. 6): so that nothing can be more difficult or displeasing, yea, a greater torment to flesh and blood. Yet now art thou willing, notwithstanding of all this, to take Christ on his own terms? to take him not only for righteousness and life, but to take him as a refiner's fire, and as fuller's soap? O that there were such a heart in thee! When Christ bids thee pluck out thy right eye, and cut off thy right hand, say not in thy heart, How shall I do without my right eye, and my right hand? Nay, thou shalt do well enough, thou shalt even enter into life without them, thou shalt be a gainer, and no loser. Say not thou, How shall I go through this refining fire? Fear not, thou shall lose nothing but thy dross. Thus get thy heart wrought to a willingness, and a condescending, in the point of mortification.
Lastly, If you say, But after all this, how shall I attain unto it? Put thyself in the hands of Jesus Christ, trust him with the work; if you mark the text here, and the verse that followeth, Christ is both the refiner, and the refiner's fire: thou shalt be refined by him, and thou shalt be refined in him. Thou deceivest thyself if thou thinkest to be refined any other way but by this refiner, and in this refiner's fire. The blood of Christ doth not only wash us from guilt, but purge our consciences “from dead works, to serve the living God,” Heb. ix. 14; “And they that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts.” Gal. v. 24. Here you may see the thing is feasible and attainable, and not only by an apostle or some extraordinary man, but by all that are Christ's. Being his, and in him, they are enabled, through his strength, to crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof.