20. He is grieved more at the distresses of the church than affected at his own happiness
Another singular action of a sanctified Christian, is, To be more afflicted at the distresses of the church, than affected at his own happiness.
When we suffer not from the enemies of Christ by persecution, we should then suffer for the friends of Christ by compassion. Let not Sion's sons be rejoicing, while their mother is mourning: Are not her breaches like the sea, and there is none to heal her? If her breaches be irreparable, our hearts should be inconsolable. It is observed of doves, that if one be sick, the other laments: yea, the savage beasts will mourn over the afflicted creatures of their own species: and shall that be lost among men, which is found among beasts?
Christianity never was designed to strip men of humanity. Reader, can you see the church bleeding, and never ask baltu for her wounds? How can you rejoice when she stands, if you do not mourn when she falls? It rejoiced impious Nero to see the Christians burning; but it should wound us to hear of it. The cruel massacre of the Judean infants was a pleasant sight to bloody Herod.
We may justly prefer that charge against many nominal Christians, which God did against nominal Israel: They drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointment; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.
Many can weep a flood for the groans of a child; but they cannot drop a tear for the groans of the church. Their love to relations transcends their love to religion. He that has property on board the church's ship, cannot but be alarmed at every storm. I conclude that to be a silver eye in the spiritual head, and a wooden leg in the spiritual body, that is insensible to all its sorrows. That man who has no compassion for afflicted Christians, may rest persuaded that God will have no compassion on him. His language will be, Depart, ye cursed: for I was hungry, and ye fed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
The enemies of the church may toss her as waves; but they shall not split her as rocks. She may be dipped in water as a feather; but shall not sink therein as lead. He that is a well of water within her, to keep her from fainting, will also prove a wall of fire about her, to preserve her from falling. Tried she may be; but destroyed she cannot be. Her foundation is the Rock of Ages, and her defence the everlasting Arms. It is only such fabrics as are bottomed upon the sand, that are overthrown by the wind. The adversaries of God's people will push at them as far as their horns will go; but when they have scoured them by prosecution as tarnished vessels, then God will throw such whisps into the fire.
Many would rather see the church's expiration, than her reformation: it would afford them more pleasure to find her nullified, than purified; for they suppose that happiness increases, in proportion as holiness decreases. Christian! when persecutors make long furrows upon the saint's back, then we should cast in the seed of sympathetic tears. Saul made the Saviour feel, before he opened his commission to apprehend his members at Damascus. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Thus the head cries out in heaven, while the toe is trod upon on earth.
Though Jesus Christ has altered his condition, yet he hath not changed his affection. Death took away his life for us; but not his love from us.
He that washed away the blood of guilt from our hearts, will soon wipe away those briny tears that disfigure our cheeks. He who paid so great a price for our redemption, will not resign us into the hands of our cruel tormentors. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God: speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. If the Father of mercies thus proclaim pardon to returning prodigals, we may expect soon to hear of music and rejoicing among all the heavenly harpers.
When we see the church pledging her beloved in the cup of affliction, we should then drink to her in the cup of consolation. A heavy burden may easily be borne by the assistance of many shoulders. Some are like Gallio; they care for none of those things; nay, when they should be sympathizers, they are censurers. They conclude that the gold is not good, because it is tried; and that the ground is naught, because it is ploughed. They wound those with the arrows of reproach, whom God has only corrected with the rod of reproof.
It is dangerous to smite those with our tongues, whom God has smitten with his hand. His right to correct is not our's. Because Christ suffered for transgressors, many numbered him with transgressors: but that was to give him the sharpest vinegar, when they should have given him the sweetest wine. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Why, David? For they persecute them whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.
Sympathy is a debt we owe to sufferers. For Christians to be rejoicing when their brethren are weeping, is like putting silver-lace upon a mourning suit. Our own particular losses and distresses resemble the extinguishing of a candle, which only occasions darkness in one room: but the general distresses of the church are like the eclipsing of the sun, which overshadows the whole hemisphere. Pliny informs us of two goats meeting together on a narrow bridge, where neither of them could either proceed or recede; at last one of them lay down, that the other might go over him. How much of the man was there in those beasts; and how much of the beast is there in some men!
It is certainly better to be in the humble posture of a mourner, than in the proud gesture of a scorn-er. The woman of Canaan could not rest, while her daughter was restless: the torture of one, was the torment of the other: but a word from Jesus relieved them both. Sympathy renders a doleful state more joyful. Alexander refused water in a time of great scarcity, because there was not enough for his whole army.
It should be among Christians, as among lute-strings, when one is touched the others tremble. Believers should be neither proud flesh, nor dead flesh. Fellow members should ever have fellow feelings. Other men's woes are our warnings:— their desolation should be our information.
Jeremiah suffered not in his own person, being under the protection of the Divine Being: but though he dwelt securely from the hand of mortality, yet he was filled with the bowels of sympathy. Though he wrote of the Jews' desolations, yet he named them Jeremiah's Lamentations.
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