Acts 16

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XVI.—There is need of wisdom from above to direct us when to condescend to men’s weaknesses, and when to assert our privileges religious or civil. God remarkably owns his gospel for the conversion and edification of men when it is faithfully and prudently preached. And in awful sovereignty he directs where to preach it and where not. Marvellous is it that he has not forbidden nor hindered the preaching of it in Britain, where it has been so peculiarly undervalued, rejected, denied, and detested! God deals with his elect in very different forms in bringing them to his Son. And some of them, when near to the brink of hell as well as to the ordinances of grace, are plucked as brands out of the burning. But it is enough if, either in a more kind or a more awful manner, they be deeply convinced of sin and self-insufficiency, and led to receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone, in all his offices, for salvation, as he is offered in the gospel. And, while God, in infinite kindness, becomes at once their God and the God of their seed, they will testify their high regard to the instrument of their conversion, and be deeply concerned for the eternal salvation of their whole family. Satan will turn himself and his agents into very different forms, will become a friend, an angel of light, a witness for Christ, or a selfish, outrageous, persecuting fury, in order to sully the honour, and prevent the spread, of the gospel. But let them do as they will, Jesus can support, comfort, vindicate, and render victorious, his faithful servants. No persecutor is so proud or furious, but either the terrors of God can restrain, or his grace, convert, him. And, if possible, Christ’s ministers should study to obtain their deliverances with honour as well as with safety; but they must never manifest any selfish resentment. Learn, my soul, carefully to observe providential directions. Always delight in meetings for prayer or religious conference. Never relish dissembled applause, however just. In every distress believe in Jesus Christ; and always rejoice in suffering for his sake. 2