On Keeping the Heart: Chapter 5
By John Flavel
III. The third season calling for more than ordinary diligence to keep the heart is the time of Zion's troubles. When the Church, like the ship in which Christ and his disciples were, is oppressed and ready to perish in the waves of persecution, then good souls are ready to be shipwrecked too, upon the billows of their own fears. It is true, most men need the spur rather then the reins in this case; yet some men sit down discouraged under a sense of the Church's troubles. The loss of the ark cost Eli his life; the sad posture in which Jerusalem lay made good Nehemiah's countenance change in the midst of all the pleasures and accommodations of the court. But though God allows, yea, commands the most awakened apprehensions of these calamities, and in "such a day calls to mourning, weeping, and girding with sackcloth," and severely threatens the insensible; yet it will not please him to see you sit like pensive Elijah under the juniper tree. "Ah, Lord God! It is enough, take away my life also." No: a mourner in Zion you may and ought to be, but a self-tormentor you must not be; complain to God you may, but complain of God (though but by the language of your actions) you must not.
Now let us inquire how tender hearts may be relieved and supported, when they are even overwhelmed with the burdensome sense of Zion's troubles? I grant it is hard for him who preferreth Zion to his chief joy, to keep his heart that it sink not below the due sense of its troubles; yet this ought to, and may be done, by the use of such heart-establishing directions as these:
1. Settle this great truth in your heart, that no trouble befalls Zion but by the permission of Zion's God; and he permits nothing out of which he will not ultimately bring much good to his people. Comfort may be derived from reflections on the permitting as well as on the commanding will of God. "Let him alone, it may be God hath bidden him." "Thou couldst have no power against me, except it were given thee from above." It should much calm our Spirits, that it is the will of God to suffer it; and that, had he not suffered it, it could never have been as it is.
This very consideration quieted Job, Eli, David, and Hezekiah. That the Lord did it was enough to them: and why should it not be so to us? If the Lord will have Zion ploughed as a field, and her goodly stones lie in the dust; if it be his pleasure that Anti-Christ shall rage yet longer and wear out the saints of the Most High; if it be his will that a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord God of Hosts, shall be upon the valley of vision, that the wicked shall devour the man that is more righteous than he; what are we that we should contend with God?
It is fit that we should be resigned to that will whence we proceeded, and that He that made us should dispose of us as he pleases: he may do what seemeth him good without our consent. Does poor man stand upon equal ground, that he may capitulate with his Creator; or that God should render him an account of any of his matters? That we be content, however God may dispose of us, is as reasonable as that we be obedient, whatever he may require of us. But if we pursue this argument farther, and consider that God's permissions all meet at last in the real good of his people, this will much more quiet our spirits.
Do the enemies carry away the best among the people into captivity? This looks like a distressing providence; but God sends them thither for their good. Does God take the Assyrian as a stay in his hand to beat his people with? The end of his so doing is, "that he may accomplish his whole work upon Mount Zion." If God can bring much good out of the greatest evil of sin, much more out of temporal afflictions; and that he will, is as evident as that he can do so. For it is inconsistent with the wisdom of a common agent to permit any thing (which he might prevent if he pleased) to cross his great design; and can it be imagined that the most wise God should do so? As, then, Luther said to Melanchthon, so say I to you: "Let infinite wisdom, power and love alone:" for by these all creatures are swayed, and all actions guided, in reference to the church. It is not our work to rule the world, but to submit to Him that does. The motions of Providence are all judicious, the wheels are full of eyes: it is enough that the affairs of Zion are in a good hand.
