Part 2. The Entireness of Our Armour - It must be The Whole Armour of God

  

 Yet, Christian, all thy armour is not on.  Thy godliness indeed would suffice, wert thou to live in a world by thyself, or hadst nothing to do but immediate communion with God.  But, Christian, thou must not always dwell on this mount of immediate worship, and [since] when thou descendest, thou hast many brethren and servants of thy Father, who live with thee in the same family, thou must deport thyself becomingly, or else thy Father will be angry. Thou hast brethren, heirs of the same promise with thee, therefore you must add to godliness ‘brotherly-kindness.’  If Satan can set you at odds, he gives a deep wound to your godliness.  You will hardly join hearts in a duty, that cannot join hands in love.  In the family there are not only brethren, but servants, a multitude of profane carnal ones, who though they never had the names of sons and daughters, yet retain to God's family.  And thy heavenly Father will have thee walk unblameably, yea winningly, to those that are without, which thou mayest do, thou must add to brotherly-kindness, ‘charity;’ by which grace thou shalt be willing to do good to the worst of men. When they curse thee, thou must pray for them, yea, pray for no less than a Christ, a heaven, for them.  ‘Father, forgive them,’ said Christ, while they were raking in his side for his heart-blood.  And truly, I am persuaded this last piece of armour hath given Satan great advantage in these our times, we are so afraid our charity should be too broad. 

Whereas in this sense, if it be not wide as the world, it is too strait for the command which bids us ‘do good to all.’  May not we ministers be charged with the want of this, when the strain of our preaching is solely directed to the saints, and no pains taken in rescuing poor captive souls, yet uncalled, out of the devil's clutches?  He may haul them to hell without disturbance, while we are comforting the saints, and preaching their privileges; but in the meantime, let the ignorant be ignorant still, and the profane profane still, for want of a compassionate charity to their souls, which would excite us to the reproving and exhorting of them, that they might also be brought into the way of life, as well as the saints encouraged, who are walking therein. We are stewards to provide bread for the Lord's house.  The greatest part of our hearers cannot, must not, have the children's bread, and shall we therefore give them no portion at all?  Christ's charity pitied the multitude, to whom in his public preaching he made special application, as in that famous sermon, most part of which is spent in rousing up the sleepy consciences of the hypocritical Pharisees, by those thunderclaps of woes and curses so often denounced against them, Matt. 23.  Again, how great advantage hath Satan from the want of this charity in our families?  Is it not observed how little care is taken by professing governors of such societies for the instructing their youth?  Nay, it is a principle which some have drunk in, that it is not their duty.  O where is their charity in the meantime, when they can see Satan come within their own walls, and let them drive a child, a servant, in their ignorance and profaneness, to hell, and not so much as sally out upon this enemy by a word of reproof or instruction, to rescue these silly souls out of the murder's hand?  We must leave them to their liberty forsooth, and that is as fair play as we can give the devil.  Give but corrupt nature enough of this rope, and it will soon strangle the very principles of God and religion in their tender years.

       Third.  The entireness of the saint's armour may be taken not only for every part and piece of the saint's furniture, but for the completeness and perfection of every piece.  As the Christian is to endeavour after every grace, so is he to press after the advance and increase of every grace, even to perfection itself.  As he is to add to his faith virtue, so he is to add faith to faith—he is ever to be completing of his grace.  It is that which is frequently pressed upon believers.  ‘Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,’ Matt. 5:48.  ‘And purify yourselves, as God is pure.’  There we have an exact copy set, not as if we could equalize that purity and perfection which is in God, but to make us strive the more, when we shall see how infinitely short we fall of our copy, when we write the fairest hand; so ‘Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing,’ James 1:3, 4, or [be] wanting in nothing.  Thou who makest a hard shift to carry a little burden with thy little patience, wouldst sink under a greater, therefore there is need that patience should be ever perfecting, lest at last we meet a burden too heavy for our weak shoulders.  Take a few reasons why the Christian should thus be completing of his grace.

             First.  Because grace is subject to decays, and therefore ever needs completing.  [It is] as in an army, especially [one] which often engagest in battle; their arms are battered and broken, one man hath his helmet bent, another his sword gaped, a third his pistol unfixed, and therefore recruits are ever necessary.  In one temptation the Christian hath his hel­met of hope beaten off his head, in another his patience hard put to it.  The Christian had need have an armourer's shop at hand to make up his loss, and that speedily, for Satan is most like to fall on when the Christian is least prepared to receive the charge. ‘Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to sift you;’ he knew they were at that time weakly provided—(Christ their captain now to be taken from the head of their troop; discontents among themselves, striving who should be greatest; and their recruits of stronger grace, which the Spirit was to bring, not yet come). Now he hath a design to surprise them; and therefore Christ, carefully to prevent him, promiseth speedily to despatch his Spirit for their supply, Acts 1:4, and in the meantime sends them to Jerusalem, to stand as it were in a body in their joint supplications upon their guard, while he comes to their relief; showing us in the weakness of our grace what to do, and whither to go for supply.

             Second.  Because Satan is completing his skill and wrath.  It is not for nought that he is called the old serpent—subtle by nature, but more by experience, wrathful by nature, yet every day more and more enraged; like a bull, the longer he is baited, the more fury he shows.  And therefore we who are to grapple with him, now his time is so short, had need come well appointed into the field.

             Third.  It is the end of all God's dispensations, to complete his saints in their graces and comforts. Wherefore doth he lop and prune by afflictions, but to purge, that they may bring forth more fruit, that is, fuller and fairer? John 15:2.  Tribulation works patience, Rom. 5:3; it is God's appointment for that end.  It works, that is, it increaseth the saints.  Patience enrageth indeed the wicked, but meekens the saints. It is his design in the gospel; he preacheth to carry on his saints from ‘faith to faith,’ Rom. 1:17, and accordingly he hath furnished his church with instruments, and those with gifts, ‘For the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ,’ Eph. 4:12. Wherefore doth the scaffold stand, and the workman on it, if the building go not up?  For us not to advance under such means is to make void the counsel of God.  Therefore the apostle blames the Christian Jews for their non-proficiency in the school of Christ: ‘When for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God,’ Heb. 5:12.

The Entireness of Our Armour - It must be The Whole Armour of God

 

[The entireness of our armour.

It must be the whole armour of God.]

             In this branch observe the quantity or entireness of the saints' furniture or armour, ‘the whole armour of God.’  The Christian's armour must be complete, and that in a threefold respect.

             First.  He must be armed in every part cap-à-pie, soul and body, the powers of the one, and the senses of the other, not any part left naked.  A dart may fly in at a little hole, like that which brought a message of death to Ahab, through the joints of his harness, and Satan is such an archer as can shoot at a penny breadth.  If all the man be armed, and only the eye left without, Satan can soon shoot his fireballs of lust in at that loophole, which shall set the whole house on flame.  Eve looked but on the tree, and a poisonous dart struck her to the heart.  If the eye be shut, and the ear be open to corrupt communi­cation, Satan will soon wriggle in at this hole.  If all the outward senses [of a man] be guarded, and the heart not kept with all diligence, he will soon by his own thoughts be betrayed into Satan's hands.  Our enemies are on every side, and so must our armour be, ‘on the right hand and on the left,’ II Cor. 6:7.  The apostle calls sin, an enemy that surrounds us, Heb. 12:1.  If there be any part of the line unguarded or weakly provided, there Satan falls on; [as] we see the enemy often enter the city at one side, while he is beat back on the other, for want of care to keep the whole line.  Satan divides his temptations into several squadrons, one he employs to assault here, another to storm there.  We read of fleshly wickedness and spiritual wickedness; while thou repellest Satan tempting thee to fleshly wickedness, he may be entering thy city at the other gate of spiritual wickedness.  Perhaps thou hast kept thy integrity in the practical part of thy life; but what armour hast thou to defend thy head, thy judgment?  If he surprise thee here, corrupting that with some error, then thou wilt not long hold out in thy practice.  He that could not get thee to profane the Sabbath among sensualists and atheists, will under the disguise of such a corrupt principle as Christian liberty prevail.  Thus we see what need we have of universal armour, in regard of every part.

             Second.  The Christian must be in complete armour, in regard of the several pieces and weapons, that make up the whole armour of God.  Indeed there is a concatenation of graces; they hang together like links in a chain, stones in an arch, members in the body.  Prick one vein, and the blood of the whole body may run out at the sluice; neglect one duty, and no other will do us as good.

             The apostle Peter, in his second epistle, ch. 1:5-7, presseth the Christians to a joint endeavour to increase the whole body of grace; indeed, that is health when the whole body thrives.  ‘Add,’ saith he, ‘to your faith virtue.’  Faith is the file-leading grace. Well, hast thou faith, add virtue.  True faith is of a working stirring nature, without good works it is dead or dying.  Fides pinguescit operibus—‘faith fattens or becomes strong on works,’ Luther.  It is kept in plight and heart by a holy life, as the flesh which plasters over the frame of man's body, though it receives its heat from the vitals within, yet helps to preserve the very life of those vitals.  Thus good works and gracious actions have their life from faith, [and] yet are necessary helps to preserve the life of faith; thus we see sometimes the child nursing the parents that bare it, and therein [he] performs but his duty.

             Thou are fruitful in good works, yet thou art not out of the devil's shoot, except thou addest to thy virtue, knowledge.  This is the candle without which faith cannot see to do its work.  Art thou going to give an alms?  If it be not oculata charitas, if charity hath not this eye of knowledge to direct when, how, what, and to whom thou art to give, thou mayest at once wrong God, the person thou relievest, and thyself.  Art thou humbling thyself for thy sin?  For want of knowledge in the tenor of the gospel, Satan may play upon thy ignorance, and either persuade thee thou art not humbled enough, when, God knows, thou art almost quackled^[i] with thy tears, and even carried down by the impetuous torrent of thy sorrow into despair, or else showing thee thy blubbered face, may flatter thee into a carnal confidence of thy humiliation.

             Perhaps thou seest the name of God dishonoured in the place where thou livest, and thy spirit is stirred within thee, as Paul's at Athens; now if knowledge sits not in the saddle to rein and bridle in thy zeal, thou wilt be soon carried over hedge and ditch, till thou fallest into some precipice or other by thy irregular acting.  Neither is knowledge enough, except thou beest armed with temperance, which here, I conceive, is that grace, whereby the Christian, as mas­ter of his own house, so orders his affections, like servants, to reason and faith, that they do not regularly move, or inordinately lash out into desires of, cares for, or joy in the creature comforts of this life, without which Satan will be too hard for thee.  The historian tells us, that in one of the famous battles between the English and French, that which lost the French the day was a shower of English arrows, which did so gall their horse, as put the whole army into disorder, [for] their horse knowing no ranks, did tread down their own men.  The affections are but as the horse to the rider, on which knowledge should be mounted; if Satan's barbed arrows light on them, so that thy desires of the creature prove unruly, and justle with thy desires of Christ, [if] thy care to keep thy credit or estate put thy care to keep a good conscience to disorder, and thy carnal joy in wife and child trample down or get before thy joy in the Lord, judge on which side victory is like to fall.

             Well, suppose thou marchest provided thus far in goodly array towards heaven, while thou art swimming in prosperity, must thou not also prepare for foul way and weather—I mean in an afflicted estate? Satan will line the hedges with a thousand temptations, when thou comest into the narrow lanes of ad­versity, where thou canst not run from this sort of temptation, as in the campaign of prosperity.  Possibly, thou that didst escape the snare of an alluring world, mayest be dismounted by the same when it frowns; though temperance kept thee from being drunk with sweet wines of those pleasures, yet for want of patience thou mayest be drunk with the wine of astonishment, which is in affliction's hands; therefore, saith the apostle, ‘to temperance, add patience.’  Either possess thyself in patience, or else some raving devil of discontent will possess thee.  An impatient soul in affliction is a bedlam in chains, yea, too like the devil in his chains, [who] rageth against God, while he is fettered by him.

             Well, hast thou patience?—an excellent grace indeed, but not enough.  Thou must be a pious man as well as patient.  Therefore, saith the apostle, ‘to patience, add godliness.’  There is an atheistical patience, and there is a godly Christian patience. Satan numbs the conscience of one, and [so] no wonder he complains not, that feels not; but the Spirit of Christ sweetly calms the other, not by taking away the sense of pain, but by overcoming it with the sense of his love.  Now godliness comprehends the whole worship of God, inward and outward.  If thou beest never so exact in thy morals, and not a worshipper of God, then thou art an atheist.  If thou dost worship God, and that devoutly, but not by Scripture rule, thou art but an idolater.  If according to the rule, but not in spirit and truth, then thou art an hypocrite, and so fallest into the devil's mouth.  Or if thou dost give God one piece of his worship, and deniest another, still Satan comes to his market.  ‘He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination,’ Prov. 28:9.