natures, and joint them so close in love together, and were the more easily persuaded to adopt themselves into that true family of love. But, alas! when this gold became dim (I mean, peace among Christians faded) then the Gospel lost credit in the world, and the doctrine of it came under more suspicion in their thoughts, who seeing such clefts gape in her walls, were more afraid to put their heads under its roof. "I charge ye, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor wake my love till he please. Cant. ii. 7. Master Cotton on the place, "by the roes and hinds of the field," (which are fearful creatures, easily scared away, yet otherwise willing to feed with the sheep) takes the Gentiles to be meant, inclinable to embrace the Jewish religion, but very soon scared away by the troublesome state of it, or any offensive carriage of the Jews. And what more offensive carriage than divisions and strifes? see them joined together, Rom. xvi. 17. "Mark them which cause divisions and offences." If divisions, then there are sure to be offences taken, and many possibly hardened in their sins thereby. Do not your hearts tremble to lay the stumbling-block for any to break his neck over? to roll the stone over any poor sinner's grave, and seal him down in it, that he never have a resurrection to grace here or glory hereafter? As you would keep yourselves free of the blood of those that die in their sins, O take heed of lending any thing by your divisions to the hardening of their souls in their impenitency.

SECT. IV.

The fourth and last sort of peace, which I thought to have spoken of, is a peace with all the creatures, even the most fierce and cruel. I called it a peace of indemnity and service. This Adam in his primitive state enjoyed; while he was innocent, all the creatures were innocent and harmless to him; the whole creation was at his service; no mutinous principle was found in any creature that did incline it in the least to rebel against him. When God sent the beasts of the field, and fowls of the air, to receive names from him, it was that they

should do their homage to him, and acknowledge him as their Lord; and that he, by exercising that act of authority over them (in giving them names) might have an experiment of his perfect (though not absolute and independent) dominion over them. But no sooner did man withdraw his allegiance from God, but all the creatures (as if they had been sensible of the wrong man by his apostacy had done his and their Maker, by whose patent he held his lordship over them) presently forget their subjection to him, yea, take up arms in their supreme Lord's quarrel against apostate man. And thus they contine in array against him, till God and man meet together again in a happy covenant of peace; and then the commission, which God in wrath gave them against rebel man, is called in, and in the same day that God and the believing souls are made friends, the war ends between him and them. Hosea ii. 18. "In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the heaven;" and mark the day from whence this covenant bears date: "In that day," that is, in the day that "I betroth thee unto me," so that our peace with the creatures comes in by our peace with God; and this being the blessing of the Gospel, so must that also. But as our peace with God is not so perfectly enjoyed in this life, but God hath left himself at liberty to chastise his reconciled ones, and that sharply too, so our peace with the creatures doth not hinder but that they may be (yea, often are) the rod which God useth to correct them with. The water may drown one saint, and the fire consume another to ashes, and yet these creatures at peace with these saints; because they are not sent by God in wrath against them, for any real hurt that God means them thereby. This indeed was the commission that he gave all the creatures against apostate man as part of his curse for his sin: he sent the creatures against him (as a prince doth his general against a company of traitors in arms against him) with authority to take vengeance on them for their horrid rebellion against their Maker. But now the commission is altered, and runs in a more comfortable strain: Go fire, and be the chariot in which such a saint may be brought home

from earth to me in heaven's glory. Go water, waft another; and so of all the rest. Not a creature comes on a worse message to a saint. It is true they are sharp corrections as to the present smart they bring; but they are ever mercies, and do a friendly office in the intention of God, and happy issue to the believer. "All things work together for good to them that love God." Rom. viii. 28. And the Apostle speaks of it as a common principle, well known among the saints: "We know that all things work," &c. As if he had said, Where is the saint that doth not know this? And yet it were happy for us we knew it better; some of us would then pass our days more comfortably than now we do. But I intend not a discourse of this; let brevity here make amends for prolixity in the former.

CHAP. XIV.

THE DUTY OF A CHRISTIAN TO STAND SHOD WITH A

HEART PREPARED FOR ALL SUFFERINGS; WITH ONE REASON OF THE POINT.

WE come to the third enquiry or question from these words propounded.

SECT. I.

Quest. What is meant by this "preparation of the Gospel of peace," with which the Christian's feet are to be shod? or thus, What grace doth this preparation, with which we are to be shod, signify? And why called the preparation of the Gospel of peace?

Answ. As for the grace held forth by this "preparation of the Gospel," &c. I find great variety in the apprehensions of the learned, and indeed variety rather than contrariety. I shall therefore spare the mentioning them (many of which you may find in a bunch collected by the Rev. Dr. Gouge upon the place, with his thoughts

upon them) and crave the boldness to lay down, with due respect to others, the apprehensions I have had thereon; which, I conceive, will rather amplify than thwart their sense. Now what this preparation is will best appear by considering the part it is designed for; and that is the foot, the only member in the body to be shod, and the piece of armour it is compared to, and that is the soldier's shoe, which (if right) is to be of the strongest make, being not so much intended for finery as defence; and that so necessary, that for want of it alone, the soldier in some cases is disabled for service; as when he is called to march far on hard ways, and those perhaps strewed with sharp stones, how long will he go (if not shod) without wounding or foundering? or if the way be good, but the weather bad, and his feet not fenced from the wet and cold, they are not so far from the head, but the cold got in them may strike up to that; yea bring a disease on the whole body, which will keep him on his bed when he should be in the field: as many almost are surfeited as slain in armies. Now, what the foot is to the body, that the will is to the soul. The foot carries the whole body, and the will the soul; yea, the whole man, body and soul also. Voluntas est loco motiva facultas; we go whither our will sends us. And what the shoe is to the foot, that preparation, or, if you please, readiness and alacrity, is to the will. The man whose feet are well shod fears no ways, but goes through thick and thin, foul or fair, stones or straws, all are alike to him that is well shod; while the barefooted man, or slenderly shoed, shrinks when he feels the wet, and shrieks when he lights on a sharp stone. Thus, when the will and heart of a man is prompt, and ready to do any work, the man is as it were shod and armed against all trouble and difficulty, which he is to go over in the doing of it. They say the Irish tread so light on the ground, that they will run over some bogs, wherein any other almost would stick or sink; a prepared ready heart I am sure will do this in a spiritual sense; none can walk, where he can run; he makes nothing of afflictions, yea persecutions, but goes singing over them. David never so merry as in the cave Psal. Ivii. and how

came he so? "My heart in prepared, my heart is prepared (saith he), I will sing and give praise." If David's heart had not been shod with this preparation, he would not have liked his way so well he was in; you would have had him sing to another tune, and heard him quarrel with his destiny, or fall out with his profession, that had put him to so much trouble, and driven him from the pleasures of a prince's court, to hide himself under ground in a cave from those that hunted for his precious life. He would have spent his breath rather in pitying and bemoaning himself, than in praising of God. An unprepared heart, that is not well satisfied with its work or condition, hangs back; and, though it may be brought to submit to it with much ado, yet it is but as a foundered horse on a stony way, who goes in pain every step, and would oft be turning out of the path, if bit and whip did not keep him in.

Quest. 2. But why is it called the " preparation of the Gospel of peace ?"

Answ. Because the Gospel of peace is the great instrument by which God works the will and heart of man into this readiness and preparation to do or suffer what he calls to. It is the business we are set about, when preaching the Gospel, to make a "willing people," Psal. cx. "To make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke i. As a captain is sent to beat up his drum in a city, to call in a company that will voluntarily list themselves to follow the prince's wars, and be in readiness to take the field and march at an hour's warning: thus the Gospel comes to call over the hearts of men to the foot of God, to stand ready for his service whatever it costs them; now this it doth as it is a "Gospel of peace." It brings the joyful tidings of peace concluded betwixt God and man by the blood of Jesus, and this is so welcome to the trembling conscience of poor sinners, who before melted away their sorrowful days in a fearfullooking-for of judgment and fiery indignation from the Lord to devour them as his adversaries, that no sooner the report of a peace concluded betwixt God and them sounds in their ears by the preaching of the Gospel, and is certainly confirmed to be true in their own consciences