Sermon 9: The Long-Suffering of God

SERMON 9. The Long-suffering of God.

*ECCLES. VIII.11.* Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

I have considered how apt men are to abuse the long-suffering of God, to the hardening and encouraging of themselves in sin, and from where this comes to pass; where I considered the several false conclusions which sinners draw from the delay of punishment, as if there were no God, or providence, or difference of good and evil; or else, as is more commonly pretended, that sin is not so great an evil, and that God is not so highly offended at it, or that God is not so severe as he is represented, that the punishment of sin is not so certain, or however, it is at a distance, and may be prevented by a future repentance; all which I have spoken fully to, and endeavoured to shew the fallacy and unreasonableness of them. I shall now proceed to the

Third and last thing I propounded, which was to answer an objection to which this discourse may seem liable; and that is this. If the long-suffering of God be the occasion of men's hardness and impenitency, then why is God so patient to sinners, when they are so prone to abuse his goodness and patience? And how is it goodness in God to forbear sinners so long, when this forbearance of his is so apt to minister to them an occasion of their further mischief and greater ruin? It should seem according to this, that it would be much greater mercy to the greatest part of sinners, not to be patient toward them at all; but instantly upon the first occasion and provocation, to cut them off, and so to put a stop to their wickedness, and to hinder them from making themselves more miserable, by increasing their guilt, and treasuring up wrath to themselves against the day of wrath.

This is the objection, and because it seems to be of some weight, I shall endeavour to return a satisfactory answer to it in these following particulars.

1. I ask the sinner if he will stand to this? Are you serious, and would you in good earnest have God to deal thus with you, to take the very first advantage to destroy you or turn you into Hell, and to make you miserable beyond all hopes of recovery? Consider of it again. Do you think it desirable, that God should deal thus with you, and let fly his judgments upon you so soon as ever you have sinned? If not, why do men trifle, and make an objection against the long-suffering of God, which they would be very loth should be made good upon them?

2. It is likewise to be considered, that the long-suffering of God toward sinners is not a total forbearance; it is usually so mixed with afflictions and judgments of one kind or other, upon our selves or others, as to be a sufficient warning to us, if we would consider and lay it to heart, to sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon us; lest that judgment which we saw inflicted upon others come home to us. And is not this great goodness, to warn us when he might destroy us, to leave room for a retreat, when he might put our case past remedy?

All this time of God's patience, he threatens sinners, to awaken them out of their security; he punishes them gently, that we may have no ground to hope for impunity; he makes examples of some in a more severe and remarkable manner, that others may hear, and fear, and be afraid to commit the like sins, lest the like punishment overtake them; he whips some offenders before our eyes, to shew us what sin deserves, and what we also may justly expect, if we do the same things; and will nothing be a warning to us but our own sufferings?

Indeed, God does usually send some judgment or other upon every sinner in this life; he lets him feel the rod, that he may know that it is an evil and bitter thing to sin against him. He exercises men with many afflictions, and crosses, and disappointments, which their own consciences tell them are the just recompenses of their deeds; and by these lighter strokes, he gives us a merciful warning to avoid his heavier blows; when mercy alone will not work upon us and win us, but being fed to the full, we grow wanton and foolish, he administers physic to us, by affliction and by adversity endeavours to bring us to consideration and a sober mind; and many have been cured this way, and the judgments of God have done them that good, which his mercies and blessings could not; for God would save us any way, by his mercy or by his judgment, by sickness or by health, by plenty or by want, by what we desire or by what we dread; so desirous is he of our repentance and happiness, that he leaves no method unattempted that may probably do us good; he strikes upon every passion in the heart of man; he works upon our love by his goodness, upon our hopes by his promises, and upon our fears, first by his threatenings, and if they be not effectual, then by his judgments; he tries every affection and takes hold of it, if by any means he may draw us to himself; and will nothing warn us, but what will ruin us, and render our case desperate and past hope?

And if any sinner be free from outward afflictions and sufferings, yet sin never fails to carry its own punishment along with it; there is a secret sting and worm, a divine nemesis and revenge that is bred in the bowels of every sin, and makes it a heavy punishment to itself; the conscience of a sinner does frequently torment him, and his guilt haunts and dogs him wherever he goes; for whenever a man commits a known and willful sin, he drinks down poison, which though it may work slowly, yet it will give him many a gripe, and if no means be used to expel it, will destroy him at last.

So that the long-suffering of God is wisely ordered, and there is such a mixture of judgment in it, as is sufficient to awaken sinners, and much more apt to deter them from sin, than to encourage them to go on and continue in it.

Nothing is farther from the intention of God, than to harden men by his long-suffering. This the Scripture most expressly declares (2 Peter 3:9): He is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He has a very gracious and merciful design in his patience towards sinners, and is therefore good, that he may make us so, and that we may cease to do evil. The event of God's long-suffering may, by our own fault and abuse of it, prove our ruin; but the design and intention of it, is our repentance. He winks at the sins of men (says the Son of Syrach) that they may repent. He passes them by, and does not take speedy vengeance upon sinners for them, that they may have time to repent of them, and to make their peace with him, while they are yet in the way.

Indeed, his long-suffering does not only give space for repentance, but is a great argument and encouragement to it. That he is so loath to surprise sinners, that he gives them the liberty of second thoughts, time to reflect upon themselves, to consider what they have done, and to retract it by repentance, is a sufficient intimation that he has no mind to ruin us, that he desires not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live. And should not this goodness of his make us sorry that we have offended him? Does it not naturally lead and invite us to repentance? What other interpretation can we make of his patience, what other use in reason should we make of it, but to repent and return, that we may be saved?

There is nothing in the long-suffering of God, that is in truth any ground of encouragement to men in any evil course; the proper and natural tendency of God's goodness is to lead men to repentance, and by repentance to bring them to happiness (Romans 2:4): Despise you the riches of his goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? This Saint Peter, with relation to these very words of Saint Paul, interprets, leading to salvation (2 Peter 3:15): And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, as our beloved brother Paul also has written to you. Now where did Saint Paul write so, unless in this text; Not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance? It is not only great ignorance, and a very gross mistake, to think that it is the design and intention of God's patience and long-suffering to encourage men in sin; but likewise to think, that in the nature of the thing, goodness can have any tendency to make men evil; not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance.

That through the long-suffering of God sinners are hardened in their evil ways, is wholly to be ascribed to their abuse of God's goodness; it is neither the end and intention, nor the proper and natural effect of the thing, but the accidental event of it, through our own fault. And is this any real objection against the long-suffering of God? May not God be patient, though sinners be impenitent? May not he be good, though we be so foolish as to make an ill use of his goodness? Because men are apt to abuse the mercies and favors of God, is it therefore a fault in him to bestow them upon us? Is it not enough for us to abuse them, but will we challenge God also of unkindness in giving them? May not God use wise and fitting means for our recovery, because we are so foolish as not to make a wise use of them? And must he be charged with our ruin, because he seeks by all means to prevent it? Is it not enough to be injurious to our selves, but will we be unthankful to God also? When God has laid out the riches of his goodness and patience upon sinners, will they challenge him as accessory to their ruin? As if a foolish heir that has prodigally wasted the fair estate that was left him, should be so far from blaming himself, as to charge his father with undoing him. Are these the best returns which the infinite mercy and patience of God has deserved from us? Do we thus requite the Lord, foolish people and unwise?

God's patience would save sinners, but they ruin themselves by their abuse of it; let the blame then lie where it is due, and let God have the glory of his goodness, though men refuse the benefit and advantage of it.

And lastly, but because this objection pinches hardest in one point; namely, that God certainly foresees that a great many will abuse his long-suffering, to the increasing of their guilt, and the aggravating of their condemnation; and how is his long-suffering any mercy and goodness to those, who he certainly foreknows will in the event be so much the more miserable, for having had so much patience extended to them? Therefore for a full answer, I desire these six things may be considered.

That God designs this life for the trial of our obedience, that according as we behave ourselves he might reward or punish us in another world.

That there could be no trial of our obedience, nor any capacity of rewards and punishments, but upon the supposition of freedom and liberty; that is, that we do not do what we do upon force and necessity, but upon free choice.

That God, by virtue of the infinite perfection of his knowledge, does clearly and certainly foresee all future events, even those which are most contingent, such as are the arbitrary actions of free and voluntary agents. This I know has been denied, but without reason; since it is not only contrary to the common apprehensions of mankind from the very light of nature, that God should not foreknow future events, but to clear and express Scripture; and that in such instances, for the sake of which they deny God's foreknowledge in general of the future actions of free and voluntary agents, I mean, that the Scripture expressly declares God's determinate foreknowledge of the most wicked actions; as the crucifying of Christ, who is said, according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, to have been by wicked hands crucified and slain.

That the bare fore-knowledge of things future has no more influence upon them to make them to be, than the sight and knowledge of things present has upon them to make them to be present. I may see or know that the Sun is risen, without being the cause of its rising; and no more is bare knowledge of future events the cause that they are, when they are. And if any man ask how God can certainly fore-know things, which depend upon free and arbitrary causes, unless he do some way decree and determine them? I answer, that this is not a fair and reasonable demand, to ask of men, who have but finite understandings, to make out and declare all the ways that infinite knowledge has of knowing and of fore-seeing the actions of free creatures, without prejudice to their liberty and freedom of acting. However, it is of the two much more credible to reason, that infinite knowledge should certainly fore-know things, which our understandings cannot imagine how they should be fore-known, than that God should any ways be the author of sin, by determining and decreeing the wicked actions of men. The first only argues the imperfection of our understandings; but the other lays the greatest blemish and imperfection that can be upon the Divine Nature.

So that this difficult controversy about the fore-knowledge of God is brought to this point, whether a man had better believe, that infinite knowledge may be able to fore-know things in a way which our finite understanding cannot comprehend: or to ascribe something to God, from where it would unavoidably follow that he is the author of sin. The [illegible] is only a modest and just acknowledgment of our own ignorance; the last is the utmost and greatest absurdity that a man can be brought to; and to say that we cannot believe the fore-knowledge of God, unless we can make out the particular manner of it, is more unreasonable, than if an ignorant man should deny a difficult proposition in Euclid or Archimedes to be demonstrated, because he knows not how to demonstrate it.

And consequently fore-knowledge and liberty may very well consist; and notwithstanding God's fore-knowledge of what men will do, they may be as free as if he did not fore-know it.

Lastly, that God does not deal with men according to his fore-knowledge of the good or bad use of their liberty, but according to the nature and reason of things; and therefore if he be long-suffering toward sinners, and do not cut them off upon the first provocation, but give them a space and opportunity of repentance, and use all proper means and arguments to bring them to repentance, and be ready to afford his grace to excite good resolutions in them, and to second and assist them, and they refuse and resist all this; their wilful obstinacy and impenitency is as culpable, and God's goodness and patience as much to be acknowledged, as if God did not foresee the abuse of it; because his fore-sight and knowledge of what they would do, laid no necessity upon them to do what they did.

If a Prince had the privilege of fore-knowledge as God has, and did certainly foresee, that a great many of his subjects would certainly incur the penalty of his laws, and that others would abuse his goodness and clemency to them; yet if he would govern them like free and reasonable creatures, he ought to make the same wise laws to restrain their exorbitancy, and to use the same clemency in all cases that did fairly admit of it, as if he did not at all foresee what they would do, nor how they would abuse his clemency; for it is nevertheless fit to make wise and reasonable laws, and to govern with equity and clemency, though it were certainly foreseen, that they that are governed would act very foolishly and unreasonably in the use of their liberty. It is great goodness in God to give men the means and opportunity of being saved, though they abuse this goodness to their farther ruin; and he may be heartily grieved for that folly and obstinacy in men, which he certainly fore-sees will end in their ruin; and may with great seriousness and sincerity wish they would do otherwise, and were as wise to do good, as they are wilful to do evil. And thus he is represented in Scripture, as regretting the mischief which men wilfully bring upon themselves; O that they were wise, O that they would understand, and consider their latter end!

And this is sufficient to vindicate the goodness of God in his patience and long-suffering to sinners, and to make them wholly guilty of all that befalls them for their wilful contempt and abuse of it.

I shall draw some inferences from this whole discourse upon this argument.

This shows the unreasonableness and perverse disingenuity of men, who take occasion to harden and encourage themselves in sin from the long-suffering of God, which above all things in the world should melt and soften them. You have sinned and are liable to the justice of God, sentence is gone forth, but God respites the execution of it, and has granted you a reprieve, and time and opportunity to sue out your pardon. Now what use ought we in reason to make of this patience of God towards us? We ought certainly to break off our sins by a speedy repentance, lest iniquity be our ruin; immediately to sue out our pardon, and to make our peace with God, while we are yet in the way, and to resolve, never any more willingly to offend that God who is so gracious and merciful, so long-suffering and full of compassion. But what use do men commonly make of it? They take occasion to confirm and strengthen themselves in their wickedness, and to reason themselves into vain and groundless hopes of impunity. Now what a folly is this, because punishment does not come, therefore to hasten it, and to draw it down upon ourselves? Because it has not yet overtaken us, therefore to go forth and meet it? Because there is yet a possibility of escaping it, therefore to take a certain course to make it unavoidable? Because there is yet hope concerning us, therefore to make our case desperate and past remedy? See how unreasonably men bring ruin upon themselves; so that well might the Psalmist ask that question, Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?

But their folly and unreasonableness is not so great, but their perverseness and disingenuity is greater. To sin, because God is long-suffering, is to be evil, because he is good, and to provoke him, because he spares us; it is to strive with God, and to contend with his goodness, as if we were resolved to try the utmost length of his patience; and because God is loth to punish, therefore to urge and importune him to that which is so contrary to his inclination.

This may serve to convince men of the great evil and danger of thus abusing the long-suffering of God. It is a provocation of the highest nature, because it is to trample upon his dearest attributes, those which he most delights and glories in, his goodness and mercy; for the long-suffering of God is his goodness to the guilty, and his mercy to those who deserve to be miserable.

Nothing makes our ruin more certain, more speedy, and more intolerable, than the abuse of God's goodness and patience. After God had born long with that rebellious people, the Children of Israel, and notwithstanding all their murmurings, all their infidelity and impenitency, had spared them ten times, at last he sets his seal to their ruin (Hebrews 3:8, 9): "Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers proved me, and saw my works forty years." This was a high provocation indeed, to harden their hearts under the patience and long-suffering of God, after forty years trial and experience of it; v. 10: "Therefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They are a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known my ways." And what was the issue of all this? Upon this God takes up a fixed resolution to bear no longer with them, but to cut them off from the blessings he had promised to bestow upon them; he sware in his wrath, that they should not enter into his rest. To whom sware he, that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? or as the word may be rendered, to them that were disobedient? that is, to them who went on in their rebellion against him, after he had suffered their manners forty years.

And as the abuse of God's patience renders our destruction more certain, so more speedy and more intolerable. We think that because God suffers long, he will suffer always; and because punishment is delayed, therefore it will never come; but it will come the sooner for this. So our Lord tells us (Luke 12): when the servant said, his Lord delayed his coming, the Lord of that servant shall come in a day that he looks not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and shall cut him in sunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. None so like to be surprised by the judgment of God, as those who trespass so boldly upon his patience.

To persuade us to make a right use of the patience and long-suffering of God, and to comply with the merciful end and design of God therein.

It is the design of God's long-suffering, to give us a space of repentance. Were it not that God had this design and reasonable expectation from us, he would not reprieve a sinner for one moment, but would execute judgment upon him so soon as ever he had offended. This our Savior declares to us by the parable of the fig tree (Luke 13:6): were it not that God expects from us the fruit of repentance, he would cut us down, and not suffer us to cumber the ground; after he had waited three years, seeking fruit and finding none, he spares it one year more, to see if it would bear fruit.

The long-suffering of God is a great encouragement to repentance. We see by his patience that he is not ready to take advantage against us; that he spares us when we offend, is a very good sign that he will forgive us if we repent. Thus natural light would reason, and so the King of Nineveh, a heathen, reasons, Who can tell if God will turn and repent? But we are fully assured of this by the gracious declarations of the Gospel, and the way of pardon and forgiveness which is therein established through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, who was made a propitiation for the sins of the whole world.

Therefore the long-suffering of God should be a powerful argument to us to break off our sins by repentance: for this is the end of God's patience; he is long-suffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live. God everywhere expresses a vehement desire and earnest expectation of our repentance and conversion (Jeremiah 4:14): "O Jerusalem! wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved." And chap. 13:27: "Woe to you Jerusalem! will you not be made clean? when shall it once be?" He who is so patient as to the punishment of our sins, is almost impatient of our repentance for them; Will you not be made clean? when shall it once be? And can we stand out against his earnest desire of our happiness, whom we have so often and so long provoked to make us miserable?

Let us then return into ourselves, and think seriously what our case and condition is; how we have lived, and how long the patience of God has suffered our manners, and waited for our repentance, and how inevitable and intolerable the misery of those must be who live and die in the contempt and abuse of it; let us heartily repent of our wicked lives, and say, What have we done? How careless have we been of our own happiness, and what pains have we taken to undo ourselves?

Let us speedily set about this work, because we do not know how long the patience of God may last, and the opportunities of our salvation be continued to us. This day of God's grace and patience will have an end, therefore, as the Prophet exhorts (Isaiah 55:6), seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. Now God graciously invites sinners to come to him, and is ready to receive them; nay, if they do but move towards him, he is ready to go forth and meet them half way; but the time will come, when he will bid them depart from him, when they shall cry, Lord, Lord, open to us, and the door of mercy shall be shut against them.

All the while you delay this necessary work, you venture your immortal soul, and put your eternal salvation upon a desperate hazard, and should God snatch you suddenly away in an impenitent state, what would become of you? You are yet in the way, and God is yet reconcilable, but death is not far off, and perhaps much nearer to you than you are aware; at the best your life is uncertain, and death will infallibly put a period to this day of God's grace and patience.

Repentance is a work so necessary, that methinks no man should lose so much time as to deliberate, whether he should set about it or not; de necessariis nulla est deliberatio; no man deliberates about what he must do, or be undone if he do it not. 'Tis a work of so great consequence and concernment, and the delay of it so infinitely dangerous, that one would think no wise man could entertain a thought of deferring it. What greater folly and stupidity can there be, than for men to venture their immortal souls, and to run an apparent hazard in matters of everlasting consequence?

This day of God's patience is the great opportunity of our salvation, and if we let it slip, it is never to be recovered. If we mis-improve this time of our life, we shall not be permitted to live it over again to improve it better. Our state of trial ends with this life, after that God will prove us no more; then we shall wish, O that I had known in that my day, the things which belonged to my peace, but now they are hid from mine eyes; therefore today, while it is called today, harden not your hearts, make no tarrying to turn to the Lord, and put not off from day to day, for suddenly shall the wrath of the Lord break forth, and in your security you shall be destroyed; exercise repentance in the time of health, and defer not till death to be justified.