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Chrysostom, and highly valued in the church; and yet how bitterly was he prosecuted by Hierom and Epiphanius; and banished, and died in a second banishment, by the provocation of factious, contentious bishops, and an empress impatient of his plain reproofs! What person more generally esteemed and honoured for learning, piety, and peaceableness, than Melancthon; and yet by the contentions of Illyricus and his party, he was made aweary of his life. As highly as Calvin was (deservedly) valued at Geneva, yet once in a popular lunacy and displeasure, they drove him out of their city, and in contempt of him some called their dogs by the name of Calvin; (though after they were glad to entreat him to return.) How much our Grindal and Abbot were esteemed, it appeareth by their advancement to the archbishopric of Canterbury; and yet who knoweth not that their eminent piety sufficed not to keep them from dejecting frowns! And if you say, that it is no wonder if with princes through interest, and with people through levity, it be thus; I might heap up instances of the like untrustiness of particular friends; but all history, and the experiences of the most, do so much abound with them, that I think it needless. Which of us must not say with David, that “ All men are liars;" (Psal. cxvi ;) that is, deceitful and untrusty; either through unfaithfulness, weakness or insufficiency; that either will forsake us, or cannot help us in time of need.

Was Christ forsaken in his extremity by his own disciples, to teach us what to expect, or bear? Think it not strange then to be conformed to your Lord, in this, as well as in other parts of his humiliation. Expect that men should prove deceitful: Not that you should entertain censorious suspicions of your particular friends: but remember in general that man is frail, and the best too selfish and uncertain; and that it is no wonder if those should prove your greatest grief, from whom you had the highest expectations. Are you better than Job, or David, or Christ? and are your friends more firm and unchangeable than theirs?

Consider, 1. That creatures must be set at a sufficient distance from their Creator. Allsufficiency, immutability and indefectible fidelity, are proper to Jehovah. As it is no wonder for the sun to set, or be eclipsed, as glorious a body as it is, so it is no wonder for a friend, a pious friend, to fail us, for a time, in the hour of our distress. There are some

that will not: but there is none but may, if God should leave them to their weakness. Man is not your rock: he hath no stability but what is derived, dependant, and uncertain, and defectible. Learn therefore to rest on God alone, and lean not too hard or confidently upon any mortal wight.

2. And God will have the common infirmity of man to be known, that so the weakest may not be utterly discouraged, nor take their weakness to be gracelessness, whilst they see that the strongest also have their infirmities, though not so great as theirs. If any of God's servants live in constant holiness and fidelity, without any shakings or stumbling in their way, it would tempt some self-accusing, troubled souls, to think that they were altogether graceless, because they are so far short of others. But when we read of a Peter's denying his master in so horrid a manner, with swearing and cursing, that he knew not the man, (Matt. xxvi. 74,) and of his dissimulation and not walking uprightly; (Gal. ii;) and of a David's unfriendly and unrighteous dealing with Mephibosheth, the seed of Jonathan; and of his most vile and treacherous dealing with Uriah, a faithful and deserving subject; it may both abate our wonder and offence at the unfaithfulness of our friends, and teach us to compassionate their frailty, when they desert us; and also somewhat abate our immoderate dejectedness and trouble, when we have failed God or man ourselves.

3. Moreover, consider, how the odiousness of that sin, which is the root and cause of such unfaithfulness, is greatly manifested by the failing of our friends. God will have the odiousness of the remnants of our self-love and carnal-mindedness, and cowardice appear: we should not discern it in the seed and root, if we did not see, and taste it in the fruits. Seeing without tasting will not sufficiently convince us. A crab looks as beautiful as an apple; but when you taste it, you better know the difference. When you must yourselves be unkindly used by your friends, and forsaken by them in your distress, and you have tasted the fruits of the remnants of their worldliness, selfishness and carnal fears, you will better know the odiousness of these vices, which thus break forth against all obligations to God and you, and notwithstanding the light, the conscience, and perhaps the grace, that doth resist them.

4. Are you not prone to overvalue and overlove your friends? If so, is not this the meetest remedy for your disease? In the loving of God, we are in no danger of excess; and therefore have no need of anything to quench it. And in the loving of the godly, purely upon account of Christ, and in loving saints as saints, we are not apt to go too far. But yet our understandings may mistake, and we may think that saints have more of sanctity than indeed they have; and we are exceeding apt to mix a selfish common love, with that which is spiritual and holy; and at the same time, when we love a Christian as a Christian, we are apt not only to love him (as we ought) but to overlove him because he is our friend, and loveth us. Those Christians that have no special love to us, we are apt to undervalue and neglect, and love them below their holiness and worth: but those that we think entirely love us, we love above their proper worth, as they stand in the esteem of God: not but that we may love those that love us, and add this love to that which is purely for the sake of Christ; but we should not let our own interest prevail and overtop the interest of Christ, nor love any so much for loving us, as for loving Christ: and if we do so, no wonder if God shall use such remedies as he seeth meet, to abate our excess of selfish love.

O how highly are we apt to think of all that good which is found in those who are the highest esteemers of us, and most dearly love us; when perhaps in itself it is but some ordinary good, or ordinary degree of goodness which is in them! Their love to us irresistibly procureth our love to them and when we love them, it is wonderful to observe, how easily we are brought to think well of almost all they do, and highly to value their judgments, graces, parts and works: when greater excellencies in another, perhaps, are scarce observed, or regarded but as a common thing. And therefore the destruction or want of love, is apparent in the vilifying thoughts and speeches, that most men have of one another; and in the low esteem of the judgments, and performances and lives of other men: (much more in their contempt, reproaches and cruel persecutions.) Now though God will have us increase in our love of Christ in his members, and in our pure love of Christians, as such, and in our common charity to all, yea, and in our just fidelity to our friend; yet would he have us suspect and

moderate our selfish and excessive love, and inordinate partial esteem of one above another, when it is but for ourselves and on our own account. And therefore as he will make us know, that we ourselves are no such excellent persons, as that it should make another so laudable, or advance his worth, because he loveth us; so he will make us know, that our friends, whom we overvalue, are but like other men: if we exalt them too highly in our esteem, it is a sign that God must cast them down. And as their love to us, was it that made us so exalt them; so their unkindness or unfaithfulness to us is the fittest means to bring them lower in our estimation and affection. God is very jealous of our hearts, as to our overvaluing and overloving any of his creatures: What we give inordinately and excessively to them, is some way or other taken from him, and given them to his injury, and therefore to his offence. Though I know that to be void of natural, friendly or social affections, is an odious extreme on the other side; yet God will rebuke us if we are guilty of excess. And it is the greater and more inexcusable fault to overlove the creature, because our love to God is so cold, and so hardly kindled and kept alive! He cannot take it well to see us dote upon dust and frailty like ourselves, at the same time when all his wondrous kindness, and attractive goodness, do cause but such a faint and languid love to him, which we ourselves can scarcely feel. If therefore he cure us by permitting our friends to shew us truly what they are, and how little they deserve such excessive love (when God hath so little) it is no more wonder, than it is that he is tender of his glory, and merciful to his servants' souls.

5. By the failing and unfaithfulness of our friends, the wonderful patience of God will be observed and honoured, as it is shewed both to them and us. When they forsake us in our distress (especially when we suffer for the cause of Christ) it is God that they injure more than us: and therefore if he bear with them, and forgive their weakness upon repentance, why should not we do so, that are much less injured? The world's perfidiousness should make us think, how great and wonderful is the patience of God, that beareth with, and beareth up so vile, ungrateful, treacherous men that abuse him to whom they are infinitely obliged! it should make us consider, when men deal treacherously with us, how great is that mercy that hath borne with,

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and pardoned greater wrongs, which I myself have done to God, than these can be which men have done to me! It was the remembrance of David's sin, that had provoked God to raise up his own son against him (of whom he had been too fond), which made him so easily bear the curses and reproach of Shimei. It will make us bear abuse from others, to remember how ill we have dealt with God, and how ill we have deserved at his hands ourselves.

6. And I have observed another reason of God's permitting the failing of our friends. It is, that the love of our friends may not hinder us when we are called to suffer or die. When we overlove them, it teareth our very hearts to leave them and therefore it is a strong temptation to draw us from our duty, and to be unfaithful to the cause of Christ, lest we should be taken from our too dear friends, or lest our suffering cause their too much grief. It is so hard a thing to die with willingness and peace, that it must needs be a mercy to be saved from the impediments which make us backward: And the excessive love of friends and relations, is not the least of these impediments: O how loath is many a one to die, when they think of parting with wife, or husband, or children, or dear and faithful friends! Now I have oft observed, that a little before their death or sickness, it is ordinary with God to permit some unkindness between such too dear friends to arise, by which he moderated and abated their affections, and made them a great deal the more willing to die. Then we are ready to say, It is time for me to leave the world, when not only the rest of the world but my dearest friends have first forsaken me! This helpeth us to remember our dearest everlasting Friend, and to be grieved at the heart that we have been no truer ourselves to him, who would not have forsaken us in our extremity. And sometimes it maketh us even aweary of the world, and to say as Elias," Lord take away my life," &c., (1 Kings xix. 4. 10. 14,) when we must say, 'I thought I had one friend left, and behold even he forsaketh me in my distress.' As the love of friends entangleth our affections to this world, so to be weaned, by their unkindnesses, from our friends, is a great help to loosen us from the world, and proveth oft a very great mercy to a soul that is ready to depart.

And as the friends that love us most, and have most interest in our esteem and love, may do more than others, in

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