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ALEXANDER PEDEN'S SECOND SERMON
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THIS SECOND SERMON IS ALSO APPLICABLE TO THE CHURCH OF THE NETHERLANDS!
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"But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel", Luke 24:21.
Where is the Church of God in Scotland at this day? It is not amongst the great clergy. I will tell you where the Church of God is. It is wherever a praying young man or young woman is at a dyke-side in Scotland, there the Church is. A praying party will ruin them yet, Sirs. A praying party shall go through the storm. But many of you in this country-side know not these things. The weight of the broken Church of God in Scotland never troubles you. The loss of a cow, or two or three of your beasts, or an ill market day, goes nearer your hearts than all the troubles of the Church of God in Scotland. Well, then, thou poor creature that will resolve to follow Him, pray fast; for if there were but one of you, He will be the second; if there were but two of you, He will be the third. Ye need not fear that ye shall want company, our Lord will be your company Himself. He will be as condescending to you as ye please, yea, He will be so to you that resolve to follow Him in this stormy blast that is blowing upon His poor Church in Scotland at this day.
But there are some of you that are come here today, who, the next day, when ye cannot get a meeting of this kind, will run away to your hirelings again. Take heed, Sirs. Do not mock God. These indulged ministers will lead you away from Christ as well as the curate. Oh, the busy days' labours the devil is getting from many of the ministers in Scotland in our days! About thirty-six years ago, our Lord had a numerous train of ministers and professors in Scotland, but one blast blew six hundred of our ministers from Him at once, and they never returned back unto Him again. Yea, many lords, lairds, and ladies followed Him then, but the wind of the storm blew the ladies' gallantries in their eyes and ears both, and put them both deaf and blind, and they never saw to follow Christ since, nor to hear His pleasant voice. The lords, lairds, and ladies were all blown over the precipice. Alas, for the apostasy of nobles, gentlemen, ministers, and professors in Scotland! Scotland shall run in streams of blood; yea, many of the saints' blood shall be shed in it ere long. But yet the blood of the saints shall be the seed of a glorious Church in Scotland. O Sirs, what are ye doing in this countryside? Christ's followers in and through Clydesdale yonder have ventured sair for God, and have given a testimony. They burnt the test and the acts of the cursed parliament. There was a poor widow in that country-side, as I came through, that was worth many of you. She was asked how she did in this evil time? "I do very well," says she; "I get more good of one verse of the Bible now than I did of it lang syne. He hath cast me the keys of the pantry-door, and bidden me take my fill." Was not that a Christian, indeed? O Sirs, I would have ye take heed what ye are doing, when the blood of the saints is running so plentifully.
Now, the observation I would have you take home with you is this. O people of God, it is still the man or woman that God hath done saving good to that will follow Him in a storm. Ye know this Mary Magdalene, that is spoken of in this chapter, was one out of whom He had cast a legion of devils in a morning, and I trow she never forgat that good turn till she arrived in glory. Think ye not but it was a sore heart to her that morning when she missed Him and got an empty grave! Oh, what would ye have thought to have seen this poor woman running through the bands of soldiers? But that was not the thing that troubled her-neither the Roman guard that was about the grave, nor the heavy stone that was upon its mouth, nor the charges under the pain of death that they should not touch the grave. No, no, Sirs, love to God goes beyond all that. He was her Lord and she could not think to want Him. The note that I would have you take home with you is this: If ye have gotten good of Jesus Christ, then ye would go through hell at the nearest to be at Him. They that have suffered for Christ in Scotland know this best today. They got a stormy rough sea indeed, but a choice and pleasant shore, and the Captain of their salvation there to welcome them heartily home. O Sirs, Christ had a number of noble worthies in Scotland not long ago, that set the trumpet to their mouth and gave fair warning in His name. He had a Welch, a Welwood, a Cameron, and a Cargill, a noble party of them proclaiming His name in Scotland. If ye could be admitted to see and speak with them, they would tell you that it is nothing to suffer for Christ. They are now all shining so brightly in glory that they would frighten you were you to behold them, with these white robes and glorious crowns on their heads and palms in their hands. Follow fast, if He call you to suffer in His name. But what shall I say? The most part of you know nothing of this. Ye that are lying in black nature could not think to abide in heaven though ye were in it. No, ye would give a thousand worlds, if ye had them, to be out of it again.
Well, I'll tell you news: Happy are they who have got cleanly through the storm since the year fifty. Happy are they that have got through at Pentland, Bothwell, and Ayrsmoss. Happy are they that have died on scaffolds, gibbets, or on the seas. Oh, the blood of the saints will be the seed of the Church in after ages in Scotland! And I'll tell you more: Take heed what thoughts ye have of the sufferers. Look that ye have not the thoughts that they suffered wrong. Entertain not jealous or hard thoughts of the people of God, or of their case in their hard suffering. For their part they have got through the storm, and have passed through Jordan at the ebb-water, and are got well over; but, ye ministers and professors in Scotland, that are yet to go through the storm, as well as the profane party, ye shall get a stormy sea, and find Jordan's water increasing and hard to be got through.
But to come to the words, I trow, our Lord was glad, so to speak, to hear this discourse betwixt these two men, His disciples. Many ask the way that they know full well. Think not that our Lord was ignorant of this discourse before He came to them; no, but He asks to try their zeal. I trow, unbelief was very strong in them, as it is in many professors in Scotland at this day. We thought, said they, "that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel." I trow many in Scotland are beginning to question the work of reformation, and the covenant which we swore with uplifted hands, whether it was the work of God, yea or not. And the next thing ye will question is, whether or not the work of God be real in your own bosom. Take heed to your atheism, people of God. Your atheism and unbelief will do you an ill turn. They will put you to question the work of God in your own hearts, and that questioning will not be good company in a storm that ye are likely to meet with ere long in these lands. Well, Sirs, there is many a plough going this day in our Lord's acres in Scotland; but ere long He will loose some of them, and cut their cords and lay them by a while. "The Lord is righteous; he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked."
Now, what is it that has carried through the sufferers for Christ these twenty-two years in Scotland? "It is the fellowship of his sufferings." It is the filling up of Christ's sufferings in Scotland according to the ancient decree of heaven. For my part I seek no more, if He bids me go. He bade many, from 1660 to the year of the Pentland engagement, go forth to scaffolds and gibbets for Him, and they sought no more but His commission. They went, and He carried them well through. Then in 1666, at Pentland, He bade so many go to the fields and die for Him, and so many to scaffolds and lay down their lives for Him. They sought no more but His commission. They went, and He carried them well through. Again, 1679, at Bothwell, He bade many go to the fields and scaffolds and die for Him. They sought no more but His commission and went. And afterwards, in the year 1680, at Ayrsmoss, He bade so many go to the fields and scaffolds for Him. They sought no more but His commission and went. This cup of suffering hath come all the way down from Abel to this year, 1682, in Scotland. Our Lord hath held this cup to all the martyrs' heads, wherever He had a Church in the world, and it will go to all the lips of all the martyrs that are to suffer for Christ, even to the sounding of the last trumpet. But yet, people of God, it is but the brim that the saints taste of. But be ye patient in believing, for God shall make the wicked, His enemies and your persecutors in Scotland, wring out the bitter dregs of this cup to all eternity, and "to spue, and fall, and rise no more." Believe it, our Master will set up this cup, and close it, and swallow up time in eternity, and blow that great trumpet, and then heaven and earth shall all go into a red flame at once. O believers, long for that noble day; for it will put an end to all your sad and suffering days. I remember a passage of a great Emperor's life, when he went over seas to battle and saw the numerous multitudes of his enemies, their number being far superior unto his, he said to his General, "What shall we do? for their number is far greater than ours." The General answered, "We will fight under our enemies' colours, and vanquish them;" and so they did. So let the noble witnesses in Scotland that suffer for Christ fight valiantly and courageously under their persecutors' shadow, and so they shall vanquish them. Indeed our noble Captain of salvation, Jesus Christ, hath vanquished these bloody persecutors in Scotland these twenty-two years, more by the patient sufferings of the saints, and hath overcome and triumphed more gloriously over them, than if He had threshed them all down in a moment; yea, the patient suffering of the saints with their blood running declares His glory much abroad in the world, and especially in these lands. I remember as I came through the country, that there was a poor widow, whose husband fell at Bothwell. The bloody soldiers came to plunder her house, telling her they would take all she had: "We will leave thee nothing," said they, "either to put in thee, nor on thee." "I care not," said she, "I will not want as long as God is in the heavens." That was a believer indeed.
Now, for this Mary Magdalene that we spoke of before, what was she before Christ and she met? For as well as He loved her, we read in history that before Christ and she met, she was mistress to the captain of the castle at Jerusalem.
Now the note (doctrinally) that we would have you to observe is this, that for as bad as this woman was, ye may see that Christ sets His love on her, and would not want her. Now, ye see, she follows Him in a great storm. I would have you take this home with you; that free grace is no brooker of persons. Christ will not cast away the worst of you that are the saints, and that will follow Him in a storm. He hath done you as good a turn as He did to Mary Magdalene. Although ye have not been as really possessed of the devil as she was, yet ye have had some domineering idol, and grievous lust, that hath arisen within you, that hath sadly oppressed you, that He hath helped you to cast out and subdue.
But what think ye now of our great folk in Scotland at this time-our lords, lairds, and ladies? The storm soon beat them from Christ's back. I'll tell you what our great folk in Scotland are like. They are like so many ladies going to sea in a boat in a calm day for their pleasure, and as long as the sea is calm, and they see the land, and are in no fear of hazard, they bid the boatman row out; but whenever the wind begins to blow a little, and the wave begins a little to swell and rise, and they begin to lose sight of the land, then they cry out, "Make haste in to the shore again." So our great folk, both nobles, gentlemen, ministers, professors, and all ranks in Scotland, all followed our Lord at His back when the wind was fair; but whenever the storm began to blow in His face, all for the most part quitted His back, and made in for the next shore again. But persecuted people of God, if ye will but wait on a while patiently, God will be even with all these blades ere long. There are few Uriahs now in our days. Worthy Uriah would not sleep in his bed when the ark and people of God were in the open field. There are few so now in our days, and so will be seen of it ere all be done. I'll tell you, ease is never good for the Church and people of God, for they thrive still best under the saddest persecution. It hath been the experience of the Church and people of God in all ages. Worthy David did a bad turn one morning with his ease. It had been better for him that he had been in the fields all night. He not only committed adultery and murder that morning, but thought to have fathered his ill-begotten child upon worthy Uriah. One ill turn makes still way for another. And so it is with our great clergy folk this day, vile apostates as they are. I warrant it is the way of many of the great clergy folk, for all the evil turns that they do, they father them all upon the Bible, and make it still their warrant. The clergy and council do this, even when they condemn the saints of God and take their lives for owning the cause and covenants of Jesus Christ, and for owning the kingly government in Scotland, which these miserable apostates have taken from Him, and are consenting that it should be taken from Him in this day in these lands. I say, they will cast up the Bible in so doing, and say they have their warrant from it, both council, prelate, and indulged do so, but they deceive themselves, and mock the Lord in so doing, for which He shall be avenged on them ere long. But I'll tell you, Sirs, how they do with the Bible, even as a ship carpenter does with the great planks when they build a ship. They put them into the fire, and bow them to the use they intend them for. But do ye not so. But let the Bible stand registered as God hath placed it, and for your warrant see the last chapter of Revelation at the close: "He that addeth, or diminisheth." See what sentence the Spirit of God puts upon them. Oh that sad defection which the want of the right observation of these things hath occasioned in Scotland, since the sad storm began to blow upon the poor Church! Oh, the many vile hypocrites the Church of Scotland hath brought forth! They are vile bastards. They are now tearing their mother's flesh with their teeth and hands; and is not that unnatural-like? I trow, if any of us had our mother lying a-dying, it were unkind for us to run away and leave her. Were it not more kindly for us to stay and hold up her head when a-dying? But indeed our ministers and professors have not done so in Scotland. They have fled and left their dying mother. They have fled to other places for shelter, fled in under the indulgence, and fled unto other nations on a pretence to preach the Gospel. But the truth is, I am afraid that it be said by God at length, that it was for the back and belly that many of them hath done so, and to shun suffering for Christ; for which many of them shall smart ere all be done. There was work enough at home. They should have stayed at home with their dying mother. O secure England and Ireland! your day of vengeance hastens fast from the Lord.
Well, you that are the sufferers for Christ in Scotland, look what worthy David says. David had as much in the world of ease, honour, pleasure, yea, as any of them hath; and the Lord says, "I took you from keeping the ewes with young; I gave you pleasures, a throne, and a kingdom, and dominion, and what would ye have more?" "It is true," says David, "I have received all that. But all that is not my portion. I would not give a goat horn for it all in comparison of that noble satisfaction I shall have in the morning of the resurrection. 'I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.'"
Come then, sufferers for Christ, ye shall have a beautiful encouragement in spite of them all. Cheer up your hearts with the faith of these things. The poor, believing, persecuted Church of Christ in Scotland is now a sick patient under Christ's hand. But blessed shall they be that shall be privileged to be sharers of the blessed reformation, that glorious reformation of the man-child which this sick travailing woman shall bring forth! Oh, we long to see these glorious days that shall be yet in thee, O Scotland! Once Scotland sent out her glory unto all the lands round about her; now she sits as a widow, and few to take her by the hand, but yet her husband will not forsake her, but will return again to Scotland; and He shall yet send out her glory unto all the lands round about, and that more gloriously than formerly it was.
But now, the next note that I would have you take home with you is this: a poor believer never gets a more beautiful blink of Jesus Christ, than when the cross lies heaviest between his shoulders; for suffering is the ready way to glory, and this is the experience of all the cloud of witnesses that have suffered for Christ, as they can testify. Therefore faint not in the way for all that bloody adversaries can do unto you.
And now, people of God in Scotland, there is another thing that I have to tell you, and it is this: I would have you to get preservatives, for ye walk in a pestilential air, and ye are nearer hazard than ye are aware of. If any of you were going through a city, where the plague were raging hotly, you would seek for something to put in your mouth and nose as a preservative to keep you from being infected with the contagion. So there will be need of this in Scotland, ere long. I know ye count me but a fool for saying these things, but I must tell you, in the name of the Lord who sent me unto you this day to tell you these things, that ere it be very long the living shall not be able to bury the dead in thee, O Scotland, and many a mile shall ye walk, or ride, and shall not see a farm house, but ruinous wastes for the quarrel of a broken covenant, and wrongs done to the Son of God in thee, O Scotland. The testimony of a good conscience will be a good feast in that day.
But now, people of God, the preservative I would have you get against that evil day is, "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." And I trow, that will be a noble preservative. Now, people of God in Scotland, I have news to tell you; but it is only unto you that are the godly. If once He love you, He will never change you. But, wicked folk, break not your necks upon this. However, you that are the people of God, be not too forward on suffering, except ye be sure He call you to it. Says Peter, "Master, I will die for thee." Here Peter was too forward. "Stay," says Christ, "till once I bid thee." And I trow, Peter got the breadth of his back, so to speak, to learn him more wit in time to come.
Now the thing that I would have you here observe, is this: that nothing less than a fall will humble a presumptuous professor. Therefore be humble, all of you, before the Lord. The apostle says, "Beware, take heed," &c. So, I say, Beware, take heed. There are many little sloops going through Scotland. Take heed, people of God, that ye go not aboard them, for they will sink you. There are likewise many cross winds to blow you from Christ's shore; but if ye would wait patiently, persecuted people of God, the Lord is about to let loose a northern blast on these blades that will raise them off their creeks, and loose their plough that is ploughing deep in our Lord's acres in Scotland.
Now, these ministers that are fallen silent at this sinful blast of the sinful commands of these sinful magistrates, tell them, people of God, that they have consented fully to take Christ's crown from off His head, and set it upon the head of a profane man. Put them to it, either to own their ministry or renounce it, now when it is come to this push in Scotland. And now, Sirs, if any of you would abide by Jesus Christ in this storm, try how ye have covenanted with Him, and how ye have closed the bargain with Him, and upon what terms. But I trow there are many of you in this age that are like young wanton folk that run fast together and marry, but never take any account how they will keep house, but presently go to poverty and beggary. I trow, it falls out so with many of you that are professors in this generation. Ye take up your religion ye wot not how, and ye cannot give an account how ye came by it. I will tell you, Sirs, ye will abide no longer by Christ than till a storm blow, and then ye will quit Him, and deny His cause. Ye have need to take heed to this for it will ruin your souls in the end of the day.
But I shall tell you, Sirs, the right way of covenanting with God. It is when Christ and the believer meets. Our Lord gives him His laws, statutes, and commands; and He charges him not to quit a hoof of them; no, though he should be torn into a thousand pieces; and the right Covenanter says, "Amen." But many of you, people of God, like fools, would have your stock in your hand. But if ye held it, ye would soon squander it away, as our old father Adam did. Adam got the stock in his own hand, but he soon played it off. In a morning at two or three throws of the game, he lost all his posterity. But now our blessed second Adam hath our stock a-guiding, and He manages it better. He will give you but as ye need it, people of God, in fourpences, sixpences, and shillings; but if He bring any of you to a gibbet for Him, He will give you, as it were, dollars in your hands. Ye shall not need to fear. He will bear your charges to the full.
Now, ye in this country-side, ye will be all charged ere long to go and hear these cursed curates; and when ye are charged to go there, look into Gal. v. 19, 20. I say, look well to that Scripture, and think with yourselves, poor men and women of this countryside, that such a fool as I told you that going to hear those profane hirelings would take you to hell as soon as idolatry, adulteries, witchcraft, or any of these sins which are named in that place I have cited unto you. But now, persecuted people, scare not at the cross, for it is the way to the crown. Trouble and suffering have always been the lot of the saints, and began as soon as grace did. Abel first got the cross, and many have followed him since, and have obtained the crown.
And now, people of God, what are ye doing? The Pope and Papists at Rome are rejoicing and burning bonfires. They are rejoicing that Britain and Ireland are coming home again to their ancient Mother-Church, as they call themselves.2 What are ye doing, O people of God? Oh, for such a party as Esther and her maidens. That was a bloody decree, too, as there are many now in Scotland. Now people of God, beware of dipping with the wicked; for if ye do, it will be hard for you to retract again; for these cursed time-serving clergymen when once they join with the enemies, and run into defection with them, they are taught by the devil so many cursed shifts to defend their knavery, that conviction hardly can reach them, and so they go down, and many of them will go down to the pit in this age. Now, people of God in Scotland, what are ye doing? Oh, pray fast! but I will tell you, though ye pray none, yet the Church of Christ in Scotland shall be delivered. The groaning of the saints, the sighing of the prisoners, the innocent blood of His people, the cries of many widows and fatherless in Scotland will put Christ upon arising. The trampling of His glory, and the rending off His crown violently from His head will put Him upon arising. Oh, that there were a praying party now to wrestle with Him, and that old and young would deal with Him to arise! Oh, that He would give us such a proof of His love to us as He gave to His people in Egypt! Ye know He singled out Moses to send down to Egypt to deliver His Church. Moses had no will to go. No, says Moses, "I am not eloquent." Saith the Lord, "Go tell them, I AM hath sent me unto you." "Well," says Moses, "that will not do the turn: They will not believe me." Says the Lord to him again, "Tell them that by the name of God Almighty I appeared unto their fathers; but by my name JEHOVAH I was not made known to them." "That is a new name I have given you of Myself; and as I have given you that new name, which I never gave to any before, so tell my people in Egypt, that before they be delivered, I will do that which I never did since the creation of the world." Now, the word "Jehovah" in the original denotes both God's eternal being in Himself, and His giving all other things a being, and His giving a being to His own promise and threatenings: "I am what I am, and will be what I will be." But I know some of you have heavy thoughts here, doubting if this can be applicable to Scotland's case this day. Yea, Sirs, as the Lord lives, ere He have not Scotland delivered, He will work a miracle that He wrought not before, whoever lives to see it.
Now, Sirs, would ye know if ye be right sympathizers with the broken work of God in Scotland? Ye must try if it be your heavy thoughts when ye lie down, and when ye arise, and all the day long as ye go out and come in; if it be so, it is a good mark. Ye know, when Nehemiah was with the captives at Babylon, in twos and threes with sad and very heavy hearts for the desolations of the Church of God, this honest man got a grip of one or two of them in a morning, and when they told him of the desolation of Jerusalem, and of the places where their fathers praised God, and how the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, and the gates thereof burnt with fire, and the remnant of the Lord's people in reproach and contempt and affliction, it put his pleasure far from him, and both meat and drink for a good while.
Now, Sirs, there was a great number that went out of Egypt with the Church. A mixed multitude followed to the Red Sea. Wherefore was it? It was because they had seen many miracles in Egypt. But they went not over Jordan; they fell in the wilderness, and died for their sins. Their hearts were not right with God, as is the case with many in this generation. I warrant you our Lord had a thick number of ministers and professors at His back in Scotland about thirty or forty years ago, when the day was fair; but when the storm began to blow, they became very few. The ministers left Him, and tied in to the Indulgence under the enemies' wings for shelter, and many professors followed them for ease and love to the back and the belly. But wait on, people of God, a little, and God shall rouse them up ere long. But I fear when God comes to call the roll of Scotland, He shall find many blanks, dead ministers, dead professors, and dead men and women, though going upon their feet.
Now, Sirs, as I said to you before, if ye will follow Him in this stormy blast, be humble and much denied to your own things-as for a proud professor, nothing less than a fall will do his turn. Take heed what ye are doing, for it is a strange time we live in; it is hard keeping touches with God, so to speak. Now, when He is, as it were, travelling up and down shires in Scotland, and saying to this man, and that woman, "Go seal my truths with your blood," He hath taken few out of Galloway or Carrick to a scaffold to witness for Him as yet. I think we should be counted with the rest of the kingdom, and yet ye know not what is coming. I pray you, if He come to seek a testimony from any of you, deny Him not; for He denied none of you that are elect, when ye were between the losing and the winning.
And now, Sirs, I leave these truths on all of you. I dare not for my very soul flatter yon, not knowing how soon ye and I may be cited before the tribunal of God. I charge you to join with none of these time-serving hireling ministers, nor with that cursed supremacy they stand upon, for it will ruin them. And now, I pray yon take heed when there are so many errors going through the land. Wrestle with God to keep you straight and steadfast in your judgment and in your hearts, adhering to the covenanted work of reformation. And as for these indulged ministers, although they preach some truths, yet the Spirit of the Lord follows not what they preach to bless it; for what they speak from the word is not seasonable, for leaving truths are denying times, such as these are wherein our lot is fallen.
And now, people of God, I have this to tell you, and so I leave you, that there are yet as glorious days coming to Scotland as ever were. And the children of the persecuted captivity shall be the beginning of a glorious Church yet in Scotland, and shall be so zealous for the reproached truths of God that they shall be ready, if they meet these ministers that betrayed God's work, I say they shall be ready to stone them; and that shall be made out, "They shall not wear a rough garment to deceive any more," as they have now done in Scotland, and in all these lands. And now, the Lord Himself bless these things unto you, and make you steadfast, that ye be not led away with the apostasy of the times, and of these time-serving ministers, that Demas-like have forsaken the way of the Lord. The Lord Himself make you consider these things, and fix a conviction of them upon your hearts that ye may be watchful and steadfast unto the day of His coming.
Now unto the Lord who is able to keep you from falling, be everlasting praise. Amen.
Rev. Alexander Peden
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