Follow peace.
., and holiness
The winnowing fan
I. TWO THINGS TO BE FOLLOWED. We are to follow peace and holiness; the two are consistent with each other and may be followed together. Peace is to be studied, but not such a peace as would lead us to violate holiness by conforming to the ways of unregenerate and impure men. We are only so far to yield for peace sake as never to yield a principle; we are to be so far peaceful as never to be at peace with sin: peaceful with men, but contending earnestly against evil principles. Courtesy is not inconsistent with faithfulness. It is not needful to be savage in order to be sanctified. Follow holiness, but do not needlessly endanger peace. Having thus hinted at the connection between the two, and how the two together make up a complete character, let us now take them one by one.
I. Follow PEACE, “peace with all” says the text--an amplification of the expression. Follow peace with all the Church. Hold what you believe with firmness, for you are not to trifle with God’s truth; but wherever you see anything of Christ, there confess relationship, and act as a brother towards your brother in Christ. Follow peace with all, especially with all your own relatives and friends at home. Call we that man a Christian who will not speak with his own brother? Follow peace with all your neighbours. & Christian man should not make himself hated by all around him, yet there are some who seem to fancy that they are true to their religion in proportion as they make themselves disagreeable. Win your neighbours by your willingness to oblige; disarm their opposition, if possible, by courtesy, by charitableness, by kindness. Follow peace with all--even with persecutors. The anvil after all breaks the hammer, because it bears every stroke and returns none; so be it with the Christian. The text says
II. �erstition, and wicked customs of the world, and all this out of love to Christ. To bear this cross is not merely to suffer any ways, but to suffer the worst man can do unto us with patience, with constancy, with joy, and to think ourselves happy and much honoured that we are counted worthy to suffer for so great a Saviour, and in so noble a cause. This requires a Divine faith well grounded upon the word and promises of God, and a special assistance of the Divine Spirit; for these will strengthen our hearts, and make us willing to suffer anything before we offend our God and lose our Saviour. (G. Lawson.)
Bearing His reproach
Christ’s reproach
It is called Christ’s reproach in sundry respects: as
1. The union that is betwixt Him and His Church. So as the reproach of the body or of any member thereof is the reproach of Christ Himself.
2. The sympathy which is betwixt Christ and every of His members. He is sensible of that reproach which is cast upon any of them (Acts 9:4).
3. The account which Christ hath of the reproaches of His saints; He doth account them as reproaches cast upon Himself.
4. His undertaking to revenge such reproaches and wrongs as are done to His members (Romans 12:19).
5. The cause of the reproach which is here meant, and that is Christ Himself, a profession of His name, a maintaining of His gospel, and holding close to His righteousness. In this sense an apostle calleth sufferings in such cases Christ’s sufferings (1 Peter 4:14; Acts 5:41).
6. That resemblance that is betwixt the reproaches of saints and Christ.
This reference of reproach to Christ in this phrase, “His reproach “ is for limitation, direction, consolation, and incitation.
1. It affordeth a limitation, in that it restraineth it to a different kind of reproach, which is Christ’s reproach. It is not every kind of reproach that can be counted a matter of glory, wherein a man may rejoice; but Christ’s reproach. I may in this case say of reproach, as the apostle doth of buffeting: “What glory is it, if when ye be reproached for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?” (1 Peter 2:20).
2. It affordeth a direction in showing how we ought to bear reproach, even as Christ did; for we are in this case to look unto Jesus, who despised the Hebrews 12:2).
3. It ministereth much comfort, in that no other thing is done to us than what is done to our Head before us. Herewith doth Christ comfort His disciples (Matthew 10:25; John 15:20).
4. What greater motive can we have to incite us willingly and contentedly to bear reproach than this, that it is Christ’s reproach? If honour, if profit may be motives to incite us to a duty, these motives are not wanting in this case. What can be more honourable than to be as Christ was? and if we be reproached with Him here, we shall enjoy with Him hereafter a crown of glory; what more honourable? what more profitable? (W. Gouge.)
Reproach incurred by Christians:
The following are the chief grounds on which the first Christians were called to bear reproach, and on which we also may be called to bear the same.
1. They suffered reproach, as being followers of a crucified Saviour.
2. A second ground of the reproach suffered by the first Christians was that they forsook the ways of an evil world.
3. Christians are reproached by many on account of their general seriousness and spirituality of character.
4. Lastly: those who adopt any peculiar mode of religious observance have been at times exposed to ridicule on that account. (R. Hall, M. A.)
Bearing Christ’s reproach
Sheriff--was the child of a Christian mother. He had lived to be over sixty years of age without openly confessing Christ. Some time ago he “became interested in his spiritual welfare, and after attending some meetings in the city where he lived, he arose and openly acknowledged his intention to be a Christian. The positiveness of his expression, and his prominence in the community, caused a reporter to insert an item in the next morning’s paper that the sheriff had been converted. When he went into the court-house in the performance of his duties, he was saluted by one of a throng of godless men with the remark, “Well, sheriff, we hear you are going to leave us.”
“Leave you?” said he. “What do you mean?” “Why, we heard,” said the man, “that you were going to leave the world, the flesh, and the devil.” The sheriff hesitated only an instant, and said, with great emphasis, “That’s just what I’m going to do.” One of the men then said, “How do you like its being printed in the paper that you have been converted?” He said, “Was that in the paper? I think that is grand. I wish that they’d print placards about it and put them up all over the city, so that people might know about it at once, that I mean henceforth to be a Christian man.” It is needless to say that from that time he was a devoted and faithful follower of Christ.
Prizing the Cross:
Tacitus reports that though the amber ring among the Romans was of no value, yet, after the emperor began to wear it, it began to be in great esteem: it was the only fashion amongst them. So our Saviour has borne the Cross, and was borne upon it. Once a disgrace, even, it comes to be a boast to the true believer. We should esteem it more highly than many of us do, and bear it daily in remembrance of Him. (E. P.Thwing.)