Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.
Joshua 1:7
(KJV)
Integrity is the best ground of fortitude.
“The spirit of power and of a sound mind,” are fitly joined together by the apostle. {#2Ti 1:7}
A rotten rag hath no strength; a corrupt conscience no true courage. See #Pr 28:1.
Acts 23 Ver. 6. Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.
Acts 23:6
Paul lacked not human prudence; wise as serpents we should be to improve all advantages that we may with the safety of our consciences.
Religion doth not call us to a weak simplicity; but allows us as much of the serpent as of the dove.
The dove without the serpent is easily caught; the serpent without the dove stings deadly. Their match makes themselves secure, and many happy.
Acts 18:2. Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome.
Wicked men are sick of the saints, and long to be rid of them, not considering that they bear up the pillars of the earth, and that God gratifies his children with the preservation of the wicked, as he did Paul with the lives of those infidels that were in the ship with him, #Ac 27:24.
Howbeit they are frequently as foolish as this Claudius who banished God’s true servants; or, as the stag in the emblem, which by biting the boughs off the trees under which she lay hidden from the hounds and hunters, bewrayed and betrayed herself into their hands.
Acts 17 Ver. 11. They were more noble. Better gentlemen (ευγενεστεροι).
Virtue is instead of a thousand escutcheons. {a} “Since thou hast been precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable,” #Isa 43:4.
The nobles of Israel made their staves (the ensigns, haply, of their honour) instruments of the common good, #Nu 21:18; when the nobles of Tekoah are blemished in their blood for this, that they “put not their necks to the work of their Lord,” #Ne 3:5.
The Biscanies vaunt of themselves among the Spaniards that they are the right Hidalgoes, that is, gentlemen, as the Welshmen do here.
But Christian nobility is the best and truest where God himself is the top of the kin, and religion the root; in regard whereof all other things are but shadows and shapes of nobleness. The Jews of Berea were more noble, or of better descent, Non per civilem dignitatem, sed per spiritualem dignationem, as one saith:
Not by civil descent, but by spiritual advancement.
A man will never begin to be good till he begins to hearken to what conscience speaks.
So long as a man turns a deaf ear to conscience, he is a safe prisoner to Satan, and a sure enemy to good, Ps. lviii. 4, John iii. 20, 21.
(This is in Trapp’s spirit, but was written by Thomas Brooks)
Hebrews 9 Ver. 10. And carnal ordinances.
Such as carnal men might easily perform, and as were very suitable to the disposition of a carnal heart.
Hence, #Eze 20:25, they are called “commandments that were not good,” because they commanded neither virtue nor vices in themselves; and ill people rested in the outward acts.
Nescio quid divinum in auscultatione est, saith one; I know not what divine business there is in hearing; but sure I am that what we hear doth more deeply affect us, and more firmly abide with us, and stick by us, than what we read.
Heb. 1 Ver. 7. A flame of fire.
Hence they are called seraphims, because they flame, like heavenly salamanders, in the fire of pure and perfect love to God and his people; and cherubims, from their winged swiftness; swift they are as the wind; which may seem to be the sense of this text, compared with #Ps 104:4,5.
He that is fallen down one round of hell’s ladder, knows not where he shall stop or stay, till he come to the bottom.
Sin is of an encroaching nature, modest and maidenly at first; but yield to it once, and there is no ho with it.
The John Trapp Blog 