Yes, I know it’s Friday. If the title bugs you, click away and come back tomorrow.

I don’t remember when I first discovered despair.com, but I immediately fell in love with it. For better or worse, the creators of Demotivators® and I think alike; so it was no surprise at all when I received The Pessimist’s Mug one year for Father’s Day. It was a bitter irony when it was dropped on the kitchen floor and broken. I now have this coffee cup sitting on my desk. A recent post at Between Two Worlds reminded me of these and inspired me to pull out and fix up a few knock-offs that I had made some time ago, before I had a blog to post them on. Call them the product of idle hands and a twisted sense of humor.

— Samuel Davies (1724–1761), as quoted by Murray in Revival & Revivalism

In this day of pragmatism, it is good to be reminded that God has not ordained ends alone, but means as well. In The Christian in Complete Armour, William Gurnall writes,

The Christian’s armour which he wears must be of divine institution and appointment. The soldier comes into the field with no arms but what his general commands. It is not left to every one’s fancy to bring what weapons he please; this will breed confusion. The Christian soldier in bound up to God’s order; though the army be on earth, yet the council of war sits in heaven; this duty ye shall do; these means ye shall use. And [those who] do more, or use other, than God commands, though with some seeming success against sin, shall surely be called to account for this boldness. The discipline of war among men is strict in this case. Some have suffered death by a council of war even when they have beaten the enemy, because out of their place, or beside their order. God is very precise in this point; he will say to such as invent ways to worship him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: ‘Who hath required this at your hands?’ This is truly to be ‘righteous over-much,’ as Solomon speaks, when we will pretend to correct God’s law, and add supplements of our own to his rule. Who will pay that man his wages that is not set on work by God? God tells Israel the false prophets shall do them no good, because they come not of his errand, Je. xxiii. 32; so neither will those ways and means help, which are not of God’s appointing. God’s thoughts are not as man’s, nor his ways as ours, which he useth to attain his ends by. If man had set forth the Israelitish army, now to march out of Egypt, surely this wisdom would have directed rather to have plundered the Egyptians of their horses and arms, as more necessary for such an expedition, than to borrow their jewels and ear-rings. But God will have them come out naked and on foot, and Moses keeps close to his order; yea, when any horses were taken in battle, because God commanded they should be houghed, they obeyed, though to their seeming disadvantage. It was God’s war they waged, and therefore but reasonable they mill be under his command. They encamped and marched by his order, as the ark moved or rested. They fight by his command. The number is appointed by him—the means and weapons they should use—all are prescribed by God, as in the assault of Jericho. And what gospel of all this—for surely God hath an eye in that to our marching to heaven, and our fighting with these cursed spirits and lusts that stand in way—but that we should fight lawfully, using those means which we have from his mouth in his Word?

I will post another quote from Gurnall from the same section of the book and on the same subject tomorrow.

Continuing yesterday’s theme with another quote from The Christian in Complete Armour:

They do not use the armour of God as such, who in the performing of divine duties, eye not God through them, and this makes them all weak and ineffectual. Then the Word is mighty, when read as the Word of God; then the gospel preached, powerful to convince the conscience, and revive the drooping spirit, when heard as the appointment of the great God, and not the exercise of a mean creature. Now it will appear in three things, whether we eye divine appointment in the means.
   (1.) When we engage in a duty, and look not up to God for his blessing. Didst thou eye God’s appointment in the means, thou wouldst say, Soul, if there come any good of thy present service it must drop from heaven, for it is God’s appointment, not man’s. And can I profit whether God will or no, or think to find, and bring away, any soul-enriching treasure from his ordinance, without his leave? Had I not best look up to him, by whose blessing I live more than by my bread?
   (2.) It appears we look not at God’s appointment, when we have low thoughts of the means. What is Jordan that I should wash in it? What is this preaching that I should attend on it, where I hear nothing but I knew before? what these beggarly elements of water, and bread, and wine! Are not these the reasonings of a soul that forgets who appoints them? Didst thou remember who commands, thou wouldst not question what the command is. What though it be clay, let Christ use it and it shall open the eyes, though in itself more like to put them out. Hadst thou thy eye on God, thou wouldst silence thy carnal reason with this, It is God sends me to such a duty; whatsoever he saith unto me I will do it, though he should send me, as Christ them, to draw wine out of pots filled with water.
   (3.) When a soul leaves off a duty, because he hath not in it what he expected from it. Oh, saith the soul, I see it is in vain to follow the means as have done; still Satan foils me, I will even give over. Dost thou remember, soul, it is God’s appointment? Surely then thou wouldst persevere in the midst of discouragements. He that bids thee pray, bids thee pray without ceasing; he that bids thee hear, bids thee wait at the posts of wisdom. Thou wouldst reason thus, God hath set me on duty, and here I will stand, till God takes me off and bids me leave praying.