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{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…
Exhortation and Counsel to Professors of Christianity
Use Everything for Heavenly Advantages
Use Your Privileges for Heavenly Advantage}
Believers should be getting good from privileges1048 to the great and noble purpose of spiritual good. Every believer has some privileges that may profit the soul. There are [at least] three types of privileges:
Natural;
Providential;
Spiritual.
All of these can contribute some profit to those who make good use of them.
{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade …
Exhortation and Counsel to Professors of Christianity
Use Everything for Heavenly Advantages
Use Your Privileges for Heavenly Advantage
Use Your Natural Privileges}
Inborn talents, youth, health, and strength are part of nature’s treasure. They are to be cultivated and employed in the use and service of the soul. These are some of those talents1049 that the great Householder gives to His family (though in different measures) for profitable use. They are singular mercies if they are well used to the Donor’s purposes and rules. We make good use of natural privileges when we make humble use of inborn talents [abilities] for the good of others and set wit, memory, reason, the best of our intellectual abilities, and the best endowments of our rational minds on the service of the soul (3 John 2).1050 We must make our minds woodcutters and water carriers for the sanctuary of the Lord. It is good to shave and pare off the excrement and froth of wit so that our minds may become Israelites, devoted to the God of Israel, and be put to spiritual uses (Deuteronomy 21:12),1051 and kept under the government of the Holy Spirit.
Those of you who have intellectual talents and power of mind, do not prostitute them to the pleasure of the flesh and service of sin. Rather, give them to the use of the Spirit so as to enrich yourself with true wisdom and increase of the knowledge of God, which bring salvation. When lively mental talents and sparkling wit are inlaid with grace, then they are “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold In settings of silver” (Proverbs 25:11 NKJV). Oh, how pleasant are these endowments of nature when festooned with grace and as perfumed. “What is that coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of a merchant?” (Song of Solomon 3:6 ESV).
The time of youth is another privilege useful for advantage to the soul. It is the morning of the soul’s day, the best and most useful time when appropriated to God and divine uses. Youth has advantages [energy and strength] for zeal and dispatch of duty. Whereas, like an honorably discharged long-serving soldier, decrepit age has worn out its capacity for service. Old age is as the setting sun, which brings evening cold and shadows, and the close of useful working time. Also, the salvation of a sinner is a great and amazing work and at the time of conversion to Christ, conscience is sunk down into the depths of guilt, the affections are clogged with the dirty things of this world and previously engaged to other lovers, and the marrow of nature’s strength has been eaten out by the wasting service of sin.1052 But, youth has a greater ability to carry out all the work to overcome these things than an aged person. Those of you who are yet young and in your morning of life, let God have springtime of your life, the greatest portion of your strength, and the first ripe fruit of your abilities. Do not let youthful pleasures have the better part of your time and abilities, leaving the residue for God and your souls.
You who have strong and healthful bodies, put them to the best use for your heavenly portion. Are you strong for labor? Work out your salvation: labor for the bread that endures. You who have [strong] legs, use them while you have them to carry you up and down to follow God. If you must eat bread by the sweat of your brows, let it be the bread of your Father’s house. If you must rise up early, sit up late, break your rest, and exhaust your strength, let Christ have some of your strength before it is all gone. Indeed, if you have any, let Christ have all.
Use Your Providential Privileges
{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…
Exhortation and Counsel to Professors of Christianity
Use Everything for Heavenly Advantages
Use Your Privileges for Heavenly Advantage
Use Your Providential Privileges}
Just as there are natural privileges, so there are providential privileges also. These are resources that Providence dispenses to some for doing and receiving good beyond most others, such as liberty, peace, plenty, and other outward mercies, all of which you must manage to the best advantage of your souls.
Do you have peace with people? Use it to obtain and secure your peace with God. Your strongest agreements with other people will hold for only a while. But if your covenant with God is broken, what can the favor of people profit you if you have frowns from God? If men sheath their swords and God’s is drawn, your situation is dangerous and full of trouble. If you are in a time of peace, use it to prepare for future trouble and to be better armed when trials come. Do not spend all your store on your present peace and comfort, but save some fragments for times of need. God gives you time to catch your breath that you may hold out better in your race; He spares you a little rest so that you may be fitter for approaching trouble.
Do you have liberty? Take heed of yokes of bondage (Galatians 5:1),,1053 and things that constrain the soul. If God has released you from bondage, do not imprison yourself in the world and carnal lusts. If your body is out of prison, labor to get your soul out also (Psalm 142:7).1054 Are your feet unfettered? Get your heart unfettered and run in the ways of His commandments (Psalm 119:132).1055 Make the most of your liberty by doing service to God, attending on all His appointments, taking all opportunities to do salvation-work, and enjoying helps to salvation. Be like your Lord, going up and down doing good while you have opportunity (John 12:35).1056 If you have spare time, or can redeem it away from your earthly business by double diligence, lay it out for God and His people in Christian duties, Christian visits, and holy conversations. The time may come when you will wish for the privilege of liberty and long to see one of the days of the Son of Man.
Do you have a substantial portion of the good things of this life? Is your storehouse full, your table spread, your cup overflowing? As if storing up provisions for winter,1057 lay up a sense of your present mercies to warm your hearts [in thanksgiving] when you do not have the same mercies later. Also, lay those good things out to refresh those who lack them, that they may bless God for you and glorify God in you. It will also procure mercy for you in the day of need. Do not make yourself a slave to your abundance, but make your plentiful comforts serve you.
{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…
Exhortation and Counsel to Professors of Christianity
Use Everything for Heavenly Advantages
Use Your Privileges for Heavenly Advantage
Use Your Spiritual Privileges}
It is the lot of some to have spiritual privileges also, and these call for improvement and use for great good. There are personal privileges: the state and Spirit of adoption, justification, purchased right to pardon and peace with God, freedom from damnation, assurance of preservation in grace to glory, and many gifts of grace and spiritual favors that thousands do not enjoy. And there are public privileges: access to God, the communion of saints, a place within the walls of God’s house, a variety of provisions for the soul, a portion in the promises of God, and the prayers and graces of His people. These are things of infinite worth, purchased at no less cost than the blood of Christ. You who have these things, consider what obligations you have to behold them with wonder, to hold them with trembling, and use them with diligence and faithfulness. You who are planted in the courts of the Lord (Psalm 92:13–14),1058 be stout and flourishing and do not content yourselves with bare privileges. Do not feed on dry bones like dogs, but get the marrow, juice, and virtue of all your advantages. Do not be as Lazarus and lie at the door of your rich Lord while the dogs lick your sores—when you may go in and be healed.
1048Webster’s Dictionary (1913 edition) defines privilege as “a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor; a right or immunity not enjoyed by others or by all; special enjoyment of a good, or exemption from an evil or burden; a prerogative; advantage; franchise.” Thus Ashwood’s use of privilege implicitly, but clearly, refers to God’s sovereign allotment to each person such things and conditions as He sees fit in His infinite wisdom.
1049talent: probably in this context, a unit of weight of money as in: “To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey” (Matthew 25:15 NASB).
1050“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 2 NKJV).
1051“Then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails” (Deuteronomy 21:12 NKJV).
1052While it is obvious that a person who repents and believes in Christ late in life will not have the time for the same amount of sanctification and Christian service as one who believes in Christ at a young age, we are not saved by works, but by grace working through faith in Christ alone! Ashwood’s point here is to encourage youth to not put off repentance and faith in Christ.
1053“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1 ESV).
1054“Bring my soul out of prison, So that I may give thanks to Your name; The righteous will surround me, For You will deal bountifully with me” (Psalm 142:7 NASB).
1055“Look upon me and be merciful to me, As Your custom is toward those who love Your name” (Psalm 119:132 NKJV).
1056“So Jesus said to them, ‘The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going’” (John 12:35 ESV).
1057This is a reference to subsistence agriculture when food cannot be harvested in the winter, or where one is snowed in for a long time, as at high elevations.
1058“Those who are planted in the house of the Lord Shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; They shall be fresh and flourishing” (Psalm 92:13–14 NKJV).
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