Matthew Mead
CARRY THE LIGHT ~ CLASSIC CHRISTIAN BOOK GIVEAWAY
God has two hedges - Matthew Mead
(Matthew Mead, "The Power of Grace
in Weaning the Heart from the World")
God is never better to us—than when the creature is most bitter to us!
Thus God dealt with Israel, "She said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.' Therefore I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will wall her in—so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.'" Hosea 2:6-8.
God has two hedges which the Scripture takes notice of:
1. The hedge of his protection, which you read of Job 1:10, "Haven't You placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns?"
2. The hedge of affliction, which you read of here: "I will hedge up her path with thorns."
Now the Lord make use of both these hedges:
The hedge of protection—is to keep His people from danger.
The hedge of affliction—is to stop His people from wandering.
The hedge of protection—is to keep them in God's way.
The hedge of affliction—is to keep them out of sin's way.
The hedge of protection—is to keep them from suffering.
The hedge of affliction—is to keep then from sinning,
and to put them upon returning to God.
So it was with Israel here—when God had hedged up her way, that she could not find her paths, nor overtake her lovers—then she cries out, "I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now!"
It is a great mercy for God to wean a soul from the world; for it never suffers greater—than when it forsakes God to live upon the creature! "Those who cling to lying vanities—turn their backs on all God's mercies!" Jonah 2:8. It is forsaking the living fountain—to quench our thirst from a broken cistern! Jeremiah 2:13.
When the Lord weans a soul from the world—He embitters the world to the soul; either by some affliction, or by some disappointment in the creature—which makes the soul look out for the more pure and lasting satisfactions, which are in Christ.
Matthew Mead
Matthew Mead (1629-1699) was born in 1629 in Bedfordshire. He studied at Eton College, and shortly thereafter was elected to King’s College in Cambridge. He resigned two years later “to avoid expulsion for refusing to take the engagement to the Commonwealth.”
He married in 1655 and began delivering the morning lecture at St. Dunstan and All Saints in Stepney. He identified with the Independents during Oliver Cromwell’s rule, and was accordingly appointed curate of New Chapel in 1658, a position which he lost upon the Restoration. In 1659 he became lecturer at St. Bride’s.
In 1661 Mead preached a series of seven sermons which were later turned into the manuscript for his most enduring work,The Almost Christian Discovered. Shortly after it was printed, he was ejected from his lectureship because of his nonconformity. His final sermon, “The Pastor’s Valediction” (1 Corinthians 1:3), encouraged his hearers to stay the course and be true to ideals, rather than conform.
Mead had a close working relationship with William Greenhill, first as his assistant, then his assistant pastor, then his successor, at Stepney. It was as pastor over this congregation that Mead spent the majority of his career, preaching there from 1671 until his death in 1699. During this time the Stepney congregation was reported to be the largest congregation in London.
He strongly supported attempts at reconciliation between Presbyterians and Congregationalists, as led by John Howe in 1690. Mead preached a popular sermon, “Two Sticks Made One” from Ezekiel 37:19, teaching that needless denominationalism was dishonoring to Christ.
He died in 1699, at the age of seventy. He was the father of thirteen children. His good friend John Howe preached his funeral sermon, calling him “a very reverend and most laborious servant of Christ.”