The Righteous Preserve their Nation

The lives of God's children do keep back judgment and evil from the place where they live, and their death is a forerunner of judgment. The reasons:
(1) Because gracious men do make the times and the places good where they live. It is a world of good that is done by their example and help.
(2) The gracious keep back ill because they bind God by their prayers. They force, as it were, a necessity upon God, that he must let the world alone. As the angel said to Lot in Sodom, 'I can do nothing until you are gone' (Gen. 19:22). They stand in the gap and keep God from pouring down the vials of his wrath. But when they are gone, there is nothing to hinder or stop the current of divine justice. When God's jewels are gathered to himself, then woe to the wicked world, for then God will break forth in wrath upon them. Woe to the old world when Noah goes into the ark, for then follows the flood. Woe to Sodom when Lot goes out of it, for then it is sure to be burned.
This should teach us to make much of such men as truly fear God. They carry the blessing of God with them wherever they go. As Laban's house was blessed for Jacob's sake (Gen. 30:27), and Potiphar's for Joseph's sake (Gen. 39:23), so the wicked are spared and fare the better for the saints who live among them. But what is the common course of wicked men? To hate such with a deadly hatred above all others because their lives and speeches do discover the wickedness of theirs, and because they tell them the truth, and reprove them. They labour to root out all the good men. Surely it will be a thousand times worse with them than it is.
This should also teach us to pray to God to bless those that are good. Is it not good for us to uphold those pillars whereby we stand?
Well may we lament the death of those that are good and bewail their loss.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Josiah's Reformation, pp. 155-59 [119-21]
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