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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80739	Divine drops distilled from the fountain of Holy Scriptures: delivered in several exercises before sermons, upon twenty and three texts of Scripture. By that worthy gospel preacher Gualter Cradock, late preacher at All-Hallows Great in London.	Cradock, Walter, 1606?-1659.	1649 (1649)	Wing C6757; Thomason E585_8; ESTC R206263	151,866	263

Lord of Hosts which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working What is the meaning of that That that made the Prophet cry out that the Lord was wonderful in Counsel and mighty in working it was this to see the harmony between Gods Works in his Books and in his Creatures O who would think when a man is plowing that there were such a mystery there that he should fetch a glorious mystery in afflicting his Saints from a little Cummin This also is from the Lord of Hosts which is wonderfull in counsell and excellent in working that he reveales his blessed will in his book and gives such a glorious copy of it in the creatures that we may understand the one by the other Thus have I shewed you a little of the meaning of the word of God in this Chapter as I understand Expositions and Observations on ISAIAH 40. 1. Comfort ye comfort ye my people saith your God YOu shall finde that in the Scriptures especially Consolation a duty in the New Testament we are commanded to comfort one another as much as to exhort and more then to reprove It is very ordinary Comfort one another Though the other duties to the Saints in the New Testament are full of consolation The Apostle from every argument would have us draw comfort from the coming of Christ and every thing almost There are these four things that I shall speak of Four things hinder Consolation that hinder the consolation that might be in your souls If I take away those hinderances it is as much as if I did positively comfort Im ∣ pediment First The first is I will not say you want faith but you have a faith of the Law and not of the Gospel You believe in God but not in Christ My meaning is this your saith is begotten and bred according to the doctrine and principles of the Old Testament It is good and true but it is bred and nourished according to the principles and strain of the Old Testament which old Testament saith the Apostle is done away You need not stumble you know my meaning your faith is not yet come clearly according to the strain and course and frame of the New Testament You will say There is but little difference between the old and the New Testament Look how they be opposed 2 Cor. 3. Gal. 2. and in the Hebrews that is the main business to shew the difference between the old and New Testament Now that your faith is so it will appear three ways Which appears three ways First there is a Heathenish desire of sanctification of holiness Holiness is a blessed thing and there are none desire more earnestly sincerely to be holy then the Saints in the New Testament Holiness is upon the bridles of the horses of the Church yet there is a desire of holiness in the soul that is legal faith that by the earnest desire of holiness a man may see the frame of his faith to be legal There may be a thirst that ariseth from a Feaverish distemper of body that is not good Therefore truly a man may desire holiness more then happiness as you are wont to express it He may desire holiness and to avoyd sin more then Hell it self and any thing in the world He may say he would not for a world but overcome his lusts and O that I could overcome my frowardness and my pride and yet it may be a Heathenish kinde of thirst I have known people that have gone every day to hear and have wept and desired holiness and yet out of a Heathenish desire of holiness Why what is the meaning of this how comes this about The soul resolving to be justified and to finde favor with God partly by the righteousness of Christ and partly by some grace not that it hath but that it hopes to have Therefore the soul as a Feaverish man reacheth out and layes down this conclusion I must be holy and there are some things if I could reach them then I should be well and so the Feaver grows higher and higher And God crosseth him for it is against the way of the Gospel God will do no good to us if we go contrary to his glory Therefore if we weep our hearts out we shall not have it for it is a designe of our own saith God You will not be content with the righteousness of Christ but you will have something to make it up you will believe and be holy but you shall go my way or not at all Now a Saint that is according to Gods minde first upon believing in Jesus Christ and his righteousness his soul is fully satisfied and he is at peace He saith Lord whether I be holy or not I see a full righteousness in Jesus Christ to justifie me and to sanctifie me and pacifie my conscience And Lord here I am Thou knowest that I have nothing but my old nature thou art wise all my sins are done away do with me what thou wilt If thou wilt put me to pain or into poverty or into Hell or suffer me to go in rags all my life long do so As a godly man said If pride and frowardness must have its work though I had rather go to Hell for the time yet here I am I rejoyce in my spirit because I am accepted of thee So here is a desire of holiness but it is not Heathenish as if a man could have no assurance and comfort in his soul till he had gotten such a degree of grace These are Feaverish desires Secondly It appears to me that your comfort is not right that your faith is not according to the Gospel because of the startlings in your conscience after sin That when God suffers the soul to be overtaken and to fall the soul startles that is horror seizeth presently upon the conscience and hardness upon the heart there is a startling that makes a man that he cannot go on in his calling that makes all his neighbors take notice of him as if he were not his own man Take it as a general rule the most and the greatest dangers or the most dangerous errors border nearest on the most glorious light It is blessed to startle at sin and to desire holiness but I say there is a Heathenish desire of holiness and startling at sin that argues That the conscience is not quieted in Christ Object You will say when a Saint falls into sin shall he take no notice of it Answ Yes and have no peace till he have poured out his soul to God But yet as a Son to a Father and his assurance is whole still Thou art my beloved father and all that is befaln me thou hast suffered it and hast a hand in it I confess Father I am an unhappy childe there is never a member of thy Son Christ that thou hast more trouble with then with me there is none of them so vile and so the heart is all wholly poured out

whole part in them from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot Just as you do with an untoward childe one while you strike him on the head another while you whip him another while you cudgell him on the shoulders till at last the childe be all bruised and wounded so the Lord sent for the Assyrians he sent sicknesse and famine that the Lord had not left an inch whole and the people were very devout for all that they fasted and prayed and the Lord sixteen times in that Chapter saith I will none of them away with them they are an abomination to me they are iniquity They were so far from being reconciled to God by this kinde of fasting and humiliation and the like that doubtlesse they provoke God as much if not more then any other way Therefore blessed is that man or woman that mournes for this not onely on this day but secretly before the Lord this formality I fear the Lord may say to us as to those people in Isay 65. this people take upon them to be holy I am holier then thou yet they are like smoke in my nostrills all the day long I fear our fast dayes are the most smoky dayes in Gods nostrills of all the dayes of the yeer Therefore the Lord open our eyes and the Lord finde a way to deliver us from formality in these things If not I fear the hand of God will be stretched out more and more That is one thing that in my serious thoughts I think God is offended with Secondly as our formall humiliation so our feigned reformation It is the scriptures word as Calvin shews 2 A feigned reformation of reformation It is that you have in Ierem. 3. 10. saith the Lord I corrected Israel yet for all this her treacherous siste Iudah did not turn to me with her whole heart but feignedly Here is a great deal of stirre about reformation here is a great deal of cry but a little reality Look to our congregations to our ordinances to every thing among us you may put all in a little piece of paper There is a great deal of stirre about the Sacrament and the mixed multitude and the Service book and I know not what We must speak plainly before the Lord this day there is a great deal of stirre and abundance of people slain in the world and ruined and plundered and Towns burnt and all for reformation and people think there is a glorious reformation but God knows where it is only there is a great stirre about it therefore I say let every honest heart mourne before the Lord we have shed reall blood we have paid reall money we have taken reall paines and brought upon people a world of miserie they have need to have some reall reformation that they may have some reality I speak but a word I desire you even before the Lord that ye would think more of this then I speak The third thing among us that I fear draws out 3. Vices of ministers Gods hand still it is the flattery and pride and covetousness and apostasy of divers ministers Their flattery that is divers now are grown so wise and so discreet now in such a time as this when the Lord would teach us to see our sins with a maul as we say yet we will not speak we will not deal plainly we will not tell men of their sins We have opportunity to tell Magistrates and great ones they would be told and be thankfull but we are apt to sooth them and to flatter them and if they humour us as we would have them they are brave men zealous men Oh it is a sad thing Then the pride and height of ministers every day growing more and more especially after a little victory there is a deal of preaching and stateliness I have no pleasure to speak of these things but I desire that we should be wiser And such covetousness such shifting wayes to multipliy livings and to get estates in the world these are too palpable Then the apostasy of ministers There are diverse ministers that were comforts to Gods people before in the Bishops times that would preach the will of God and comfort poor people now there is nothing left but railing against Gods people calling them Hereticks and schismaticks that it is a wonder to think God sees this grow more and more and if he should end our war and give us peace we were undone God will keep it up to help to pull down the pride and covetousness and ambition of Ministers to bring them down low to love their brethren and to love honest hearts as before The Lord do it or else this war will never end or the end will be as bad as if it had never ended Another thing I fear that there is a generall put 4. Hardness of heart me in if you will for I may put in my self hardness of heart that grows on us against reproof people even Christians are grown so peevish that no body must reprove or admonish one another for matter of judgement or life none must tell another his fault if he do they will quarrell presently he that Pro. 29. 1. hardeneth his neek being oft reprooved shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy When men will not be told magistrates and ministers and people when they harden themselves daily that it is enough to imprison a man with some kinde of people in the most loving and sincere way in the world to tell them of their faults This is the time when a man is made an offender for a word This is a miserie the Lord give us hearts like the bleeding heart of Ieremiah Jer. 9. that we may weep and mourne in secret for it Then fiftly that that provokes God highly I fear 5. The vices of Officers is the covetousness and self-seeking and perfidiousness among Commanders and Officers That provokes God as in reason it drew on the war as in Germanie the Mercinary souldiers so also in a spirituall sense And it is to be feared that men grow to make a trade of war and he that can get a good place the longer the war holds the better it is and so they have devises to make good his estate while he is in and people learn every day to make a miserable vertue of necessity to make a sweet and fine life of our miseries and when they come to the work then such a one betrayed such a Town and such a one betrayed such a Castle and such a one ran away from the Field that cost ten thousand pounds before he came there As it troubles us in sense and reason so it provokes God and Gods end to keep on the war may be to discover these wretches more and more and to bring them to ruine Therefore if there be any Officer or Committee man or Souldier here whatsoever thou art thou art a cursed man if thy heart delight in riches

chickens or partridges that run their heads in a bush that hide their heads from the Hawk the Hawk sees all their bodies onely in a conceit they hide themselves thus that is they hide their own eyes that they may not see the Hawk but they do not hide their bodies that the Hawk may not see them So men shut their eyes and have many conceits O the Lord deliver us from it this is the hope of wicked men drunkards and whoremongers and sottish creatures that come not up to take Christ The Lord after compares them to little children Compa ∣ rison 2 in bed The bed is shorter then that a man can stretch himself on it As little children when they hear thunder they run under the sheets and blankets and think they are very safe so we conceive that we shall be delivered But truly all the shifts thou hast shall be no more to keep thee when the Lord comes on thee for a drunkard or an unbeliever or a persecutor then the sheets and blankets can keep them from a thunderbolt if God send it I but these were but comparisons and the people were ready to mock the prophet for it Saith he Mock not least your bands be made strong for I have heard from the Lord a consumption determined upon the whole earth Give ear and hear my voice hearken to my speech Doth the plowman plow all day to sow c. This is the manner of the prophet Isaiah especially when he speaks of the miseries and judgements that shall come upon people he mingles comfort for the poor Saints This he refers to the Saints that were upright And to comfort them he takes a comparison from the Husbandman that plows the field For the creatures are Gods Characters God hath written his will in his word at large and he hath written a copy of it as it were in the creatures that by the one we might be enabled to understand the other For we understand not one line of this blessed book any further then we are taught Now God hath so cast things in this world not only for the use and good of man but he hath cast things by his creation and providence in such a way as that every thing might resemble heavenly things Therefore it is said God hath given discretion to the Husbandman to do this the Lord hath ordered the earth so to be plowed and managed and the corn so to be threshed that thereby we might have a shadow of spirituall things comparing it with the blessed word Doth the plow man plow all day God deals diversly with weak and strong Saints What is the meaning of that It is thus you poor Saints God plows you and harrows you and if the Lord follow you with one affliction after another that whosoever escapes you suffer if not without yet within and sometimes you have both you think God deals wonderfull strangely with you Sayth he look on the plowman if ever you see one plow you will say yonder man doth but plow and harrow the land and make it fit to sow Barly or Oats or Wheat he hath some end in it they are the common heaths that lie unplowed but where there is good ground they plow it and when he hath plowed it is his discretion to sow So it is that when the Lord continues his afflictions upon thee thou shouldest consider that God that is thy good father hath some gracious designe to sow Barly or Wheat or Rye to sow some grace more And what though he plow thee or me or another more then other men or women Some lands are plowed thrice some four times besides the sowing they are so tough and dogged So some natures must be ofter and deeper and longer plowed Therefore stare not so much upon the affliction but consider the gracious designe and purpose of God to sow thee and to do thee good Thou and I have barren hearts and there is little corn that is pleasing to him there therefore he meanes by the afflictions that he layes on thee by such a sicknesse by such a perverse husband by such an ungracious childe or losse of estate the Lord means to sow thy barren heart and then blessed be his name If the Lord do that thou mayest well suffer him to plow and harrow thee any way with any instrument as he pleaseth Then he takes another comparison from threshing The Fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon the Cummin c. That is the afflictions of the Saints are also like the threshing of corn as there is no land that bears corn without plowing no more can we enjoy it without threshing some more some lesse some one way some another Now saith he in the manner of afflictions you may observe two things from the threshing of men which was in another manner in those countries then with us It was trod out with the Oxe and they did bring a wheel and horsmen to ride upon their corne in those dry countries And some was beaten with a staff and small corne they did whip out with a rod. So saith he there are two things to be observed in the manner of Gods dealing you that are weak people weak Christians the Lord sees that you are little Fitches Fitches is a little graine and Cummin especially Christ calls them little things yet little and weak Christians are like Cummin and Fitches God will not bring a Cart wheele over them that shall bruise them to pieces and make them worth nothing but he will beat them with a staffe and the Cummin with a rod that is where there is a little weak Saint the Lord will take a little wand a rod a small light affliction But bread corn is bruised because he will not ever be threshing it not break it with the wheel c. That is sometimes also God meanes to lay all the afflictions as it were at once upon his childe where he sees a strong Saint many times he brings his horsemen and his cartwheel as he did with Iob you know Iob had but a bout and so he goes over and some of his days before and his days after were comfortable God brings strong afflictions upon his children The reason is because God will not alway be threshing he will not alway afflict for then the spirit of man would fail before him If thy afflictions be light say I am a little Fitch or Cummin if they be heavy say they will be short for the Husbandman though he deal more coursly with his Corn then with his Fitches yet he takes it into his Barne and laies it up safe so though thy afflictions be sore thou maist from the practice of the Husbandman say they will be short therefore indeavor to learn a little from afflictions and how to carry and behave thy self like a Saint wait patiently upon God to know Gods design and meaning This also cometh forth from the