the time fails me Let us lift up our heads in faith and patience our Redemption draweth near shortly we shall be out of the reach of Satan Sin Melancholly Sickness c. we have a Jordan to go over but the Ark goes before us it shall be made passable Christ will take us by the hand and bring us through to the other side I mention you daily in my prayers do you the like I am Yours in Christ your Fellow-soldier and Sufferer T. L. LETTER VI. Sent to a Relation of the Author 's Christian Friend THE Lord hath made me so sensible of your disconsolate Condition that you are seldom out of my thoughts and frequent remembrances in my Prayers that God would give you comfort and peace in believing which he can convey by what instrument he pleaseth We read in Job 33.23 24. If there be a messenger with him an interpreter one among a thousand to shew unto man his uprightness Then he is gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going down to the pit I have found a ransom Elihu in these words makes a defence for God's proceedings with man where he shews it is not man's Ruine that God desires by his various methods he speaks in dreams and by afflictions and he sends a Messenger sometimes with the affliction to shew unto a man his uprightness I hope God hath no design to manifest his wrath to you but to give you evidences of your sincerity for if you did not love God you would not lament for his absence as you do Supposing that your delays in opening to Christ have caused him to depart from you never to return more if you had rejected the good motions of the Spirit it appears by your sorrow that it was not out of malice nor no other fault but what the Spouse was guilty of If he should cast off every one that does not always readily obey his call he would not manifest so great willingness to receive all those that come to him You may be and I doubt not but you are mistaken in your Condition as Mrs. Honnywood was whom God convinced by a Miracle Peter tho he denied his Lord and forswore him yet he manifested himself first to him rather than to any of the other Disciples and took care that he should have the first news of his Resurrection Christ is a merciful and faithful High-Priest he considers our Infirmities he is full of bowels of Compassion and came to seek and save that which was lost Give no credit to Satan who would make you believe that God is not willing to be reconciled who sends Ambassadors on purpose to beseech us to be so If we do our utmost we cannot depend on our own Righteousness but must rely on the mercy of God in Christ which if you do it will be the way to comfort here or at length you will come safe to Heaven which is the Prayer of Your Compassionate Friend G. D. THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART THE Introduction Page 1. CHAP. I. Of the Anger of God and whence it is that he is sometimes angry with his own Servants p. 5. CHAP. II. The Anger of God towards his People is but for a short season and why he is pleased to order it to be so p. 11. CHAP. III. Of the several Advantages that are designed by God to his Servants in his being angry with them only for a moment together with the Obligations which they are under from such a merciful Dispensation of his Providence and the several improvements we are to make of it p. 22. CHAP. IV. Of the great Love of Christ in suffering the Wrath of God in his Soul which is the more to be admired it that he bore it for us and not for the fallen Angels and because now he is from his own experience more qualified to relieve us under all our Temptations p. 39. CHAP. V. Shewing the unreasonableness of long continued Anger 's among good People as also that the temporary Effects of God's Displeasure are more elegible than the Wrath of Men. Of the Excellency of Religion and that the Enemies of the Church have no cause to insult over it because of its certain deliverance and the dismal Conclusion of their own Wickedness upon which account Christians have no reason to envy their Prosperity p. 46. CHAP. VI. Of the Duty of such as have never been under God's Wrath and Terrors and what is the doleful Condition of a Soul that apprehends it self to be under his hot Displeasure p. 66. C HA P. VII Shewing what is to be done by those who think themselves under the Displeasure of God and first of Prayer as a principal help against their Trouble and some Objections of tempted Persons answered p. 83. CHAP. VIII Of Faith in Christ as another help under the sense of God's Displeasure and the several Tendencies it hath to calm a Soul under long and sore Tryals p. 99. CHAP. IX Of the Direct Acts of Faith as the most suitable to a distressed Soul as also of waiting upon God with several Considerations to enforce it and that a Person in great affliction ought to hope that it may be better with him p. 114. CHAP. X. Shewing that People under great Trouble and Anguish of Soul are not to look for Assurance or great Joy on a sudden but as far as they can to enquire into the Reasons of God's Displeasure towards them and to look up to him through the Great Mediator and not further to provoke him as also how they may know when Affliction are sent in Wrath and when in Love p. 127. CHAP. XI Shewing that present Distress of Conscience is no sign of Reprobation There may be too great Trouble for Sin and when it is Excessive former Experiences may be helpful to afflicted People And that God will not judge those that have been good according to what they are in the Woful Disease of Melancholly p. 139. CHAP. XII Of the several Ends that God hath in suffering his Servants to be under long Afflictions and spiritual Distress and Anguish p. 150. CHAP. XIII Shewing what is the duty of those whom God hath delivered from Melancholly and from the Anguish of their Consciences as also what a wonderful Providence it is that suffers a very sinful World to be in so great peace and what cause there is for all People to pray against such Diseases whereof the Devil serves himself to their great Vexation And as the Conclusion of the First Part what we are to think of those that are distracted with trouble for their Sins and of those that dye in great darkness as to their spiritual State p. 171. The Contents of the Second Part. CHAP. I. OF the several sorts of Life that we enjoy by God's Favour and in what conditions of our present Pilgrimage it doth more especially revive us p. 189. CHAP. II. Of Heaven and Hell and of that spiritual Death which hath seized the greatest part
the Rod that hath made us smart for ever drive away that folly which was once bound up in our hearts Doleful Experience and Anguish and Tribulation has told us what a dreadful thing it is to sin By the Judgments that we have groaned under let us learn righteousness VVe are come off the Rack with broken Bones and with many Wounds which our good Physician has been pleased to set and heal again Let us not rebel against his Laws lest we be put to the Rack again 'T is not indeed the Corruptions that are within us that will bring us to it unless we cherish and approve them when they entice us to what is Evil. Tho they war if it be against the allowance of our mind they will not interrupt our Peace with God Let us not be secure tho the Devil have left us it may be only for a season and he may return again with greater fury Let us during the comfortable quiet that we now enjoy be preparing our selves to resist and oppose all his Assaults for the time to come Let us tho we triumph through the Grace of God remember that our Enemies are not yet fully overthrown they are not ashamed of one defeat but will rally their dispersed Forces and come again What did we think of Sin when it had caused the Son of Righteousness to be covered with Clouds that we could not see him nor feel his vital quickning Beams for many days What did we think of it when it had set us on fire round about and brought us to the very Gates of Hell when it sunk and overwhelmed and terrified us every moment Let us never henceforth begin to parley with an Enemy that has used us after such a barbarous and cruel manner VI. After we are delivered from the dreadful Apprehensions of the Wrath of God it is our duty to be publickly thankful Psal 66.16 Come and hear all ye that fear God and I will tell what he hath done for my soul 'T is for the glory of our Healer to tell the miserable Wounds that once pained us and to speak of that kind hand that saved us when we were brought very low 'T is for the glory of our Pilot to tell of the Rocks and of the Sands the many Dangers and threatning Calamities that he by his wise Conduct made us to escape and to see us on the safe Shore may cause others that are yet afflicted and tost with Tempests to look to him for help for he is able and ready to save them as well as us We must like Soldiers when a tedious War is over relate our Combats our Fears our Dangers with delight and make known our Experiences to doubting troubled Christians and to those that have not yet been under such long and severe Tryals as we have been VII The fears that we have had of God and of his Wrath must teach us not inordinately to fear any of those Evils that are of a lower nature Others that have been all their days in ease and quiet that have had no trouble of Conscience or none for a long while together may be afraid of temporal Evils and inconveniences but to us who have for a long time been afraid of God himself how flight a thing should the Wrath of Man appear When we have been under his Displeasure that can kill the Soul whit little cause have we to fear them that can only kill the Body Others may be afraid of a small distress of a little ill weather but it does not become us to fear who have been in so many several Storms for many months together when we have been afraid of Hell there is nothing upon Earth that looks with an aspect so formidable And if God have delivered us from the greatest Dangers we ought to believe that he will save us from the lesser Troubles of our Life Our Experience of so many terrible things should fortify our minds against all future Afflictions that are not of the same kind I shall close this part of the Verse with these two Advices 1. If the Servants of God are obnoxious to such sad apprehensions of his Wrath Then you have great cause to admire the Peace that is in the World Many an one among his People is crying The Lord hath forsaken me His Wrath lieth hard upon me and if all his People if all whose Sins deserve his Wrath should be all so sensible of it and complaining and crying out in the like manner oh what a doleful Cry would that be like the Cry that was in Sodom when it rained Fire and Brimstone like the Cry that was in Egypt when they found all their First-born slain Oh what a change would appear in the World if God should let out the sense of his displeasure upon all that have deserved it this World would be like Hell it self all Commerce and Business would immediately fail for what heart would men have to trade to buy or sell if they did not know but the very next moment they might be in Hell It is one of the mighty Acts of Providence that maintains so great a Calmness in a very sining-World For if he were not infinitely patient if he should open the eyes of all men to see his unspeakable Majesty Holiness Glory and their Offences and their Deserts and their nearness to Destruction and then suffer them as he justly might to be tortured with their guilty Thoughts to be tempted and overcome and to sink into despair oh what Lyons and Tygers would men be ◠they would tear themselves and one another All the Stilness of this Earth would be turned into Rage all its Joys would be turned into gloomy Sorrows and all its Laughters into Weeping and Wailing and gnashing of Teeth and all the Inhabitants thereof would be in Anguish and curse their God and King The most are for the present under insensibility they do not see whither they are a going nor feel the horrors that they are capable of they are treasuring up wrath and it is his goodness that it does not immediately fall upon their heads in burning drops there is but a thin Partition between this World that has in it so many several pleasant Objects and that World of flaming Torture where all is dismal and uncomfortable and if the Curtain were drawn aside and men could look into that fiery Furnace and the Wicked did apprehend that they were going thither oh what consternation what amazement what paleness would be seen on every Forehead that is now most proud and listed up 〈◊〉 2. Pray to God that you may not fall into such Diseases whereof Satan is apt to make very great advantage and also pray that Satan may not be suffered to bring such sickness upon you as will indispose you for the Service of your Maker It is of long and severe Afflictions that the Devil makes great use and they do in their own nature lead to impatience and murmuring and hard
encrease our comfort afterwards by the way in which we did least expect it shall Joy and Pleasure come as the Ravens greedy Creatures brought meat unto the Prophet VII Enquire into the Causes of God's Anger he is never angry as I have said before but when there is very great reason when we force him to be so What is that accursed thing in our hearts or in our lives for which God hides his face and frowns upon us What particular disobedience to his Commands is it for which he has taken up the Rod Vid. Caryl in loc Job 10.2 I will say unto God Do not condemn me shew me wherefore thou contendest with me q. d. Lord my Troubles and my Sorrows are very well known Every Eye beholds my Calamity every Ear is astonished with the report of my sore distress and all that know me or have heard of me wonder why I am above all others in the world made so miserable a man that there has not been an example of the like great and strange affliction since the beginning of the world I my self that feel these wonderful sorrows am most of all perplext shew me for what and why it is that I should be so He was an upright man and not being conscious either of secret allowed sin or open Transgression might be at a great loss to know the cause of his affliction but for the most part of us who are as far from the Grace which he had in his Trouble as we are from the Riches which he had in his Prosperity we may soon know that God is angry for our sin and yet at the same time we must not cease to be sollicitous to know what are the particular sins that have made him to tear us up by the roots to throw us down as with a whirlwind what it is that has made him to be so long angry with us and so long to delay his help that if any evil be undiscovered in our souls we may lament it with a seasonable grief and get a pardon for it It is not the common Course of God's Providence to cover his Servants with so thick a darkness as that is which our Troubled Souls labour under in the day or rather in the night of his Displeasure And therefore we may with Humility desire to know why he proceeds with us in a way that is so singular for it is some way delightful to the Understanding to pierce into the Reasons and the Causes of things Psal 74.1 O God why hast thou cast us off for ever why doth thine Anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture How angry soever he be we must make our Addresses to him and seeing to be cast off to be separated from him is a thing so terrible he allows us to enquire into the Reasons of his Proceedings and to debate the Case and our debate must end in Prayer and Supplication as here v. 2. and tho it be very true that when a man is fallen into a Pit the business of the poor man is not to inquire how he fell thither but how he may be drawn up again and escape the danger that has overtaken him yet in this case of the sense of God's Displeasure the knowledge of the Causes of it may produce many good effects which tho they do not appear in our depths and troubles yet will shew themselves afterwards they will cause us for ever to dread the same things which did bring upon us so many miseries As suppose in another case a Mother that brings forth Children to the Grave that only views them a while and after all the pain of bringing them forth and after all the care of their future welfare sees them one after another snatcht away to know the Reason of this so terrible a stroke will greatly support her spirit as suppose it be to wean her from Terrestrial Comforts and to give her those that are Eternal to take her Children away and to give her more of God to bury her dear Off-spring that her declining Graces may have a Resurrection or that her Comfort in the Living may be more sensible to her when there are so many dead This wiill calm her soul and make even a disconsolate Mother to rejoice Thus when a man is exercised with long and sharp Sickness and Affliction to know the Causes of it may be useful to promote his Humiliation at the present and to make him avoid the like for the time to come if he do recover VIII When you are under a sense of God's Displeasure flye to his Mercy and his Grace in Christ When your Creator is angry 't is not any thing in this world can give you relief but himself flye from God as absolutely considered in his Greatness Justice Holiness and Majesty to him as discovering himself through the Mediator The Hills and the Mountains cannot be a shelter from his Wrath whither can you go from his Presence Whither will not the sense of his Anger and your own guilty thoughts pursue you Betake your selves to him and when you think of him think of him as a God in whom there is the greatest Tenderness and Pity and of which all the Compassion that is in humane nature is but a weak resemblance as it is all one with him in Temporal Deliverances to save by many or by few for what dangers can reâ—â— Omnipotence so 't is as easie with him to 〈◊〉 give a Thousand thousand Sins as one sin 〈◊〉 we be never so unworthy and so vile yet Mercy seeks no other qualification of its object but that 't is necessitous and obnoxious to ruin and it is a good way to flye to his meer grace and mercy for we have undone our selves Poring upon our selves does but encrease our load we are apt to say in our distress Were we so and so mortified to the world were our hearts so purified and cleansed then we might approach him with some boldness who is altogether holy this is true but yet we must first ask of him to make us such in whom he may delight And as we sorrowfully cast our eyes upon our wounds and our miseries let us look at the same time to that Physician who has provided a Remedy for us by Christ and who can heal all our backslidings and teach us to apply that Remedy If we are the worst and the most sinful Creatures upon earth yet is a Saviour tendered to our acceptance and our choice and if we will receive him all our Transgressions how heinous soever will be blotted out As we have a very deep sense of Hell and Destruction so let us have the most enlarged thoughts of the pardoning Grace of God and to this we are encouraged by the discoveries that he hath made of himself through his dear Son His Forgiveness is like himself it is as one says an Object for Faith alone which can rest in that which it cannot comprehend Dr. Owen in Psal 130. p.
would fain persuade you not to run upon the thick Bosses of his Buckler not to dare his Justice not to despise his threats as once it was our folly but we knew not what we did We are come out of great Tribulation and a fiery Furnace and we would fain persuade you to avoid the like danger let what we have felt be a caution to you It was the desire of Dives in his misery that he might leave it to go thence to warn his Brethren lest they came to the same place of torment but it would not be granted some of us here come from the very Gates of Hell to warn you that you may not go thither nay to warn you that you may never go so near it as we did we wish you so well that we would not have any of you to feel so much sorrow and grief as we have felt We were once asleep as you are we did not imagine that terror and desolation was so near when it came upon us and now having been overtaken with a storm of wrath we come to warn you that we see the Clouds gather that there is a sound of much Rain and of great Misery tho' your Eyes are so fixt on things below that you see it not You must speedily arise and seek for a shelter as you tender the salvation of your souls you must not put off serious thoughts for your own safety not for one day not for one hour longer lest it be too late We were travelling with as little thought of danger as some of you and we fell among Thieves they plundred us of our peace and our comfort and we were even ready to dye when that God whose just displeasure brought us low was pleased to take pity of us and to send his Son as the kind Samaritan to bind up our wounds and to chear our hearts and we cannot be so uncharitable as not to tell you when we see you going the same way that there are Robbers on the Road and that if you do not either return or change your course you will smart for your security as much as we have done We have been saved indeed at length from our fears it is as by fire But we suffered while they remain'd very great loss Some perhaps will be saying within himself I shall see no evil tho' I walk in the imaginations of my own heart these things you talk off are the meer product of a melancholly temper that always presages the worst that is always frighting it self and others with black and formidable Idea's and seeing I am no way inclinable to that distemper I need not fear any such perplexing thoughts But know that no briskness of temper no sanguine couragious hopes no jollities nor diversions can fence you from the wrath of God If you go on in sin you must feel the bitterness of it either in this or the next World and that may notwithstanding all the strength of your Constitution all the pleasures of your unfearing Youth come upon a sudden That Cup that is full of sparkling Wine has Dregs and Poyson at the bottom Your souls are always naked and open before God and he can make terrible impressions of wrath there when he will notwithstanding by your chearfulness and mirth you seem to be at the greatest distance from it CHAP. XIII Shewing what is the Duty of those Persons whom God hath delivered from Melancholly and from the anguish of their Consciences under a sense of his Wrath As also what a wonderful Act of Providence it is that suffers a very sinful World to be in so great Peace and what cause there is for all people to pray against such Diseases whereof the Devil serves himself to their great torment and vexation And as the Conclusion of this First Part What is to be thought of those that are distracted with trouble for their sins and of those that dye in great darkness as to their spiritual state I Should now proceed to shew how those Persons that have been long under a sense of God's displeasure and who are now come to some good hope through Grace ought to behave themselves after so terrible a visitation But my Discourses on the former Verses of this Psalm and which I have published some time ago where I mentioned what it is that we are to do after recovery from sickness hath in a great measure prevented my farther insisting on this Subject as also those ends that I have now mentioned which God aims at in these dispensations and if we make it our great care to comply with them we answer his designs and even those sore afflictions will be a very great mercy to us And what I judge further necessary to be said I shall comprise in these following particulars I. That we in all the following part of our Lives value this World very little our unmortified affections were the bryers and the thorns that pierced us and multiplied our sorrows Let us look upon this World and it's most admired Glories as a poor contemptible empty thing for so it is indeed The World by the cares and variety of thoughts to which it naturally carries us easily disquiets and throws us down but it cannot with all its charms raise us up again all its Riches cannot buy an hours Peace and Comfort all its Honours cannot save us from the Contempt of God all its pleasures cannot sweeten our Cup nor all its smiles chear us when he frowns The more we are elevated above all earthly things the more shall we be freed from storm and tempest and it may be true that some tell us That the tops of those Mountains that are above the middle Region are so quiet that the lightest things there lye still and are not moved This World has been formerly and will be still a place of vanity and vexation of spirit we have found it to be so always have we met with trouble When we loved any thing there with an excessive love alas it was able to do nothing for us in our sore affliction when our Consciences were in a flame there was nothing in it that could quench our thirst let us esteem at a low rate such an empty World as this its Comforts are doubtful but its Miseries are certain its Griefs are long-lived but its pleasures are very short II. When the sense of the wrath of God is removed we must by the remembrance of it be fortified against the tentations of Satan when we are tempted to distrust we must say I will not entertain any more hard thoughts of a God whom I have found to be faithful when we are tempted to impatience under some new returning cross we must answer and say I will not fret nor murmur any more against my Gracious and my Loving God that will I am sure remember me still in my low estate as he did heretofore when Satan would persuade us that we are no Sons of God because we are
there are several ways like to this way that have a resemblance to it and yet vastly differ from it there is the Peace of God and there is the Peace of Satan it is the design of that malicious Spirit to let you be quiet in your Sins that you may not see their evil nor feel their bitterness and then you save him the labour to make you miserable for you make your selves so Suffer not him to blind your eyes nor to lead you to destruction whilst you never so much as make one halt nor startle at it You hear others complaining of their Sins and crying out that they are forsaken and undone and miserable and you thank God you have no trouble your Consciences are still and quiet I beseech you take heed that it be founded upon good Reasons that it prove not to be only a short slumber and not a lasting peace It may be you never doubted of God's love to you and it is very well if you have no cause to doubt You think it may be that such as are in Soul distresses are so because they have committed greater sins than other men and that Vengeance therefore like the Viper on Paul's Hand fastens on them because they have been guilty of some very great and monstrous Sin but you must know the Judgments of God are too great a deep for you to fathom he has wise Ends in those severe Dispensations though those that are at ease may have committed as great Sins as those that are in trouble many times a great Calm precedes an Earthquake many times the Sky is very clear just before the Clouds gather and the Lightning and Thunder comes Beware lest you be unsafe whilst you are most confident Beware lest you go down to the Grave as thousands do with a foolish and ungrounded hope Remember the foolish Virgins and that of the Apostle 1 Thess 5.3 CHAP. VI. Shewing by what means we may know whether we have God's Favour or not And first by the graces of his Spirit though the acting of them is neither so strong nor so comfortable at one time as at another And secondly by our hatred of Sin and our being satisfied with all his Providences THE next thing is to Examine and to try whether you have indeed this Favour of God in which is Life There are a great many people that think God to be their Friend when he is their Enemy and a great many troubled distressed Christians think that he is their Enemy when he is their Friend Let us I beseech you be very careful in a thing that so nearly concerns both our present and our future peace Let us take heed that neither the Devil nor our own hearts cheat us in a matter that is of so vast a consequence and we have need of the greater care because if we should flatter our selves with a foolish hope that we are God's Favourites when we are not truly so as our vain Expectations would leave us at the last so the Ruine that it would bring forth would come with a double weight upon us for to fall from great hopes is worse than never to have hoped at all to be miserable after we have thought our selves happy gives a more acute and bitter sting to that misery There is many an one in Hell now groaning under the Eternal Wrath of God that thought he should have seen the Smiles of his Face and not have been terrified with his Frowns that thought he should have walkt in the Streets of the New Jerusalem in liberty and light and peace whereas he is now in Chains of darkness and in anguish inexpressible With what tenderness with what caution and with what holy fear should we manage such an Affair as this with what solemnity ought I to proceed when I am enquiring whether I am a Favourite of God or not whether I belong to the Living or yet remain among the Dead whether I am an Heir of Heaven or an utter stranger to the blessed place and the God that makes it to be so blessed as it is And there is not one person that reads this but has cause to make such an Enquiry and to say with himself I feel by the warmth and vigorous motion of my spirits that I have a natural Life I eat and drink and sleep and take abundance of care and use a thousand projects to maintain this same dear and pleasant Life but whilst my Body is indulged and thrives is not my poor slighted Soul in a state of death and whilst men shew me favour and are friendly to me have I the favour of that God that is to be my Judge and who is either the best Friend or the worst Enemy Now in this matter we may proceed by such Rules as these 1. Have you those graces of the Spirit wrought in you which are the certain pledges and tokens of his Favour Are you rich in faith and yet poor in spirit Are you hungring and thirsting after Righteousness And when you find your own best Actions fall vastly short of the strict and pure demands of the Divine Law do you prize and seek the Righteousness that is in Christ Is that Sin now bitter to your taste and grievous to your thoughts which was once highly esteemed and prized Do you hate and bewail that with a relenting spirit that was once your dearly beloved and your joy Are you mortified to this World and do you walk humbly as wisely considering how weak you are and how liable to be surprized and to fall always considering that you are very sinful and very frail These Graces of Faith Mortification Humility and the like are certain tokens of the Love of God and in a Soul thus qualified he delights to fix his Habitation Isa 57.15 in such a Soul there is a Heaven begun and it not only lives but will attain new strength and proceed to further degrees of life though it now flourish in the Courts of the Lord yet his Light shining upon it will cause it to take the deeper root and to look with a more amiable freshness the Self-conceited shall miss abundance of refreshments that a Soul so lowly will meet withall as those showers of Rain that slide away from the tops of Mountains descend into the Valleys and make them more fruitful Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty He does not give this to remain for a small space only but to remain with his Servants till their work be done it is called the earnest of our Inheritance Ephes 1.14 An Earnest you know is part of the Payment not to be returned again and we are said to be sealed with this Spirit unto the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 i. e. that is as one explains it God does by that distinguish Believers from other men as Seals are employed to make a difference from other things that are not so much to be regarded and as we seal our own Goods or Papers
Gods favour to a soul is matter of great joy to it or these words may denote the promptitude and readiness of Divine Consolations Three things are the usual occasions of joy all which are in this case 1. The remembrance of some danger that we have lately escaped 2. The possession of a present good 3. The solid expectation of some future happiness First The remembrance of a past danger does occasion a more lively sense of joy As past joys renew our grief and make our sorrows more sorrowful so the griefs that are part give us a sweeter and a better tast of joy after long sickness and acute pain 't is very pleasant to be at ease 't is pleasant to rest when we have been tired all the day with hard labour the Laurels of a Soldier flourish with a purer Green when they have been obtained with a mighty difficulty the danger of the Combat brightens the glory of the succeeding Triumph 'T is grateful to the Mariner to stand upon the firm Land and from thence to behold the waves in which he had like to have been thrown away one that has been long in chains rejoyces to find himself at liberty 't is pleasant after a man has been long athirst to be refresht with the fountain of Living waters it renders the joy more accomplished and more satisfying when refreshment comes after long and grievous miseries After long despair the least beam of hope is more reviving a man that has lost his way all night has cause to rejoice at the sight of day As to persons newly converted their faith is full of joy when they compare their former danger and their present safety their former darkness and the shining light that guides their paths so to souls that have been in great anguish and tribulation for sin that have apprehended themselves to be cast out of the presence of the Lord 't is very pleasant to behold his face again 't is pleasant to such as by reason of their sore affliction have been Companions to Owls and Dragons to come into Religious Assemblies and instead of solitary groans and tears to join with the multitudes of those that keep Holiday the soul is then like that of the Returning Prodigal finds it self in the Arms and Embraces of a Loving Father and well treated when it looked as it might justly for rebukes and wrath Thunder and Lightning and Storms make the calm and pleasant weather more grateful to us 't is pleasant after long absence to meet our friend again we find a joy sparkling in our eyes and in our breasts at the sight of them whom we have not seen for many sad and doleful years whom yet we longed to see and that which heightens our pleasure is when a blessing arrives to us that was unexpected that mercy docs fill us with the biggest joy which is extremely suitable to us and which yet we hoped not to receive The Crown sat the easier upon David's head after he had so often thought that he should have fallen by the hands of Saul As life tasts with a better relish when there has been but one step between us and death With what Transports doth a kind mother see her Son coming home whom she gave for lost and dead What a chearful Interview was that which Jacob had with his Son after he had so often thought that he had been torn to pieces as soon as he came near he fell upon his neck and there the revived soul of the poor old man was ready even with excess of pleasure to melt away he never thought to have seen his Joseph his dear Joseph any more he was even with sorrow for his apprehended death going down to the Grave and the news of his Son's welfare made him to be young and live again for at the hearing of it the spirit of Jacob revived and Israel said It is enough Joseph my Son is yet alive I will go and see him before I die Gen. 45.28 And so the Jews having liberty to return from Babylon were so surprized with the favour of their sudden deliverance and the greatness of the mercy that they could hardly think it true it seem'd to be the meer effect of Imagination which during the Interruption of our usual thoughts by sleep put several deceits upon us Psal 126.1 2. When the Lord turned again the Captivity of Zion we were like them that dreamed They were delivered in a manner illustrious and surprizing and it is thus exprest for three Reasons 1. A man does not foresee what he dreams of a man that is apt to be cherished with sound and refreshing sleep does not know whether he shall dream or not So this deliverance arrived to them when they thought not of it 2. As it arrived without any pain to them that were delivered as when we dream we are in repose and are at no trouble and this heightens the glory of a deliverance and the love of the deliverer when the person delivered takes no care about it 3. This deliverance was above all that they could hope for as if a man dreamed of something like it but which he saw not when he was awake for such are the Chymera's which the Imagination then forms and which fall not under the notice of our senses such a thing was never heard or seen before * Monsieu Charles in loc The return of comfort to a Soul that was even expiring in grief and sadness is like the raising of Lazarus to his mourning Sisters they thought that if the Lord had been there he had not died but they did not in the least think that he should be raised again The review of our former miseries does encrease the sense of present happiness the light which the Grace of the Gospel brought into the world and that dissipated the obscurities that compassed it about made the Apostles full of admiration and of wonder when they thought of their former ignorance and error and the light and knowledg that God had given them ever are they wondring at the Riches of his Grace that instead of the corruption in which they were plunged gave them Sanctification Joy and Hope What a surprize was it to the poor Shepherds that were in the field watching their flock by night Luk. 2.9 to see an Angel and the Glory of the Lord shining round about them To see such a Glory when they thought of nothing less nor did expect so great a Grace * Claude Traitte de la Composition d'un Sermon p. 267. but 't is usual with God to bestow the most eminent favours when men do not look for them as Christ came to seek Sinners when they thought not of him and when their minds were filled with other objects they were afraid for great objects when they present themselves suddenly to us usually give us much astonishment for our spirit on these occasions has not the liberty to use its forces and they are most frequently
may more effectually shew the evil of Sin and preach Repentance to their Neighbours round about He sets some on Fire that they may serve as Beacons to warn the rest of approaching Danger He is sometimes angry that he may maintain the Honour of his Laws and the Justice of his Government He throws some upon Sick beds that others may by them learn to know their own frailty and prepare for the like Tryals Some he leaves in Darkness and Anguish and Tribulation that others may learn to prize the Light lest they come to the very same Calamity He shoots his Arrows into the Souls of some of his Servants that all who behold his severe and righteous proceeding may tremble at it and learn to fear him who is so Holy and so Just a God That they may not dare to venture upon those Sins under the woful effects of which they see their fellow-creatures groan so very much and he must bean hardned Malefactor indeed that will practice his old Crimes when he sees another whipt or executed for those of the very same kind Thus the view and the report of his Judgments have a natural tendency to reform the World to purify and make it better as Thunder and Lightning cleanse the Air and make it more healthful How wicked is this present World notwithstanding the manifold Examples of his Justice And how much more wicked would it be if he suffer'd Sin always to be unpunished His best Servants are too secure and careless too forgetful of him and of themselves till he awaken them by some severe stroak upon themselves or others and make them to be more diligent and more serious when they see the Clouds gather and the Night drawing on and by his anger he designs to teach us all to put an higher value on the Love of Christ and to make us know of how high a nature our Offence was seeing his only Son endured so much of his Wrath ere we could obtain a Pardon And when we smart our selves under his displeasure to make us ever admire the kindness of our Saviour that freely suffer'd so much smart and pain for us 3. He is angry with his own to teach them to value his favour more than they ever did If it were not that we feel the bitterness of his Anger we should not have so sweet a relish of his Love If he did not sometimes withdraw himself we should not think his presence so comfortable as it is If it were not sometimes Winter and storm and frosty Weather we should not take so great a pleasure in the Summer-season Oh! how pleasant are the Smiles of God when we have long laid under the terror of his Frowns How pleasant is it to find him to be indeed our Friend when we have long thought him to be our Enemy How pleasant is it to have the hope of Heaven when a Man has long trembled at the very Gate of Hell When we have been long wandring for our Follies as in a strange Land how pleasant is it to come to our home again After we have been among our Enemies to come to our Heavenly Father to have him to meet us with encouraging words to embrace us in his Arms to feast us at his Table to call us his Children to forget all our former Injuries and to be at peace with us How shall we run under his Wing for shelter when we have found that innumerable Dangers overtook us while he withdrew his Care How shall we wait upon him with Obedience and Love and yield him faithful Service in all that he Commands when we remember what Griefs our former disobedience brought upon us He is angry with us to cure our Luxuries our Wantonness and Pride and when our Follies have brought us low we shall give a most hearty welcome to the first dawning of the day to the first shining of his face and tho before we priz'd at a small rate his highest Favours and his largest Entertainments we shall now value one glimps of Light as much as we did the whole Sun before and to partake tho but of the Crumbs that fall from his Table will seem to us both an honour and a priviledg After many days of Storm and Darkness 't is the more pleasant to see the Sun even the very Birds sing with a sweeter Note when there is a clear Sky and the Furrows of the Fields rejoyce after a long Drought to be refresh'd with the former and the latter pain When a Country has been long harass'd with Confusions Tumults and bloody Wars how delightful is the return of Peace When a soul has mourned a great while in fear and trouble how delightful is it to hear the voice of its God saying Be of good comfort How do his Promises like dew from the womb of the morning cause his poor drooping spirits to revive Isa 12.1 CHAP. II. The Anger of God towards his People is but for a short season and why he is pleased to order it to be so 1. HIS anger is but for a moment if compar'd with the Eternity of Happiness which he designs them Their troubles and afflictions shall have a period but their glory shall never have an end They weep for a while and they shall rejoice for ever They are disconsolate a few years on earth but how little and inconsiderable are these to the vast durations of Eternity 2. His Anger is but for a moment if compared with the continuance of his Love In his Favour is Life that is usually the greater portions of out Life are laden with his Benefits we have more pledges of his Love than messengers of his Wrath We have more Mercies than Crosses We have a thousand easie Blessings for one sharp Affliction His Displeasure brings a storm but his Favour shines when that is gone and past We have many a fair Season to one dark and gloomy Day The Reasons why his Anger is but for a moment are 1. He remembers the frame of his poor people for if his Wrath should be long continued they must utterly sink and perish Psal 103.14 For he remembreth our frame he knoweth that we are but dust One Frown causes us to sink and tremble what then would his multiplied Frowns and Displeasure do He knows our tenderness with what evil inclinations our nature is corrupted how prone we are to sin and how if he should be strict to mark what we do amiss he must continually destroy the works of his own hands and have none left to serve him here on earth He remembers with what frailties we are daily beset and he pities us as a Father does the weakness of his Child He could kill us in a minute and take away our breath how soon can he scatter a little dust and pull in pieces our frail constitution For we are as unable to resist his Anger as the dust to resist the wind he knows we are so weak that if he let us alone we
Decree There are many people whom we are angry with and reprove whom notwithstanding we do in the mean time most sincerely love and Christ has told us Rev. 3.19 As many as I love I rebuke and chasten 4. The Anger of God is but for a moment because he delights in Mercy Psalm 103.8 The Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy He will not always chide neither will he keep his anger for ever It is long before he punishes and 't is with haste that he comes to our help when we repent and many times before In the midst of Wrath he remembers Mercy he does not always inflict what we have deserved but considers what is most proper for him to lay upon us and what we are able to bear and therefore he gives to us some mitigations with our most bitter Cup. He is called the Father of Mercies and the God of all Comfort and tho Punishment does proceed from him as well as Tenderness and Affection yet he is no where called the Father of Judgments Mercy ariseth from his own Nature and he delighteth in it Micah 7.18 He retaineth not his anger for ever because he delighteth in mercy His wrath is said to be reserv'd in Golden Viols Rev. 15.7 i. e. it doth not flow forth all at once but by degrees but his Mercy is compared to a River and a flowing Stream Isaiah 66.12 to the Oyl of gladness to the smell of Myrrh Aloes and Cassia It is a Glory to this God to relieve the miserable and to help his Servants when all their power and might is gone and he ends the Controversy with them when there is cause enough on their side that he should pursue the Quarrel further When he leads us into a Wilderness yet he provides some Water some refreshment for us there It is one of the great Wonders of his Providence that he supports those poor Souls that have no light of Evidence no sense of his Love no hope nothing but the fears of Wrath and Desolation and yet the matter of Fact and our own Experience plainly tells us that so it is his everlasting Arms are underneath and his Power does maintain our Life when we say that he has forgotten to be gracious He bottles our Tears when we weep and hears our Groans when we lament and proportions the Troubles that he sends that they shall not be too long nor too violent Jer. 30.11 I will not make a full end of thee I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished And those Afflictions which his People suffer are not in all respects proper Punishments because his Anger is mixed with mildness and mitigated by the Intercessions of a Mediator Lam. 3.31 32. The Lord will not cast off for ever but tho he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his tender mercies 5. That his Anger is but for a moment is for his own Name sake His Nature is most inclinable to do us good therefore the Prophets to those Idolaters mentioned in 1 Kings 18.24 says The God that answers by sire let him be God and he chose that Element above the rest to signify how soon we shall have Mercy it comes as upon the wings of the Wind it is as swift as the rays of Light Hosca 11.9 I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger I will not return to destroy Ephraim for I am God and not man A Man when he is greatly provoked by his Enemy is not satisfied with having once made him feel his Anger but carries on his Revenge to further degrees and only ceases the pursuit with the Death of him that he first assaulted But the Great God tho he is able to Conquer those that oppose him with a total Defeat and Ruin yet he suffers them to breathe and live that they may Repent and that he may cause his Goodness to shine with a greater Brightness to the World He could follow them with one Blow after another with a Succession of new and greater Miseries but he restrains his Anger for his own sâ—ke And it maybe a great Consolation to poor afflicted People to consider that they have to deal with God and not with Men when they have sinn'd they have not to deal with Men that are full of Rage and Cruelty but with a God that is gracious and full of Mercy not with Men that may Caress them to day and Hate them to morrow but with a God that is unchangeable and even when they are in the Fire or in the Water his Love is still to them the very same Men think it a dishonour to spare their interiors if they do not by the lowest Submissions testify their Sorrow for their Crimes but the Great God is so far above all his Creatures that he may when he will think them below his Indignation and magnify his Goodness in sparing and forgiving them when they most deserve to dye Isaiah 4.8 9. For my names sake will I defer mine anger and for my praise will I refrain for thee that I cut thee not off 'T is his Power that moderates his Anger Those Persons that have the least strength either of Reason or of Courage are the most passionate and inclinable to Revenge In Punishments he shews his Dominion over his Creatures but his Power over himself when he forgives great Injuries and is slow to punish great Affronts and his Power in those Acts of Grace is very great and illustrious He is God and not Man there is more Compassion and more real Pity in him than in the most compassionate or tender hearted Man that we ever knew He is God and not Man he whom we have offended and who can destroy us begins first to treat about a Reconciliation with us This is not the manner and way of Men who think that those who have offended them are to make the first advances towards a repairing of the Breach There is no Attribute in the displaying of which the Great God glories so much as in this of Mercy and 't is by this that he would be known Exod. 34.6 7. 6. That his Anger is but for a moment is because he would make a difference between the righteous and the wicked The Afflictions that he sends upon the Righteous are to prepare them for Heaven and Glory But those Scourges that he uses to the Wicked and Impenitent are but the beginning of their Sorrows the flashes of those Flames that will consume them for ever The distresses of the Righteous are short and so are the Prosperities of the Wicked The Righteous are weeping here but they shall rejoyce hereafter The Wicked have now their Heaven such as it is and hereafter they go to an Eternal Hell and there must they weep and wail when the Good and Holy shall have all their Tears wiped away The one shall find him to be a loving Father and to have been
so in all their Tryals and Calamities and the other shall find him to be an Enemy and to have been so tho they had many good things in the time of the present Life The Righteous have Sweetness and Mercy mingled with their Sorrows here but the Wicked shall have there pure and unmingled and intolerable Wrath. Here in the most heavy Strokes the Servants of God find now and then some little Comfort but his Enemies in that World must have no drop to cool their Tongues no refreshment nor support for ever The same Sun that will cherish the Righteous with his everlasting Beams will scorch the Wicked and fill them with an inexpressible Rage and Fury God will throw them from all their heights silence all their lofty Speeches and ruin all their vain-glorious Designs Dan. 4.17 The demand is by the word of the holy ones to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men that is by the petitions of Angels Charnock of Gods Dominion p. 767. who cannot endure that the Empire of God should be obscur'd by the Pride of Men. Besides the tender respect that he hath to his own Glory he is constantly presented with the Solicitations of the Angels to punish the Proud of the Earth that darken the Glory of his Majesty 'T is necessary for the rescue of his Honour and necessary for the Satisfaction of his Illustrious Attendants who would think it a shame to them to serve a Lord that were always unconcerned in the Rebellions of his Creatures and would tamely suffer those that spurn at his Throne His Wrath to his Servants is with Mercy and but for a moment but to his Enemies it will be severe and abiding Wrath. CHAP. III. Of the several Advantages that are designed by God to his Servants in his being Angry with them only for a moment toge her with the Obligations which they are under from so merciful a Dispensation of his Providence and the several Improvements we are to make of it Inf. 1. NONE of the People of God have Cause to conclude That because he is angry with them at present therefore they are in a state of Wrath. Our sense and feeling of things that are very bitter joyned with the knowledge that we have of our Guilt and our innumerable Sins does frequently corrupt our Reason and obscure our Faith And from the severity of his present Dispensations we are apt to say he has forgotten to be gracious If the Lord be with us as Gideon said why then is all this befallen us and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of Judges 6.13 he will be favourable no more But this is the Language of our mistaken unbelief Isaiah 49.14 15. Zion said The Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten me Can a woman forget her sucking child yea she may but I will not forget thee Isaiah 40.27 Why sayest thou O Jacob and speakest O Israel That my way is hid from the Lord and my judgment is passed over from my God Our Sins indeed may cause him to withdraw the manifestations of his Love so that we shall feel no comfort in our Prayers none in his Ordinances none in his Words Every threatning shall pierce us to the quick and no promise yield us quiet and yet for all this he may with his vital Influences return again and tho we have not seen either the Sun Moon or Stars for many Days and Nights yet a glorious Light may succeed afterwards In sore Afflictions our grieved sense and the fear that attends our Guilt and the malice of the Devil may put us upon desperate and unwarrantable Conclusions and the deserted Person may say I am abhorred of the Lord he counts me for his Enemy he is cruel to me he is departed from me Ho answers me not I go to his Ministers and they give me no relief I go to his Word and it is bitter to my taste it fills me with gall and wormwood I seek him in my Solitudes and in the Assemblies of his People but I find him not He has left me he has thrown me off The comforter that should relieve my Soul is far from me He hath built against me he hath hedged me about that I cannot get out he hath made my chain heavy Also when I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayer He is unto me as a Bear lying in wait and as a Lion in secret places Lam. 3.7 8 9 10. This is a sad and a doleful Case and yet one that suffers all this ought not to say that there is no future help for God may be gracious and his wrath tho very terrible and perplexing is but for a moment No Believer ought to conclude that because he is under the displeasure of God at present that therefore he is a Child of wrath nor ought he from his present feeling to dare to assert his Reprobation it is an usurping that Judgment which does not belong to Men and a positive Determination of that which we cannot know We may as well conclude that when the Sun sets it will never rise again or that when thick Clouds darken the Air it will never be fair weather any more We ought never to forget the Case of Job never was any Man covered with a greater heap of Miseries never was any Man more seemingly left of God and harass'd by by the Devil than he was never did any Man make more doleful complaints than what we hear from the poor Man in his heavy tryal as Job 10.16 Thou huntest me as a fierce Lyon and again thou shewest thy self marvellous upon me thou renewest thy witnesses against me and increasest thine indignation upon me Chap. 19.10 Know now that God hath overthrown me and compassed me with his net he hath destroyed me on every side and I am gone mine hope hath he removed like a tree he hath kindled his wrath against me and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies And yet what a glorious deliverance had the poor Man after all this We ought not to say that because we are miserable at the present we shall always be so or that because God is now angry he will never be pleased again no we ought rather to remember that it is but for a moment and tho' the kind hand of a Friend may put us to pain yet he does but search our wounds in order to a Cure he will not poison our Sores nor as an Enemy take pleasure in our Torments Inf. 2. We have great cause to be patient in all those sufferings that are the effects of God's displeasure seeing it is but for a moment Mic. 7.9 I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him till he plead my cause There is nothing to which we are more obnoxious under the sense of God's displeasure than to fretfulness and discontent as David Psal 31.22 I said in my
the ungodly and the sinner appear Prov. 24. 17 18. Rejoyce not when thine enemy falleth and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth lest the Lord see it and it displease him and he turn away his wrath from him Entertain not a secret pleasure in the downfall and distress of any Man whatsoever for these inhuman affections are so displeasing to God that they may provoke him to translate the Calamity from thy Enemy unto thee and thereby damp thy sinful joy with a double sorrow first to see him delivered from his trouble and then to find thy self involved in it See Patr. Paraph. in loc Do not triumph over any in affliction lest the Cup be taken out of their hand and put into yours Do not with the Friends of Job censure them for greater sinners than any in the World because of their sorer Tryals as if you were acquainted with the secrets of the Decrees of God and could pierce with your shallow Reason into the bottom of his unfathomable Judgments Those that are under an apprehension of the Divine displeasure know that it is for sin it is that which troubles and afflicts them more than any thing besides but you ought not to conclude that they are sinners beyond the rest of Men but rather wonder at the Goodness of God that he is gracious and more favourable to any when they all deserve to dye Do not by reproachful Language add affliction to those that are afflicted Zech. 1.15 I am very fore displeased with the heathen that are at ease for I was but a little displeased and they helped forward the affliction It was the cruel insulting of wicked Men over her miseries of which the Church was sensible when she says Mic. 7.8 Rejoyce not against we O my enemy when I fall I shall arise when I set in darkness the Lord shall he a light unto me Inf. 6. How much happier is the condition of a good Man than of one that shall remain impenitent In his wickedness He is angry with the one for a moment but with the other he will be so for ever The Servants of God have never so much cause to mourn under the sense of the heinousness and aggravation of their Sins as they have cause to rejoyce in the riches and the freeness of his Grace They have never so much cause to be troubled at their own distress as to sing at the remembrance of his holiness They have cause to weep indeed because they have provok'd so good a God to wrath and to be glad that his anger is but for a moment They have cause to be concerned that they have made him to frown but cause to rejoyce that he will smile on them for ever The Righteous have a bitter Cup but as 't is here mingled with love so it prepares them for a sweeter tast of heavenly pleasure In the hand of the Lord there is a cup and the wine is red it is full of mixture and he poureth out of the same but the dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them Psal 75.8 God does correct his own here with measure but his punishments of the wicked will know no bounds wrath shall come upon them to the utmost and how low must they sink and what a load must they bear who have a God to punish them whose Being is Eternal and whose Power is Omnipotent On his own he frowns for a season and he does it to bring them to their Duty but on his obstinate unrelenting enemies he will frown for ever He will abhor them he will cast them out of his presence trample upon them in his fury and leave them to be the Brands of Hell and the Prey of Devils Now indeed we cannot with all the Terrors of the Lord which are terrible beyond expression perswade Men to repent tho' we tell them death and destruction is at hand tho' we shew them the threats of the Scripture the Examples of their evil predecessors that are gone to their own place they slumber on tho' we tell them of the danger and of a Pit that is opening its mouth to swallow them up tho we see wrath gathering and the Clouds ready to burst and bid them make haste to get a shelter before the Storm come tho we bid them flye for their Lives out of Sodom they still linger and delay But after death they cannot if they would he secure they will then have no pillows whereon to rest their heads no water to quench their thirst no friend to help them no God to hear their Cries they cannot then stop their ears at the roaring Wrath of God they cannot then stupifie their Consciences nor put the evil day far off Now they make a shift to stifle the checks of their own consciences they mock at the Threats of God and deride his Message but Sinners you shall sadly know what a dreadful and a terrible God you provoke to wrath all your Entertainments and Diversions all your Mirth and Laughter all your carnal Comforts and your jolly Company will be gone and be gone for ever And what will then remain nothing but Consternation Amazement and Woe nothing but Anguish and Tribulation Who shall speak comfortably to you who shall deliver when you are fallen into the hands of the Living God when you shall find that God that is a gracious Father to the Saints to be a severe Judge to you when he who is the Joy of their Hearts shall depart from you and he who refreshes them with the Smiles of his Face shall kill you with his Frowns What will you do when the full Wrath of God shall be poured on your guilty Souls Where will you turn when it shall scorch and burn you and set you all on Fire How will it overwhelm you when you find that all your hideous Cries all your Lamentations and your Groans are to no purpose When you are in the power of cruel Devils and meet with no pity from God none from his Angels or his Saints We think it long to be in pain for a month or two or for a year but how long will they think it to be who are to be in pain throughout all the durations of a sad Eternity We think it long when we sleep not in the night and wish for the light of day But Oil what a long night will that be and how uncomfortable that will have no morning that will not be succeeded with a a Beam of Day for ever Men do now think an hour or two in attendance upon God to be a great while they think Fast-days and Sabbaths to be long but if they come to that misery Oh how long and how tedious will they find Hell to be How insupportable it is and how unavoidable Hear therefore all you that live in sin hear and live oh do not throw your selves down that Precipice under which there is a Sea of Wrath and a
awakened Consciences he shews Hell upon Earth and both by his wise and holy Providence are designed for the good of others The language of their groans does thus bespeak all that behold their sorrow Oh sin not against so great and so terrible a God lest the flames begin to scorch you that have almost consumed us we no more thought of falling into his hands than you do we thought no more than you that our sinning would cost us so very dear but you see what we have felt and what you may expect if you do not repent and turn and make your peace with so holy a God as he is his Power will amaze you his Arm will crush you if ever you provoke him to send on you such a stroke as ours is endeavour therefore to profit by such sorrowful Examples 3. God does it to keep us from carnal Security all our lives Psal 9.20 Put them in fear O Lord that the nations may know themselves to be but men When our sin has fallen upon us like a Giant newly refresht with wine surely the remembrance of that horror pain and smart will keep us that we shall not dare to sleep in sin nor be unwatchful and presumptuous any more for ever Surely this will quench all irregular desires and cause us only to desire that God whose favour we need so very much this has surely shewn us how great is our weakness and our folly and how low we sink when he hath left us this will make us to be humble and to walk softly all our days remembring we are not every hour more than what God makes us to be if he leaves us but for one poor moment where are we We that have tasted so much of his displeasure have cause to rejoice with trembling every remembrance of that doleful time must be to us as a new motive to obedience and a powerful restraint of sin Heb. 12.10 He chastens us for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness Oh what an abundance of folly must there have been lodged in our hearts that God is forced to use so sharp and so severe a method to whip it out how benummed were we that nothing else could awaken us how diseased that nothing but a potion so bittter could promote our Cure how great was our pride that he was forced to beat it down by so violent a stroke Deut. 8.15 16. Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were siery serpents and scorpions and drought where there was no water That he might humble thee and prove thee to do thee good in thy latter end So Paul had 2 Cor. 12.7 a thern in the flesh 3. To convince us of his own All-sufficiency and the nothingness of our selves and of all osher Creatures He let us fall to shew us how small our strength is and that if we would have our goings established we must depend on him alone We are in our prosperity apt to think that this or that Creature this or that Person will yield us relief but in spiritual Troubles God shews us that all men even the best of men are vanity and those from whom we expect the greatest help do us the least good Nay those Watchmen of whose skill and kindness we have the greatest opinion are frequently suffered to smite us by their imprudent or by their harsh Speeches and Censures that so we may not look to those Cisterns which we find to be broken ones but to that Heaven whence all our Consolation flows When we go to the Creatures with the most raised expectations we meet with the most unlookt-for disappointment And indeed whilst we look only to them we are like people that go begging to the doors of the poor Our Fellow-creatures are all Eleemosynary and have nothing but what they receive and unless God helps us they cannot help as unless the wind blows not all the skill of the Pilot nor all the industry of the Mariner can make the Ship to sail forward to the Port. We think indeed that if our Friend be sick we would hasten to his help and immediately relieve him but our best Friend stays a long while ere he delivers not from any pleasure that he takes in our sorrows but that he may render his Power and his Wisdom more illustrious as Christ John 12.6 7. when he heard that Lazarus was sick stayed two days in the place where he was that so the glory of God might be more conspicuous in his Resurrection And when the season that is most beautiful comes we shall discern the reason of his delay He lets us fall low to a wonder that he may display his Power that is Almighty and his Wisdom that is never at a loss that we may know when all other methods have been tried in vain 't is he alone that can make our broken bones to rejoice that when we are beset with difficulties which we think insuperable we may stand still and see how glorious how suitable and how speedy is the Salvation and the Grace and the Help of God and that he alone is the God of Comfort 2 Cor. 1.3 That all other things are inconsiderable but that he is Alsufficient and it is an excellent Lesson that he teaches us by our most heavy Crosses None can calm the tumults and uneasiness of a troubled Soul but he alone our Spirits are so remote from humane Observations our Diseases are so inward and so great that men cannot reach them but nothing is too hard for him that is the Father of Spirits and he calls us peculiarly to regard this his mighty Work Isa 57. v. 17. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart I have seen his ways and will heal him I will lead him also and restore comforts to him and to his mourners I create the fruit of the lips peace peace to him that is far off and to him that is near saith the Lord and I will heal him He creates it he not only brings peace but brings it from nothing by his all-powerful efficacy that nothing can resist I say again this I believe is one of the principal lessons that God designs to teach us by our inward and spiritual troubles even that in him alone our help lies and that all even the best of men are vanity we must not look for much from them for if we do so we shall most surely be disappointed they have either not patience to hear our Complaints and to understand the particularities of our Case or if any one have so great patience and so much tenderness as to hear our sad story they will it may be sigh or shake their heads at it but alas they can give us no relief 4. Another End that God may have in the continuance of long and sore afflictions and great inward troubles is to discover
more clearly to us the corruption and defilement of our nature In a calm the waters of the Sea appear to be clear enough but when the storm comes then it throws up the mire and dirt in prosperity and health we think we have very good hearts and considerable degrees of sanctification but when sin is set home upon us the spiritual Law of God begins to shew its purity Oh what multitudes of iniquities do then appear what unbelief what impatience what murmuring what unbecoming thoughts of God such hideous and strange thoughts as we never had before In health and strength and peace there are a thousand secular Affairs and Contrivances that take up our time and divert our minds and turn us to the view of things without but in the trouble of our Consciences our eyes are turned another way to behold with attention our own Souls and to see what lusts what impurities what venomous Creatures what Vipers have been entertained there and oh what a ghastly formidable sight is this to see such a numerous brood of Transgressions when we imagined that all had been very well with us it is even a wonder that God who saw so much evil in us should let us alone so long These spiritual Afflictions shew us what a sorry contemptible Creature man is what cause he has to be debased when he is most proud and what cause he has to be covered with shame and blushing when he is most fearless and undaunted when God does not blow upon our Garden instead of those Spices those Graces blowing forth that may be for his glory and for our comfort there is nothing but Weeds and Thistles nothing but Thorns and Briars that tear and wound us our Soul is then just like a dead Carkass full of putrefaction no sprightly motions towards Heaven no spiritual no warm desires like the cold Regions of the North which the Sun does only visit with his fainter and weaker beams and not like those Eastern Countries where his greater heat does produce Spices and fragrant Flowers 5. Another End that God hath in the continuance of Spiritual Troubles and Afflictions and the Sense of his Wrath long upon us is that from our own Experience Christ may be for ever very precious to us when we are at ease and think our selves whole we seldom think of him but our pain and our smart our guilt and our fears the sight of our present Danger and of approaching Wrath causes us to run to this Physician and to beg his help when we are sinking it will make us to stretch out our hands and say Master save us or else we perish Never did a poor Man with more earnestness beg an Alms than we shall beg his help never did a diseased Person after violent racking Pain more long for Rest and a Cure than we shall for Christ and having fallen among Lyons having been the flaves of fear and held in Captivity by the Temptations of Satan we shall most gladly shake of our Chains and embrace Liberty and Salvation when our Lord comes to set us free The fight of him to be our Saviour will make us run to meet him and to say Welcome thou only Friend of our Souls welcome thou dear Physician and Healer of our Souls Hosannah to the Son of David blessed is he that comes to us in the name of the Lord. Oh! how will our very hearts melt with love when we remember that as we have been distressed for our Sins against him so he was in greater Agonies for us We have had Gall and Wormwood but he tasted a more bitter Cup. The Anger of God has dried up our Spirits but he was scorched with a more flaming Wrath. He was under violent pain in the Garden and on the Cross ineffable was the sorrow that he felt being forsaken of his Father deserted by his Disciples affronted and reproached by his Enemies and under a Curse for us This Sun was under a doleful Eclipse this Living Lord was pleased to dye and in his Death was under the Frowns of an Angry God That Face was then hid from him that had always smiled before and his Soul felt that horror and that darkness which it had never felt before So that tho there was no Separation between the divine and humane Nature yet he suffered Pains equal to those which we had deserv'd fo suffer in Hell for ever God so suspended the Efficacies of his Grace that it displayed in that hour none of its force and virtue on him He had no Comfort from Heaven none from his Angels none from his Friends even in that sorrowful hour when he needed comfort most Like a Lyon that is hurt in the Forest so he roared and cryed out tho there was no despair in him and when he was forsaken yet there was trust and hope in those words My God My God Have we been abandoned of God He was much more so and was deserted for a while that we might not be so for ever Oh! how frequently should we remember such a Saviour How delightful should we think and speak of him who thought nothing too much for us We have by feeling of the Wrath of God drank in some measure of the Cup whereof he drank We justly for our Sins He out of Love and Kindness that he might make an Atonement and a Propitiation and if what we have felt was so terrible how much more dreadful was that which he endured If the smaller drops that have put our Souls into a flame have filled us with anguish what torment did he undergo that was plunged as into a Sea of Wrath Surely such a Friend such a Physician as he has been to us must be ever valued We cannot pray but in his Name we cannot be justified but with his Righteousness we can hope for nothing but by his Merits and his Intercession we cannot Live we cannot dye without him Let this be the constant Language of our Souls None but Christ none but Christ Cant. 3.1 2 3 4. 6. That we may put an high Value on the Scripture that we may search and look into it with more earnestness and frequency to see if there be any Promises in it that are reviving any place in it that may afford hope and comfor to Souls so miserable and so guilty For when our Consciences are awakened and pierced with the sense of Wrath from God if his Word would speak peace to us we could have ease but the terrible threatnings thereof are the things that wound us deep and that put us to the greater smart and we then know and fully believe beyond all doubt that this is the word by which we are to be tried in the great and solemn day 7. Another end of God in continuing Afflictions and a long remaining sense of his Wrath upon us is That we may be everlasting admirers of the freeness of his Grace when we are delivered Oh! with what wonder should we behold his
heed that you do not weaken your selves for the joy of the Lord is your strength Neh. 8.10 Is it not motive enough to say that his Favour is your Life and his Displeasure is your Death Let us but take as much pains for our spiritual as for our natural Life and all will be very well When we find the least decays of Nature we are very industrious to repair them when we find the least faintness or indisposition on our spirits we have recourse to Cordials or to something that is very comfortable and reviving to refresh them when we are sick we complain of our illness we make abundance of inquiries and use a great deal of care to know what it is that will do us good we have a great value for our dear Life and are afraid of every thing that may deprive us of it and when we are in Health What do we not attempt for our own preservation What Arts do we use What provisions do we make for Meat and Drink and Cloaths and Houses and Gardens and other accommodations that we may live at ease And my Friends is not our Soul of more worth than the Body Are not its decays and its death more painful and more intollerable than all the languishing and decays of our outward Man Let us therefore as we have a great horror of natural death have no less for that which is spiritual Let us keep with a greater care the Favour of God that is our Spiritual and Eternal Life And that we may not lose it 1. Let us not grieve his Holy Spirit Ephes 4.30 Tho' we are not so happy as to have a familiar Conversation with Christ as those had who enjoyed his presence here on Earth tho' he be withdrawn from our eyes and we see him not in his exalted and glorified state yet he has sent his Spirit to dwell in our hearts and we ought with all manner of obedience and respect to treat and entertain so Divine a Guest to do nothing that is unsuitable to so great a Presence not to pollute our selves nor to defile his Temple with any sort of sin lest we grieve and vex him The Divine Nature indeed is incapable of our passions 't is above our joys and our sorrows and as 't is said of those that are upon Mount Olympus they see the Clouds gather below their feet they see the Hail and the Thunder disturb and lighten on the Plain whilest they rejoice in the pure light of the Sun In such manner the Divine Essence sees all the troubles and agitations of the Creatures remaining always in its own peace and tranquility * Claude Serm. Sur. Eph. 4.30 p. 29. This expression is borrowed from humane affections and when the Holy Spirit does that in us which our nature does when it is seized with sorrow then he is said to be grieved And if we make him sad we cannot expect that he will make us to rejoyce if we affront and abuse him he will not be our comfort if he retire all our Evidences will be covered with darkness and we shall be plunged in the lowest depths Let us therefore obey all his suggestions whatever he bids us do let us do let our minds always be yielding to his good and profitable motions let us not slight the Revelation he hath made nor be unmindful to grow in all the Graces that are pleasing to him let us remember the kindness that he does us how he chases away our darkness and when we are fainting how seasonably he does apply the Promises and brings to our remembrance those Truths that are most suitable and refreshing to us let us not grieve him by neglecting to read or meditate upon the Word which he endited or by foolish Communications by rash Anger 's or Malice or Bitterness or Wrath or Contention Ephes 4.31 but let him be the absolute Master of our souls when we are afflicted let us not grieve him by our murmuring or impatient complaints in our afflictions nor by security and hardness of heart in our prosperity And when he would carry us towards Heaven on the wings of spiritual desire and love let us not suffer our selves to be seduced by the World the Devil or the Flesh and if we obey him he will maintain a sense of the Divine Favour on our souls and the Life that he will give us will not be like that of the sick the feeble and the dying but like the Life of the most strong and healthful 2. Let us beware of Spiritual pride The contrite and humble are those that he regards The proud he looks upon afar off Psal 138.6 Though the Lord be high yet hath he respect unto the lowly but the proud he knoweth afar off That is with disdain and scorn 'T is nothing but our ignorance that makes us Proud We are ignorant of God and of the multitude and greatness of our Sins were it possible for us to be Proud if we frequently considered the Great Majesty of God and our own Vileness His Holiness and our Pollution His Almighty Power and our Weakness His Glory and our Darkness His Eternity and our own fading being What comparison can be made between the Great Ruler of the World and us that dwell in houses of clay It was a mighty Condescention in our Blessed Lord and one of the chiefest parts of his Humiliation to be cloathed with our Nature that is in it self so mean and low And as one says The whole World from East to VVest lies very sick but to cure this very sick world there descends an Omnipotent Physician who humbled himself even to the assumption of a Mortal Body as if he had gone into the Bed of the diseased 'T is an Ignorance of our selves that is the cause of our Pride we remember not how often it is that we offend in Thought VVord and Deed How we are by Nature children of wrath And how we make our selves more so by repeated acts of Sin God resists the Proud but he hath a regard to the Contrite and Humble Soul Isa He fills the hungry with good things but the rich he sends empty away Luke 1.53 All on whom he bestows his Favour he first convinces of their own misery shews to them the Curse the Hell the Condemnation that they have deserved and when they are pardoned after such a sight that Pardon fills them with low and self-abasing thoughts and when he comes to embrace them he finds them in the posture of the poor Prodigal Luke 15.18 19. Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son One sight of the face of God will dash all our Confidence and lower all our Pride and the more this is revealed and discovered to the Souls of the Faithful the more they see cause to loath and abhor themselves in dust and ashes Hence it is that our Apostle that knew so much of God was so very
cannot remedy and which to behold is very sad and by knowing a great deal is liable to abundance of contradiction and opposition from the more peevish and self-willed and ignorant part of mankind that are vex'd because he will not think and say as they do and they are very prone to censure and condemn the things they do not understand for it is most easie so to do whereas to pierce into the Reasons of things requires a mighty labour and a succession of deliberate and serious thoughts to which the nature of Man is averse And lazily and hastily to judge requires no trouble and were it not that it is a man's duty to know and that his soul if it have any thing of greatness and amplitude in its faculties cannot be satisfied without it it were a much safer and quiet course to be ignorant Study and painful enquiries after knowledg do oftentimes exhaust and break our spirits and prejudice our health and brings upon us those Diseases to which the careless and thinking seldom are obnoxious Eccles 1.13 14 15. I have seen all the works that are done under the Sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit that which is crooked cannot be made straight and that which is wanting cannot be numbred CHAP. II. Shewing that the fall of Adam was the cause of all our miseries and in how excellent a condition the blessed Angels are and the folly of such as expect to meet with nothing in the world but what is easie and pleasant Inf. 1. SEeing the life of man is a state of weeping what sin there must needs be in the fall of Adam that has provoked God so much as to send so many miseries upon his own Creatures Had mot he fallen we had always rejoyced and never mourned we had always sung the praises of God with delight and never have hang'd our harps upon the willows We should have always lived upon the food of Angels pure and Coelestial joys and not have had that bread of sorrows which we now have to feed upon We may justly cry out O Adam what was it that you did when you rafted the forbidden fruit Why did you ruin your self and us your helpless posterity in one day and by one Act you turned the pleasant world into a place of wo and made your self and us of free men to become prisoners of this Earth It was a sad day indeed that opened a Sluce to that vast Inundation of miseries that have from that time overwhelmed the lower world thence came storms and tempests wars and desolations and all the burdens under which we groan and which we cannot escape 'T is to this Spring that we may trace all our troubles Oh how happily how pleasantly might we have lived had we not Apostatiz'd And now we can only say Wo unto us for we have sinned and when any Plagues molest us can only say this is the fruit of our own choice this is the product of our own Iniquity Tho thanks be to God through the blood of Jesus Christ we have a way to escape at length from all those Plagues and Sins Inf. 2. Seeing this life is full of weeping how much more happy are the blessed Angels than we At the view of the Harmony and order of the Worlds Creation those Sons of the morning sang together it pleased them to see their Creator's glory so appear and they still continue to sing and praise him not a sad look has from that time to this clouded their faces not a troubled thought has possest their minds those holy Spirits are always joyful serene and undistutb'd they are not linkt to such bodies as we are and consequently not liable to so many thousand miseries A soul in flesh is forced to sympathize with its neighbour and companion the body and is altered or changed as to its joys and griefs according to the several objects that are suitable or disagreeable to that and yet our imbodied condition gives us some privileges of which the Angels being Spirits are not capable for by this means we can glorifie God by sufffering for him and by our patience in our several trials convert many to the faith of Christ which their Spiritual nature gives them no opportunity to do As long as we are united to the body so long must we expect to be afflicted and when this union is happily dissolved then does the time of our freedom and our pleasure come In the Resurrection we shall be as the Angels of God we shall not be busied in those perplexing and intricate affairs that now molest us We shall be like to them in vigor and activity and joy We shall have bodies indeed even then but such as will be spiritualized such as will not be capable of mourning and lamentation nor by their heaviness their pains and indispositions be any more an hindrance to the nimbler operations of our Souls and it should comfort us to think that one day we shall have such excellent Companions so knowing and so kind and loving as Angels are and that then we shall rejoice as well as they and with our common praise give our Great Creator an Eternal Hymn of Thanks Inf. 3. They have a wrong notion of the life of man that expect to find nothing in it but what is pleasant And who because now their mountain stands strong say with David That they shall never be moved Psal 30.6 7. How clearly soever their Sun now shines yet sooner or later storms and darkness will overtake them The day is coming that will cast a vail upon all their smiling glory and turn their laughter into mourning and lamentation For man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards Job 5.7 This world is as an Hospital or Lazaretto full of various miseries and calamities and therefore those that promise nothing to themselves but diversion and mirth and soft and easie pleasures labour under manifold mistakes which arise from these two Causes 1. VVant of Experience and Consideration Hence it is that young people and such as have lived but a little while are mightily taken with the sweetness and delight of life whereas those that have tried it some years longer find several crosses and disappointments and vexations in it and tho the morning of their day was clear yet they see many thick Clouds gather as the shadows of the Evening are drawing on It is nothing else but gross ignorance that occasions the loud and mad Triumphs of so great a part of the world for if they did but a little survey the condition of their suffering-neighbours and the weakness of their own bodies the uncertainty of their hopes and the vanity of their desires they would sit down and bewail their miseries and they would find their biggest joys to be confin'd with grief Or 2. It arises from this That they resolve not to disturb their present ease and pleasure with any mâ—urnful meditations They 'l shut their ears