Paradise who by thine experimental knowledge of this evil of suffering will create in thee a saving knowledge of good and through these Fruits of the Tree of the Cross lead thee to the Tree of Life CHAP. IX The Subject of Comfort Eyes God in all things 7. THis Man of God enjoy'd and liv'd under much experience of divine Goodness and gracious Providence Under all that happen'd he ey'd and own'd the Hand of God 1. In Affliction Ver. 17. Vnless the Lord had been my help my Soul had almost dwelt in silence Ver. 22. The Lord is my defence and my God is the Rock of my Refuge 2. In Temptation When I said my foot slippeth thy Mercy O Lord held me up ver 18. 3. In both ver 19. the Text In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my Soul A Man of common Principles would have look'd no farther than second Causes and the activity of Instruments and Means in his deliverance from Death ver 17. Than his own Prudence Caution Foresight Care and Endeavour in preservation from falling v. 18. Than his own reasonings and wise conduct of his Affections in the calm and serenity of his Mind v. 19. But this Holy Soul ascribes all to Divine Goodness And indeed to such a Man nothing is accidental he is never at a loss for the cause of any occurrent when he has not the least prospect of the agency of any thing on Earth he can find out a supreme mover in Heaven to whom nothing falls out by chance without either the foresight of his Intelligence or the conduct of his Wisdom or the determination of his Will or the interposal of his Power or the liberty of his Permission which though no cause at all properly but only that called sine quâ non which is but Fatua yet is governed by his Providence and all the possibilities thereof visible to his Prescience God is more concern'd in the World than the Artificer in a Clock who when 't is set together set up and agoing forsakes it He is sure little conversant in Scripture that imagines the Deity only a general cause who having constituted things with such and such particular Natures Propensions Biasses leaves them to run out their course without further Concurrence and Solicitude than to preserve them in the being constitution and activity he first gave them There 's nothing so mean so fortuitous but the Scripture intitles God to it either in way of Efficiency Direction Ordination or Permission If it be Good Natural or Moral he is the doer so if evil Natural if evil Moral though he abhor it cannot effect it or concur to it as such yet can he does he direct and order it to such ends as are consistent with his Wisdom Justice Holiness and Goodness which he well foreknows how to do therefore hinders not its existence as he easily could do without any violence to Nature blemish to his Government or infringement of the Liberty of his Creatures For to me 't is no little Mystery that although God be able to form a Rational Nature with liberty of Will and Prudence so to manage it that it shall at no time be compell'd to offer violence to its own freedom but in every act proceed with an even gentle sweet Spontaneity according to the dictates of its own finite Understanding yet that the infinite Intelligence and Prudence of the Divine Nature must be thought unable and insufficient by the reasonable Understanding and Will to elicite manage and guide these very humane Actions so as to preserve the same Liberty inviolable Let something be allow'd to Infiniteness sure it can do whatever Finiteness can if it be not to its disparagement If I can bring about my own resolute and fixed Purposes without prejudice to my own or others Liberty sure boundless Wisdom and Power can tell how to bring about its determinations by the liberty of the Creature A Reverend Judicious Divine my Relation told me that for experiment sake to try the power of an over-mastering Imagination he had oft requested such things of some Persons in whom he had no Interest at all which he knew they had an aversation to using no Reasons Arguments Motives Importunities at all further than the bare proposal only engaging himself strongly to fansie that he should obtain his desire and he seldom fail'd to prevail I never had the curiosity to make a tryal but am apt to think there may be something in 't upon consideration of the strange effects of the Mothers imagination upon her enwombed Infant as to both Impressions on its Body and Antipathies in its Mind the transpiring animal Spirits modify'd and mov'd strongly by a material Faculty may intermingle with those of a differing Body and over-rule their weaker Modifications and Motions and thereby the material Faculty that acted them as in Sympathetick Cures and the votatil Particles of Vitriol c. Crude or calcin'd do mix with the extravasated vital Spirits and return with them to their Fountain I confess these act only as Physical Causes and cannot vary in their effects of themselves though other external Causes may thwart them And what if a Man allow some such like thing to Spiritual Natures By what impressions they can communicate their Minds to one another by what impulses they bow one anothers Wills we know not but only the Effects God never fails to obtain the free voluntary Obedience of Angels And the more determin'd their Wills are the more free The Devil acts with less Liberty than a Glorified Saint and a Holy Angel with more than a self-determining Man who has both liberty of Contrariety and Contradiction can do both Good and Evil Act and not Act. Well if my Imagination further if my short defective Understanding can the one make such impresses the other produce such weighty momentous Reasons as shall sway my own and others Wills to an inhesitant and free compliance shall I not give that deference to the unfathomable Intellect and Reason of God as to suppose it endued with Ability to suggest such things as shall bow mine own or others Wills to a ready spontaneous ingenuous Concurrence than any thing can that is deduced merely out of the promptuary of mine own Mind I find my freedom in acting is gradually more or less intense according to the satisfaction of my Reason And if the Reason of God which is boundless cannot induce a more ample satisfaction than the Reason of a Creature which is but lame and imperfect and if he cannot with as much Facility without all impeach to our Liberty lead our Minds to the Contemplation thereof as in the use of the empire our selves have over them we can do if he cannot also more throughly excite acuminate quicken and enlarge our considering Powers freely to engage I have done 'T is not strange therefore that the Scripture ascribes all to God as the Origin of every individual Motion I find holy Men in
Mortification living in a never-ceasing Combate with Satan and this present inticeing World as affraid of breathing in the Devils Air or walking upon his Ground or within his Pale with a Religious wariness observing every step least it should be upon a Snare or into a Precipice as became a Man after God's own Heart whose whole course of Life was designedly a walk with God Would not a Man of this Constitution with a singular Providence and Caution eschew all appearances or occasions of or Temptations to Evil of every kind both Spiritual and Carnal since both alike are visible to that God who hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Eye every where to direct his Vengaence ver 9 10. Psal 10.14 Would nor this complexion of Soul oblige his utmost endeavours and diligence circumspectly to keep his Heart and engage the assistance and care of Almighty Grace to be his security against whatever might entangle or defile it I do not question but that with the highest solicitude and Conscience he attended the just and watchful Government of his Actions under the command of these Perceptions he entertain'd of the invisible Eye ver 9. and of his most secret imperceptible Thoughts upon the Sensations he retain d of God's intuition and censure of all humane Cogitations ver 10 11. Which may be thus rendred He that teacheth Adam Knowledge the LORD knowing the thoughts of Adam because they are Abel Vanity The Septuagint translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not participially but verbally and Adam Abel appellatively and so they ought and Adam plurally Abel not in the Abstract but Concrete thus The LORD knoweth the Thoughts of Men that they are vain which the Apostle follows in all but the version of Adam which with him is the Wise 1 Cor. 3.20 The Lord knoweth the Thoughts or Reasonings as 't is rendred Luk. 9.46 of the Wise who of all Men have the greatest skill and cunning to hide their Thoughts and the highest abilities to solidate improve direct and govern their reasoning and thinking Powers that if any Mens their Cogitations and Discourses one would think might be above the brand of the Text. The reason of this change I cannot determine 't is satisfactory that it was made by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost who best knew his own meaning But shall I offer a Conjecture The Appellative Adam points to the first Man from whom the denomination is drawn And before his fall no doubt Adam was possest of a degree of Wisdom paramount to all his Posterity Solomon not excepted and this Name was impos'd upon him when he flourish'd in the glory of that excellent Spirit I do not question but that even in his collapsed Nature a degree thereof was preserv'd superiour to all in his Successors unto whom 't is derived very much rebated partly though corruption partly through feminine imbecility For the difference of natural abilities in Man and Man or Man and Woman arises not from the spiritual part all Souls being equal in Nature Faculties and Power But the defect of Vital Flame or Natural Heat and Spirits causing an indisposition of Organs in their first Formation with a coolness and torpidness in the Animal Spirits the Souls Vehicle and immediate Instrument in its Operations ad extra is the true Origin of all those Imperfections visible in the Intellectuals both of that cooler Sex and the other and all may be encreased by the Immorality and Intemperance of Parents or other accidental Causes Diseases Passions External Occurrents c. Now may not St. Paul in translating Adam the wise allude or have some respect to the incomparable Wisdom of that source of Humane Nature However it was most accommodate to the tenour of his Discourse there and not aliene from the scope of Place here For undoubtedly those he calls Brutish and Fools ver 8. and Proud ver 2. had no humble apprehensions of their own Abilities but did imagin that in their Oppressions they dealt wisely as the Aegyptians Exod. 1.10 Atheists Deists Persecutors generally conceiting themselves the wisest of Men and the profoundest of Politicians but the rest of the World only a knot of Addle Eggs. Yet the Holy Ghost who best knows and never can be out in his Judgment of Men both here and other where even in this Book calls them by their proper Names as Psal 14. and 53. Folly Atheism Persecution are both in Scripture and Nature individual inseparable Companions and no marvel For if a Man can be such a Fool as to turn God out of the World and Being in his Thoughts no wonder if he be such a Barbarian as to turn Men who are most God-like out of the World with his Hands and again if a Man can be so bestially Savage as to embrew his Hands in the Blood of Innocents 't is his Interest to be so foolish as to believe there is no Providence and God I therefore again demand whether it be possible for a Man living under the dominion of these most rational Notions of God and the folly brutishness and madness of working Iniquity to contradict all the Principles of Sense Reason and Religion in so high a degree as to invoive himself in the same Condemnation Could a Man sensible of Divine observance of and animadversion upon vain Thoughts indulge such in his own Mind and if not vain sure much less vile and wicked Will a Man confidently believing and asserting the all-intelligent Nature of God here represented under the Metaphor of Hearing dare to permit his Tongue to take an unbecoming Parrhesy or liberty of bolting out any thing Shall that Mouth spit froth or filth in the Face of Heaven which professes that 't is all Ear and Eye Lastly How can he who is so thorowly perswaded of God's inspection with an avenging Eye as to account those brutish and Fools that disbelieve it Be so impudently daring and flagitious as like that Blasphemous Dicer in Fincelius with impious and accursed Hands to throw his Dagger against Heaven and stick it in the Heart of God Oh Hellishness Oh Horror I mean be wicked in his Works which is Deicide or God-killing Indeed a Man i. e. one endowed with intelligent and reasoning Powers who can proportion his Sensations to the nature of things much more a Christian Man that borrows his Light and Eyes too in a more especial manner from Heaven must needs behold more uglyness and odiousness in Sin than any thing imaginable For we do not take our measures of Privatives from themselves meerly but that positive Being and Goodness to which they are opposed and the excellency of the Subject wherein they are seated Blindness therefore in Man the most noble Creature endowed with Sense is a greater evil than in a Brute especially since Man is capable of using sight to more worthy and eximious purposes Sin is a privation of Holyness which is the only mean to bring Man to the possession of infinite Goodness Heb. 12.14 Without Holiness no
every though never so fortuitous an effect of a spontaneous Agent to look at God I 'll not instance in other than David And 1. for evil Events As he intimates a possibility of Saul's being excited against him by God 1 Sam. 26.19 and was foretold that the Lord would raise up evil against him out of his own House and take his Wives and give them to Absalom under the notion of his Neighbour 2 Sam. 12.11 So even when he was cursed by Shimei he owns it as from God 2 Sam. 16.10 Not that he supposed God had a hand in the sin of the Act but order'd it as a part of the punishment threatned for his own Sin 2. Good Events of all kinds he more frequently ascribes to God Does he conquer his Enemies 'T is the Lord that lets him see his desire upon them Psal 59.10 and subdueth the People under him Psal 18.47 48. See the whole Psalm and smites his Enemies in their hinder parts Psal 78.66 Do his Friends own and anoint and crown him King He entitles God to it Psal 21.3 When his Father and Mother forsake him the Lord takes him up Psal 27.10 Is he secur'd in a strong City 'T is the Lord's marvellous kindness Psal 31.21 What do I enumerating Particulars every Psalm is an Instance And indeed were it not so Prayer would be mere Mockery and Praise Hypocrisie Epist 31. and that of Seneca would be better Divinity than we are taught by the Scriptures which yet to suppose is most horridly Blasphemous Per maxima acto viro turpe est etiamnum Deos fagitare Quid votis opus est Facte ipse foelicem Let those English it that allow it Now when a Man does thus in all Events take notice of the Finger of God and thereby give him the glory of his Efficiency he is in a disposition for renewed Experiments of the Divine Power and Goodness in Peace and Joy Where the Glory will be given to God he will grant the fullest and sweetest tasts of his Graciousness But who will lose a Benefit 'T is lost where no likelyhood of any grateful Acknowledgement Unthankfulness is the most hateful of Sins Ingratum si dixeris omnia dixeris If God must not reap Praises he will not sow Mercies Not that he needs our Gratitude but that we must own our Benefactor and testifie our advances in Love when by new Instances he testifies his Love to us Nevertheless this Love of ours is not profitable to God but highly as all other Graces to our selves Our own Advantage and Interest is alway at the bottom of our Duty which indeed can add nothing to God Job 34. is nothing to him as neither can our Iniquity detract from him or hurt him His good will towards us moves him to take care that it may be well with us therefore doth he follow us with his tender Mercies and richest Blessings that we may proceed upon ingenuous Motives in our observance of him and obedience to him and may not be obnoxious to the check of Satan or our own Consciences for servility of Spirit in that work wherein consists our Liberty Honour and Happiness Indeed we are not really good if we be not ingenuously good nor act at all for God if we act not from a filial disposition Love is every Grace and Virtue that Spirit of Life which as an universal Cause diffuses its benign animating Influences through all the Regions of true Goodness and Honesty All in us that lives to God every holy Disposition every gracious Habit is only a distinct particular modification of Love Even as the varieties of Nature in those innumerable differences of Plants sensitive Creatures and Men in their Bodies are but Earthly Particles diversly modified formed fashioned and qualified Hence Love is said to be the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 But without Love to be Good is impossible 1 Cor. 13. Where this Grace dwells God dwells also and the Soul inspirited by it dwells in God 1 Joh. 4.8 16. The more of Love therefore the more of God He will never be out of our Eye if he be thus in our Hearts Love there will command our Looks 'T was the dominion of this Grace in his Soul that mov'd the Psalmist to make such honourable mention here of the Love and Graciousness of God in his aid and sustentation 't was this that in his distress inclin'd him to take Sanctuary in God and own all the Spiritual Refreshments that solaced his Heart as derivations from God and engaged him to devolve all the Glory thereof upon God And how should that Soul do other that has all in God Hast thou then Oh my Soul evermore and in every occurrent an Eye toward Heaven and by thy acknowledgement of the Finger of God in every thing that befalls thee Dost thou honour his Providence indeavour to relish his Goodness and make some progress in thine affectionate pantings after him complacency in him resolution for him and dutifulness to him O let every thing remind thee of his everlasting Commiseration that in thy lost Estate remembred thee gave Blood for thy Ransom the Blood of God Acts 20.28 The time of thy lothing was the time of his Love Eze. 16.5 8. He loved thee out of the Pit of Corruption Isa 38.17 He hath prevented thee with the Blessings of Goodness Psal 21.3 He redeemeth thy Life from Destruction and crowneth thee with loving Kindness and tender Mercies Psal 103.4 He hath not dealt with thee after thy Sins nor rewarded thee according to thy Iniquities ver 10. Therefore ver 1 2. Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me Bless his Holy Name Bless the Lord Oh my Soul and forget not all his Benefits Hallelujah CHAP. X. The Subject of Comfort Seeks it solely in God THus much of the Character deduced from the Context there only remains one thing out of the Text it self Viz. The Psalmist was a Man who discern'd such an emptiness and insufficiency in all inferiour Contentments as to seek no relief from them nor take up with any in them as his rest in Trouble but in deepest anxiety and distress did look for and find all his comfort solely in and from God This is the very substance and marrow of the Verse Indeed the whole Psalm is a Testimony of his ceasing from the Creature from Man in a believing and affectionate recourse to God Where-ever he cast his Eye upon Earth the Inscription was Vanity and Vexation A deluge of Sin and Misery covered the World that like Noah's Dove he could find no rest for the sole of his Foot below therefore does he direct his course toward Heaven Thus Psal 55.6 Oh that I had wings like a Dove for then I would flee away and be at rest But Rest is not a Denizen of this World Nothing but the Heaven of Heavens is at rest and here does he fix only There was a Windy Storm and Tempest without as Psal 55.8
and Goodness but only from Peace and Rest sinking it into Disconsolateness till he took Sanctuary in the Refreshments of Heaven The Text plainly intimates that if he had not found some effectual help in these his Thoughts would have been an overmatch for him and have born him down Therefore Afflicting they were but not Defiling This was their General Nature 2. Particularly They were of the nature of Meditations i. e. Heart-affecting Thoughts Not mere Speculations or notional Thoughts that were confin'd within the boundaries of his Mind and Understanding but Thoughts that sunk downwards and produc'd some effects on his Soul For since no Thoughts are afflicting to us but only as they work upon those Passions of our Minds which are of a turbulent tormenting Nature hence it appears that these had an influence upon his Irascible Affections as by a Synecdoche they are call'd representing to them some Evils from which they could not but retire in an hostile aversation For no Evils without us cruciate us till they thus get within us and fight us by our own Passions This is the Beelzaebub that possesses us and creates a Hell in our Minds even our masterly imperious Appetite The Thoughts that create a tumult here are as so many Fiends to torture us That rebel rage which they infuse into our Blood and Spitits disorders discomposes our whole Man and makes us Devils to our selves Thoughts then they were exciting Passions Therefore we must search and consider what Passions in particular were in a civil war within the Psalmist and also the quality of those Evils which excited them And that I may not be necessitated to repeat things over and over as the more natural Synthetical way and method of enquiry first after the Objects here particularly set down thence concluding the general Acts which only are implyed would compel me I shall chuse the Analytical rather proposing first the General Passions conversant about the numerous special Objects which shall respectively be referr'd to their general and proper Heads together with such as are of Affinity therewith though not exprest in the Psalm The Thoughts then were of three kinds answerable to three Affections which were vehemently moved by them viz. Fear Grief Dispair Any one of these alone is torturous but altogether intolerable Grief pains our Hearts as an oppressing load wasts and washes away those Spirits that should support us weakens and effeminates our Minds into an insufficency or unwillingness to regard any thing but what will contribute to its own excesses till as an impetuous Torrent or Deluge it overwhelm our Soul and Spirit and sometimes destroy the Body also and herein it is more anguishful than Fear because the Evil present and felt stings more cruelly than when only foreseen in its Causes the Sense presenting many things to torment us which before our Fears were not privy to even as Fear sometimes represents Evils more terrible than they are in reality found to be But now if to the present troublesome Experience be adjoined a dreadful expectation of worse to come or more of the same kind this will double the torture because it doubles the perturbation and further betrays the succours which Reason or Hope might administer to us But if to both these be superadded an absolute hopelessness of relief that we see and foresee and feel our selves miserable without any likelyhood of Redemption that either our Reason is darken'd by the suffusion of our Passions so as not to be able to gain a prospect of remedy or the magnitude of the Evil it self is altogether invincible this strangles Nature and makes it sink under its despondencies into a Hell upon Earth Of these Fear is the first and lightest and many times comes single For whilst an evil is at a distance there 's a possibility to prevent its actual incursion But Grief does often succeed the torment of Fear as when the evil does not surprize but gradually invade us and this is like a new Wound in an old Sore therefore does more smartingly gall us Yet both these together are nothing to Despair which is a compound of the other two besides what it brings of its own to make a Man inexplicably unsupportably miserable 1. Fearing Thoughts terrifing Imaginations are bloody Tormenters 1 Joh. 4.18 and tear the Soul in pieces When an Evil is imminent and we are conscious of an inability to avoid or resist it our Spirits succumb sink and in a pale horrour retire and run away from the approaching danger For some kind of danger is commonly the object of Fear which is excited when the Mind apprehends and the Thoughts dwell upon the greatness nearness or unavoidableness of the Peril The danger in the Psalmist's Thoughts seems to be double viz. of two the greatest evils Sin and Death 1. Of Sin for of that under Correction I interpret ver 18. When I said my foot slippeth c. The Expression is but thrice beside that I find in the Psalms and in two of them 't is evident that a moral slipping or sliding into Sin is meant and the context gives fair probability for the third also Psal 17.5 Hold up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip not that is that I sin not Psal 38.16 17 18. When my foot slippeth they magnifie themselves against me For I am ready to halt and my Sorrow is continually before me For I will declare my Iniquity I will be sorry for my Sin These 3 Verses are connected causally I know not how to make sence of them if the slipping and halting be other than the sinning he sorrowed for I take Sorrow in the latter clause of the 17. ver not formally for the Passion of Sorrow but materially and objectively for the thing he sorrowed for viz. his Sin and so account this an equivalent Expression with that Psal 51.3 My Sin is over before me And this is not an unusal thing in Scripture for Affections or Actions to be put for their Objects or Effects as in that very Psalm ver 3. There is no soundness in my Flesh because of thine Anger i. e. the effects of thine Anger And ver 9. Lord all my desire is before thee i. e. the objects of my desire the things I desire However the Sorrow there was for Sin ver 18. and so the Sin was before him immediately in the Sorrow I account that the Clauses of those two Verses answer one another thus I am ready to halt for I will declare my Sin I 'll not deny the Truth though it give advantage to my Adversaries and occasion their magnifying themselves against me I find my self oft liable to fall into Sin I acknowledge it let them make the best and worst they can of it and triumph as they please Only do not thou forsake me ver 21. Hear me ver 15 16. so as to uphold my goings that though I fall I may not be utterly cast down Psal 37.24 The third place is a perfect parallel
Malignant Spirits These being the Permissions of Providence to punish Sin which as Executions of Justice God attributes to his own Efficiency Amos 3.6 Though mediately may we not also refer hither the immediate Effects of his Power and Justice in Plagues Sicknesses Famines c. Since they agree though not in the Instruments and Means yet in the Original and Author and Meritorious Cause and Principal End 3. Despairing Thoughts and Reflections are beyond all Imagination Afflictive and of this Nature we find some oppressing the Psalmist's Spirit although they were not of the worst kind For despair he did not of Mercy and Relief from Heaven a Misery of all other most intolerable He only despaired as being destitute of all Hope of Help and Succour from Man Vers 16. Who will rise up for me Who will stand up for me The redoubled Interrogation implies a more vehement Negation None none at all For unless the Lord had been my help I had gone without Redemption Vers 17. All the hopes I had upon Earth did utterly fail there was none shut up or left I was reduc'd to the utmost extremity and that was Gods opportunity He was seen in the Mount when the Knife was at the Throat and defunct was all considence in Man Now although the failure of all Earthly Supports be grievous yet when a Man has encouragment to devolve himself on the never-failing Goodness of God he is never destitute of a Satisfaction which will abundantly Counterveil those troublesome Disappointments and therefore his Condition is not really miserable But if this fail also if his strength and hope Perish from the Lord Lam. 3.18 that he be in Saul's sore Distress 1 Sam. 28.6 15. and can have a Prospect of nothing but Eternal Death and Damnation Tongue cannot tell nor Heart imagine the Anxieties and Agonies which as a Prolepsis and Anticipation of Hell sting and excruciate his miserable Soul There 's nothing on this side that Dungeon of everlasting Darkness and Woe can equal this which made Spira sometimes wish himself in Hell that he might feel the worst Oh doleful Perplexity indeed when a Man out of a distracting fear of Hell desires to feel it Oh Horror when anguish of Mind under dreadful Expectations enforces his will to chuse what is infinitely more anguishful and the Drops of Brimstone and Fire that scald his Conscience urge him to a strange unaccountable freeness to be ever consuming in that Bottomless Ocean where Mitigation of Torment end of Misery abatement of Sense will be not only desperate but impossible Oh Despair thou art the sum and strength of Wretchedness the Bitterness and Poison of a never ending Death the Fuel and Flame of an unutterable Torturous Hell Blessed is the Soul that never shall never must feel thy racking Horrors in this or another World CHAP. XII Comforts in general MY last Explicatory Undertaking was to consider and describe the Comforts which now cast so benign an Aspect and Influence upon this Holy Mans afflicted disconsolate Soul They may be considered either Formally or Materially Formally in their proper Nature and true Constitution as an inward refreshment and ease to the Heart Comfort is a Map of Paradise the lovely Meet-Help and Succour of desolate distressed Man the Blessed Repast and Banquet of Holy Angels and Saints The Uncreated Eternal Heaven and Jubilee of God himself the Light wherein he ever dwells that spreads abroad its sweet reviving Rays as largely and liberally as its Fountain the super-intending Care and Goodness of Heaven and especially unto the humble and contrite Heart setling it in a firm and durable Repose and Peace And when the Sin of degenerate Man had banish'd it from the Earth and his own Soul the infinitely Wise and All-knowing God the Father the dearly beloved Word and Wisdom of God his only Begotten Son and the Eternal Spirit of Truth and Grace did by an ever adoreable astonishing Method of Goodness and Love contrive a Retrieval thereof that under its loss Man might not continue the most miserable of the whole Creation 'T is the sweet reviving Breath of boundless Grace and compassion in the Eternal Father infusing new Life and Vigour into Fainting Groaning Bleeding Dying Hearts and Enspiriting them for God A refreshing Beam from the Son of Righteousness which infuses Warmth Strength and Soul into the disconsolate Heart of dejected Man that lies benighted in a Hell of Misery and Darkness The Oyl of Life poured out by the Holy Ghost upon a Benumbed Frozen Restive Soul which gently turns the Wheels of Action in a smooth free ready easie speedy Course and continues them in an unwearied motion toward Heaven A sweet and lovely Paraphrase upon the Promises Ingraven in a Wounded Heart by the Finger of God A powerful Antidote to the Poison of Tormenting Grief and Despair sweeter than Sorrow can be sowre An all-satisfying Foretast and Anticipation of the never Intermitting never Terminating Joys of Eternity When the Sovereign Majesty of Heaven would Ingratiate himself and though in a humble Demission and Debasement of his Glory yet appear in his highest Loveliness to Man 't is in a Robe of Light Joy Comfort and Peace and when a Wounded Spirit that 's discouraged in its Work by the pressure of its own self-created Woes desires to be entertained into and impowred for and chearfully to engage in his Service it implores and sues for the Joy of the Lord to be its Strength When God's Heralds have been denouncing War to Rebels Vengeance against Enemies thereby terrifying them into a War and Enmity against their Sins He next Commissions them as his Embassadors to revive those troubled Souls with a message of glad Tidings of Joy and Peace and Consolation 'T is the refreshing Dew of Heaven upon a barren heart that has been scorched and parched with the fiery Indignation of the Almighty which causes it to bring forth Fruit with rejoycing The gracious Smile of the ever Blessed Jesus upon a weeping wounded Spirit that 's sick of its sins and sores sick for the sense of his Love A hand let down from above to lay hold upon and bring up from the deep an oppressed Spirit sunk with the weight of its own woeful thoughts into an unfathomable Abyss of Miseries A returning Pillar of Cloud and Fire to an Israelite indeed that was bewildred and lost in a vast howling Wilderness of Danger and Horror to direct and lead it with Joy to its Coelestial Rest A secure and welcome Port of safety and repose for a weather-beaten Soul that by the storms and surges of Almighty Vengeance hath been Shipwrack'd and split all to pieces in a Contrition and Humiliation for Sin A Bed of ease and quiet for a weak and sickly weary heart which hath been wrestling and labouring under the weighty Load of Divine Wrath set on and made more grievous by the Lashes of a Scourging Conscience A Heaven of unspeakable Delight and Satisfaction descending into and raising
vouchsafe Pardon Her Iniquity is pardoned because she hath received two-double c. Else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be here Translated that as in the two former Clauses Indeed in the New Covenant Oeconomy Satisfaction made Actually or Vertually as the Lamb of God was slain from the beginning of the World is Antecedent to Pardon and the meritorious Cause of it 3. By like Reason both from the Nature of the thing and the Contexture of these Clauses Warfare or appointed time for hostility is accomplished Remissâ culpâ remittitur poena when Sin is Pardoned The Fault being forgiven the Punishment Eternal at least is remitted and sometimes the Temporal wholly however in the nature of a satisfactory Penalty Guilt is pardoned but the Essence of Guilt consists in a binding over to Wrath or Punishment Therefore the punishment is remitted in this Notion that it shall not be inflicted in vertue of that Obligation to Wrath although the very same material Pains under another form viz. as Corrections ver 12. may be undergone nay must be in some degree and kind Acts 14.22 Psal 34.19 2 Tim. 3.12 c. I know no Declaration or Promise made by God that these and the like shall not continue part of Canonical Scripture and be true to the Worlds end Afflictions are formally Penal till Sin be remitted but afterward the Sting is taken out and they are not Conflicts of War but only Chastisements of Peace The Enmity of God is then terminated the Warfare betwixt him and the Soul issued in a serene perfect and everlasting Tranquility and Peace And therefore 4. These Foundations being laid the Word of Promise Proclaims and Crys Comfort ye Comfort ye your selves for I am your God who command and warrant you to do it There 's nothing now to debar you from assuming it and quieting your troubled Hearts with the application of it it is ready for you and you for it it invites you with its amiable aspect to run into its Embraces and solace your selves with all the Marrow and sweetness comprehended in the Covenant and Promises all is yours by right And consequently Lastly When God proclaims Peace and crys Comfort ye Comfort ye Conscience transgresses if it do not so likewise For being God's Viceroy and Judge in Man it hath no Commission to Act but deriv'd from God from which it must not cannot swerve an Hair's-breath without incurring the Penalty of its Presumption The Law of God in Nature and Scripture is the perfect and adequate Rule and Standard of all its Proceedings herein are all its Powers contain'd a counterpart whereof it retains after Illumination within it self which Copy is null if it do not perfectly agree with the Original To interline or rase out does wholly evacuate and destroy the validity of its proceedings Therefore whatever God says or does in the Concerns of his Government within us Conscience must not vary from in the least tittle it must speak when and what he does and be silent where he is so If God condemn Conscience must do so likewise if he absolve Conscience must justifie also neither adding to his Words nor diminishing nor yet concealing his Counsels If then he be at Peace Conscience is obliged no longer to proclaim War If he call to Comfort it must not contradict his Calls and so oppose and blaspheme his Grace it must harmonize with Heaven or else it abjures its Allegiance to God and acts by Commission from Satan and lyes against the Holy Ghost In summ all Spiritual Discomfort is finally resolvable into trouble 1. about a Man's 1 State Absolute Relative or 2 Frame of Soul or 3 Way of Walking or 4 Particular Acts of Sin or 5 Satan's Temptations or 6 Divine Derelictions under all which there is abundant Comfort in this MY GOD For if he be my State is good witness the Covenant My Ways and Frame shall be so Jer. 32.38 39 40 41 and 24.7 Deut. 30.1 to 10 Inclusive Ezek. 11.19 20. and 36. 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 the latter part of 36 and beginning of 37. By these exceeding great and precious Promises not only Healing Sanctifying Stablishing but also Preventing and Pardoning Grace is given for particular Acts of Sin and assurance that God will not finally forsake us therefore not leave us to the Will and Power of the Old Serpent though he tempt to Sins as black as the Regions he Inhabits as foul as his own Face as malignant as his own venomous Heart The Fear of God which his everlasting Covenant engages to give will command urge and enforce thy dissent or the Love of God will oblige him to Pardon as he hath promised if thy Consent be ravish'd because his Covenant Grace the Law in the Heart will enable to Repent and Believe for Pardon Here 's all The Comfort of Sanctification we have in the forecited Psal 119.50 and Isa 12.1 O Lord I will praise thee though thou wast angry with me thine anger is turned away and thou comfortedst me Rom. 5.1 Being Justify'd by Faith we have Peace with God There 's the Comfort of Justification upon which two all Spiritual Comforts depend yea and Temporal also upon the latter as to their Substance and the former as its Evidence For we know not that we are pardoned but only by feeling our selves purified by God's Holy Spirit of Grace Whence Isa 32.24 The Inhabitant shall not say I am sick the People that dwell therein shall be forgiven their Iniquity Sickness the sharpest the nearest the most perilous of all Bodily Troubles by a Synecdoche put for all the rest the bitterness whereof is antidoted by the sweet of Pardon and Peace sense of Pardon will take away sense of Pain because it takes out the Poyson and Curse of it That is the comfort of forgiveness or exemption from eternal intolerable Pains does out-balance the trouble of any temporary tolerable Pains as joy for the birth of a Man-Child drowns the remembrance and sense of all preceeding Pangs and Sorrows Joh. 16.21 Lastly If to all these be superadded any plain and sensible Experiments of Divine Goodness in the special Fruits of it this doth abundantly satisfie and solace our Souls as compleating our evidence of right to the Comforts of God being as it were an immediate Testimony from Heaven that God is ours in Covenant and owns us as his peculiar Treasure Mal. 3.15 For 't is a confirmation of our Assurance of and Title to Comfort under the Hand and Seal of the Holy Spirit of Grace and Consolation This contributes to Comfort thus and thus only as corroborating our assured Perswasion and Evidence that our Peace is not self-flattery and deceit For 't is merely in vertue of Assurance that we are enabled to comfort our selves in God Assurance I say in both its parts both as referring to an external Object viz. Propriety in God all of God and as respecting those inward Qualifications and Dispositions which if I do not