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
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
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.
the Sacrament in vain for had I been a true Believer this would never have befallen me This is a very false way of arguing for if you had been never so sincere that sincerity would not have kept away diseases nor this in particular for in Melancholly we think and we speak according to our present apprehensions and our fears and these are greatly caused by the disorder of our Imaginations which is owing to the confusion and the hurry of our thoughts and that confusion is the product of a great and unusual stagnation or fixing of the Spirits when the blood is corrupted and the body indisposed and this most frequently occasioned by the want of rest or sleep And 't is commonly said by others that know not what Melancholly is Why do you think and pore so much Divert your selves think of something else But it is no more possible for people where this disease comes with violence to divert their thoughts than 't is possible for a Man to be wakeful in an Apoplexy and calm in a raging Fever no more than a Man that has a broken Arm or Leg can walk and act as he used to do before And indeed * Mr. Baxter's 32. Dir. p. 6. rational and spiritual methods will not suffice for the cure of this for you may as well expect that a good Sermon or comfortable words should cure the Falling-sickness or Palsie or a broken Head only because this disease works on the spirits and phantasie on which words of advice do also work therefore such Words and Scripture and Reason may somewhat resist it or may palliate or allay some of the effects at present but as soon as time hath worn off the force and effects of these Reasons the distemper presently returns and 't is as natural for a Melancholly person to fear and to meditate terror as 't is for a sick Man to groan or for one in health to breathe 't is certain that tenacious obstinate distempers such as this of Melancholly will not be relieved by meer words or sentences they cannot indeed cast out their troubled thoughts they cannot turn away their minds they can think of nothing but what they do think of no more than a Man in the Tooth-ach can forbear to think of his pain and not so to think is to be cured which they would be glad to be And tho' others urge us to rule our thoughts it gives us no relief but only adds to our misery to be frequently urged to that which we cannot do But my advice to such is That in the use of such things as they find to yield a natural refreshment to their spirits they would look up to God who can make the Winds and Storms to cease and make that unquiet agitation that is in the Blood and Humours to be still again and when he shall be pleased to give you the rest of night and the clearness and activity of your natural spirits then your troublesome and uneasie thoughts by the help they will then receive by reading or advice will wear away I speak nothing but what I my self have experienced to be true for this Disease does magnify our sorrows What I aim at is this That when any are in deep Melancholly so far as they have any Reason left they should not encrease their own terror by thinking that all their former Prayers and endeavours have been to no purpose because they do not then perceive what effect they have had God is certainly more gracious than to reckon the una voidable attendants of a disease that none can cure but himself to be a sin Men are not to be judged by what strange actions or expressions they are guilty of in a violent sickness and among all that are so I think this to be most violent CHAP. XII Of the several ends that God hath in suffering his Servants to be under long Afflictions and spiritual distress and anguish XV. COnsider what ends God may have in letting the apprehensions of his wrath continue for a season and here I know I enter upon a thing whereof we cannot have a certain and a comprehensive knowledg for the Judgments of God and great and long and severe Tryals are too deep for us easily to fathom or to tell particularly what is God's design in this or that The Arcana's of his Government are not obvious to every one that desires to pry into them and there are abundance of very dark and mysterious Providences in this World the Reasons of which we shall never know till the great day Who can tell the very Cause why God suffers one Religious Man to suffer affliction for several years and another that is perhaps no better than he scarcely knows what affliction means One shall be crossed and disappointed in all that he goes about and meet with losses in his Estate and in his Family and be damaged in his Health when another prospers and is well and dies by an easie death in what a smooth path do some good people go into Heaven when others are torn with thorns and bryars and go mourning and weeping all the way Who dare presume to say why this is so and no otherwise A great modesty becomes our inquiries when we endeavour to pierce into the Designs of the Great God whose Throne is established in righteousness but surrounded with clouds and darkness It is the glory of God to conceal a thing Prov. 25.2 his Infinite Majesty will not be accountable to us for what he does there is a thick veil upon the Reasons of his Judgments and Decrees that he may procure a greater veneration from his Creatures Psal 77.19 Thy way is in the sea and thy path in the great waters and thy footsteps are not known Therefore when we say that God does this or that for such or such a reason we must do it with great humility and only so far as the Scripture is our guide and from that we may learn that God suffers his people to be under the apprehensions of his wrath and under long afflictions for such ends as these 1. It is certainly good for the Universe for God does nothing in vain and when any part suffers 't is for the good of the whole tho perhaps we cannot discern how it is so till his hand has finished his own entire design 2. That others may be convinced by their very Senses what a dreadful God he is and how terrible a thing it is to sin When the Lyon roars who will not fear Amos 3.8 When men see those that were once pleasant as themselves shedding tears and crying out in the bitterness of their souls that they are undone and miserable their sad looks and their doleful expressions bear witness to the Being and to the Severity and Justice of God He sometimes in the extraordinary joys which his love produces in the hearts of his people shews Heaven upon Earth and sometimes in the fears and amazements and terrors of
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
will not have him to be so he would save them and they will not be saved he would bless them and they chuse to be curs'd How many are there that prefer a Lust before a Saviour and Earth before Heaven and the applause of their vain sottish Companions before the approbation of the All-seeing Judge O blind Sinners Why will you lay hands upon your selves and do all you can to deprive your Souls of Life What a sad thing is it as one says to deny sustenance to thine own Life The breath of God is in thee what shall be done to him that starveth a Prince's child Symmond 's Sight and Faith p. 214. What have we of like worth to Spiritual Vigour Agility Courage and Peace of Soul And shall we who have a door of Life at once offer contempt to Divine goodness and violence to our own Life by not using what God hath put in our hands for our relief Is there so much allurement in destruction and so much Beauty in Eternal Flames that you cannot forbear going thither Why will you suffer your Souls to starve whilst you are contriving to gratify the Flesh Why will you still serve the Devil and your own Sins Are they so good Masters will they pay you so well in the latter end Are you content to have the pleasures of Sin for a season though you lose your share in Paradise Oh what bitter reflections on so bad a choice will this cause hereafter VVhen you shall lift up your Eyes in misery and see the Kingdom of Heaven afar off and say I was once offered that Kingdom and those Joys and I would not have them I was once fair for Salvation but I slighted I might have had the Favour of God and I would not have it O my cursed Sins How you have deceived me You promised me delight and you have brought me to bitterness and wo you promised me safety and you have made me to perish Oh that some Angel or some Saint might be sent to bring me some relief The word of God told me of that Glory his Ministers earnestly intreated me to prepare for it my Friends were always bidding me to leave my wicked course my Conscience checkt me for it and I broke through all these exhortations and these checks and so am come laden with guilt to Eternal Misery I was at my Games and Sports when I should have been upon my Knees I had indeed time and strength and health and many helps and advantages O that I had all my days watcht and strived and denyed my self then I should not have come to this place of Torment O that my Sun would rise again O that I might have another Tryal and more time But alas the Judge is my Enemy I have heard my Sentence and he will not change his purpose I am condemned I am lost for ever O Sinners As you would never fall into such a hopeless state now even now seek the face of God Have you not already spent time enough in Sin in walking in the imagination of your own heatts and the sight of your own eyes Have you not loved your sottish pleasures long enough O! come leave the tents of Wickedness come and Love your God for he is ready to receive you come to him and all your sins shall be forgiven O let not Mercy it self that speaks for your hearts be denyed Who will be so good a friend as God Who will abide with you when life it self is gone And now surely the heart of some sinner or another begins to relent some that is saying with himself Though I never prayed in secret before yet now I will begin to pray Though I lost abundance of my youth and my health I will strive to lose no more I have put off God and my Conscience with vain excuses and delays but I will not put them off again He shall have my thoughts my heart and my endeavours who gave me life and I will ever admire the riches of his Love if he will pardon such a Malefactor and condescend to such a Worm and entertain such a Prodigal as I have been Inf. 6. In what a woful Condition are those poor Sinners that are without this Favour of God! To how great a danger are they every day exposed And which is a part of their misery they know it not Spiritual Death has closed their eyes and they see not where they go What a sad object is a poor sinner that is yet a stranger to this God that is every hour liable to his Eternal Wrath that seeks the Friendship and the Favour of men and has no thoughts of his Creator no dread of his Displeasure no taste or relish of his Love Surely they must be fallen into a dead sleep whom all the Terrors of the Lord all the Threats of his Word and all the Calls of his Ministers will not awaken With what peace can you eat and drink or work or rest whilst so great a God is your Enemy Will his Wrath that makes the Devils in their Hellish Agonies to roar and tremble be tolerable to you When his Vengeance pursues you whither will you run for help When he frowns what will it avail you tho all the world should smile upon you When he casts you off who will shew you pity When he condemns you who will plead your Cause Do you not know that your Life is short that your Change is near that the Judge is at the door Do you not know that this World will leave you that you may quickly go into another And can you dwell with Eternal Burnings Can you venture to go to the Judgment-Seat before you have an Interest in Christ Are you fruitless and barren here and do you think to flourish in the Coelestial Paradise Do you remain dead here under all the means of Grace and do you hope to live for ever What pleasures are those that enchant you that you will not come and taste the Joys of God Who is that that will be a better Friend than he If you laugh at destruction it will not be the further off Oh let not the Devil be your Master nor the world your God Let not sin cheat and impose upon you with its false and counterfeit Delights Others are mourning in secret after the Lord and have you not as much cause to mourn as they Others are striving with earnest Prayers and Supplications and holy Endeavours to enter in at the strait gaâ—e and will it open of it self to you Or have you not also Souls to save as well as they Others Read and Hear and Pray and do all that they can for Salvation being afraid they should fall under the Power of Eternal Death and have you no cause of fear VVhence is it that when they are running so fast in the way of Heaven you run faster in the way of Hell VVhy do you with so great a care tend and regard your Bodies to preserve
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
whom the Prophets and Apostles and Martyrs and all your Ministers and your Christian Friends have spoke so much to be at length your own Saviour how will you be at ease when you see his Excellencies to be yours and that you are among the joyful and adoring-throng that wait upon him To love him and to have his love shewed to you and to have these mutual Delights to increase but never to decay to possess one another for ever with renewed and repeated Extasies this is an Heaven begun that no thoughts can fully apprehend nor words declare in order to this you must give all diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Often you must try your hearts and your Actions by the Word of God and beg his Spirit and obey his motions and excite your Graces and watch against Sin and deny your selves The Trader endeavours all he can to get a plentiful Trade and would have a great deal of business and money flowing in upon him The Merchant strives to have all the plentiful Returns imaginable Oh! Let us strive that our Souls may not only be safe but that they may prosper too not only that we may pray but pray with boldness to God as Children to a Father and when we are able to look upon him as so related and as our Friend our Service will be more fervent and all our work done with greater life and heart our slavish fears and despondence will give way to Love and Hope and then every thing that concerns us will undergo a most comfortable change we shall be able to hear the Thunders and the Curses and the Threatnings of the Law without astonishment and terror because we shall dwell as in God's Pavilion We shall be able to think of Hell and not be overwhelmed because we shall look upon it as a Dungeon from which we are saved by the Grace of God We shall attend to the Messages of the Gospel for it will bring us glad tidings the blessed Angels will be your Guardians the Ministers of the Church your Directors and your Helpers the Malice of the Wicked and the Rage of Devils will fall below us and not reach our happiness 8. Take heed of concluding the special favour of God from the Common Mercies you enjoy 1. You must not conclude you have this Favour from any of your outward Privileges God may long dwell among a People by the outward Testimonies of his Presence by his Word and the means of Grace and yet leave them at last Who were once more happy than the Jews in his Protection and yet none are more miserable than they are by his departure Jerusalem where he had placed his Name and that was once the glory of all Cities is now no more remarkable for its glorious Temple and its stately Towers for its Riches Grandeur and Splendor wherewith it shined heretofore The Holy Land the Countrey of Judea which our Saviour blest with his presence which he instructed with his heavenly Sermons and honoured with his Miracles is now no more the same Judea that it once was it is now groaning under the cruel Dominion of the Turks and the Seven Churches have lost their Golden Candlesticks and the blessed Guest that one walkt in the midst of them The Stars that shone there are now eclips'd and their glory gone It is a great mercy indeed so have the Gospel but it will not in the issue be so to you unless it shine into your hearts If it do not prevail to the conversion of your Souls it will aggravate your ruine inasmuch as you will go from the clearest Light to the thickest Darkness from the brightest Day to the most dismal Night You cannot conclude that you have this Favour from any common gifts of knowledge or of understanding unless you be sanctified throughout When our Lord ascended he gave gifts to men * Du Monlin's Sermons XI Decade Serm. 2. Like those Liberalities which Kings scatter indifferently among their Subjects in the day of their Coronation without making a distinction between the good and bad and of those pieces of Gold and Silver several partake that least deserve them but their great Honours and the Principal Offices of the Crown they reserve for their peculiar Favourites and for those that belong to the Houshold and wait upon their Persons so Christ distributes many Favours to all that enjoy his Gospel but there are some that are peculiar to his own Family as distinguished from the rest of men such are the gifts of Faith of Regeneration and Adoption Happy was the Womb that bare him and happy were the Paps that gave him suck and yet more happy are those that keep his Words Luke 11.27 28. Neither circumcisim nor uncircimcision availeth any thing but a new creature Gal. 6.15 2. You cannot conclude from your outward Prosperity your Richer or abundance in the World that you have this Favour of God in which is Life Our Lord that by his own Example did intend to shew to men better things than the Goods of this World did first cause his Angels to appear to the poor Shepherds not to the Courts of Princes and the Schools of Philosophers He could have had Kings if he had pleased to wait upon him and to lay their Crowns and Scepters at his feet but he chose a Train of poor Followers whom he did enrich with Heavenly Treasures and not with those of this Earth though the whole Creation and all its glories were at his Command The Poor were they that received the Gospel and not many Noble are called c. 1 Cor. 1.27 The poor of the world are rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom Jam. 2.5 Tho as Riches are no sign of God's Election neither is Poverty a mark of Grace but yet with the Lower sort of People and those that are not many times very wise for this World God does often build his Church Afflictions and Crosses are no mark of his displeasure nor is a continued Prosperity the character of his Love for many times God lets his Sun shine upon the Wicked to their dying day their strength is firm the Rod is not upon them they fear no evil they know no sorrow there are no tears in their eyes no sadness in their hearts no complaining in their Families See Job 21. from the 7th to the 13th verse Riches are indeed of themselves great blessings with them a man may do abundance of good works which the poorer sort of People cannot by reason of those straits and difficulties that they are to wrastle with they are great Talents and serviceable to great purposes they do afford men great leisure for the affairs of their Souls and not being perplexed with anxious cares how to get a livelihood they may read and meditate and pray with more devotion but then these soft and easie Blessings meeting with the Corruptions that is in Humane Nature they prove frequently to be a