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A26794 The great duty of resignation to the divine will in afflictions enforced from the example of our suffering Saviour / by William Bates ... Bates, William, 1625-1699. 1684 (1684) Wing B1111; ESTC R22116 57,272 226

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will give for their Honour but forgive no Contempt or Injury and as the dividing living Twins destroys them so the Life and Sincerity of Obedience that consists in the union and intireness of its parts is destroyed by dividing our respects to some commands neglecting the rest And in Passive Obedience many will submit to lighter and shorter afflictions but if an Evil comes that nearly touches the heart or that remains long without redress they become impatient or so dejected as to neglect their Duty I shall therefore superadd to the former Arguments wherein the Necessity the Equity and the Policy of our Dutiful Resignation to God's Providence is clearly set forth some other Motives and Directions that may be useful and effectual for this end First Look frequently to Jesus Christ the Author and finisher of our Faith The Divine Wisdom to reform the World assumed the Humane Nature and expressed in a Holy Conversation upon Earth a living Copy of his Precepts to direct us in the various parts of our Duty and because the exercise of Humility Self Denial and the rest of the Suffering Graces is so difficult to our frail and tender Nature he ascended the Cross and instructs us by Suffering to suffer with his Affections leaving us his Example as the best Lecture of our Duty His Sufferings concern us not only in point of Merit but Conformity We can never enjoy the benefit of his Passion without following his Patern His example is the Rule of the highest Perfection and we are under the greatest obligation to imitate and honour him who is our Sovereign and Saviour to whom we owe our Redemption from everlasting Misery and the Inheritance of Glory 'T is the Apostle's advice to the afflicted to consider him that endured such contradiction of Sinners against himself that ye be not wearied and faint in your minds This deduction is with greater force to make us humble and patient If we consider First the Infinite Dignity of his Person He was the Eternal and Onely Son of God and descended from the Throne of his Majesty divested himself of his Robes of insupportable Light that concealed and manifested his Glory to the Angels and was obedient to the Death of the Cross what are the highest and best of Men to him Were it not extreamly unbecoming and undutiful for a Subject to refuse Obedience to a just Law if the King that made the Law should voluntarily observe it and reserve no other advantage to himself but the honour of enacting it Our Saviour did not stand upon the dignity and liberty of his Person being equal with God and our King but intirely complied with the Law and shall we complain of its rigour Secondly The Greatness of his Sufferings They were incomparable as to their value so in their degrees He endured the equal extremities of Infamy and Torment that are so contrary to the inclinations of Mankind He was Crowned with a cruel Diadem of Thorns Scourged Spit upon Derided Crucified Insensible Nature as if capable of Understanding and Affection was disordered in its whole frame at his Death The Heavens sympathized in Eclipses of the Sun in the darkness of the Air at Mid-day as Midnight the Earth quak't with deep Tremblings and the Rocks were rent a sunder And the Sufferings of his Soul from the incensed Justice of God were inconceivably great What is the worst we suffer either immediately from God or instrumentally from Men to his bitter Passion Our Sufferings are but superficial shadows of Misery compared to his deep Sorrows Thirdly His Sufferings were most undeserved For he was the Holy One of God his Conception without the least taint of Sin his Life of strictest Purity and compleat Obedience to the Divine Law We may read the process of our Sins and understand their Guilt in his Passion He was made Sin for us a Sacrifice to atone the Divine Displeasure who knew no Sin As David when Guilty of Adultery and Murder was fired with disdain at the relation of an incompassionate Rich Man killing the single Lamb of his poor Neighbour and sparing his own numerous Flock and when the Prophet unveiled the Parable and surprised him with that piercing reproach Thou art the Man he presently by that Fiction in another was convinced of his own true guilt and was extreamly afflicted in the sense of it Thus we are apt to conceive indignation against the Murderers of our Saviour the Apostate Apostle the Malicious Priest the Unrighteous Judg the Bloody Soldiers But Conscience as a true Nathan may charge us to have been in that wicked Conspiracy against the Lord of Glory for our Sins Condemned and Crucified him And as our Sins were the impulsive cause of his Sufferings so our good is the effect of them He suffered the Death of the Cross that his Blood might be our Ransom his Ignominy the purchase of our Glory his Torments the merit of our Blessedness his Death the Seed of Immortal Life to us but we suffer the just punishment of our own Sins Fourthly His willing Obedience Divine Patience and invincible Constancy in Suffering for us In his distress the whole Army of Heaven were in readiness for his Protection and Rescue upon the least signification of his Will If I prayed to my Father he would send me twelve Legions of Angels Nay he had the Springs and Keys of the Divine Power in his hands and could by a Word have destroyed his Enemies but he freely gave himself for us and without resistance without complaint took up his Cross. Now our Saviour who had the fulness of the Spirit communicates to us the first Fruits of it Faith and Love Humility and Patience Peace and Joy to support us under Affliction Fifthly Consider the excellent reward of his Sufferings He was abased below Men and is advanced above all the Angelical Orders and is the Eternal Argument of their Praises Never were Sufferings so grievous never was Issue so glorious For the Joy that was set before him he endured the Cross despised the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high Now our Blessed Saviour hath promised To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his Throne Unfainting Perseverance in our Duty shall be rewarded with the Glory of our Redeemer And is not the prospect and expectation of this sufficient to confirm our Minds and make us patiently bear the greatest Afflictions Secondly The Consideration of the Suffering Saints in all Ages is a powerful perswasive to Patience Thus the Apostle James directs Christians Take my Brethren the Prophets who have spoken in th● Name of the Lord for an example of suffering Affliction and of Patience And we have great encouragement from hence if we consider 1. That those who are of most precious account with God and highly favoured by him are usually exercised with
The Great Duty OF RESIGNATION TO THE DIVINE WILL IN Afflictions Enforced from the Example of our Suffering SAVIOUR By William Bates D. D. Nihil fit visibiliter sensibiliter quod non de interiori invisibili intelligibili aula summi Imperatoris aut jubeatur aut permittatur in ista totius Creaturae amplissima quadam immensaque Republica Aug. lib. tert de Trin. LONDON Printed by J. D. for Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pigeons over against the Royal-Exchange in Cornhil 1684. Gulielmus Batesius S. S. Theol Prof Aetat 57. Nov 1682. THE PREFACE THE first Man by Rebellion against his Maker lost his Innocence and Felicity and conveyed a sad inheritance of Sin and Misery to his Universal Progeny Ever since it has been esteemed a principal part of Wisdom to prepare the Minds of Men to encounter with innumerable Evils that surround them and to preserve a well-order'd contented state of Soul when actually under the greatest Afflictions All the famous Sophy's of the World the most celebrated Professors of Patience could not attain to this Skill Their consolatory Discourses composed with Wit and Eloquence are like artificial fruits of Wax that seem to surpass the productions of Nature but can only please the sight and afford no real refreshment to the taste Or like Rings of Steel that are joined by the attractive virtue of the Load-stone that make a Chain fair to the Eye but of no strength and use It was inexcusable Ignorance their not resolving Temporal Evils to their proper Original the righteous Providence of God They erected a blind foolish Power under the title of Fortune to preside in this Sphere of mutability they always boast of their playing a Prize with Fortune and triumph over a Phantome of their own Fiction This Conceit was both impious and uncomfortable impious to take the Scepter of Government from God's hand and attribute to that foolish Pleasure of Fortune what is ordered by his Providence and uncomfortable for they fancied their Deity to be blind without discerning between the worthy and unworthy and inexorable to the complaints of the injured and the Prayers of the miserable The common Topicks from whence they hardned themselves are That none are exempted in this open state from Afflicting accidents the common tribute of Mankind that 't is in vain to struggle with what is irresistible that Death is the balm and close of all Evils And the best of their moral Arguments for Patience under Sufferings such as the dignity of the reasonable Soul and that nothing inferior to it should have power or is worthy to put it into confusion that Vertue is the noblest Perfection and is encreas'd by the most difficult Exercise that 't is best to yield up our selves to the Divine disposal These Arguments are with infinite more advantage propounded in the Sacred Scriptures and for Christians to attend to the instructions of natural Reason and neglect the Divine Revelations of the Gospel is a folly like that of the silly Indians of Mexico who having plenty of Wax the natural work of the Bees yet 〈◊〉 made use of Fire brands to light them in the Night that afforded a little Light mixt with a great deal of Smoak Briefly they had but wavering conjectures of the future State and the recompences thereof from whence are derived the most powerful Motives of Active and Passive Obedience to the commanding and disposing Will of God But in the Scripture are laid down in the clearest manner and with infallible assurance such Principles as are effectual to compose the Mind to patient Suffering and to meet with valiant Resolution all the terrible contrarieties in the way to Heaven It declares that Sin opened an entrance unto all the current adversities in the World which are the evident signs of God's displeasure against it In anguish we are apt to dispute with Providence and an imagination of Innocence kindles Discontent Of this impatience some even of the best Moral Heathens were guilty Titus and Germanicus charged the Gods with their untimely and in their apprehension undeserved Deaths but the due sence of Sin will humble and quiet the Mind under Sufferings it directs us to consecrate our Sorrows to turn the flowing Stream into the Channel of Repentance And thus the Passion of Grief which if terminated on external Troubles is barren and unprofitable it can neither retrieve our lost Comforts nor remove any oppressing Evil if it be imployed for our offences prepares us for Divine Mercy and is infinitely beneficial to us And thus by curing the Cause of Afflictions our Guilt that deserves them we take away the malignity and poison of them The Word of God assures us that all the perturbations and discords in the passages of our Lives are ordered by his Wisdom and Will so that without extinguishing the two eyes of Reason and Faith we must acknowledg his Providence and observe his design in all which is either to excite us when guilty of a careless neglect or remiss performance of our Duty or to reclaim us from our excursions and deviations from the narrow way that leads to Life Indeed there is nothing more common nor more fatal than for afflicted persons to seek by carnal diversions and contemptible comforts to overcome their Melancholy and the sense of Divine Judgments and hereby they add new Guilt and provoke new displeasures This presages and accelerates final Ruine for such whom Afflictions do not reform are left as incorrigible But above all encouragements the Gospel sets before us the Sufferings of our Redeemer and directs all his Disciples in sincerity to accustom themselves to the contemplation and expectation of Troubles on Earth it tells them 't is a branch of their Religion to Suffer with him that they may Reign with him And what is more reasonable than if our Saviour endured superlative Sufferings to purchase Eternal Glory for us that we should with the same Mind bear lighter Afflictions to prepare us for it If this Principle be alive and active in our Breasts that our present Afflictions shall determine in our future Happiness when Time shall cease and Eternity succeed this will encourage us to serve God with our best affections when our days are overcast with Sorrow as in a bright Prosperity this will secure our passage through a stormy tempestuous World as if it were a truly Pacifick Sea knowing that Divine Providence always guides us to the Port of eternal Tranquility This is the substance of what is amplified in the following Treatise And whilst there are Miseries in the World no Discourses are more seasonable and useful than those that lighten our oppressing Sorrows and that enable us with uniformity and constancy in all the changes of this mortal Life to pursue our eminent End The Holy Spirit the great Comforter apply these Truths to the Hearts of the Afflicted William Bates Errata PAge 24. l. 1. for as objects are greater r. appear greater Page 116.