want and distress but also that he has both the Power and the Will to relieve or deliver all those who make their humble supplications unto him Did afflictions happen by meer Chance we should not know how to behave our selves under them we should have no encouragement to bear them Patiently nor skill to make a due Provision for those which may seize upon us hereafter and turn them into a benefit to our Souls But when we know from whence they come and that our Cup how bitter soever it be was mingled by the merciful hand of our Most Gracious Father for the Health of our Souls with what readiness and courage shall we stoop to our Burden and what an humble and heavenly Temper shall we attain by our Sufferings Did not God know us or take notice of our Lives how could he now Govern the World or Judge it hereafter Insomuch as there is no calling the truth of the Doctrine of Providence into question without striking at the foundation of all the Arguments for Divine Worship for the Fear and Service of God for Trust in his Mercy and hope in his Assistance and without putting an end to every reasonable thought about future Rewards and Punishments But though there be a great deal of Malice in the objections against Providence yet upon little examination they will be found weak and such as cannot shake the belief of any who will impartially consider them 'T is objected That for God to have the care of all things upon him would disturb his Peace and that for him to condescend to observe the actions of trifling Man and to have a regard to the small and vilest parcels of the World would be below the dignity of his Glorious Majesty The weakness of this Objection which is so much flourisht by the Epicureans lyes herein That they suppose God to be like unto men who can hardly transact any affair wisely without much thinking who cannot be concern'd in many things together without great disquiet and trouble Now the trouble uneasiness irresolution and difficulty which men find in much or great business does arise from their faculties being stinted they are fain to turn things up and down in their thoughts and to work their brains with long consideration before they can resolve what is fit to be done and after they have resolved they are as much at a loss for means to accomplish their designs But what is more evident than that the boundless Power Wisdom and Knowledg of God cannot be exposed to any of these Objections and Difficulties Therefore to disown Providence in the plain consequence of things is to deny the existence of an Infinitely perfect Being And though we may bear with such a sorry Objection as this in the Epicures who were so vain as to ascribe the Original of the World in which do appear so many of the marks of deep Skill and Wise contrivance to a Fortuitous concourse or casual jumble of Atomes yet it would be intolerable in Christians who profess heartily to believe God to be Maker of Heaven and Earth to hold that he should not think the things Worthy of his Care and Protection which he once thought Worthy of his Making or that he should meet with Difficulties and Troubles in Governing the World who found none in Creating it As the firm Belief of Providence is of vast concernment to our Souls so the Spirit of God has made many declarations of it and fully set forth all the parts thereof in Holy Scripture not only how God is pleased to engage himself in making provision for the Children of men but how his care does extend to the smallest Creatures and the meanest parts of the Creation We are taught not only that the Rational Beings do live and move and subsist by the Goodness of their Maker but that he condescends to feed the little Sparrow and to cloath the fading Lillies of the Field and even to number the slender Hairs upon our Head Furthermore in the Word of God is set forth all the sorts of Instances in which the Divine Providence does manifest it self to men who seem to be the extraordinary Objects of God's Care and Love There an account is given how God concerns himself in our Birth and first Production that he makes the barren Woman to be a joyful Mother of Children that it is he that takes us out of the Womb that he is our Hope and our whole Dependance is upon Him from the time we hung on our Mothers Breasts and that the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings set forth the Praise of his Providence That the Divine Providence doth not only exercise it self about particular Persons but reaches unto Societies and Communions and takes Cities and Nations within it's special Cognisance that both their Prosperity and Sufferings come from him that except he keep the City the watchman waketh but in vain and that no Evil happens there but he hath done it and that he ever makes them to Flourish or Decline in proportion to their Virtues or their Sins the universal good of the Creation being the great design and measure of his Providence The Holy Scriptures sometimes acquaint us with those parts of Providence which relate to God's Infinite Knowledg and the Righteousness of his Dealings that nothing which we do or think can be hid from Him but that all lies open and naked to the Presence of Him before whom we stand that exact observation is made of every turn and design in our Lives that he seeth all under the whole Heaven and looketh unto the ends of the Earth that our whole behaviour is as it were registed in a Book that at the great Day of Judgment this Book shall be open'd and we be Sentenc'd to Everlasting Happiness or Misery according as our Lives shall from thence appear to have been Good or Evil. In our Bibles we learn that God suffers Afflictions to fall upon his own People and are there shewn the just reasons of those Proceedings of his which at first view seem'd hardly consistent with his immense Goodness and that all things in the end shall work together for the good of them who love him There we also learn that the Preservation and Continuance of Life is not in our power and that length of days does not depend upon our care and skill but that God keeps the issues of Life and Death in his own hand and we never by any means can be assured how long we have to live who see the days of the weak and sickly sometimes extended to very old Age and they of strong Constitutions and of firm and vigorous healâ—h lopt off in their green Years and full Strength and all this that we may never presume to set Death at a great distance from us but manage the present time prudently and circurnspectly and not rely upon infinitely contingent Futurity in the great Affair of our Souls for the due care of which we were sent
to the will of his Merciful Father They therefore who would bear troubles well must live in a constant expectation of them and in their good days lay up a stock of Christian Graces against the Winter of Adversity They I say who in the height of their Prosperity will often and seriously reflect upon the great change that either by Losses and Pains or certainly by Death in a short time will overtake them and provide themselves with the suffering-Virtues against that dark season will be so far from having their spirits sink at the approach either of Afflictions or Death it self that it will raise them above the World and mount and carry their Hearts and Affections to God who is the Centre of all sound Peace and solid Joy How happy are those souls who when the World most smiles upon them do not trust it but furnish themselves with the Humility and the Meekness and the Patience of Jesus against the evil day that as no Sickness or Trouble can much surprize them so neither can it greatly or long discompose their minds but they discern the Finger of God in it and turn it to their spiritual advantage And they therefore count it joy when they fall into Temptations i. e. suffer affliction for they are assured that God will not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able If they are troubled on every side yet they shall not be distressed if they are perplexed they shall not despair if they are persecuted they shall not be forsaken if cast down they shall not be destroyed SERMON II. III. THAT if we equally consider things we shall be constrain'd to acknowledg That God's Goodness and Mercy do appear in our greatest Sufferings and this will be evident from the following Reasons 1. Because if we look upon God as the Supreme Lord and Owner of the World who alone has the Right of all we shall find our selves to be but Tenants at will for every thing that we have And if God has given us nothing but during pleasure then let him take it away when he pleases he can do us no wrong Our Life that makes us capable of his other Favours our Health which makes life comfortable our Relations our Estates our Ease and Peace are all the free Gifts of the Bounty of him who had not the least Obligation to us and if he revoke them all or any of them we receive no Injury for he does but resume his own Right Insomuch as if God strips us of all down to nothing he will but leave us in the state he found us Wherefore we ought to be so far from charging him with unkindness for any temporal Evil that we must own it is his singular Goodness we have been permitted the Enjoyment of so many of his Blessings such a long time 2. We cannot but acknowledg the Goodness of God in our Troubles and Losses when we consider him as the great Judg of the Lives of Men and examine the Conditions upon which he was pleased to grant the use of his Creatures unto them and the Punishments he has threatned to inflict upon the disobedient Upon this Examination it will be plain to the greatest Sufferers that God has been merciful in that they in many particulars have broken the Conditions of the Covenant which was made between him and them and he has not taken the whole forfeiture There is no breach of God's Law in any great instance made coolly and deliberately but it does deserve not only a temporal punishment but the pains of Hell should God deal with us according to the measures of strict Justice Now when he who if he proceeded strictly against us might pass the Sentence of Death upon us and shut us out of his presence for ever does but gently correct us with such chastisements as are proper to reform our faults and cause us to grieve we have offended our best Friend What can we do but admire his Goodness and magnify the riches of his Mercy towards us If God did not let sinners who have lived a great while securely in their iniquity at length feel the weight of his Justice they would lay aside all fear of his Power and fall into ruin beyond a possibility of being recover'd But yet we may observe That there is a plentiful mixture of Mercy in the Punishments which God first inflicts upon the greatest sinners and that he does not proceed to high degrees of severity until their hearts are so hard that lighter Afflictions would make no impression upon them Wherefore when very bad Men are brought to Repentance by a terrible Judgment they discern God's Goodness in nothing more than the terrour which attended the Judgment wherewith he corrected them because they are sensible it would not have reclaim'd them from their wicked Courses had it been of a milder sort God then tempers Judgment with Mercy that as the contemplation of the one may preserve in Mens minds an awful regard of his Majesty so the consideration of the other may keep them from running into despair Where Sinners are become bold more of his Justice is requisite to make them dread his displeasure and to acknowledg the infirmities of their own Nature but on the contrary where such a tenderness is found in the Consciences of Men that they are extream fearful of their condition notwithstanding to the best of their ability they sincerely endeavour to serve him he is so far from putting any unnecessary hardship upon them that he letteth forth the treasures of his Compassion upon their disturb'd Souls does scatter their groundless fears and refresh and cherish them with his Mercies There is no want of proof to convince Men that as all the temporal evils they suffer are less than in rigour of justice God might lay upon them so they never overtake them before they are necessary either to make them reflect upon the Errors of their own ways or to put a stop to others in a bad Course The Servants of God who have been renowned for their Piety and whose holy deeds and glorious sufferings in the Cause of Religion have been recorded by the Holy Ghost for the imitation of the Followers of Christ and the support of all afflicted Saints these eminent instruments in the work of the Lord I say have ever been so sensible of their own frailty as to dread the Divine Justice They never did presume to insist upon their own Righteousness when they came before God as if they had lived with such exactness according to his Laws that he could not afflict them without being injurious They were not such strangers to themselves as not to be conscious that in a great number of respects their behaviour came short of perfection which alone can justify a Man Wherefore we shall never find that they appeal to their Innocence when they have to deal with their Righteous Judge but full of the apprehension of their guilt they cast themselves at his
into the world In this Word of God we find an account not only of the uncertainty of our Lives but of all the other Goods we possess which belong unto the present state that the possession we have of them is very precaâ—ious and that of a sudden we may very many ways be put out of the enjoyment of those things we esteemed most had kept longest and were most secure of But tho the ways of turning us out of what we have be many yet the Holy Scripture gives us good assurance that we shall never be dispossest of the least good without the Appointment or License of Providence that as we may not set our hearts upon any of the things of the World which we have so we may bear Losses quietly and without ruffling the Peace of our Minds and making any abatement of our Love of God may submit to every change in our condition with the Patience of Job yielding back to the Lord what he had given Sometimes the Scriptures discourse of the strange Changes which are made in Kingdoms how God pulls men down and sets others up by unlikely means and when they least expected it and that in an instant he stript them of their vast Possessions when their Power and Plenty had thrust him out of all their thoughts and they placed their security in their own strength and did not attribute to his Providence the Glory of their Greatness Of the wonderful effects of Providence we have unquestionable examples in all Ages wherein the motion of God's hand hath been so visible that necessity will compel men to ascribe them to him How frequently hath the interposition of the Divine Power been clearly manifest in the Rise and Declension of Kingdoms and in the surprizing Periods which have been put to mighty Empires by small and improbable Causes notwithstanding they were founded in deep Policy and had been of long continuance he in a moment breaking the firm frame of things and turning up the Foundations which were laid by the Counsels of the most skilful and sagacious men VVhen the measure of the sins of a great People is full and their Iniquities are grown up to a ripeness fit for ruin so that God will no longer endure the abuse of his Mercies and the bold affronts which are put upon his Love and Kindness then Destruction comes swiftly upon them and they receive their terrible overthrow from those hands which they did despise Histories of all Countries furnish us with instances of this kind and we may read abundance of the mysterious variety of the workings of Providence in the quick turns and amazing changes which did happen to the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel Either the sick or the lame have strength enough to pull down the mightiest Nation when the crying sins thereof have provoked God peremptori 〈…〉 to resolve that there shall be an end put to all its Glory and Power Of this case we have a memorable declaration made from the Lord to the Jews by the Prophet Jeremy of the fatal Blow which should be given to their Kingdom even by those they themselves had beaten and that only the wounded men which remained should be sufficiently able to set Fire to their City and lay it in Ashes Thus saith the Lord Deceive not your selves saying The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us for they shall not depart for tho ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you and there remained but wounded men among them yet should they rise up every man in his tent and burn this city with fire Now when only the wounded and shatter'd remains of a Conquer'd Army shall be able to attack and take a well fortified City the great disproportion between the Instruments and the Work must force the mouths of the Inhabitants to confess that it is the Lord's doings and that their Misery is justly pulled down from Heaven by their abominable sins Wherefore when we behold any Empire or Kingdom that hath been long setled taken deep root enlarged its Borders and was â— Terror to its Neighbours to dissolve on a sudden and tumble down and all the Limbs of this well-built and often-try'd Body at once to be dis-jointed will not in this strange and unaccountable Revolution the Prints be most conspicuous and plain of the All-seeing and All-disposing Providence of God who turns the Wisdom of the Wise into Foolishness does not give the Race to the Swift nor the Battel to the Strong On the other hand to see a small Society or Body of Men preserv'd when environ'd with Powerful Enemies each of which could have devoured it and its State and Condition supported when they did all conspire to work its ruin and Peace and Safety restored by most improbable means where there was no appearance or likelihood of it must be a demonstration that God governs the world and orders all the affairs thereof From hence it is as the Divine Providence hath wonderfully put forth it self in all times so God shews himself highly displeased when his people presume to call his Care of them into question and make any doubt whether he observes their behaviour declaring it to be utterly impossible that he should either neglect or forget them For they say the Lord bath forsaken the earth and the Lord seeth not And as for me also my eye shall not spare neither will I have pity But Zion said The Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten me Can a woman forget her sucking children that she should not have compassion on the Son of her womb yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee Thus I have dispatch'd the first Head of this Discourse namely that nothing can come to us through the whole course of this life without the Order or at least the Permission of Providence and shewn That not only the Prosperity and Adversity the Poverty and Riches the Wisdom and Understanding the Length of Days and Death of particular Persons but also the Growth and Fall of Nations and Kingdoms comes from the Lord Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are done in Heaven and Earth He sheweth loving kindness unto thousands and recompenceth the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their Children after them The great the mighty God the Lord of Hosts is his name great in counsel and mighty in works for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men to give every one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings 2. That we should receive evil from the hand of God as well as good is very agreeable to his Wisdom In the miseries God sends or suffers to fall upon men in this life many of his great Ends in governing the world are serv'd and much Spiritual Profit may accrue to them who by the cross Events and Disappointments they here encounter are wean'd from the world and will not be drawn in
down with the brittle and deceitful Goods of the present state and only among them seeks for rest Thus it is manifest that real Felicity does consist in the Innocence and Tranquility of the Mind But notwithstanding in the general we may pronounce all those happy who have quiet and unblemish'd Souls yet we cannot speak with confidence as to the happiness or misery of particular men because by their outward Circumstances and appearance to the World we can never be certain of the sincerity of their minds nor whether they have those Virtues in their Possession which cause solid Happiness Wherefore seeing we are not competently qualified to judg either of the Piety or of the Happiness of particular men it evidently follows That there is very little in that Popular Objection against the Divine Providence taken from the seeming Adversity of the Good and flourishing state of the Wicked Further Neither is it any disparagement of Providence nor unkindness in God towards his faithful servants that sometimes he translates them early from hence and permits them to dye in the vigour of their years For can a greater favour be done them for their short and faithful service than for God to remove them not only from the dangers and temptations to sin but also from the manifold troubles and vexations of this life unto his everlasting Mercies He does this in honour to them that the wicked may behold and be concern'd they are no longer worthy of them nor of the Good they might receive from their Holy and Wise Conversation Besides when the Justice of God has decreed some dreadful Judgment against a wicked Nation he often takes away his own People from the Evil to come But tho the righteous be prevented with death yet shall he be in rest for honourable age is not which standeth in length of time nor that is measured by number of years but wisdom is the gray hair unto men and an unspotted life is old age He pleased God and was beloved of him so that living among sinners he was translated He being made perfect in a short time fulfilled a long time for his soul pleased the Lord therefore hasted he to take him away from among the wicked 3. It is to be consider'd that the condition of the World is such that there is a necessity the Virtuous should often be exposed to the same Troubles and Misfortunes which happen to the Ungodly And as the Wise Man speaks There will be one event to the righteous and to the wicked for the Calamities of War Pestilence Famine and Fire involve men of all Conditions and take in the Holy with the Sinners Neither the Nipping Frosts nor scorching Heats nor raging Floods nor blasting Winds make any difference between the lands of pious and bad Men nor can a storm at Sea distinguish between their Goods which are in the same Vessel For a Man to look that God should exempt him from these publick Evils is to expect he should alter the Course of Nature for his sake which is wisely establish'd and for great ends and therefore all such hopes can have no ground and must be deem'd very unreasonable 4. Notwithstanding such common Calamities cannot be avoided yet God always intends our good in every harsh disappointment which we meet with and it will admirably serve to mend the temper of our Minds By Adversity which God never le ts loose upon us before it is useful for us he makes an experiment of the reality of our affections towards him whom we ought infinitely to esteem above all other things by it God tries our Constancy whether we will equally Love him and preserve as great a Reverence for him in the days of our Sorrow as when he crown'd us with plenty And if upon this Trial we entertain as honourable thoughts of the proceedings of his Providence as when the World went well with us he has attained his end in Visiting us and will quickly deliver us from our Grievance For if under the sorest Crosses the heaviest Losses and sharpest Pains we uphold in our Souls as worthy opinions of God's Administration of Affairs as when he enricht us with his Blessings then we shall make an undoubted discovery of the sincerity of our Love of Him and it will be evident to men that we value the Peace of Conscience and his Favour above all sensual comforts Besides nothing will more lessen our esteem of these mean and despicable pleasures nor take off the edg of our desire for them than frequently to be disturbed in the enjoyment of them and to have them forced away when we were most delighted with them and confidently promised to our selves their long continuance It may indeed be a general Observation that much Prosperity corrupts mens Morals and tempts them to rely upon their own Powers but Adversity reforms their Lives and teaches them to know their own weakness and wants which they perceive would grow insupportable did God once withdraw his Assistance Wherefore seeing it is so much harder to walk uprightly before God in a flourishing condition that make us apt to forget him than in an afflicted state which naturally disposes us to seek the Lord is there any reason why we should thus murmur at his Rod and repine when he Corrects us with the tenderness of a Father and visits us with his Judgments only that he may heal our spiritual diseases How terrible soever any Calamity may appear to us yet it is fitted to our Circumstances and is not greater than the crazy state of our Souls does stand in need of For Troubles do not spring casually out of the Earth or fall upon us without measure or bounds But God in his Wisdom does order the time when we shall be Afflicted he determines the kind of Evil which shall fall to our Lot and metes the very quantity that we must Suffer Which as soon as it has Humbled our Vanity or extinguish'd our Lust or abated our Love of Riches and reduced us to just apprehensions of our selves be certainly will recall from us and let in the light of his countenance into our hearts Now this being the true state of things as will be plain to every honest enquirer it may be matter of wonder why men take Afflictions so ill at the hand of God when they know they proceed from his Love and behave themselves so untowardly under almost every degree of Adversity A great cause of all this I judge to be their making slight or no preparations for Afflictions before they come Now there is that distraction and disorder raised in the Spirit of a man who is surprized with any Calamity that he tosseth like a Bull in a Net and has not temper enough left to consider of the great Causes there were to move God to lay it upon him or of the sweet fruit he might gather from it by a modest and quiet carriage under the heavenly Discipline and a total Submission of himself