there is no Good in this Life which is not either tempered with some present Evil or followed with some evil Effects and Inconveniencies according to that of Pliny the younger in his incomparable Panegyrick Habet has vices conditio mortalium ut adversa ex secundis ex secundis adversa nascantur Such is the changeable State of us Sejourners upon Earth that our Comforts breed Crosses and what we reap in Joy was first sowed in Tears This is another good End of God's chastning us to wean our Affections from this World while we live in it and to reconcile us to Death our last Enemy and to make us willing to follow our Friends into another World who could not stay with us here and from whom we cannot there be separated I say me-thinks we should not be very fond of such a Life either for our selves or those we love best which is not only so short that it cannot be kept long but withal so full of Trouble that it is hardly worth the keeping nor by consequence to dote on a flattering World which is so little to be enjoyed and its Enjoyments so very full of vexatious Mixtures 6. Lib. de providentiâ Besides that particular and personal Good which God designeth us in our Chastisements he reacheth the Benefit of our Example to others and teacheth them Patience and Constancy by our Subjection to his Fatherly Discipline Seneca speaks it of good Men in their Sufferings Nati sunt in Exemplar they are born to be Patterns to others And we are advised in this Chapter to consider our Saviour's Endurance for the fortifying of our selves the Confirmation of our Courage and Patience lest we be wearied and faint in our Minds Christ suffered for us 1 Pet 2.21 saith St. Peter leaving us an Example that we should follow his Steps 7. God designs a future Good in our present Chastisements and the Prevention of a greater Evil than that which now oppresseth us The Father of Spirits regardeth principally their Interest and if he grieve them here it is that he may spare them the better hereafter When we are judged 1 Cor. 11.32 we are chastned of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World And indeed what can afford us so firm and solid a Support under all our Losses and Crosses all our Disappointments and Calamities of this Life as the comfortable Assurance and Expectation of a blessed Immortality You have heard that the Father of Spirits projects many Benefits and Advantages to us in those Afflictions which seem most to express his Displeasure and that we ought to receive them chearfully at his hand as the Medicines of our Soul and the Seasonings of our Fortune as the Incentives of our Devotion and the Instruments Polishers and Discoverers of our Vertue but that which will enable us not only to bear the Cross with Patience but with Triumph and to glory in Tribulations as the Apostle speaks is the Presage of future Joy and that well-grounded Hope of Glory which they excite in our Souls So that in regard of this great and last Benefit of our Sufferings I may forbear any further Perswasions to Patience and leave you under the Command and Compulsion of so prevailing a Motive as your own Eternal Life and Happiness If there are other very good Reasons as you have heard derived from the Power and Goodness of God this may supersede them all How much rather shall we be in Subjection to the Father of Spirits and live Live longer and more comfortably in this World live for ever in an Eternity of Health and Happiness in the next Now the God of all Grace who hath called us to his Eternal Glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect stablish strengthen settle you To him be Glory and Dominion for ever and ever Amen FINIS
and the Souls which he hath made Ezra 9.13 but he punisheth us less than our Iniquities deserve 2 Cor. 10.13 and hath promised to lay no more upon us than we are able to bear and that we shall not be tempted above our Strength If he chasten sore he will not destroy if he cause Grief Lam. 3.32 yet will he have Compassion according to the multitude of his Mercies Psal 102.13 Many times turned he his Anger away and did not suffer his whole Indignation to arise for he remembred that they were but Flesh God will either enlarge our Grace or abate our Trouble so that it shall not overwhelm us Who can lift up a Complaint against so compassionate a Father Who can rebel so much as in a hard thought of the Rigor of his Discipline Especially if we consider that he is altogether as much a Father when he corrects as when he cherisheth us and that he designs the same Good in a variety of Conditions He gives Riches to some that they may honour him with their Substance and keeps them from others lest they should abuse them to Avarice or Riot To some he gives Children to be the Staff and Solace of their Pilgrimage and takes them from others lest they should take them from himself and draw down their Affections from things above Eceius 37.28 Some he continues in this World to declare the Works of the Lord and others he takes out of it to rest from their own Labours All things saith the wise Man are not profitable for all Men. And the Wisdom of the Divine Providence is seen as well in sending Winter as Summer Autumn as Spring foul Weather as fair Adversity as Prosperity Sickness as Health and Death as Life It was a high Speech of Seneca's after the manner of the Stoicks Bona rerum secundarum optabilia adversarum mirabilia That the good things of Prosperity are to be wished and the good things of Adversity are to be admired But to speak the words not only of Truth but Soberness great and numerous are the Benefits of Adversity The Judicious Verulam magnifies and extols them in this Comparison Essays Prosperity is the Blessing of the Old Testament Adversity of the New which carrieth the greater Benediction and the clearer Revelation of God's Favour Solomon pronounces Sorrow more desirable than Laughter Eccles 7 3. because by the sadness of the Countenance the Heart is made better Our blessed Lord and Master who began and lived and died in Sorrows seeing his own Sufferings to succeed so well and that for suffering Death he was crowned with Immortality resolved to take all his Disciples and Servants to the Fellowship of the same Sufferings that they might have a Participation of his Glory No Affliction saith our Apostle a little after my Text is for the present joyous but grievous nevertheless it produceth the peaceable Fruits of Righteousness to those that are exercised therewith Those showers which wet the Husbandman multiply his Grain and a dripping Seeds time is usually followed with a more plentiful Harvest If the Servants of God sow in Tears and Blood those Tears and Blood will but water and manure their Graces and make them spring up and blow into a fuller and fairer Glory Thick Mists usher in a bright day and Clouds of Sorrows are usually the fore-runners of a more clear and constant Joy and Death it self is an inlet to immortal Life which would bring me to the Conclusion of my Text and Sermon the great and last end and benefit of all our Crosses or rather of our patient bearing of them everlasting Rest and Exemption from Trouble in the Life to come But it will not be amiss not only for the vindicating of God's Justice but also for the Exaltation of his Mercy to shew in several Instances what good Ends though subordinate to this great one he propounds to himself in his most severe Chastnings One good End is 1. To make us sensible of our Sins and thereby to lead us to Repentance In the warm Seasons of Health and Prosperity variety of delightful Objects call our Thoughts abroad and we heighten the Pleasure of our Enjoyments by the prospect of our Hopes and easily flatter our selves that when the Sun shines and the World smiles upon us God is well pleased with us too and that our Sins are little because his Mercies are so great but when stormy Clouds and Thunder are in the Air we keep within doors we retire into our selves and in the time of Adversity consider what and how great our Sins are which have overcast our Heaven darkned the Light of God's Countenance and made our Face foul with Weeping Job 10.16 as Job speaks The Goodness of God indeed should lead us to Repentance but such is the Disingenuity of our Natures that we too often despise his Goodness and force him either to leave us in our Sins or punish us for them which is the most merciful Cure that our Case will admit of If they be bound in Fetters Job 36.7 and holden in Cords of Affliction then he shews them their Work and their Transgressions as Elihu speaketh When God had taken away from Naomi her two Sons though by an ordinary and usual Death she concludes Ruth 1.13 and so should we in the like Case that her Sins had deserved it and that the hand of the Lord was gone out against her David's Afflictions had this good Effect upon him Psal 35.5 When thy Hand was heavy upon me c. I acknowledged my Sin unto thee and mine Iniquity have I not hid We are all too apt to turn the Grace of God into Wantonness only impudent and hardned Sinners despise his Judgments 2. As our Afflictions do in general admonish us of our Transgressions so as hath been already intimated they point us to those particular Sins which provoke God's Displeasure Joseph's Brethren easily acknowledged their Guilt because they saw their Sin written upon their Punishment Their close Imprisonment taught them what it was to cast their Brother into a desolate Pit And the Wise-man observes that the turning of the Egyptian Waters into Blood was a manifest Reproof of that cruel Commandment for the murdering of the Hebrew Infants Wisd 12.5 And surely as one speaks we might in most The Art of Contentment if not all our Sufferings see some such corresponding Circumstances as may lead us to the immediate provoking Cause of them God who does all things in number weight and measure does in his Punishments also observe a symmetry and proportion and adapts them not only to the Heinousness but even the very specifick kind of our Crimes which was observed by Quintus Curtius in the case of Bessus Quint. Curt. P. 203 204. who betrayed Darius Scelesti haud rarò supplicia luunt ejusdem generis cum illis quae patrârunt flagitiis Wicked Men are usually paid home in their own
The Duty and Benefit of SUBMISSION to the Will of GOD in AFFLICTIONS Discovered in Two SERMONS Upon a special Occasion At Stapleford in LEICESTER-SHIRE By JOHN CAVE Rector of COLDORTON in the same County And Chaplain to the LORD-BISHOP of DURHAM Iis qui erudiuntur Tolerantia succurrit objâ—ctis molestiis generose resistens atque efficiens ne animus concidat sed pugnet propulset Doloris ictus Simpl. in Epicteâ—um Quà m pulchâ—um spectaculum Deo cùm Christianus cum dolore congreditur cùm adversùm Minas Supplicia Tormenta componitur Minut. Fel. LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXII TO The Right Honourable and Truly Noble THE LORD and LADY SHERARD OF STAPLEFORD Right Honourable THese two plain Sermons were composed and suited to serve a great and sad Occasion of your Honours reached at your Desires heard with your good liking and most effectually commended by your diligent Observation and Christian Practice of their Doctrine and therefore in these Respects were justly your own without the formality of a Dedication and truly I designed them so intirely for the Service of your Honourable Family that their Preachingh had been their only Publication and they had continued Yours still in the strictest Sence of Propriety if an intimation of your Honour's Desires which to me carry the force of a Command had not only allowed but obliged me to make them more common and seeing the Cross is not only the Badg but the Burthen of our Christianity and you have so many Fellow-Sufferers in the World I have reason to hope that others may find the same Support and Comfort by these seasonable Discourses which through God's Blessing they have happily afforded you And there being so many afflicting Circumstances as it is generally known in your Case your Patience and Submission will want no Advantage of Example but be able to speak more perswasively and make more Converts than these weak Sermons of mine or the Oratory of more powerful Preachers Indeed when Death comes so near us and makes so deep a Wound in Nature we need an extrordinary Assistance of Grace the Benefit of Precept and Example both all the Helps which Philosophy and Religion can furnish lest we be wearied and faint in our Minds St. Hierom writes of one Paulina a Lady of a steady and well-governed Temper in other Trials who yet could not bear her Childrens Death without an immoderate and unseemly Resentment but some allowance may be fairly made to the Tenderness of her Sex when we see Men who have naturally a greater Constancy and Courage wise Men religious Men ready to fall by the same Stroke Synesius the Bishop of Cyrene was so affected with the Death of his Children Epist 16. that in one of his Epistles he complains that the Remembrance of it like a lingring Consumption wasted him daily that all the Pleasure of his Life died with them and at last breaks out into this impatient Wailing Let me live no longer or else forget that they are dead Yea how doth the Heart of King David a Saint and a Souldier melt into a more than a Womanish Softness and bewray its Weakness and Instability in a Torrent of Tears and impotent unmanly Plaints at the Death of one Absolom Absolom a Traitor and a Rebel to his King and Father yet because a Son still must be lamented in the highest Strain of Passion My good Lord and Lady you bewail a Son who had nothing of Absolom in him but his Beauty who had all the Grace and sweetness of Courtesy of a most obliging Mind Speech and Deportment without any of the Guilt or Blemish of Flattery Affectation or Design who wanted no Accomplishment beseeming his Noble Birth and Quality but excelled in Piety to his God and Reverence to his Parents and a towardly Compliance with the other Instructors and Governours of his Youth whereby he soon became the Delight and Ornament of a learned and vertuous Society Exeter Colledg Oâ—on dear to them as a Child and honoured by them as a Patron and therefore wept over as both with a mixt Affection but not so fond as rational And indeed his obliging Qualifications procured him such a general Interest and Esteem that every one who knew him seemed to mourn all along for him as if the Loss had been only his without any Partner to share his Grief But I design not in this In Mr. Laxton's Sermon preached on the day of his Interment so much a Character of his Worth which hath been drawn already in better Colours and with more graceful Strokes than my poor Stock or Skill can supply as a just Commendation of your Honours singular Piety and Patience your deep sence of the Displeasure and yet your meek and humble Submission to the Will of the Father of Spirits in taking from you a Son of so much Delight and Hope and that in the Prime and the Blosom of his Years when he seemed to be all Life and Vigor a very severe and searching Trial. Yet I who had the unhappy Honour to be admitted into the darkest Scene of your Sorrow and to see your Vertue surprized with a most dreadful Assault soon perceived it happily succoured with such forces of Reason and Religion as assured an equal Conflict if not a Victory And I know you have often blessed God who by a wonderful Supply of his Grace hath maintained your Patience and Fortitude and with the Temptation given a way to escape and secure your Innocence And I shall earnestly pray that the God of all Consolation would be pleased still to suggest to you such Religious Considerations as may establish and encrease your present Comfort and lead you through all the obscure Passages of this Veil of Tears into the brightest Glories of Everlasting Light and Joy that the Belief of your dear Son 's happy Translation and the well-grounded Expectation of your own may mortify all your earthly Affections make you every day less concerned for what you enjoy or suffer in this World and that the Felicities of Eternity may render the good or evil things of Time very indifferent to you To these my Prayers I shall upon all Occasions add my best Endeavours to serve your Honours in promoting your highest your heavenly Interest and Benefit as becomes my Office and Obligations there being no one more truly sensible of your Honour 's Great Favours than is My Noble Lord and Lady Your Honours most Faithful Affectionate and Obedient Servant JOHN CAVE Of Submission to the Will of God HEB. xii ix We have had Fathers of our Flesh which corrected us and we gave them Reverence shall we not much rather be in Subjection to the Father of Spirits and live OUR Blessed Saviour who was himself a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with Grief bequeathed a Legacy of Sufferings unto the Heirs of his Glory and it is through manifold Tribulations that we are
to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven So that we are not only born to Trouble by the common condition of our Nature which like the Earth that the Lord hath cursed brings forth nothing but Briers and Thorns but also born again to it in the State of our Christianity and trained up in the School of Crosses and Afflictions under the Discipline of our heavenly Master But he that hath called us to suffer with and for himself hath also given us the surest Supports and the strongest Consolations in the most needful time of our Distress by setting before us a Joy unspeakable and over-balancing our light Afflictions with a more exceeding weight of Glory exhorting us to Patience by his Precepts and perswading us to it by his Promises but more especially instructing us therein by his own most exemplary Submission and Resignation of Mind to the Will of his Father And his great Apostle having in the foregoing Chapter reckoned up in order several eminent Patterns of Faith and Patience in the beginning of this points as from those many Witnesses or Martyrs to this one glorious and triumphant Sufferer Christ Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith animating us by the Example of his victorious Patience to a passive Fortitude and Courage in our sharpest fight of Afflictions to an unwearied Perseverance in the roughest ways of Vertue Let us run with Patience the Race that is set before us looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith Vers 1 2. who for the Joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the Shame Look unto him not only to admire but to imitate the Resolution and Invincibility of his Spirit that you may not sink under the Cross which he endured nor be over-whelmed with the Shame which he despised for to this very end and purpose you are to consider him that endured such Contradiction of Sinners against himself Vers 3. lest you be wearied and faint in your Minds Nay consider how much less you suffer then he did his Soul was exceeding sorrowful unto Death To Death which draws an everlasting Vail over all the Glories and Delights of this World but Joy and Comfort may again break through your closest Mourning He shed his precious Blood for you you only shed Tears for your selves tho you labour under many Sorrows and have more Sins to strive against yet you have not resisted unto Blood yet you live still Vers 4. and may out-live all your Afflictions unless you make them mortal by your own peevishness which in themselves or rather in the hand of your best Physician are only medicinal and healthful And he hath told you as much if you have not forgotten the Exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto Children Vers 4. and assureth you of his fatherly Love and Tenderness when he makes you smart most under his correcting Hand My Son despise not thou the chastning of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him Be not stubborn against him nor insensible of his Displeasure for it is the chastning of the Lord who hath power and right to punish but yet be not too much dejected for he speaks you and deals with you not as Enemies nor Servants but as Children and plainly discovers his fatherly Tenderness even in these Exercises of his Lordly Dominion as it follows in the 6th 7th and 8th Verses of this Chapter For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastning God dealeth with you as with Sons for what Son is he whom the Father chastneth not but if ye be without Chastisement whereof all are Partakers then are ye Bastards and not Sons This Consideration if any methinks should ease our Hearts in Trouble and keep us from fainting under God's Rebukes viz. that his Chastisements are the Effects and Arguments of his Love and Good-will towards us at least-wise if we endure them as becometh Children with a dutiful Regret for the Sins the Faults that procured them and an humble Subjection to the Hand that inflicts them And that it is our Interest as well as our Christian Duty so to do our Apostle further demonstrates by a very argumentative Comparison in the words of my Text We have had Fathers of our Flesh and we gave them Reverence shall we not much rather be in Subjection unto the Father of Spirits and live We have had Fathers of our Flesh that is of our Body which consists for the most part of Flesh or Fathers of this Life which we now live in the Flesh a Life exercised with fleshly Instruments and maintained with fleshly Supplies these Fathers corrected and punished us as they saw occasion sometimes with-holding their Favours otherwhiles taking away our Toys and Vanities the Entertainments of our childish Affections sometimes threatning and otherwhiles laying on the Rod and we gave them Reverence we did not only take all patiently at present but stood in awe of them for the future honouring their Authority and fearing their Displeasure How much rather shall we be in Subjection unto the Father of Spirits that is the Father of our Souls God's immediate Off-spring or of our Spiritual Life and all that appertains more directly thereunto Shall we not much rather be in Subjection to this heavenly Father who is infinitely more excellent in himself in his Wisdom Power and Goodness who is the Author of our more noble part the Soul and upholds us in a better Being than that which we derive from our natural Parents and designs us a fruit and benefit of his Correction beyond the Confines of this World a happy Immortality after a troublesome dying Life which is implied in the last word of my Text Live Shall we not much rather be in Subjection to the Father of Spirits and live In the Words thus explained and paraphrased we have 1st A Duty implied or supposed the Submission of Children to their particular Parents 2dly A Duty expressed the Subjection of all Mankind but especially of Christians to the Vniversal Father 3dly The Preference of this Duty to the former 1. In respect of the Excellency and Superiority of Fatherhood 2. In regard of the End and Benefit of his Discipline 1st We are taught the Duty of Children's Submission to their immediate and proper Parents viz. That they ought to own and honour their Authority in their Corrections as well as in their Commands or Instructions We had Fathers of our Flesh who corrected us and we gave them Reverence that is we did well so to do 2dly By an Argument at least à pari from an Equality of Comparison we are taught that we ought to fear and honour our Common Father to be in Subjection to him because he is a Father too 3dly By an Argument in another respect à dispari from the less to the greater we are taught that we ought to be more subject to him 1. In regard of the Excellency and Superiority
Coin made to suffer in the same way they sinned in which we ought not only to take notice of the Justice but of the Mercy of God in giving such Instructive Corrections which like Jonathan's Rod that was dipped in Honey enlighten our eyes 1 Sam. 14.27 discover to us by a very affecting Evidence both the nature of our Sin and the necessity of our Repentance 3. God sends Afflictions to try us Behold I will melt them and try them Jer. 9.7 Now this fiery this melting Trial hath these two good Ends. 1. To refine our Natures to purge away our Dross and Corruption 2. To discover and illustrate our Virtues and Graces 1. To purify our Natures and purge away our Dross and Defilements Prov. 17 3. The fining Pot is for Silver and the Furnace for Gold but the Lord trieth the Hearts We are by Nature Massa corrupta Children of Wrath being at best but like Gold and Silver in the Oar till God puts us into his Fining-Pot and his Furnace yea after God's Grace hath renewed us in our first Conversion we have many gross and drossy Intermixtures which will not easily be cleansed off without a frequent Application of some searching Refiners the Word of God indeed is an excellent one Sanctify them by thy Truth thy Word is Truth The Word of the Lord tried him Psal 105.19 and so it doth many others But 2. Affliction is also a great Refiner I have refined thee Isa 48.10 but not with Silver I have chosen thee in the Furnace of Affliction The Furnace is not for the hurt of the Gold but for the Advantage and Improvement of it it loseth nothing there but its Dross and becomes more precious more fit for the Master's use to be made a Vessel of Service and Honour So are Troubles and Afflictions God's Instruments to cleanse and purify our Natures to work out the Pride and Vanity of our Minds This is that good end the Apostle refers to immediately after my Text He chastens us for our Profit How That we may be Partakers of his Holiness And we should endeavour to gather these Grapes and Figs even from our Thorns and Thistles these blessed Fruits of Humility Holiness and Righteousness I mean from the Tree of the Cross that so we may comply and close with God's Merciful Purpose in afflicting us saying with Elihu in all meekness and true contrition of spirit I have born Chastisements Job 34.31 32. I will not offend any more That which I see not teach thou me If I have done Iniquity I will do no more But 2dly Afflictions are sent for tryals of the Truth and sincerity of our Graces our Faith Patience and the like That the tryal of our Faith 1 Pet. 1.7 being much more precious than that of Gold which perisheth though it be tryed with Fire might be found unto praise and honour and glory saith St. Peter and Tribulation worketh Patience saith St. Paul To both these that of Minutius Felix seems to refer Vt Aurum ignibus sic nos discriminibus arguimur as Fire trieth Gold so Crosses and Perils discover the Truth and the strength of Virtue This is taught us in the Parable of the Stony Ground Every forward Hearer of the Word every specious Professor goes for a good Christian till he is like to suffer for his Profession and till Tribulation or Persecution arise because of the Word Mat. 13.20 21 God indeed sees through our hypocritical Coverings all our painted and guilt Out-sides and needs no Touchstone to find out our hidden Faults But because we are sometimes apt to mistake our selves our own Strength as St. Peter once did God in Mercy tries us to give us a right understanding of our selves of the true Habit of our Minds Seneca reports it as the saying of his admired Demetrius Lib. de providentia Nihil mihi videtur infoelicius eo cui nihil evenit adversi I think no Person so unhappy as he who enjoys an uninterrupted Felicity And he shews his Approbation of it by giving this Reason for it Non licuit enim illi se experiri for he could never prove and know himself what he was and what he was able to do or suffer Agreeable hereunto is that of St. Austin Tentat Deus non ut ipse hominem inveniat sed ut homo se inveniat God therefore thus tries not that he may find out a Man but that Man may find out himself and be sensible of his own condition 4. Hos 5.15 Afflictions make us more frequent and fervent in Prayer Most Men too much forget the God of their Mercies but in their Affliction they will seek me early Lord Isa 26.16 in trouble have they visited thee they poured out a Prayer when thy Chastisement was upon them The Sun of Prosperity puts out the Fire of Devotion which is kindled and enflamed by the Antiperistasis of a Winter Blast a bleak Season of Adversity Israel learnt not to mourn until they were sent to Bahel Jonas sleeps in the Ship but wakes and prays in the Whale's Belly 5. God in Mercy exerciseth good Men with Crosses and Sufferings to wean them from the World to discover the Indifferency if not the Worthlesness of those Persons or Things which they promise themselves most Satisfaction and Comfort from In our Friends and Relations it is usually seen God soonest takes those from us for whom we have the greatest and most immoderate Passion lest they should alienate our Affections from himself or abate the degrees of them and cool our pursuit of a Heavenly Happiness Yea when he takes away our Children the dear Parts of our selves the Off-sets of our Stock he doth not only design the better Growth and Fruitfulness of our own Spiritual Life by removing the Suckers of Piety and Virtue but he designs also their Improvement and unspeakable Advantage by transplanting them into his own Paradise Pliny the eldest though he could not see into the Glories of another Life for want of our Revelation yet had studied the World very much and for his parts of Nature Wit and Curiosity and other great Advantages of Fortune might be supposed to know as much as any mere Philosopher made this Observation that no Wish was more frequent among Men than the Wish of Death and thereupon his Conclusion is that Natura nihil brevitate vitae praestitit melius that Nature hath not done us so great a Kindness in any thing as in shortning our stay in this Life that we may not contract too great an Intimacy with the World And that we may not too much lament the Condition of those that leave the World before it leaves them who are blasted in the Beauty and Flower of their Youth have their Evening before Noon and die in their first Enjoments of the Pleasures of Life He elsewhere calls Death Praecipuum Naturae bonum the chief Blessing of Nature which cannot come out of Season because