whose very name is luscious in the mouth and speaks sweetness We say Variety is delightful and 't is the condition of the sublunary world to be whirl'd about in perpetual vicifsitudes to be as mutable and full of changes as the Moon it self who has the Dominion over it And I confess that the day-break brings comfortable tidings after telling the Clocks of a tedious and restless night the verdant Spring is welcome that has been usher'd in by a hard Winter and the Sun-shine shews pleasant which follows a bitter storm But on the contrary which was Hezekiah's case here out of a prosperous state to be tumbled into adversity to have new troubles tread upon the heels of our peace out of health to be thrown upon a bed of bitter sickness this is a sad change and must needs go to the heart of the stoutest and wisest when the remembrance of their former good estate serves only to aggravate their present ills Yet so it seems good to the all wise God to exercise his Children to try their sincerity to the utmost whether they have any by-ends in their service whether their piety be real or only a pretense whether when their conditions are alter'd their resolutions will not change too and when a storm comes take to the hedge and keep a dangerous persecuted profession company no longer whether they will go along with their Religion when it goes as Christ did to be crucified or with the Disciples desert him and leave him to himself This was Satan's argument Doth Job serve God for nought and therefore strips him to the very skin and makes that very skin uneasie too by cloathing it all over with blisters and sores that by that time Job had done scraping with his pot-sheard he had no skin at all left to cover him but was fain to get him a new covering out of the ashes he roll'd himself in Yet Job when he had lost all would not let go his integrity but prov'd in despight of the Devil's suggestions that he serv'd God for God's sake and could fairly trust him for his reward in the next world Wherefore 't is a brave challenge of that Heroick Apostle Rom. VIII 35. Who sayes he shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or nakedness or peril or sword as if he had said Let me see that Man or Devil or Thing in the world that can drive me from my just confidences and blessed assurances of God's love And for death he makes nothing of it vouchsafes it not the mention but in a parenthesis in the next verse looks upon it as a meer scare-crow a thing he has been used to and now fears it not but gets him upon a place of Scripture and defies it As it is written sayes he For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter And then in the two last verses of that Chapter 't is as bravely by him resolv'd upon the question I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come Nor heighth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So then for peace let bitterness come nay let great bitterness come yet such a resolution will weather the point of the worst change But yet to aggravate this change there is another consideration still behinde that 't was by way of surprize it came strangely and unexpectedly Behold for peace I had great bitterness When Scripture bids us behold 't is worth our while to stand and look about and this word gives us this lesson that A Christian must stand upon his guard prepare for changes and be provided in omnem eventum for what ever may happen In this posture Job stood which made him bear the brunt and receive the shock the better The thing which I fear'd sayes he is come upon me But it should seem Hezekiah did not make that preparation entertain'd no such jealousies We read in the Chapter before that the Angel had discomfited the Assyrian Host and that Sennacherib himself the Monarch was assassin'd by his Sons which quit the King of Judah utterly of all apprehensions he is wrapt up in security yet see he is no sooner rid of this fear but another arrest is serv'd upon him In those dayes sayes the first verse of this Chapter was Hezekiah sick unto death There surprizes him a bile worse then Rabshakeh sticks close to him and sends him once more to his prayers So apt are good men upon little respite to forget themselves Judgement comes like a thief in the night and steals upon us it concerns us therefore to watch and to set a good centry that we may not be caught unawares But alas how do we generally sleep over our great concerns and never heed evils till they befal us which are with far more difficulty cured then they might have been prevented Nothing can be more dreadful then when judgements give us a camisade set upon us in the dead of our security beat up our quarters and catch us unprovided And still this affliction has a higher step taking it in the spiritual sense for the disquiet of minde and trouble of Conscience arising possibly from the sense of sin or from the distrust of God's favour in this his sickness to which the deliverance with its improvement hath reference Hezekiah's minde as well as body was fore and the Bile was not so much it should seem in his side as 't was in 's very heart He had stitches and pains of Conscience and his inner man was more afflicted then the outward and his spirit labour'd under no less distempers then his flesh did And this is sure a very afflictive condition when not only the Cisterns of earthly comfort are filled with waters of Marah but even the spring of consolations from within I mean a good conscience runs in troubled streams of Meribah when a godly man's thoughts work and boyl and as the wicked man is compar'd by the Prophet he becomes like the troubled Sea which casts up mire and dirt And yet thus God deals sometime with his own to take their peace from them to leave them as it were in a state of desertion to themselves that so they may put a higher estimate upon his favour and walk humbly and carefully in the sense of it A troubled conscience then is not alwayes an evil conscience The best of Saints are sometimes put upon these conflicts to struggle under the burden of their sins and the apprehension of wrath due to them when God loosens and slacks their confidences blots and obscures their evidences staggers their assurances fills them full of doubts and perplexities and jealousies of their own estate and so pursues them with legal terrors that he drives them to fly before
And tell me now O impatient soul whoever thou art what reason hast thou to take Gods dealings unkindely Tell me canst thou say with any shew of reason that he deals otherwise then justly and kindely by thee in all this who orders all so to thy good that his greatest severities are if thou wilt but rightly understand them the most advantageous mercies Further he does it to wean us from the world and to take off that hank which the flesh has upon us to mortifie carnal lusts and worldly desires and give us a heavenly relish Thus when the Breast is imbittered the Childe will of himself forsake it And lastly to prepare us for our great change These conflicts and encounters we have with all sorts of affliction during our whole life are but Essayes and Specimens of that conquest which we must through Christ make at last of death that as he has overcome the world and swallowed up Death in victory we may be made partakers of his triumphs and having fill'd up his sufferings may in his name set up our banners and our trophies the banners of our confidence and the trophies of our victory And now if we have any ingenuity to acknowledge our sins any zeal to imploy our graces any holy ambition to better and improve our selves any desires towards heaven or savour of spiritual things in a word any thought or design of living holy and dying happy what reason have we with more then patience even with kindeness and friendship to entertain afflictions which are to help us in all this Yet let afflictions be as good as they will in the consequents and effects they are afflictions still and may be so resented Hezekiah no question made very good use of his sickness and found as great benefit by it and yet still after his recovery he complains of it and calls it bitterness We must be patient and yet we may be sensible of our afflictions too We are allow'd the apprehensions of nature even in the exercises of Grace A good man may be patient and yet feel his pains and complain of them too or else indeed 't is not a genuine patience I do not think him truly valiant whom armour or amulet has made invulnerable but him that feels the smart of his wounds and yet fights on Thus our Saviour the Captain of our Salvation in his Agony prayes to have the Cup pass from him sayes bemoaningly of himself that his Soul was sad unto death that as he hung on the Cross poor man at the stretch of every joynt flouted by his Adversaries deserted by his followers forsaken by his Father he cries out My God my God c. and being roasted with the scorching flames of Divine Wrath he calls for drink to allay the raging heat of his thirst For although the Divinity could have deaded all the pains which the humane nature underwent and have raptur'd it into a glorious impassibility yet that was not to be since the main merit of his passive obedience lay in this that he had a quick sense of the wrath of God due to sin into the very heart of him and that notwithstanding the natural sentiments of his humanity which put him upon the desire of being excused he yet with perfect submission went through all the sad stages of his bitter passion Yet now the world is grown to that pass as if Religion were turn'd Stoicism and stupidity were Christian Valour that people generally take it for a kinde of bravery to be insensible of God's Judgements and to walk unconcern'd in the midst of publick or personal calamities but sure those of this temper are no other then such as the Apostle tells us of Rom. 1. 31. Void of natural affection Thus then Hezekiah's being in bitterness teacheth us to be patient and his complaining of it allows us to be sensible And no marvel that he complains for 't was not only bitterness but great bitterness both extensively over all parts all over bitterness and intensively all kindes all degrees of bitterness and so as the Original doubles the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one way in Hebrew to express the superlative◠so S. Hierom renders it Amaritudo mea amarissima my most bitter bitterness superlatively bitter Now why God does thus at any time with any of us to make our conditions bitter and bitter again to put in great bitterness more bitter ingredients still besides those reasons we gave before this inlarging the dose being designed to perfect the cure we have two or three more to offer as first to beat us quite off from carnal and secular confidences that being forc'd to let go our hold of all our worldly comforts we may stick the closer to God in our dependences upon him And that good Hezekiah's temper was a little too apt to be peccant in this the next Chapter shews us where out of ostentation he shews Merodach-Baladan's Messengers that came to congratulate his recovery his treasury and armoury and spicery And then to put the higher value upon the following mercy How sweet would health be after such a bitter sickness how soon are the pains and throws of Childe-birth forgotten for joy when the Man-childe is once born into the world the greatness of the danger serving to aggrandize and heighten the deliverance And lastly to teach us a right estimate of our own graces and of that interest we have in God Great Saints must look for great afflictions A more then ordinary strength requires a more then ordinary tryal Every Childe every Novice in Religion can digest a little bitterness Hezekiah is to be treated as a Man to be put upon a becoming task The Sons of Anak and the Zanzummim are fit for such a champion as Joshua to incounter Wherefore if God who uses not to lay more upon us then we are able to bear has laid his hand heavy upon thee has increased thy pains and inraged thy smart bear up brave soul be of good courage in thy conflicts be strong in the Lord when he calls thee forth to such hard service grudge not to lay out that strength God has given thee to bear thee up and to bear thee out in the greatest endurances Thus Holy Job when the whole world was against him the Chaldeans and Sabeans the Devil and his friends and wife and all and God himself seem'd to be an indifferent looker on bore himself up stoutly against them all and by the power of God's Grace in him withstood the worst of Providences without him The Saints are made glorious by their sufferings and 't is their great afflictions put the lustre upon their victorious Graces when patience has had its perfect work Hezekiah was a man of great piety and must therefore meet with great bitterness And this bitterness in the next place is the greater too because it comes in the place of Peace Cujus ipsum nomen dulce est as the great Orator tells us
HEZEKIAH'S Return of PRAISE For His RECOVERY By A. L. PSAL. L. 14 15. Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most high And call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Samuel Tomson at the Bishops-Head in Duck-lane 1668. To the Pious Reader THe Occasion of Preaching this Sermon was sutable to the Text a good Man's Recovery of Printing it the desire of Copies and the Press was for this judg'd the readiest way and thus though intended but for few may be for the use of many The Author is one neither seeks applause nor fears censure if it may do thy soul any benefit he has his end To which purpose this Synopsis was added that thou mightest have the Method and Heads of the Discourse before thee in one view The Doxology in the close being an Extract great part of it out of the Psalter a book which if thou deserv'st the name I called thee by thou art well acquainted with needed no references If by the perusal thou find'st thy self any whit benefited give God the praise and let the Author have thy prayers Farewel The SYNOPSIS The Text divided into IV. Parts I. The Affliction and that either 1. Corporal A sickness describ'd by It's Quality Bitterness and that as it is 1. Undergone by Hezekias Obs. God's dearest ones are not exempt from bitter afflictions 2. Resented by him Obs. Natural apprehensions allow'd even in Exercises of grace It 's Quantity Great bitterness Obs. Great Saints exercised with great Tryals The change For Peace i. e. Health Obs. The truly pious in change of condition change not but serve God for God's sake The surprize Behold Obs. A Christian must stand upon his guard 2. Spiritual Trouble of conscience Obs. A troubled conscience is not alwayes an evil conscience II. The Deliverance considered in The Author God Thou hast deliver'd Obs. God is the sole author of all our deliverances The Motive In love and that to my soul. Obs. Divine mercy is gratuitous Obs. Soul-love is the best of loves The Danger From the pit of corruption Obs. All our life-time we walk on the pit-brink III. The Improvement and Assurance Pardon of sins Thou hast deliver'd thou hast cast my sins c. Obs. God uses to accumulate mercies In love to my soul for thou hast cast c. Obs. Pardon of sins the complement and perfection of mercy From the pit for thou hast cast c. Obs. Where sin is forgiven no fear of hell or the grave All my sins behind thy back Obs. God's pardons are universal and absolute IV. The Acknowledgment Where mark by the way The Connexion For the grave c. Obs. The only Return God expects for mercy is Praise The Synonymy of Praise and Hope Obs. To trust in God is to praise him As 't is set Negatively The grave cannot c. Obs. Death is a silent and hopeless state Positively The living shall Obs. Our life to be spent in the giver's praise Lastly exemplified As I do this day Obs. Signal mercies require solemn Thanksgiving HEZEKIAH's Return of PRAISE for his RECOVERY Is A. xxxviii 17 18 and part of the 19 ver 17. Behold for peace I had great bitterness but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back 18. For the grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth 19. The living the living he shall praise thee as I do this day THESE Words are part and indeed the principal part of Hezekiah's Song of Thanksgiving after he was recover'd of a dangerous sickness as you finde in the ninth Verse when all his thoughts were as himself tells us from the 10th to the 15th Verse that he should not live that he should never escape this bout never come abroad more I said that is by an Hebraism I thought in the cutting off of my dayes or as some Versions render it in the midst of my dayes I shall go to the gates of the grave I am deprived of the residue of my years I said I shall not see the Lord even the Lord in the land of the living I shall never go more to Church never have any further opportunities to wait upon God in his Sanctuary I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the World never go abroad again to converse with men any more c. So that in effect he gave himself up for lost as to this world and perhaps the Physicians did so too Nay and which was more when the Doctors belike had given him over the Prophet brings him the unwelcom message that he must prepare himself For dye he should and not live v. 1. Yet after all when he was in extremis upon his prayer God was intreated to renew his lease and to lengthen his life And so as in the former part of his Song he mournfully commemorates his Sickness So in the latter part from the 15th verse to the end he chearfully returns thanks for his Recovery The words we have made choice of belong to this latter part and there are four things in them observable 1. A sad heavy affliction Behold for peace I had great bitterness 2. A merciful deliverance out of this affliction But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the put of corruption 3. A blessed improvement of this mercy For thou hast cast all my sins behinde thy back 4. A thankful acknowledgement of this improved mercy in the rest of the words The Affliction aggravated 1. By a description of it in its own nature both in the quality of it 't was bitterness and in the quantity of it 't was great bitterness 2. By opposition of the contrary blessing which it remov'd 't was for peace a word that comprehends in the notion of it all our worldly enjoyments all temporal blessings whatsoever and more particularly in Holy Writ is taken for health a blessing without which all other blessings have no rellish in them give no true satisfaction to the enjoyer For peace I had great bitterness i. e. for the health which he had formerly enjoy'd he had had a very bitter sickness And then lastly the bitterness of this change is heightned by the surprize of it Behold as a strange thing Behold how all on a sudden upon my peace came great bitterness as the Margin reads it Bitterness and great bitterness and that in exchange for peace for a state of health and prosperity and all this with a sudden strange surprize Behold for peace I had great bitterness This was his Affliction And this much further aggravated still if we unde stand it as we must in a spiritual sense too that his sickness calling his sins to remembrance and causing some distrusts of God's love instead of that peace of conscience and quiet
tranquillity of minde he had had heretofore his spirit was now troubled and greatly imbittered And a wounded grieved spirit who can bear On the other hand the mercy of the Deliverance wants not its heightning circumstances too as 1. From the efficient cause 't was God deliver'd him But thou hast deliver'd 2. From the motive or impulsive cause 't was out of Love not out of design as men usually do courtesie but out of a free kindeness and that a love of the best sort 't was in love to his soul. And 3. From the danger he was deliver'd out of and that no ordinary one it was a pit and no ordinary pit neither 't was the pit of corruption even the Grave the very state of death But thou hast in love to my soul deliver'd it from the pit of corruption So then however he came by his sickness he is sure 't was God recover'd him out of it and he did it out of Love out of an especial love he bore to the soul of him which was sufficiently manifested by this that his life was precious in Gods sight God delivering it from the pit of corruption Nor is this all You heard 't was a spiritual mercy for 't was in love to his soul and therefore the health of body was to be attended with the welfare of his soul and so for a full Assurance of Divine love to his soul and for a further Improvement of this temporal bodily mercy 't is added for thou hast cast all my sins behinde thy back that as God had imbrac'd his soul in the arms of his love so the Interlinear Version Amplexus es amore animam meam and as it were put her into his bosom so he had cast all his sins behinde his back never to come more into remembrance This is the Crown of Mercies when temporals are thus accumulated with spirituals this a recovery indeed of the whole man when health is improv'd into salvation and strength of body accompanied with pardon of sins This is right saving Health and deserves the returns of a grateful Acknowledgment which now follows in the last place And that is set forth first by shewing the impossibility for the dead to perform this duty which is very elegantly express'd by three Synonymies For the grave cannot praise thee Death cannot celebrate thee They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth which all come to one meaning And then on the contrary shewing not the possibility only but the probability that the living will i. e. such as divine mercy continues in life and especially such as are by that mercy preserv'd from imminent danger of death The living the living he shall praise thee And this probability exemplified in himself made good by his own practice As I do this day Thus having open'd the several scenes of our intended meditation I shall now proceed to draw from them some useful Observations interweaving their applications all along with that brevity and clearness as such copious heads of matter may in such straights of time admit and that rather in a cursory Explanation then in an elaborate discourse First then for the Affliction 't is not only bitter but in the abstract bitterness it self The sense of Taste is the most necessary of all our senses it being that by which all Animals live and take in their food and nourishment and therefore has in it a power to judge what is grateful and convenient to the nature of each kinde what not Now there is no gust the palate so much dis-relishes as the bitter nothing that nature shews a greater abhorrence to or that is less welcome to her whereupon the Psalmist in the person of Christ looks upon it as one of his enemies greatest unkindenesses that they gave him Gall and Vinegar to drink and Christ himself upon the Cross I suppose out of his meer natural aversation as he was man when he had tasted of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He would not drink it Upon this score 't is that by an usual Metaphor every thing that is highly displeasing to any of our affections and senses either to the rational or sensitive appetite is termed bitter every thing I say that is any way afflictive to flesh and blood any thing that ails us in Minde or Body or Estate or good name whether grief or pain or poverty or reproach and the like we may as Hezekiah here calls his sickness give it the name of bitterness nay even though those afflictions come from the hand of God himself our gracious Father by whose providential dispensations every particular event be it good or bad is so carefully managed that not a Sparrow falls to the ground without his order And yet this bitterness too though never so unpleasant may be made profitable if we make a right use of it as we may learn two things from it here 1. not to be impatient 2. not to be insensible When we are under Gods hand in any affliction Fiezekiah's being in bitterness teacheth us one and his complaining of it the other Who Good King Hezekiah in bitterness sick and that unto death this is bitterness indeed that such a Prince who was a National blessing that such a Saint who had walkt before the Lord in truth and in the sincerity of his heart done that which was good in his sight should be cut off in the midst of his dayes at XXXIX for that was his age at this time the fifteen years which were now added making up his whole life LIV. and should by a bitter and untimely death be sent away to the gates of the Grave after the languishment of a pining distemper Hence we observe that Gods dearest ones are not exempted from bitter afflictions And what are we then that we should repine and murmur and think our selves hardly dealt with Are we better then all those Saints who have gone before us who have pledg'd their Master in hearty draughts of his Passion-Cup and have march'd after him in the dolorous way towards heaven This should teach us not only with patience but even with chearfulness to take up our crosses and to deny our selves in our healths in our fortunes in all our enjoyments And to recommend this vertue the more to us let us take along with us some considerations why it pleases God to imbitter many times as he does the condition of his Children and Servants in this world Now God does it upon such reasons as these for the chastisement of sin from which the very best are not free for tryal and exercise of their faith and other Graces which else would lie idle upon their hands for what use of patience in time of health and prosperity and consequently for their amendment and improvement The Furnace is heated over and over that having all their dross burnt up their graces may be burnished and throughly refined as Silver purified seven times in the fire