an actuall conveyance of this mercy to me in that here is an Earnest given me before-hand of a perfect accomplishment An earnest that both binds the assurance and stands for part of payment of that great sum of glory which abides for me in heaven This seale I shew this earnest I produce so as my securance is unfailable And that thou maist not plead this Seale to be counterfeit set on only with a stamp of presumption and self-love know that here is the true and cleare impression of Gods spirit in all the lines of that gracious signanature a right though weak illumination of mind in the true apprehension of heavenly things sincerity of holy desires truth of inchoate holiness unfainedness of Christian charity constant purposes and indeavours of perfect obedience And as for my earnest it can no more disappoint me then the hand that gave it My soule is possessed with true how ever imperfect grace and what is grace but the beginning of glory and what is glory but the consummation of grace What should I regard thy cavils whiles I have these pledges of the Almighty It is not in thy power malicious spirit to sever those things which Gods eternall decree hath put together Our calling and election are thus conjoyned from eternity All the craft and force of hell cannot divorce them Whom he did predestinate them also he called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justifieth them also he glorifieth It is true that outwardly many are called but few chosen but none are inwardly called which are not also chosen in which number is my poore soule whereto God hath shewed mercy in singling it out of this wicked world into the liberty of the sons of God For do not I find my selfe sensibly changed from what I was am I not evidently freed from the bondage of those naturall corruptions under which thou heldst mo miserably captiv'd Do I not hate the courses of my former disobedience Do I not give willing eare to the voice of the Gospel Do I not desire and indeavour to conforme my selfe wholly to the will of my God and Saviour Do I not heartily grieve for my spirituall faylings Do not I earnestly pray for grace to resist all thy temptations Do not I cordially affect the means of grace and salvation Do I not labour in all things to keep a good conscience before God and men Are not these the infallible proofs of my calling and the sure and certaine fruits of mine election Canst thou hope to perswade me that God will bestow these favours where he loves not that he wil repent him of such mercies That he will lose the thanks and honour of so gracious proceedings Suggest what thou wilt I am more then confident that he who hath begun this good work in me will perform it untill the day of Jesus Christ Do not I heare the chosen vessel tell his Thessalonians that he knows them to be elected of God And upon what grounds doth he raise this assurance For saith he our Gospel came not to you in word only but also in power and in the Holy Ghost That which can assure us of another mans election may much more secure us of our owne the entertainment successe of the Gospel in our souls Lo that blessed word hath wrought in me a sensible abatement of my corrupt affections and hath produced an apparent renovation of my mind and hath quickned me to a new life of grace and obedience this can be no work of nature this can be no other then the work of that Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption My heart feels the power of the Gospel my life expresses it maugre all thy malice therefore I am elected When the gates of hell have done their worst none of Gods children can miscarry For if children then they are heirs heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ Now as many as are led by the spirit of God they are the sons of God and this is the direction that I follow There are but three guides that I can be led by my own will thy suggestions the motions of Gods spirit For my owne will I were no Christian if I had not learn'd to deny it where it stands opposite to the will of my God as for thy suggestions I hate and defie them they are onely therefore the motions of that good Spirit which I desire to follow and if at any time my owne frailty have betraied me to some aberrations my repentance hath overtaken my offence and in sincerity of heart I can say with an holier man I have gone astray like a sheep seek thy servant for I do not forget thy commandements All thy malice therefore cannot rob me of the comfort of mine adoption It is no marvell if thou who art all enmity canst not abide to heare of love but God who is love hath told me that love is of God and that every one that loveth is borne of God and that by this we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren now my heart can irrefragably witnesse to me that I love God because he is good infinitely good in himself and infinitely good to me and that I love good men because they are his sons my brethren I am therefore as surely passed from death to life as if I had set my foot over the threshold of heaven VIII TEMPTATION Alas poor man how grosly deludest thou thy selfe thou talk'st of thy faith and bearest thy selfe high upon this grace and think'st to doe great matters by it whereas the truth is thou hast no faith but that which thou mis-callest so is nothing else but meer presumption Repelled IS it any wonder that thou should'st sclander the graces of God who art ever ready to calumniate the giver No tempter Canst thou challenge this faith of mine which thou censurest to be thine owne worke such it should be if it were presumption Were it presumption would'st thou oppose it would'st thou not foster and applaud it as thine The presumption is thine who darest thus derogate from the gracious work of the Almighty and fasten sin upon the holy Spirit Mine is faith yet so mine as that it is his that wrought it There is not more difference betwixt thee and an Angel of light then betwixt my faith and thy presumption True faith such is mine after all thy sclanderous suggestions is grounded upon sound knowledge and that knowledge upon an infallible word Whereas presumption rests only upon opinion and conceit built upon the sands of self-love Whence it is that the most ignorant are ever the most presumptuous when the knowing soule sees what dangers it is to encounter and provides for them with an awfull resolution True faith never comes without carefull and diligent use of meanes The word sacraments praier meditation are but enough with their conjoyned forces to produce
in his resolution to sin If thou Lord shouldest marke iniquities O Lord who shall stand But there is forgivenesse with thee that thou maist be feared I know therefore whither to have my recourse when I have offended my God even to that throne of grace where there is plenteous redemption free and full remission I heare the heavenly voice of him that saith I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake and will not remember thy sins but I dare not offend because his grace aboundeth justly doth the Psalmist make the use and effect of his mercy to be our feare we must feare him for his mercyes and for his judge ments love him so far am I from giving my selfe leave to sin because I have to doe with a mercifull God as that his judgements have not so much power to drive me as his mercies have to draw me from my dearest sinnes As therefore my greatest sinnes are not too bigge for his mercy to remit so my least sinnes are great enough to deserve his eternall displeasure He that shal come to be Judge at those great Assises hath told us that even of eve ry idle word that men shal speak they shal give an acccount What can be sleighter then the wind of our words and what words more harmelesse then those which have no evill quality in them though no good such are our idle words yet even those may not passe without an account and if our thoughts be yet lesse then they even those must so try us as either to accuse or excuse us and if evill may condemne us Think not therefore to draw me into sin because it is little The wages of sin is death here is no stint of quantities If sin be the work death is the wages Perswade me now if thou canst that there is a little death for a little sin perswade me that there is a lesser infinitenesse and a shorter eternity til the great Judge of the world reverse his most just sentence I shall looke upon every sin as my death and hate thee for the cause of both But as thy suggestion shall never move me to take liberty to my selfe of yeilding to the smallest sin so the greatnesse of my most hainous sin shall not daunt me whiles I rely upon an infinite mercy even my bloodiest sinnes are expiated by the blood of my Saviour that my all-sufficient surety hath cleared all my scores in heaven In him I stand fully discharged of all my debts and shall after all thy wicked temptations hold resolute as not to commit the least sin so not feare the greatest VIII TEMPTATION What a vaine imagination is this wherewith thou pleasest thy selfe that thy sins are discharged in another mans person that anothers righteousnesse should be thine that thine offences should be satisfied by anothers punishment Tush they abuse thee that perswade thee God is angry with mankind which he loves and favours or that his anger is appeased by the bloody satisfaction of a Saviour that thou standest acquitted in heaven by that which another hath done and suffered These are fancies not fit to find place in the heads of wise men Repelled NAy rather these are blasphemies not fit to fall from any but a malignant Devill what is this but to flatter man that thou maist sclander God Is not the anger of a just God deservedly kindled against man for sin Do not our iniquities separate between us our God Do not our sins hide his face from us that he will not hear Are we not all by nature the childrē of wrath Doth not the wrath of God come for sin upon the children of disobedience Doth not every willing sinner after his hardnesse and impenitent heart teasure up unto himself lest he should not have enough wrath against the day of wrath the revelation of the just judgment of God why do not thy Socinian clients go about to perswade us as wel that God is not angry with thee though he torment thee perpetually and hold thee in everlasting chaynes under darknesse what proofes can we have of anger but the effects of displeasure was it not from hence that man was driven out of Paradise was it not from hence that both he and we in him were adjudged to death as it is written By one man sin entred into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all men have sinned yea not only to a temporal death but By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation Thou who art the dreadfull executioner knowest too wel who it is that had the power of death over those who through the feare of death were all their lives long subject unto bondage Under this wofull captivity did we lye sold under sinne vassals to it and death and thee till that one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Iesus was pleased to give himselfe a ransome for all that he might redeem us from all iniquity who by his owne blood entred in once into the holy place making an eternall redemption for us Lo it is not doctrine and example it is no lesse then blood the blood of the Sonne of God shed for our redemption that renders him a perfect Mediator and cleanseth us from all sin He hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour He hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law from the power of darknes hath reconciled us in the body of his flesh through death to present us holy unblameabl unreproveable in his sight He it is that bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sinnes should live unto righteousnesse So abundant and cleare testimony hath God beene pleased to give to the infinite merit and efficacy of the bloody satisfaction of his Sonne Iesus made for us that wert thou not as unmeasurably impudent as malicious thou couldst not indeavour to out-face so manifest a truth Thinke not to beate mee off from this sure saving hold by suggesting the improbability of anothers satisfaction and obedience becomming mine what is more familiar then this Our sins are debts so my Saviour hath styled them how commona a thing is it for debts to be set over to anothers hand how ordinary for a bond to be discharged by the surety If the debt then be paid for me and that payment accepted of the Creditor as mine how fully am I acquitted Indeed thou dost no other then sclander our title The righteousnesse wherby wee stand just before our God is not meerly anothers it is by application ours it is Christs and Christ is ours He is our Head we as members are united to him and by vertue of this blessed union partake of his perfect obedience and
hands of God he only knows that shall judge this I am sure of that without this Saviour there can be no salvation That in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousnesse is accepted with him That he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life As therefore we do justly abhor that wild scope of all religions which thou suggestest so we do willingly admit a large scope in one true religion so large as the author of it hath thought good to allow For we have not to do with a God that stands upon curiosities of beliefe or that upon pain of damnation requires of every believer an exquisite perfection of judgment concerning every capillar veyne of Theologicall truth it is enough for him if we be right for the main substance of the body He doth not call rigorously for every stone in the battlements it sufficeth for the capacity of our salvation if the foundation be hold in tire It is thy sclander therefore that wee confine Truth and blessednesse to a corner of Reformed Christians no wee seek and find it every where where God hath a Church and Gods Church we know to be Universall Let them be Abassines Cophties Armeniant Georgians Jacobites or what ever names either sclander or distinction hath put upon them if they hold the foundation firme howsoever disgracefully built upon with wood hay stubble wee hold them Christs we hold them ours Hence it is that the new Jerusalem is for her beauty and uniformity set forth with 12 precious gates though for use and substance one for that from all coasts of heaven there is free accesse to the Church of Christ and in him to life and glory He who is the Truth and the life hath said This is eternall life to know thee and him whom thou hast sent This knowledge which is our way to life is not alike at tained of all fome have greater light and deeper insight into it then others That mercy which accepts of the least degree or the true apprehension of Christ hath not promised to dispense with the wilfull neglect of those who might know him more clearly more exactly Let those carelesse soules therefore which stand indifferent betwixt life and death upon thy perswasion content themselves with good meanings and generalities of beliefe but for me I shall labour to furnish my self with all requisite truths and above all shall aspire towards the excellency of the knowledge of my Lord Jesus Christ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings TEMPTATIONS REPELLED The second Decade Temptations of Discouragement II. DECADE I. TEMPTATION Were it for some few sins of ignorance or infirmity thou might'st hope to find place for mercy but thy sins are as for multitude innumerable so for quality haynous presumptuous unpardonable with what face canst thou look up to heaven and expect remission from a just God Repelled EVen with the face of an humble penitent justly confounded in himself in the sense of his owne vilenesse but awfully confident in a promised mercy Malicious tempter how like thou art to thy selfe when thou wouldst draw me on to my sins then how small sleight harmlesse plausible they were now thou hast fetch 't me in to the guilt of those foule offences they are no lesse then deadly and irremissible May I but keep within the verge of mercy thou canst not more aggravate my wickednesse against me thē I do against my selfe thou canst not be more ready to accuse then I to judge and condemn my selfe Oh me the wretchedest of all creatures how do I hate my selfe for mine abominable sins done with so high a hand against such a Majesty after such light of knowledge such enforcements of warning such indearments of mercy such reluctations of spirit such check of conscience what lesse then hell have I deserved from that infinite justice Thou canst not write more bitter things against me then I can plead against my owne soule But when thou hast cast up all thy venome and when I have passed the heaviest sentence against my selfe I who am in my selfe utterly lost and forfeited to eternall death in despight of the gates of hell shall live and am safe in my Almighty and ever-blessed Saviour who hath conquered Death and hell for me Set thou me against my selfe I shall set my Saviour against thee urge thou my debts I show his full acquittance Sue thou my bonds I shall exhibit them cancell'd and nayled to his crosse presse thou my horrible crimes I plead a pardon sealed in heaven Thou tell'st me of the multitude and hainousnesse of my sins I tell thee of an infinite mercy and what are numbers and magnitudes to the infinite To an illimited power what difference is there betwixt a mountaine and an ant-heape betwixt one and a million were my sins a thousand times more and worse then they are there is worth abundantly enough in every drop of that precious blood which was shed for my redemption to expiate them Know O tempter that I have to doe with a mercy which can die my scarlet sins white as snow make my crimson as wooll whose grace is so boundlesse that if thou thy selfe hadst upon thy fall been capable of repentance thou hadst not everlastingly perished The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works And if there be a sin of man unpardonable it is not for the insufficiency of grace to forgive it but for the incapacity of the subject that should receive remissision Thou feel'st to thy paine and losse wherefore it was that the eternall sonne of God Jesus Christ came into the world Even to save sinners and if my owne heart shall conspire with thee to accuse me as the chiefe of those sinners my repentance gives me so much the more claim and interest in his blessed redemption Let me be the most laden with the chaines of my captivity so I may have the greatest share in that all-sufficient ransome And if thou who art the true fiery serpent in this miserable wildernesse hast by sin stung my soul to death let me as I do with penitent and faithfull eyes but look up to that brazen serpent which is lift up far above all heavens thy poyson cannot kill cannot hurt me It is the word of eternall truth which cannot faile us If we confesse our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse Lo here not mercy only but justice on my side The spirit of God saith not only if we confesse our sins he is mercifull to forgive our sins as he elswhere speaks by the pen of Salomon but more he is faithfull and just to forgive our sins Our weaknesse and ignorance is wont to flie
it were not a spirit How evidently then doth the present estate of my soul convince thee of the future Al operations proceed from the formes of things and every thing works as it is Canst thou now denye that my soule whiles it is within me can and doth produce such actions as have no derivation from the body no dependence on the body for however in matter of sensation it sees by the eyes and heares by the eares and imagines by those fantasmes that are represented unto it yet when it comes to the higher works of intellectuall elevations how doth it leave the body below it raising to it selfe such notions as wherein the body can challenge no interest how can it now denude and abstract the thing conceived from all consideration of quantity quality place and so work upon its owne object as becomes an active spirit Thou canst not be so impudent as to say the body doth these things by the soule or that the soule doth them by the ayd concurrence of the body and if the soule doth them alone whiles it is thus clogged how much more operative shall it be when it is alone separated from this earthen lump And if the very voice of nature did not so sufficiently confute thee that even thine owne most eminent heathens have herein taken part against thee living and dying strong assertors of the soules Immortality how fully might thine accursed mouth be stopped by the most sure words of divine truth Yea wert thou disposed to play at some smaller game and by thy damnable clients to plead not so much for the utter extinction as for the dormition of the soule those oracles of God have enough to charme thee and them and can with one blow cut the throat of both those blasphemies That penitent theefe whose soule thou madest full account of when he was led to his execution which yet my dying Saviour snatcht out of thy hands could hear comfortably from those blessed lips This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise shal we think this malefactor in any other in any better conditiō then the rest of Gods Saints Doth not the chosen vessel tel us that upon the dissolution of our earthly house of this Tabernacle we have a building of God not made with hands eternal in the heavens Presently therfore after our flitting hence we have a being that glorious who can think of a being in heaven without a ful sense of joy Doth not our Saviour tell us that the soul of poor Lazarus was immediately carried by Angels into Abrahams boome The damned glutton knew so wel that he was not layd there to sleep that he sues to have him sēt on the message of his refrigeration Did not the beloved disciple when he was in Pathmos upon the opening of the fifth feale see under the altar the Soules of them that were slaine for the word of God and for the testimony which they held Did he not heare them cry How long Lord holy and true What Shall wee think they cryed in their sleep Did he not see and heare the hundred forty four thousand Saints before the throne harping and singing a new song to the praise of their God Canst thou perswade us they made this heavenly musick in their sleep Doth he not tell us most plainely from the mouth of one of the heavenly Elders that those which stood before the throne the Lamb cloathed with white robes and palmes in their hands were they that came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth on the throne shal dwell among them They shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the Sun light on them nor any heat For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountaines and God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes This service both day and night and 〈◊〉 leading forth can suppose nothing lesse then a perpetuall waking Neither is this the happy condition of holy Martyrs and Confessors only but is common to all the Saints of God in what ever profession Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord How should the dead be blessed if they did not live to know themselves blessed What blessednesse can be incident into those that either are not at all or are senselesse They rest but sleepe not they rest from their labours not from the improvement of their glorified faculties Their works followthē yea and overtake them in heaven to what purpose should their works follow the if they lived not to injoy the comfort of their works This is the estate of all good soules in despight of all thine infernall powers and what becomes of the wicked ones thou too well knowest Dissemble thou how thou wilt those torments and hide the sight of that pit of horrour from the eyes ofthy sinfull followers He that hath the keyes of hell and of death hath given us intimation enough Feare not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soule but rather feare him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell Neither is he more able out of his omnipotence then willing out of his justice to execute this righteous vengeance on the impenitent and unbeleevers Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evill In vaine therefore dost thou seek to delude me with these pretences of indemnity and annihilation since it cannot but stand with the mercy and justice of the Almighty to dispose of every soule according to what they have beene and what they have done To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternall life But unto them that are contentious and doe not obey the truth but obey unrighteousnesse indignation and wrath shortly after all thy devillish suggestions on the one part The soules of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them On the other In flaming fire shal vengeance be taken on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospell of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power V. TEMPTATION Put case that the soule after the departure from the body may live but art thou so foolishly credulous as to beleeve that thy body after it is moldred into dust and resolved into all its elements having passed through al the degrees of putrefaction and annihilation shall at last returne to it selfe againe and recover the former shape and substance Dost thou not apprehend the impossibility of this so absurd assertion Repelled NO Tempter it is true and holy faith which thou reproachest
of God is eternall life both these are given to the man not to the soule The body is copartner in the sin it must therefore share in the torment it must therefore be raysed that it may be punished Eternity of joy or paine is awarded to the just or to the sinner how can the body be capable of either if it should finally perish in the dust How can it stand with the infinite mercy of God who hath given his Sonne intirely for the ransome of the whole man and by him salvation to every beleever that he should shrink in his gracious performances making good onely one part of his eternall word to the spirituall halfe leaving the bodily part utterly forlorne to an absolute corruption Know then O thou wicked one that when all the rabble of thine Athenian scoffers and Atheous Sadduces and carnall Epicureans shall have mis-spent all their spleene my faith shall triumph over all their sensuall reason and shall afford me sound comfort against all the terrors of death frō the firme assurance of my resurrection and shall confidently take up those precious words which the mirror of patience wished to be written in a book and graven with an iron pen in the rock for ever I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God and my soule shall set up her rest in that triumphant conclusion of the blessed Apostle This corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortall shall have put on immortality then shall be brought to passe the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sin the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ VI. TEMPTATION If the soule must live and the body shall rise yet what needest thou to affright thy selfe with the terrours of an universall judgement Credulous soule when shall these things be Thou talkest of an awfull Judge but where is the promise of his comming These sixteene hundred yeares hath he beene lookt for and yet he is not come and when will he Repelled THy damned scoffers were betimes foreseene to move this question even by that blessed Apostle whose eyes saw his Saviour ascending up to his glory and who then heard the Angell say Ye men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into heaven This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven What dost thou and they but make good that sacred truth which was delivered before so many hundred generations Dissemble how thou wilt That there shall be a generall assise of the world thou knowest and tremblest to know what other couldst thou meane when thou askedst my Saviour that question of horror Art thou come to torment us before the time That time thou knowest to be the day in which God will judge the world in righteousnesse by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance to all men in that he hath raised him from the dead How clear attestation have the inspired Prophets of God given of old to this truth The ancientest Prophet that ever was Henoch the seventh from Adam in the time of the old world foretels of this dreadful day Behold the Lord commeth with ten thousand of his Saints to execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him From the old world is this verity deduced to the new and through the succession of those holy Seers derived to the blessed Apostles and from them to the present generation Yea the sacred mouth of him who shall come down and sit as Judge in this awfull tribunall hath fully laid forth not the truth onely but the manner of this universall judicature The Sonne of man shall come in his glory and all the holy Angels with him Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory And before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepheard divideth his sheep And if this most sure word of the Prophets Apostles yea and of the eternall son of God be not enough conviction to thee yet to my soul they are an abundant confirmation of this main point of my Christian faith that from heaven he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead Indeed thus it must be How many condemned innocents have in the bitternesse of their souls appealed from that unrighteous bar of men to the supreame Judge that shall come those appeals are entred in heaven and sued out how can it stand with divine Justice that they should not have a day of hearing As for mean oppressors there are good laws to meet with them and there are higher then the highest to give life of execution to those lawes but if the greatest among men offend if there were not an higher then they what right would at last be done Those that have the most power and will to doe the greatest mischiefe would escape the fairest And though there be a privy Sessions in heaven upon every guilty soule immediatly upon the dissolution yet the same justice which will not admit publique offences to be passed over with a private satisfaction thinks fit to exhibite a publique declaration of his righteous vengeance upon notorious sinners before men and Angels So as those very bodies which have been ingaged in their wickednesse shall be in the view of the whole world sent downe to take part of their torment and indeed wherefore should those bodies be raised if not with the intent of a further disposition either to joy or paine Contrarily how can it consist with the praise of that infinite justice that those poore Saints of his which have been vilified and condemned at every barre persecuted afflicted tormented and have passed through all manner of painful ignominious deaths should not at the last be gloriously righted in the face of their cruell enemies Surely faith the Apostle it is a righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels What is it O thou wicked spirit whereto thou art reserved in chaines of darknesse Is it not the judgement of the great day what is it whereto the manifestation of all hidden truthes and the accomplishment of all Gods gracious promises are referred Is it
without the providence of that God who returned answer to thy proud Master the King of Assyria I know thy abode and thy going out and thy comming in and thy rage against me Thy rage and thy tumult is come up into my ears therefore I will put an hooke in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest So true is that word of Elihu His eyes are upon the waies of man and he soeth all his goings there is no darknesse nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves Seconded by the holy Psalmist The Lord looketh from heaven he beholdeth all the sons of men From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth Neither is this divine providence confined onely to man the prime peece of this visible creation but it extends it self to all the workmanship of the Almighty O. Lord how manifold are thy works in wisdome hast thoumade them all the earth is full of thy riches So is the great and wide Sea wherein are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts these wait all upon thee that thou maist give them their meat in due season thou givest it them they gather thou openest thy hand they are filled with good The young Lyons roar after their prey and seek their meat from God The ravens neither sow nor reap noâ— have any store-house or barne yet God feedeth them The Lillies toyle not nor spâ—â— yet the great God cloaths them with more then Salomons glory Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this In whose hand is the soule of every living thing and the breath of all mankind What dost thou then O thou false spirit thinke to choak divine providence with the smalnesse and multitude of objects as if quantities or numbers could make any difference in the Infinite as if one drop of water were not all one to the Almighty with the whole deep One corne of sand with the whole masse of the earth as if that hand which graspeth the large circumference of the highest heaven could let slip the least flye or worme upon earth When thou feelest to thy paine that this eye of omniscience and this hand of power reaches even to thy neither most hell and sees and orders every of those torments wherewith thou art everlastingly punished and at pleasure puts bounds to thy malicious indevours against his meanest creatures upon earth Thou tellest me of the wickedest mens prosperity This is no new dart of thine but the same which thou hast throwne of old at many a faithfull heart Holy Job David Jeremie felt the dint of it not without danger but without hurt It is true Wicked men flourish what marvell is this The world loves his owne Doth any man wonder to see the weeds overtop the good herbes They are natives to that soyle whereto the other are but strangers Wicked men prosper It is all the heaven they are like to have and yet alas at the best it is but a wofull one how intermixed with sorrows and discontentments how full of uncertainties how certain of ruine and confusion It is a sure and sad interchange whereof Father Abraham minds the man who was now more full of torment then formerly of wealth Son remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and Lazarus evill but now he is comforted and thou art tormented The wicked man prospers but how long I have seen the wicked in great power and spreading himselfe like a green bay-tree yet he passed away and lo he was not I sought him but he could not be found The wicked prosper Alas their welfare is their judgement God doth not owe them so much favour as to afflict them They walk on mertily towards a deadly precipice The just God lets them alone and will not so much as molest their jollity with a painfull check The wicked thrive in the world How should they do other Mammon is the God they serve and what can he doe lesse then blesse them with a miserable advantage for thus their wealth is made to them an occasion of falling The prosperity of fools shall destroy them The wicked prosper Let me never prosper if I envy them Do not I see their day coming Do not I know that they are meerly fed up to the slaughter Wherefore do the cram'd fowles and fatted Oxen fare better then their fellows Is it out of favour or is it that they are designed to the dresser Amnon is feasted with his brethren those that serve him see death in his face Belshazzar triumphs in mirth and carouseth freely in the sacred vessels The hand writes upon the wall Thy dayes are numbred thy kingdome finished The revelling of the wicked is but a lightning before an eternall death Thou tell'st me on the the contrary that the godly are persecuted afflicted tormented It is true None knows it better then thy selfe who under the permission of the most High art the author of all their sufferings It is thou the red Dragon that standest ready to devoure the masculine issue of Gods Church It is thou that when the persecuted woman flees into the wildernesse powrest out of thy mouth after her flouds of water to drowne her It is thou that inspirest Tyrants w th rage against the innocent Saints of God and actuatest their hellish cruelty But when thou hast all done the most wise and mighty arbiter of heaven turnes all this to the advantage of his deare ones upon earth The bloud of the Martyrs doth and shall prove the seed of the Church whereof every grain yeelds thirty sixty an hundred fold Neither had the Church of God been so numerous if there had been lesse malice in thy prosecution And as for those severall Christians that have undergone the worst of thy fury they are so far from finding cause of complaint that they rejoyce and triumph in the happy issue of their intended miseries They can say to thee as Joseph said of old to his once-envious brethren Thou thoughtst evill against us but God meant it unto good they had not now sate so gloriously crowned in the highest heaven if thou hadst not persecuted them unto bloud None are so afflicted thou saist as the godly True their Saviour hath told them before hand what to trust to In the world ye shall have tribulation Have they any reason to looke for better measure then their blessed redeemer If the world hate you saith he ye know that it hated me before it hated you If ye were of the world the world would love his owne but because ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you Now welcome welcome that hate that is raised from our deare Saviours love and election