separation of the Body and the Soul which yet is painful and sad enough They that are under the Power of this Spiritual Death taste not the Goodness of God they hear not his loudest Calls they tremble not at his most dreadful Threats they are not drawn with his Love nor start at his approaching Wrath. They are very sick indeed but they feel not their Sickness their Ignorance has deprived their Souls of all knowledg of their own Miseries they are in a state of Death and Insensibility and their Case is the more sad because they are like to fall under the Power of eternal Death and tho their temporal Life is prolonged for a Season yet we may say of them as of Malefactors under the Sentence of the Law for their Crimes they are dead Men though there be a Reprieve or a delay of Execution for a little space And if any of you as I hope there are many here are delivered from a state so dangerous and so miserable what Thanks and Praise should you give to God who hath quickned you when you were dead in Trespasses and Sins Eph. 2. 1. especially considering that you had no Inclinations no foregoing Dispositions to this spiritua Life You contributed nothing to your own Regeneration no more than a Carcass in the Grave can raise it self and live again no more than dry Bones can move of their own accord or clothe themselves with Skin and Flesh. When he passed by and saw you in your Blood Ezek. 16. 6. then he said vnto you Live The Hour is come in which they that are in the Grave shall hear the Voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live Joh. 5. 25. How many of your Friends your Neighbours and your Fellow-Citizens are there in whom there are no Signs of Life at all that notwithstanding all their Civility and fair Carriage their Attendance upon the Word and the performance of several outward Duties have only a likeness to the Living but no real Life And why should God be so good to you and not to the rest of Men You were once the Children of Wrath and Enemies as well as they Were there any peculiar Excellencies in you more than in others to recommend you to his Favour No he has been merciful to you because he will be merciful and you may say as 't is in Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in Sins hath quickned us together with Christ. 'T is a very great Mercy for those that have been sick to be restored to Health but you are delivered from a worse Death and have obtained a better Resurrection in as much as the second Death to which they were obnoxious is infinitely more painful and dreadful than the first What a Mercy do you enjoy to be brought from a state of Wrath and Condemnation into a state of Peace and Favour from the Guilt of your Sins which made you dead in Law you are freed in your Justification and from the Power of Sin which would have kept you in continual Slavery you are delivered by the sanctifying Influences and Operations of the blessed Spirit you have cause to be thankful for your selves and for your Relations too if God has given the same Mercies unto them you may invite your Neighbours and your Friends to a Participation of your Comforts and say as the Father of the Prodigal Come and rejoice with me for this my Son was lost and is now found was dead and is now alive To raise your Thankfulness consider what a condition you would have been in had not God blessed you with a part in the first Resurrection You whose Eyes are now fix'd on Heaven and Glory had been still slumbering as unconverted Sinners are on the very brink of Hell you had then been without all relish of that word which first produced and which does every day maintain your Life and which is sweeter to you than Honey or the Honey-Comb Psal. 19. 10. You had now been without all Esteem and Value of that dearest Redeemer who purchased for you this Happiness at a very dear price and that you might live was himself content to die you had then been without that reviving hope of seeing him for ever that smooths your way and guides your Steps and upholds your Spirits thô you meet with many a sharp and bitter Cross. You would now perhaps have been prophaning his Sabbaths vilifying his Ordinances tearing his Name to pieces with execrable Oaths you might not have known what is the Sweetness of a sincere and hearty Prayer what is the Blessedness of a Soul whose Sins are pardoned and how honourable is the Priviledg of having the great God for a Father and Christ for a Mediator You are delivered from spiritual Diseases which are worse than all bodily Distempers for Pride and Envy Impatience and Discontent and Ambition and Revenge are worse than even the worst of Pains than the Stone the Cholick the Strangury or the like These cause a momentany Trouble but the evil Habits the corrupt Inclinations and the disorderly Motions that bear sway in that poor Soul that is dead in Sin tend to an everlasting Misery Continually adore and magnify the Power of your Saviour that made your Hearts at length to yield to his own terms though they gave him a very great Opposition Bless the Skill and Wisdom of your gracious Physician that cures all the Diseases of your old Nature that is not in any part of it sound and healthful It is easy to kill and ruin and destroy that we can all do too well but who can recover and save but he alone And if he was to be admired when on Earth He heal'd the Sick and made the Blind to see the Lame to walk and the Dead to live He is much more now to be adored and his Power is not less miraculous when it displays its vertue in Regeneration and when he makes all the boisterous unruly passions of Nature to be still and quiet than in commanding the Seas and the Winds These things should be the matter of your Praise and Wonder as they will be the cause of Praise and Wonder to his Saints for ever and if David is thankful here when he says O Lord thou hast brought my Soul from the Grave what matter of greater Thankfulness is it when a Christian can say O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from Hell from the Power of Satan from the House of Bondage and from the Neighbourhood of the second Death Long Life is in it self a Blessing and for which we may very lawfully pray I say 't is in it self a Blessing for it may be clog'd with those Miseries that may make it to be as a Curse As if a Man were to live long only to row in Galleys or to dig in Mines or to pine in a Dungeon or to live in Pain and Torment or
with the first by calling for the Elders by confessing their Sins by promising Repentance and by Prayers for good things requisite as well for the body as for the Soul Discourse of Extream Unction pag. 48. It is also the duty of those that are acquainted with the sick instead of vain and frivolous discourses of Common Affairs which have no relish with those that are in great pain to Minister as far as they are able to their Spiritual Wants to direct instruct and any other way to help them to set their Souls in order and to trim their Lamp See what Care the Holy Prophet used to his Enemies Psal. 35. 13 14. When they were sick my clothing was sackcloth I humbled my soul with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom I behaved my self as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his Mother Those means which he used for their Recovery were an argument of the sincerity of his own Religion as well as of his most affectionate Sympathy and tenderness to them When you visit the sick you see in them the prospect of your own Mortal Estate You see how soon their Complexion their Temper their Sociableness and all that agreeableness of Humour which was pleasing to you is gone and changed In their broken feeble expressions in their wan and pale looks and in their fallen Countenances you behold that man in his best Estate is altogether vanity Psal. 39. 5. and how when God with rebukes does correct man for Iniquity he makes his beauty to consume away like a moth ver II. then you see that all flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field Isa. 40. 6. How many times do you see those whom you love strugling with pains strong and bitter even as death it self and you cannot though you never so earnestly desire it afford to them the least Relief not a moments ease nor the smallest interval of rest but when your hearts have sunk within you with the doleful and unintermitted accents of their Groans and Sighs how often have you prayed to God and he has appear'd to your help and theirs There may be many Cases wherein much speaking may do your afflicted Friends no good at all but there is no Case wherein your prayers may not be of great advantage either to preserve them with you or to obtain for them some Gracious discoveries of the Love of God or a more easie passage both which are very great Mercies What wonders have been wrought in all Ages by the power of the United Intercession of Believers when they have carried their sick to Christ. What numbers are there of perfect Souls in Heaven that can Witness to the Truth of this and how many deliver'd Captives are on Earth that can now with joy set their Seal to it and say with Transport truly God is a God hearing prayers The continued prayers of the Church for Peter did procure his Enlargement and an Angel was dispatcht to break his Chains and to send him to carry the welcom news to the then praying Church that their prayers were heard and he was deliver'd Many there are now alive that owe their Lives to this whereof I am one The Mercy of God which alone could help me and that was implored and sought by your prayers has brought me from the very Grave In all future occasions try this method for you know it is available and successful Is any afflicted let him pray himself is any so overwhelm'd that he cannot well perform it Let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him and the prayer of Faith shall save the sick Jam. 5. 14 15. He is to use this course as a means for the recovery of his Health for though we cannot with any Modesty pretend to the prayer of Faith here mentioned that is of a certain perswasion that the person for whom we pray shall be raised up yet we ought to pray in this Faith that it is pleasing to God when we express our dependance upon him by asking those things which we need that every good thing comes from him and therefore health and deliverance from death that though he does not alwayes give that particular thing which we ask yet 't is sometimes denied because we do not ask and that as he never gives the greatest Blessings of all which are those of a good mind but in answer to prayers So sometimes he does not send bodily good things because he is not prayed to for them And there is no less Reason for Prayer when God raiseth up the sick by Blessing ordinary means than when it was done by a supernatural Gift Discourse of Extream Unction pag 46. Inf. 2. There is great Reason to Fear and Reverence God For as he presides over all the Revolutions of Empires and Nations their Original their Growth their Prosperities and Decayes so he does likewise over particular persons in their Life and Death His knowledge and his Government reaches to all things for their Existence depends upon his Will It is in his power to destroy or to save He is the God in whose hand our Life is We lye at his Mercy and according as he Wills we must either be Healthful or Sick Live or Dye His are our times on his pleasure our present happiness and our future welfare depends He sits upon the flouds and orders with a steady and uniform design All that appears most uncertain and changeable to us He can either make the Waters of Affliction to drown us or say unto them as unto the waves of the Sea hitherto shall you go and no further even then when their swelling Pride threatens us with total desolation He has appointed his Sun to measure out our time and knows when shall be the last concluding day When those that are now living shall dye and by what sort of death and where after that they shall be placed whether in Happiness or Wo. He knows when the last Trumpet shall sound and when the dead shall be rais'd Of him therefore should we stand in Awe as having that voice continually in our ears Deut. 32. 39 40. See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand for I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever What an abundance of diseases are at his beck what abundance of Arrows are in his Quiver what abundance of sins do we commit which cause him to bend his bow and provoke him to set us up as marks of his displeasure He can strike the most consident and secure sinners dead in a moment or with long abiding pains fill them with so great anguish and vexation that they shall chuse strangling and death rather than Life Alass what are we to this Great
us the desire of Food and that drives away those diseases that would lessen and abate our Appetite And it is in the sense of his Providence that we ask his Blessing before we eat and return him thanks afterwards For were it not for his Gracious Influences our Faculties would quickly lose their proper Vertues and we should notwithstanding all our Care quickly dye All Sicknesses are at his disposal for it is he that kills and that makes alive he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up 1 Sam. 2. 6. When he pleases to withdraw his most Common Blessings we droop and Languish and pine away Thousands of Diseases stand in a readiness waiting for his Command and when our sins make him to give the word they fall upon us with a mighty Violence and in a few restless dayes and nights change our Countenances break off our purposes and stain all our Pride and glory Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat and they draw nigh unto the gates of death Psal. 107. 17 18. God has fixed the bounds of our habitations and the very time of our stay and when it shall be that they must know us no more We are but Dust and Ashes and how soon can the mighty power of our great Creator blow away the most strong and healthful with more ease than we can our breath scatter a little dust All things in this lower World have their Rise their Progress and Decay by the Decree of God and so have the Lives of men There is a time wherein to be born and a time wherein to dye and both known to him though upon wise Reasons hid from our knowledge God does with great Wisdom cast a Veil of thick night upon all future Events that so we may without needless and diverting Curiosity perform our present duty He shews this Dominion that he hath over the Lives of Men in these two things First In the large difference which his Providence makes amongst those persons whose outward Circumstances seem to be much alike One sick man by the use of some mixtures or applications immediately recovers and another that with the most exact observance takes the same Physick consumes his days in tedious Sorrows and in the flouds of his own Tears is carried Mourning to the Grave Secondly He shews his Soveraign disposal of the Lives of Men in ordering the different Seasons and times of their Death One is cut down in his early Spring and in his blooming greener Youth and his Sun is covered with darkness almost as soon as it begins to rise whilest another weathers out the Storms and grows to a mature and full Age. One does but peep as it were into the World takes a short view of it and is commanded out again and is at his Journeys end in the morning of his Life and another is allow'd to travel till the shadows of the Evening are stretched out according to their most regular advances and till the Threescore and Ten that is the usual date of Long Life is expired One is quickly summoned to the Great Tribunal and judged whilest another has a longer space wherein to prepare for his Tryal and his Final doom 'T is the Divine Providence that sees and orders not onely the larger portions of the lives of Men such as Infancy and Childhood and Youth and Manhood but as God numbers the Hairs of our Heads so known to him are all the minutes and hours and days and particularities of our Life and every moment of our Time He has set us our bounds that we cannot pass and with respect to his Appointment no man dyes before his Time Though a man that dyes by an acute Disease or a violent Death dyes before that time which he might have reach'd in an ordinary Course and before old Age which we reckon to be the most seasonable time wherein to dye Bloody and deceitful men are said not to live out half their dayes that is according to the General Limit and Order of Providence as to the Age of Man viz. Seventy or Eighty years And indeed every Wicked Man in some sense dyes before his time because he is not sit to dye like Fruit that is gather'd before it be fully ripe I now proceed to some Application And from this Doctrine we may Infer First If God be the Soveraign disposer of Life and Death then the Friends of the Sick do them the greatest kindness when they recommend their Case to him And to this they are obliged by the Communion which they have with them in the same Humane Nature they are also in the body in such a body as is liable to as many pains as they see in others They may be plunged into the same distresses and need the same favour to be shewed to them Regard I beseech you your afflicted Friends with great tenderness and pity for whatsover their Case is your sins may bring you as Low and you have no assurance that what has happen'd to them may not be your own Lot before you come to the period of this miserable Life It is also the duty of the Sick themselves in the first assaults of Pain with great Humility and Contrition of Spirit to betake themselves to God as their onely helper and with a fervour suitable to the sadness of their Case to request of him Faith and Patience Repentance and Mortification and the pardon of sin and earnestly to pray that if it may be their sickness may not be very long nor very sharp For long and sore afflictions are so great Tryals of Humane Nature that they may very well be prayed against and I suppose no man thinks himself obliged to desire an heavy Cross. As to what concerns the Sick Man himself he is to put his Affairs into the best order he can upon the first warning the first beginning of his Illness for indeed in most Distempers those increasing pains that attend them will not allow him to do it afterwards Thus Job advises Chap. 33. 26. that When a man is chastened with pain upon his bed he shall pray unto God and he will be favourable to him and he shall see his face with joy But he that never begins to pray till he be almost at the last Gasp will not be able to make such a strong and fervent Prayer as is like to reach to Heaven As for them that try the Physitian till he gives them over and never till then seek the Prayers of the Church they have but little Reason to hope for help from God to whom they have no recourse till they are driven by the last extremity For they shew that if they could have had Relief without him they cared not to be beholden to him for it In which Case it is just with God to suffer the Sickness to be mortal which perhaps had not been so if Applications had been made to him
meet with Joy It will be a welcom day indeed when their Looks their Expressions their Carriage will all be changed for the better There will be no appearance of any thing that is dismal and grievous and it will be more welcom to us because we and our friends so suitable so loving and so perfect shall never part again Oh what a comfortable thought is this Oh what will our praises be when we are there where there will be no more sickness no more death for ever We shall behold what we were in our Mortal State how vain and how short-lived and what we are when we are made Immortal There will be no more restless and weary dayes nor nights as restless as the day not a sigh nor a groan will be heard in all the blessed place above What would one that is in great pain give for ease most readily would he give all he has in the World but upon our first entrance into that Land of pleasure and of health all our Diseases will be cured and so fully cured that we shall never Relapse nor be diseased again There will be no pain This to those that are at ease may seem a little part of Heaven but to those of us that have been in long and terrible sickness 't is a very sweet and reviving Consideration In this World one affliction is scarce past till another comes usually there is breach upon breach and a new sorrow treads upon the heels of the old one as one wave upon another We have scarcely dryed our eyes for one loss but another comes that will make us weep again but in the Heaven which we hope for there is no Language but that of Praise Here we are alwayes either bewailing our own Miseries or those of our Friends and Neighbours but there it will not be so God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away Rev. 21. 4. Oh what a joy will it be to us to be past death that is so terrible and to be for ever past it The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with sons and everlasting joy upon their heads tĥey shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Isa. 35. 10. We praise God indeed here and we have Cause to praise him but our Victories are not so compleat as to make a perfect Triumph we have one great Battel yet to fight and one great Gulph to shoot and a dark and a solitary way to go This is that which is grievous to our thoughts but oh what a joy will it be to us when we are past death and have dyed well who can express the mighty pleasure of it When the deliver'd Soul can say I that have been so furiously tempted so violently assaulted so siercely shaken by the blast of the terrible one shall be so no more all the Rage of Satan shall not come near me nor give me an unquiet thought for ever And I that griev'd and was disconsolate with tedious and uncommon pain shall never droop nor languish any more What a reviving prospect will it be when we stand on the other side of the Grave when the terrible forerunners of Death and Death it self shall be no more Then we may say indeed Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory What consternation fear and perplexity fill'd the hearts of the poor Israelites when they were going out of Egypt when they were environed with rocks with their Enemies behind and with the Sea before They were in great trouble and knew not what to do But how different were their looks and Apprehensions when they beheld the Sea to give way and by an unheard of Miracle stand as a Wall on either hand till they past thorough How delightful was it to them when they were on the firm Land to see those very Enemies that Pharaoh and those Cruel Masters that had for so many years kept them in cruel bondage to find a grave in that Element which yielded and made a way for them Exod. 15. 1 2. So will it be with us when we shall see all our diseases all our Fears all our Temptations all our sinking thoughts to be destroy'd for ever The day of our death that will convey us to the blessed State will be better to us then the day of our birth that brought us into such an evil World as this Our Eyes will then no more behold grievous objects our Ears will no more hear any sad or doleful news Here we have many National and Personal Deliverances but alass we sin again and so bring upon our selves new Judgements But there which every sincere Soul reckons to be a great part of Heaven we shall sin no more for ever I that am now speaking come to you as from the Grave and can give you an account of Pain and Sickness but am not able to give you so distinct an Account of the Holy Cheerful Employment that is above But if one were to come to you from Heaven if he were but enabled to tell what he felt and your Capacities enlarged to understand the pleasing Narrative how would your glad hearts melt with an Admiring Joy and your Souls be raised to Praise and Wonder they will be much more raised and more joyful when you have your compleat and final Deliverance Then you shall say with those in Rev. 5. 12 13. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And again Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever The End of the Second Sermon The Third SERMON PSAL. 30. ver 3 4. O Lord thou hast brought up my Soul from the Grave thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the Pit Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give Thanks at the remembrance of his Holiness IF Deliverance from the Grave be so great a Mercy and for which we ought to be very thankful what cause have they to be thankful that are delivered from a Death in Sin As the Soul is much better than the Body so the Mercies that are bestowed upon it are much more valuable and without this spiritual Resurrection temporal Deliverance and Salvation would not be so great a Mercy A Soul under the Dominion and reigning Power of Sin is in a far more deplorable Condition than a Body that is consuming in the Grave the one suffers under a sort of innocent Misery which it cannot help the other suffers under a wilful Obstinacy and Impotence contracted by its own fault How sad a prospect is it to see Men far from God in whom alone there is Life a Separation from whom is far more terrible than the
I may but I have had no Rest at all then nor the next nor the next scarce any discernable Sleep I am sure none that was refreshing for above three quarters of a year together And if at any time I rested a little that little Rest was all the while disturb'd with terrible and amazing Dreams and when I awaked I always found my self in strange and unexpressible Pain in Anguish and Bitterness such as nothing in this World is able to represent even as to its lowest degrees And judg you into what Confusions and Disorders this alone would throw a Man if it were single My Disease and my Fears and sad Apprehensions came upon me as a Whirlwind like the rushing of many mighty Waters strange and horrible Pains and great Fears so that it was as an universal Storm from which there was no retreat I said with Hezekiah Isa. 38. 12 13. Mine Age is departed and is removed from me as a Shepherd's Tent I have cut off like a Weaver my Life He will cut me off with pining Sickness from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me I reckoned till morning that as a Lion so will he break all my Bones from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me I was continually full of restless Pain and amazing Thoughts I often said I am now cut off I am come to the End of my Journey I am going to the Grave there was but a Step but a Minute as it were between me and Death nay how often have I been by most terrible Convulsions in the very Jaws of Death They were to me as a Den of Lions and are as painful and as terrible as if a Man were actually torn to pieces And in all these not the least help nor prospect of Relief and these returning every day for many weeks or rather one continued Convulsion-fit and that always with a very quick and cutting Pain it never came upon me but as a Giant or an armed Man and whenever that was I thought my self in the very Moment of my Separation from the Body I thought my self very often just going to the Bar of God I was in Death often often as in the very Agonies and Pangs of Death but I could not die I seemed to have the strength of Brass it seemed to me as if I had been raised up by Almighty Power only that I might be capable to suffer Pains very strange and very terrible I sunk as in the deep Mire Psal. 69. 2. I saw indeed sometimes the Light of Day but it was never refreshing nor comfortable to me for I was often saying with Job chap. 3. 23 24. Why is Light given to a Man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in For my Sighing cometh before I eat and my Roarings are poured out like Water I was not in Safety neither had I Rest neither was I quiet yet trouble came For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me and that which I was afraid of is come unto me I often said I shall never see the World till it be in Flames never see my Friends or Acquaintance nor they me till the Heavens be no more and till the vast Appearance of the great Day Thus my Feet stumbled on the dark Mountains and all was hideous Darkness Woe and Desolation with me Sometimes by the Greatness of my Trouble I was even stifled with Grief that I could not for a great while speak a Word and when I spoke it was in a mournful manner for many Months I could not breath without a mighty Pain and as soon as with Difficulty I had breath'd every Breath was turn'd into a Groan and every Groan was big with a very deep Sorrow I was weary with my Groaning Psal. 6. 6. All the Night made I my Bed to swim and watered my Couch with Tears Nay the Sadness and the stinging Particularities that I apprehended in my afflicted Case made me to weep even till I had no more power to weep Psal. 88. 3. My Soul was full of Troubles and my Life drew nigh to the Grave c. I saw the Grave as beneath me continually opening to swallow me up I often said in my self I shall no more see the Congregations or Assemblies of God's-People I shall never any more enter into his Court nor sing his Praise I shall no more speak in his Name nor experience his loving-kindness in the Land of the Living any more These were some of my Thoughts and this was my inexcusable Infirmity and my Unbelief Those that are in Health will scarcely perhaps credit what I say they will think I am a melancholy Man and aggravate my Trouble and set it out more than needs or than it was and that in the whole there was a great deal more of Fancy than of Reality but I pray God they may never taste one drop of that bitter Cup whereof I was made to drink for if they should they 'l find it whatever Names they now give it to be then full of real Miseries As I have spoke nothing but what I fully believe to be true so I have spoke the more of it that it may be of some use to others that though Trouble and Distresses fall upon them which are very strange and very perplexing or such as rarely happen that they would hope even in the Depths for they may see by me that nothing is too hard for God There are few that having been so near to Death revive again few that have been near it so long together and fewer that after they have recovered are willing to speak of what they then saw and felt but methinks it is not unnecessary to shew to what woful Miseries we are obnoxious in this World and how many ways God has wherewith to correct and punish the Sins of Men. Most People are unwilling to speak of such things as these because others are unwilling to hear such doleful Relations they invent some other Discourse to put it off but their hearing of it is better than to feel it and this may help them to avoid manifold Mischiefs before it be too late You think it may be that I have spoke a great deal and your Attention may be wearied but I'lassure 't is many hundred times below what I felt Great Griefs as well as mighty Joys exceed all our Words and Bitterness is not to be described Never was any I believe nearer to Death not to die never was any compass'd with a greater Danger never any had less hope of an Escape than I and yet the Mercy of a God that is Omnipotent has relieved me And as 't is commonly said that Musick sounds best upon the Water so by setting our Sorrows and our Mercies together our Praise may be more harmonious You may in this behold the Severity and the Goodness of God his Severity in continuing on me so many smart Strokes for so long a space and his Goodness
again the first Visit they make is to their old Good-fellows as they call them and they are welcomed into the jolly Company with full Bowls and with loud Huzzaes but let us go to such as will entertain us with Praises to God for our deliverance and not drink our healths but seriously pray for them Eightly When God has brought us from the Grave let us by all means see that so sore an Affliction and so great a Deliverance may be sanctified to us And we may know that they are so when they produce these following effects First When they take off our hearts from the World and the Creatures and drive us more to God Secondly When they make us more frequent and fervent in our Prayers Thirdly When they produce those holy ends for which they were sent upon us Fourthly When they make us to acknowledge God and to see his disposal and his hand in all that is come upon us Ruth 1. 20. The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me Ver. 21. The Lord hath testified against me and the Allmighty hath afflicted me Fifthly When they make us to humble our selves and to lay our Mouths in the dust knowing that tho our troubles were very severe yet they were very just Ezek. 16. 63. That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God And Job 42. 5. When they fill our Hearts with Admiration and our Mouths with his Praise Seventhly When the Mercies we receive carry our Affections with more flame towards the Benefactor from whence they came As the warmth of the shining Sun causes a new fragancy and a sweeter smell among all the Flowers of the Garden Eighthly When they bring us to more knowledge of God and to more true calmness and joy in him These are glorious Effects of a sanctified affliction and of a sanctified escape from it and a sign that they came not by a common but by a special Providence and by a right of the Covenant of Grace by which all things are ours I might add in the ninth place when we taste his Fatherly Goodness and Love in all that we enjoy if we find these things within us 't is a sign we have both heard the Rod and him that did appoint it Mich. 6. 9. Oh how happy are we if God by taking away our health has given us himself and if by sending sharp sickness and pain upon us he has prepared us for a sweeter relish of his Love Happy are we if our Temporary Sickness tend to an Eternal Health and our short Sorrows to an Everlasting Joy Happy yet again are we if he have not only Commanded us to take up our beds and walk but also said unto us that our Sins are forgiven if we can say with Hezekiah Isa. 38. 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 It must be our great endeavour that after we have been tryed we may come forth like Gold and that we do not as the three Children in another case come out with our old Garments and with the same Sins upon us Let us earnestly beg of God that we may have a compleat Salvation and a total Recovery That as our Bodies are supplied with new strength so our Souls may prosper also For to be diseased in our Souls whilst our Bodies thrive is as if the House in which one lives were very well repaired and adorned to all advantage and the Man that dwells in so fair an Habitation were forced to go in raggs so fine a dwelling and so ordinary an Inhabitant would not agree well together Oh let us take care that whilst God has healed our Diseases we be not inwardly distempered with the Plague of our own Hearts That Man is not to be called healthful that let him look never so well has a Disease in his Vitals that by slow Degrees preys upon his Life Neither can that Man be truly said to be recovered whose Soul is either void of Grace or that having had it in some measure languishes and decays He is composed of Contradictions of Life and Death at the same time he is alive and well as to his Body but his Soul is dead in Trepasses and Sins The most excellent and valuable part of himself does remain under the power of Death and whilst it is so is an Object more unpleasing to God than a dissolving Carcass in the Grave would be to us The Welfare and Recovery of our Souls is what we ought more to seek than the Welfare of our Bodies Both indeed are Mercies but the former is much the greater of the two What is Purple and fine Linnen and soft Raiment that sets off a Man to the Eyes of others to that Faith and Love and Patience and Hope and those other Graces of the Spirit that beautifie the Soul and render it amiable in the Eye of God What is all the Meat and Drink that refresh our Bodies to that Heavenly Manna that Celestial Nourishment that an healthful holy Soul feeds upon The prosperity of our Bodies their ease and capacity of performing their several Actions is one of the greatest Ternporal Mercies but alas this will signifie nothing at all if we do not prosper in our Souls There is a way indeed whereby we may gather Grapes of Thorns and Figs of Thistles i. e. Refreshment and Comfort from those Afflictions that peirct us to the quick and that Sorrow which was at first unwelcom to us may prove an Angel of Light and strike off our Chains if we can say with David It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy Statutes Psal. 119. 71. Ver. 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy Word His was a very blessed Cross that flourisht into such fruit as this I think I should not say amiss should I say that God has as it were brought every person here from the Grave and saved him from going down into the Pit from a Grave and a Pit which has been often digged for us by the Plots and Designs of our Enemies and into which we had long ago fallen had not God mercifully saved and helped us God has very lately done great things for our Brethren in Ireland whereof I do believe your Hearts are glad for as you mourn'd with them in their Sorrows so t is fit you participate with them in the Joys that they now have by the quick advances of their increasing Deliverance and from the dangers that so nearly threatned them And God has not after the mighty wonders of his Providence left us here in England when destruction has been coming towards us with hasty paces when it has from the proud Fleet of our Enemies threatned