covetous ambitious self-seeking persons in the World or else cure their diseases and possess their minds with perfect Câ—â—rity then â—ll the 〈…〉 hath over and over again given 〈…〉 as full and sad demonstrations of th◠〈◊〉 of Cross opinions to alienate 〈◊〉 and make divisions as most ages of the World have ever had If your Friend 〈◊〉 proud it 's wonderful how he will â—lighâ— you and withdraw his Love if you 〈◊〉 not of his mind If he be zealous he is easily tempted to think it a part of his duty to God to disown you if you differ from him as taking you for one that disowneth the truth of God and therefore one that God himself disowneth or at least to grow cold in his affection toward you and to decline from you as he that thinks you do from God As agreement in opinions doth strangely reconcile Affections so disagreement doth secretly and strangely alienate them even before you are well aware your Friend hath lost possession of your hearts because of an unavoidable diversity of apprehensions When all your Friends have the same intellectual complexion and temperature and measure of understanding with your selves then you may have hope to escape the ruptures which unlikeliness and differences of apprehensions might else cause 6. Moreover some of your friends may so far overgrow you in wisdom or wealth or honour or worth in their own conceits that they may begin to take you to be unsuitable for them and unmeet for their further special friendship Alas poor man they will pity thee that thou art no wiser and that thou hast no greater light to change thy mind as fast as they or that thou art so weak and ignorant as not to see what seems to them so clear a truth or that thou art so simple to cast away thy self by crossing them that might prefer thee or to fâ—ll under the displeasure of those that have power to raise or ruine thee But if thou be so simple thou mayest be the object of their lamentation but art no familiar friend for them They think it fittest to close and converse with those of their own rank and stature and not with such shrubs and children that may prove their trouble and dishonour 7. And some of your friends will think that by a more through acquaintance with you they have found out more of your infirmities or faults and therefore have found that you are less aimable and valuable than at first they judged you They will think that by distance unacquaintedness and an over-hasty love and judgment they were mistaken in you and that now they see reason to repent of the love which they think was guilty of some errors and excess when they come nearer you and have had more tryal of you they will think they are fitter to judge of you than before And indeed our defects are so many and all our infirmities so great that the more men know us the more they may see in us that deserveth pity or reproof and as Pictures we appear less beautiful at the nearest view Though this will not warrant the withdrawing of that Love which is due to friends and to vertue even in the imperfect nor will excuse that alienation and decay of friendship that is caused by the pride of such as overlook perhaps much greater failings and weaknesses in themselves which need forgiveness 8. And perhaps some of your Friends will grow weary of their Friendship having that infirmity of humane nature not to be much pleased with one thing long Their love is a flower that quickly withereth It is a short liv'd thing that soon groweth old It must be novelty that must feed their love and their delight 9. And perhaps they may have got some better Friends in their apprehensions that may have so much interest as to take them up and leave no room for antient Friends It may be they have met with those that are more suitable or can be more useful to them that have more learning or wit or wealth or power than you have and therefore seem more worthy of their Friendship 10. And some of them may think when you are in a low and suffering state and in danger of worse that it is part of their duty of self-preservation to be strange to you though in heart they wish you well They will think they are not bound to hazard themselves upon the displeasure of superiours to own or befriend you or any other Though they must not desert Christ they think they may desert a man for their own preservation To avoid both extreams in such a case men must both study to understand which way is most serviceable to Christ and to his Church and withal to be able to deny themselves and also must study to understand what Christ meaneth in his final sentence In as much as you did it or did it not to one of the least of these my Brethren you did it or did it not to me As if it were to visit the Contagious we must neither cast away our lives to do no good or for that which in value holdeth no proportion with them nor yet must we deny to run any hazard when it is indeed our duty So is it in our visiting those that suffer for the cause of Christ but that here the owning them being the coâ—fessing of him we need more seldom to fear being too forward 11. And some of your friends may cover their faithfulness with the pretence of some fault that you have been guilty of some errour that you hold or some unhansom or culpable act that you have done or some duty that you have left undone or failed in For they think there is not a better shelter for their unfaithfulness then to pretend for it the Name and Cause of God and so to make a duty of their sin Who would not justifie them if they can but prove that God requireth them and Religion oâ—ligeth thâ—m to forsake you fâ—r your faults There are few crimes in the world that by some are not fathered on God that most hateth them as thinking no name can so much honour them False friends therefore use this means as well as other Hypocrites And though God is Love and condemneth nothing more than uncharitableness malice yet these are commonly by falshaâ—ted Hypocrites called by pious vertuous names and God himself is entitled to them so that few worldlings ambitious persons or timeservers but will confidently pretend Religion for all their falshood to their friends or bloody cruelty to the servants of Christ that comply not with their carnal interest 12. Perhaps some of your friends may really mistake your case and think that you suffer as evil doers and instead of comforting you may be your sharpest censurers This is one of the most notable things set out to our observation in the book of Iob It was not the smallest part of his affliction that when the hand of God was heavy upon him
and then if ever was the time for his friends to have been his comforters and friends indeed on the contrary they became his scourge and by unjust accusations and misinterpretations of the providence of God did greatly add to his affliction when God had taken away his children wealth and health his friends would take away the reputation and comfort of his integrity and under pretence of bringing him to repentance did charge him with that which he was never guilty of They wounded his good name and would have wounded his conscience and deprived him of his inward peace Censorious false accusing friends do cut deeper then malicious slandring enemies It is no wonder if strangers or enemies do misjudge and misreport our actions But when your bosom friends that should most intimately know you and be the cheif witness of your innocency against all others shall in their jealousie or envy or peevishness or falling out be your chief reproachers and unjust accusers as it makes it serve more credible to others so it will come nearest to your selves And yet this is a thing that must be expected yea even your most self-denying acts of obedience to God may be so misunderstood by godly men and real friends as by them to be taken for your great miscarriage and turned to your rebuke As Davids dancing before the Ark was by his wife which yet did but make him resolve to be yet more vile If you be cast into poverty or disgrace or prison or banishment for your necessary obedience to Christ perhaps your friend or wife may become your accuser for this greatest service and say This is your own doing your rashness or indiscretion or self-conceitedness or willfulness hath brought it upon you what need had you to say such words or to do this or that why could not you have yeilded in so small a matter Perhaps your costliest and most excellent obedience shall by your nearest friends be called the fruits of pride or humour or passion or some corrupt affection or at least of folly and inconsiderateness When flesh and blood hath long been striving in you against your duty and saying Do not cast away thy self O serve not God at so dear a rate God doth not require thee to undo thy self why shouldest thou not avoid so great inconveniences When with much ado you have conquered all your carnal reasonings and denyed your selves and your carnal interest you must expect even from some religious friends to be accused for these very actions and perhaps their accusations may fasten such a blot upon your names as shall never be washed out till the day of judgment By difference of interests or apprehensions and bâ— unacquaintedness with your hearts and actions the righteousness of of the righteous may be thus taking from him and friends may do the work of enemies yea of Satan himself the accuser of the brethren and may prove as thorns in your bed and gravel in your shoes yea in your eyes and wrong you much more than open adversaries could have done How is it like to go with that mans reputation you may easily judge whose friends are like Iobs and his enemies like Davids that lay snares before him and diligently watch for matter of reproach yet this may befall the best of men 13. You may be permitted by God to fall into some real crime and then your friends may possibly think it is their duty to disown you so far as you have wronged God When you provoke God to frown upon you he may cause your friends to frown upon you If you fall out with him and grow strange to him no marvel if your truest friends fall out with you and grow strange to you They love you for your godliness and for the sake of Christ and therefore must abate their love if you abate your godliness and must for the sake of Christ be displeased with you for your sins And if in such a case of real guilt you should be displeased at their displeasure and should expect that your friend should befriend your sin or carry himself towards you in your guilt as if you were innocent you will but shew that you understand not the nature of true friendship nor the use of a true friend and are yet your selves too friendly to your sins 14. Moreover those few friends that are truest to you may be utterly unable to relieve you in your distress or to give you ease or do you any good The case may be such that they can but pity you and lament your sorrows and weep over you you may see in them that man is not as God whose friendship can accomplish all the good that he desireth to his friends The wisest and greatest and best of men are silly comforters and uneffectual helps you may be sick and pained and grieved and distressed notwithstanding any thing that they can do for you Nay perhaps in their ingnorance they may increase your misery while they desire your relief and by striving indirectly to help and ease you may tye the knot faster and make you worse They may provoke those more against you that oppress you while they think they speak that which would tend to set you free They may think to ease your troubled minds by such words as shall increase the trouble or to deliver you as Peter would have delivered Christ and saved his Saviour first by carnal counsel Math. 16.22 Be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee And then by carnal unjust force by drawing his sword against the Officers Love and good meaning will not prevent the mischiefs of ignorance and mistake If your friend cut your throat while he thought to cut but a vein to cure your disease it is not his friendly meaning that will save your lives Many a thousand sick people are killed by their friends that attend them with an earnest desire of their life while they ignorantly give them that which is contrary to their disease and will not be the â—ess pernicious for the good meaning of the giver Who have more tender affections than Mothers to their children And yet a great part of the calamity of the World of sickness and the misery of mans life proceedeth from the ignorant and erroneous indulgence of Mothers to their Children who to please them let them eat and drink what they will and use them to excess and gluttony in their childhood till nature be abused and maâ—tered and clogged with those superfluities and crudities which are the dunghill matter of most of the following diseases of their lives I might here also remember you how your friends may themselves be overcome with a temptation and then become the more dangerous tempters of you by how much the greater their interest is in your affections If they be infected with error they are the likest persons to ensnare you If they be tainted with Covetousness or Pride there is none so likely to draw you to the
your Rock He hath no stability but what is derived dependant and uncertain and defectible Learn therefore to rest on God alone and lean not too hard or confidently upon any mortal might 2. And God will have the common infirmity of man to be known that so the weakest may not be utterly discouraged nor take their weakness to be gracelesness whilst they see that the strongest also have their infirmities though not so great as theirs If any of God's Servants lives in constant holiness and fidelity without any shakings or stumbling in their way it would tempt some self-accusing troubled Souls to think that they were altogether graceless because they are so far short of others But when we read of a Peters denying his Master in so horrid a manner with swearing and cursing that he knew not the man Mat. 26.74 And of his dissimulation and not walking uprightly Gal. 2. and of a Davids unfriendly and unrighteous dealing with Mephibosheth the seed of Ionathan and of his most vile and treacherous dealing with Vriah a faithful and deserving Subject it may both abate our wonder and offence at the unfaithfulness of our Friends and teach us to compassionate their frailty when they desert us and also somewhat abate our immoderate dejectedness and trouble when we have failed God or man our selves 3. Moreover consider how the odiousness of that sin which is the root and cause of such unfaithfulness is greatly manifested by the failing of our Friends God will have the odiousness of the Remnants of our Self-love and Carnal mindedness and Cowardize appear We should not discern it in the Seed and Root if we did not see and taste it in the Fruits Seeing without Tasting will not sufficiently convince us A Crab looks as beautiful as an Apple but when you taste it you better know the difference When you must your selves be unkindly used by your Friends and forsaken by them in your distress and you have tasted the Fruits of the Remnants of their Worldliness Selfishness and Carnal Fears you will better know the odiousness of these Vices which thus break forth against all Obligations to God and you and notwithstanding the Light the Conscience and perhaps the Grace that doth resist them 4. Are you not prone to overvalue and overlove your Friends If so is not this the meerest Remedy for your Disease In the loving of God we are in no danger of Excess and therefore have no need of any thing to quench it And in the loving of the Godly purely upon the account of Christ and in loving Saints as Saints we are not apt to go too far But yet our Understandings may mistake and we may think that Saints have more of sanctity than indeed they have and we are exceeding apt to mix a Selfish Common Love with that which is Spiritual and Holy and at the same time when we love a Christian as a Christian we are apt not only to love him as we ought but to overlove him because he is our Friend and loveth us Those Christians that have no special Love to us we are apt to undervalue and neglect and love them below their holiness and worth But those that we think entirely love us we love above their proper Worth as they stand in the esteem of God Not but that we may love those that love us and add this love to that which is purely for the sake of Christ but we should not let our own Interest prevail and overtop the Interest of Christ nor love any so much for loving us as for loving Christ And if we do so no wonder if God shall use such Remedies as he seeth meet to abate our excuse of Selfish Love O how highly are we apt to think of all that Good which is found in those who are the highest esteemers of us and most dearly love us when perhaps in it self it is but some ordinary Good or ordinary Degree of Goodness which is in them Their Love to us unresistibly procureth our Love to them And when we love them it is wonderful to observe how easily we are brought to think well of almost all they do and highly to value their Judgments Graces Parts and Works When greater Excellencies in another perhaps are scarce observed or regarded but as a common thing And therefore the destruction or want of Love is apparent in the vilifying Thoughts and Speeches that most Men have one of another and in the low esteem of the Judgments and Performances and Lives of other Men much more in their Contempt Reproaches and cruel Persecutions Now though God will have us encrease in our love of Christ in his Members and in our pure love of Christians as such and in our common Charity to all yea and in our just Fidelity to our Friend yet would he have us suspect and moderate our selfish and excessive Love and inordinate partial esteem of one above another when it is but for our selves and on our own account And therefore as he will make us know that we our selves are no such excellent Persons as that it should make another so laudable or advance his worth because he loveth us so he will make us know that our Friends whom we overvalue are but like other Men If we exalt them too highly in our esteem it is a sign that God must cast them down And as their Love to us was it that made us so exalt them so their unkindness or unfaithfulness to us is the fittest means to bring them lower in our estimation and affection God is very jealous of our hearts as to our overvaluing and overloving any of his Creatures What we give inordinately and excessively to them is some way or other taken from him and given them to his Injury and therefore to his offence Though I know that to be void of natural friendly or social affections is an odious extreme on the other side yet God will rebuke us if we are guilty of Excess And it 's the greater and more inexcusable fault to over-love the Creature because our Love to God is so cold and hardly kindled and kept alive He cannot take it well to see us dote upon dust and frailty like our selves at the same time when all his wondrous kindness and attractive goodness do cause but such a faint and languid Love to him which we ourselves can scarcely feel If therefore he cures us by permitting our Friends to shew us what they are and how little they deserve such excessive Love when God hath so little it is no more wonder than it is that he is tender of his Glory and merciful to his Servants Souls 5 By the failing and unfaithfulness of our Friends the wonderful Patience of God will be observed and honoured as it is shewed both to them and us When they forsake us in our distress especially when we suffer for the Cause of Christ it is God that they injure more than us And therefore if he bear with
them and forgive their Weakness upon Repentance why should not we do so that are much less injured The worlds perfideousness should make us think How great and wonderful is the patience of God that beareth with and beareth up so vile ungrateful treacherous Men that abuse him to whom they are infinitely obliged And it should make us consider when Men deal treacherously with us How great is that mercy that hath born with and pardoned greater wrongs which I my self have done to God than these can be which men have done to me It was the remembrance of David's Sin that had provoked God to raise up his own Son against him of whom he had been too fond which made him so easily bear the Curses and Reproach of Shimei It will make us bear abuse from others to remember how ill we have dealt with God and how ill we have deserved at his hands our selves 6. And I have observed another of the Reasons of God's permitting the failing of our Friends in the season and success It is that the Love of our Friends may not hinder us when we are called to suffer or die When we over-love them it teareth our very hearts to leave them And therefore it is a strong temptation to draw us from our Duty and to be unfaithful to the cause of Christ lest we should be taken from our too-dear Friends or lest our suffering cause their too-much Grief It is so hard a thing to die with willingness and peace that it must needs be a mercy to be saved from the Impediments which make us backward And the excessive Love of Friends and Relations is not the least of these Impediments O how loth is many a one to die when they think of parting with Wife or Husband or Children or dear and faithful Friends Now I have often observed that a little before their death or sickness it is ordinary with God to permit some unkindness between such too dear friends to arise by which he moderated and abated their affections and made them a great deal the willinger to dye Then we are ready to say it is time for me to leave the World when not only the rest of the World but my dearest Friends have first forsaken me This helpeth us to remember our dearest everlasting Friend and to be grieved at the heart that we have been no truer our selves to him who would not have forsaken us in our extremity And sometimes it makes us ev'n weary of the world and to say as Elias Lord take away my Life c. 1 King 19.4.10 14. When we must say I thought I had one friend left and behold even he forsaketh me in my distress As the love of Friends intangleth our affections to this World so to be weaned by their unkindnesses from our Friends is a great help to loosen us from the World and proveth oft a very great mercy to a Soul that is ready to depart And as the friends that Love us most and have most interest in your esteem and Love may do more than others in tempting us to be unfaithful to our Lord to to entertain any errour to commit any sin or to flinch in suffering so when God had permitted them to forsake us and to lose their too great interest in us we are fortified against all temptations from them I have known where a former intimate friend hath grown strange and broken former friendship and quickly after turned to such dangerous ways and errours as convinced the other of the mercifulness of God in weakning his temptation by his friends desertion who might else have drawn him along with him into sin And I have often observed that when the husbands have turned from Religion to Infidelity Familism or some dangerous heresie that God hath permitted them to hate and abuse their wives so inhumanly as that it preserveth the poor women from the temptation of following them in their Apostasie or sin When as some other women with whom their husbands have dealt more kindly have been drawn away with them into pernicious paths Therefore still I must say we were undone if we had the disposing of our own conditions It would belong before we should have been willing our selves to be thus unkindly dealt with by our friends And yet God hath made it to many a soul a notable meâ—â—s of preserving them from being undone for ever Yea the unfaithfulness of all our friends and the malice and cruelty of all our enemies doth us not usually so much harm as the love and temptation of some one deluded â—â—ring friend whom we are ready to follow into the gulf 7. Lastly consider that it is not desirable or suitable to our state to have too much of our comfort by any creature Not only because it is most pure and sweet which is most immediately from God but also because we are very prone to over-love the Creature and if it should but seem to be very commodious to us by serving our necessities or desires it would seem the more amiable and therefore be the stronger snare The work of mortification doth much consist in the annihilation or deadness of all the Creatures as to any power to draw away our hearts from God or to entangle us and detain us from our duty And the more excellent and lovely the Creature appeareth â—o us the less it is dead to us or we to it and the more will it be able to hinder or ensnare us When you have well considered all these things I suppose you will admire the wisdom of God in leaving you under this kind of tryal and weaning you from every creature and teaching you by his Providence as well as by his word to Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of And you will see that it 's no great wonder that corrupted souls that live in other sins should be guilty of this unfaithfulness to their friends And that he that dare unthankfully trample upon the unspeakable kindness of the Lord should deal unkindly with the best of men You make no great wonder at other kind of sins when you see the world continually commit them why then should you make a greater or a stranger matter of this than of the rest Are you better than God Must unfaithfulness to you be made more hainous than that unfaithfulness to him which yet you daily see and slight The least wrong to God is a thousand fold more than the greatest that can be done to you as such Have you done that for your nearest friend which God hath done for him and you and all men Their obligations to you are nothing in comparison of their great and manifold obligations to God And you know that you have more wronged God your selves than any man ever wronged you And if yet for all that he bear with you have you not great reasons to bear with others Yea you have not been innocent towards men your selves
yet much short of what I expect he should advance me to as long as my Friends no more forsake me It is not long since I found my self in a low if not a doubting case because I had so few Enemies and so little Sufferings for the Cause of Christ though I had much of other sorts And now that doubt is removed by the multitude of Furies which God hath let loose against me But yet methinks while my Friends themselves are so friendly to me I am much short of what I think I must at last attain to BUT let us look further in the Text and see what is the Cause of the failing and forsaking Christ in the Disciples and what it is that they betake themselves to when they leave him Ye shall be scattered every Man to his Own Self-Denyal was not perfect in them selfishness therefore in this hour of temptation did prevail They had before forsaken all to follow Christ they had left their Parents their Families their Estates their Trades to be his Disciples But though they believed him to be the Christ yet they dreamt of a visible Kingdom and did all this with too carnal Expectations of being great men on Earth when Christ should begin his Reign And therefore when they saw his apprehension and ignominious suffering and thought now they were frustrate of their hopes they seem to repent that they had followed him though not by Apostacy and an habitual or plenary change of mindâ— yet by a sudden passionate frightful apprehension which vanished when grace performed its part They now began to think that they had lives of their Own to save and families of their Own to mind and business of their Own to do They had before forsaken their private Interests and Affairs and gathered themselves to Jesus Christ and lived in Communion with him and one another But now they return to their Trades and Callings and are scattered every Man to his own Selfishness is the great Enemy of all Societies of all Fidelity and Friendship There is no trusting that person in whom it is predominant And the Remnants of it where it doth not Reign do make men walk unevenly and unstedfastly towards God and men They will certainly deny both God and their Friends in a time of tryal who are not able to deny themselves Or rather he never was a real Friend to any that is predominantly selfish They have alway some interest of their Own which their Friend must needs contradict or is insufficient to satisfie Their Houses their Lands their Moneys their Children their Honour or something which they call their Own will be frequently the matter of contention and are so near them that they can for the sake of these cast off the nearest Friend Contract no special friendship with a selfish man Nor put no confidence in him whatever Friendship he may profess He is so confined to himself that he hath no true love to spare for others If he seem to love a Friend it is not as a Friend but as a Servant or at best as a Benefactor He loveth you for himself as he loveth his Mony or Horse or House because you may be serviceable to him Or as a Horse or Dog doth love his Keeper for feeding him And therefore when your Provender is gone his Love is gone when you have done feeding him he hath done loving you When you have no more for him he hath no more for you Object But some will say it is not the falseness of my Friend that I lament but the separation or the loss of one that was most faithful I have found the deceitfulness of ordinary Friends and therefore the more highly priâ—e those few that are sincere I had but one true friend among abundance of self-seekers and that one is dead or taken from me and I am lâ—ft as in a Wilderness having no mortal man that I can trust or take much comfort in Answ. Is this your case I pray you answer these few Questions and suffer the truth to have its proper work upon your mind Quest. 1. Who was it that deprived you of your Friend Was it not God Did not he that gave him you take him from you Was it not his Lord and Owner that call'd him home And can God do any thing injuriously or amiss will you not give him leave to do as he list with his own Dare you think that there was wanting either Wisdom or Goodness Iustice or Mercy in God's disposal of your Friend Or will you ever have Rest if you cannot have Rest in the Will of God 2. How know you what sin your Friend might have fallen into if he had lived as long as you would have him You 'll say that God could have preserved him from sin It 's true But God preserveth sapientially by means as well as omnipotentially And sometime he seeth that the temptations to that person are like to be so strong and his Corruption like to get such advantage and that no means is so fit as Death it self for his preservation And if God had permitted your Friend by temptation to have fallen into some scandalous sin or course of evil or into errors or false ways would it not have been much worse than Death to him and you God might have suffered your Friend that was so faithful to have been sifted and shaken as Peter was and to have denied his Lord and to have seemed in your own Eyes as odious as he before seemed amiable 3. How know you what unkindness to your self your dearest friend might have been guilty of Alas there is greater frailty and inconstancy in man than you are aware of And there are sadder roots of Corruption unmortified that may spring up into bitter Fruits than most of us ever discover in our selves Many a Mother hath her heart broken by the unnaturalness of such a Child or the unkindness of such a Husband as if they had died before would have been lamented by her with great impatience and excess How confident soever you may be of the future Fidelity of your Friend you little know what tryal might have discovered Many a one hath failed God and Man that once were as confident of themselves as ever you were of your Friend And which of us see not reason to be distrustful of our selves And can we know another better than our selves or promise more concerning him 4. How know you what great calamity might have befallen your Friend if he had lived as long as you desired When the Righteous seem to men to perish and merciful Men are taken away it is from the evil to come that they are taken Isa. 57.1 How many of my Friends have I lamented as if they had dyed unseasonably concerning whom some following Providence quickly shewed me that it would have been a grievous misery to them to have lived longer Little know you what Calamities were imminent on his Person his Family Kindred Neighbours Country that
you can thankfully take your Food from any hand that your Father sends it by it is a Correction very suitable to your sin 9. Do you so highly value your Friends for God or for them or for your selves in the final consideration If it was for God what reason of trouble have you that God hath disposed of them according to his wisdom and unerring Will should you not then be more pleased that God hath them and employeth them in his highest service than displeased that you want them But if you value them and love them for themselves they are now more lovely when they are more perfect and they are now fitter for your content and joy when they have themselves unchangeable content and joy than they could be in their sin and sorrows But if you valued and loved them but for your selves only it is just with God to take them from you to teach you to value Men to righter ends and upon better considerations And both to prefer God before your selves and better to understand the nature of true Friendship and better to know that your own felicity is not in the hands of any Creature but of God alone 10. Did you improve your Friends while you had them or did you only love them while you made but little use of them for your Souls If you used them not it was just with God for all your Love to take them from you They were given you as your Candle not only to Love it but to work by the Light of it And as your Garments not only to Love them but to wear them and as your meat not only to Love it but to feed upon it Did you receive their Counsel and hearken to their Reproofs and pray with them and confer with them upon those holy Truths that tended to elevate your minds to God and to inflame your Breasts with sacred Love If not be it now known to you that God gave you not such helps and mercies only to talk of or look upon and Love but also to improve for the benefit of your Souls 11. Do you not seem to forget both where you are your selves and where you must shortly and for ever live Where would you have your Friends but where you must be your selâ—es Do you mourn that they are taken hence Why if they had staid here a thousand years how little of that time should you have had their Company When you are almost leaving the World your selves would you not send your treasure before you to the place where you must abide How quickly will you pass from hence to God where you shall find your Friends that you lamented as if they had been lost and there shall dwell with them for ever O foolish Mourners would you not have your Friends at home at their home and your home with their Father and your Father their God and your God Shall you not there enjoy them long enough Can you so much miss them for one day that must live with them to all Eternity And is not Eternity long enough for you to enjoy your Friends in Obj. But I do not know whether ever I shall there have any distinct knowledge of them or love to them and whether God shall not there be so far All in All as thâ—t we shall need or fetch no comfort from the Creature Answ. There is no reason for either of these doubts For 1. You cannot justly think that the knowledge of the Glorified shall be more confused or imperfect than the knowledge of natural Men on Earth We shall know much more but not so much less Heaven exceedeth Earth in knowledge as much as it doth in joy 2. The Angels in Heaven have now a distinct particular knowledge of the least Believers rejoycing particularly in their conversion and being called by Christ himself Their Angels Therefore when we shall be equal to the Angels we shall certainly know our nearest Friends that there dwell with us and are employed in the same attendance 3. Abraham knew the Rich Man in Hell and the Man knew Abraham and Lazarus Therefore we shall have as distinct a Knowledge 4. The two Disciples knew Moses and Elias in the Mount whom they had never seen before Though it is possible Christ told them who they were yet there is no such thing expressed And therefore it is as probable that they knew them by the Communication of their irradiating glory Much more shall we be then illuminated to a clearer knowledge 5. It is said expresly 1 Cor. 13.10 11 12. That our present knowledge shall be done away only in regard of its imperfection and not of it self which shall be perfected when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away As we put away childish thoughts and speeches when we become men The change will be from seeing in a glass to seeing face to face and from knowing in part to knowing even as we are known 2. And that we shall both Know and Love and rejoyce in creatures even in Heaven notwithstanding that God is all in all apeareth further thus 1. Christ in his glorified humanity is a Creature and yet there is no doubt but all his members will there Know and Love him in his glorified humanity without any derogation from the glory of the Deity 2. The Body of Christ will continue its unity and every member will be so nearly related even in Heaven that they cannot choose but Know and Love each other Shall we be ignorant of the members of our Body and not be concerned in their felicity with whom we are so nearly one 3. The state and felicity of the Church hereafter is frequently described in Scripture as consistent in Society It is a Kingdom the City of God the Heavenly Ierusalem and it is mentioned as part of our happiness to be of that society Heb. 12.22 23 24 c. 4. The Saints are called Kings themselves and it is said that they shall judge the world and the Angels And Judging in Scripture is frequently put for Governing Therefore whether there will be another world of mortals which they shall Govern as Angles now Govern men or whether the Misery of damned men and Angels will partly consist in as base a subjection to the glorified Saints as Dogs now have to men or wicked reprobates on Earth to Angles or whether in respect of both these together the Saints shall then be Kings and Rule and Judge or whether it be only the participation of the Glory of Christ that is called a Kingdom I will not here determine but it is most clear that they will have a distinct particular Knowledge of the world which they themselves must judge and some concernment in that work 5. It is put into the description of the Happiness of the Saints that they shall come from the East and from the West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of
God Therefore they shall know them and take some comfort in their presence 6. Love even to the Saints as well as unto God is one of the graces that shall endure for ever 1 Cor. 13. It is exercised upon an Immortal object the Image and Children of the Most High and therefore must be one of the Immortal Graces For Grace in the Nature of it dyeth not and therefore if the Object cease not how should the Grace cease unless you will call it's perfecting a ceasing It is a state too high for such as we and I think for any meer Creature to live so Immediately and only upon God as to have no use for any fellow Creature nor no comfort in them God can make use of Glorified Creatures in such subserviency and subordination to himself as shall be no diminution to his All-sufficiency or Honour nor to our glory and felicity We must take heed of fancying even such a Heaven it self as is above the capacity of a Creature as some very wise Divines think they have â—one that tell us we shall Immediately see Gods Essence his Glory being that which is provided for our intuition and felicity and is distinct from his Essence being not every where as his Essence is And as those do that tell us because that God will be All in All therefore we shall there have none of our comfort by any Creature Though flesh and blood shall not enter into that Kingdom but our Bodies will then be Spiritual Bodies yet will they be really the same as now and distinct from our Souls and therefore must have a felicity suitable to a Body glorified And if the soul did immediately see God's Essence yet as no reason can conclude that it can see nothing else or that it can see even Created Good and not Love it so the Body however must have objects and felicity fit for a Body Obj. But it is said If we knew Christ after the flesh henceforth know we him no more Answ. No doubt but all the carnality in Principles matter manner and ends of our knowledge will then cease as it's imperfection But that a carnal knowledge be turned into a spiritual is no more a diminution to it than it is to the glory of our Bodies to be made like the stars in the Firmament of our Father Obj. But then I shall have no more comfort in my present friends than in any other Answ. 1. If you had none in them it is no diminution to our happiness if indeed we should have all in God immediately and alone 2. But if you have as much in others that you never knew before that will not diminish any of your comfort in your antient Friends 3. But it is most probable to us that as there is a twofold Object for our love in the Glorified Saints one is their Holiness and the other is the Relation which they stood in between God and us being made his instruments for our conversion and salvation so that we shall love Saints in Heaven in both respects And in the first respect which is the chiefest we shall love those most that have most of God and the greatest Glory though such as we never knew on Earth And in the second respect we shall love those most that were employed by God for our greatest good And that we shall not there lay by so much respect to our selves as to forget or disregard our Benefactors is manifest 1. In that we shall forever remember Christ and love him and praise him as one that formerly Redeemed us and washed us in his Blood and hath made us Kings and Priests to God And therefore we may also in just subordination to Christ remember them with Love and Thankfulness that were his Instâ—uments for the Collation of these benefits 2. And this kind of Self-love to be sensible of Good and Evil to our selves is none of the sinful or imperfect selfishness to be renounced or laid by but part of our very Natures and as inseparable from us as we are from our selves Much more were it not digressâ—ve might be said on this subject but I shall only add that as God doth draw us to every holy Duty by shewing us the excellency of that duty and as perpetuâ—ty is not the smallest excellency so he hath purposely mentioned that Love endureth for ever when he had described the Love of one another as a principle motive to kindle and encrease this Love And therefore those that think they shall have no personal Knowledge of one another nor personal Love to one another for we cannot Love personâ—lly if we know not personally do take a most effectual course to destroy in their souls all holy special Love to Saints by casting away that principal or very great motive given them by the Holy Ghost I aâ— not â—ble to Love muâ—h where I fâ—â—eknow that I shall not Love long I cannot Love a comely Inn so well as a nearer dwelling of my own because I must be gone to morrow Therefore must I love my Bible better than my Lawbooks or Physickbooks c. Because it leadeth to Eternity And therefore I must Love Holiness in my self and others better than meat and drink and wealth and honour and beauty and pleasure because it must be Loved for ever when the Love of these must needs be transitory as they are transitory I must profess from the very experience of my soul that it is the belief that I shall Love my friends in Heaven that principally kindleth my Love to them on Earth And if I thought I should never know them after death and consequently never love them more when this life is ended I should in reason number them with temporal things and Love them comparatively but a little even as I Love other transitory things allowing for the excellency in the nature of Grace But now I converse with some delight with my Godly friends as believing I shall converse with them for ever and take comfort in the very Dead and Absent as believing we shall shortly meet in Heaven And I Love them I hope with a Love that is of a Heavenly Nature while I Love them as the Heirs of Heaven with a Love which I expect shall there be perfected and more fully and for ever exercised 12. The last Reason that I give you to move you to bear the Loss or Absence of your friends is that it gives you the loudest call to retire from the world and to converse with God himself and to long for Heaven where you shall be seperated from your friends no more And your forsaken state will somewhat assist you to that solitary converse with God which it calls you to But this brings us up to the third part of the Text. AND yet I am not alone because the Father is with me Doct. When all forsake us and leave us as to them alone we are far from being simply alone because God is with us He is not
me against me do they devise my hurt An evil Disease say they cleaveth fast unto him and now that he lyeth he shâ—ll rise up no more Yea my own familiar friend in whom I trusted that did eat of my Bread hath lift up his heel against me Yet we may add aâ— he v. 12. And as for me thou upholdest me in mine integrity and settest me before thy face forever Though as Psal. 35.7 c. Without cause they have hid for me their Net in a Pit which without cause they have digged for my Soul 11. And false Witnesses did rise up they laid to my charge things that I knew not they rewarded me evil for good 15 16. In my adversity they rejoyced and gathered themselves together the objects gathered themselves together against me and I knew it not they did tear and ceased not with hypocritical mockers in Feasâ—s they gnashed upon me with their teeth 20. For they speak not peace but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the Land Yet verse 9. My Soul shall be joyful in the Lord it shall rejoyce in his Salvation 10. All my Bones shalâ— say Lord who is like unto thee who deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him yea the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him Though Friends be far off the Lord is nigh to them that are of a brokâ—n heart and saveth such as be of a contrite Spirit Many are the Afflictions of the Righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all Psal. 34.18 19. The Lord redeemeth the Soul of his Servants and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate v. 22. Therefore I will be glad and rejoyce in his Mercy for he hath considered my trouble and hath known and owned my Soul in adversity and hath not shut me in the hand of the Enemy When my life was spent with grief and my years with sighing my strength failed because of mine iniquity and my Bones were consumed I was a reproach among all mine Enemies but especially among my Neighbours and a fear to mine Acquaintance they that did see me without fled from me I was forgotten and as a dead man out of mind I was like a broken Vessel I heard the slander of many fear was on every side while they took counsel together against me they devised to take away my life But I trusted in thee O Lord I said Thou art my God my times are in thy hand deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute me Make thy face to shine upon thy Servant Save me for thy mercies sake O how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the Sons of Men Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the Pride of Man Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of Tongues Psal. 31. Thus God is with us when men are far from us or against us His people find by happy experience that they are not alone Because he is nigh them evil shall not come nigh them unless as it worketh for their good He is their hiding place to preserve them from trouble the great water-floods shall not come nigh them he will compass them about with Songs of deliverance Psal. 32.6 7. 3. And as God is with us thus Relatively and Efficiently so also Objectively for our holy converse Wherever our Friends are God is still at hand to be the most profitable honourable and delightful Object of our thoughts There is enough in him to take up all the faculties of my soul. He that is but in a well furnished Library may find great and excellent employment for his Thoughts many years together And so may he that liveth in the open World and hath all the visible Works of God to meditate upon But all this were nothing if God were not the sense of Books and Creatures and the matter of all these noble Studies He that is alone and hath only God himself to study hath the matter and sense of all the Books and Creatures in the World to employ his thoughts upon He never need to want matter for his meditation that hath God to meditate on He need not want matter of Discourse whether mental or vocal that hath God to talk of though he have not the name of any other Friend to mention All our Affections may have in him the highest and most pleasant work The Soul of Man cannot have a more sweet and excellent work than to love him He wanteth neither work nor pleasure that in his solitude is taken up in the believing contemplations of Eternal Love and of all his blessed Attributes and Works O then what happy and delightful converse may a Believer have with God alone He is always present and always at leisure to be spoken with and always willing of our access and audience He hath no interest Cross to our felicity which should move him to reject us as worldly great ones often have He never misunderstandeth us nor chargeth that upon us which we were never guilty of If we converse with Men their Mistakes and Interests and Passions and Insufficiencies do make the trouble so great and the benefit so small that many have become thereby aweary of the World or of human Society and have spent the rest of their days alone in desert places Indeed so much of God as appears in Men so much is their converse excellent and delightful and theirs is the best that have most of God But there is so much of vanity and self and flesh and sin in the most or all of of us as very much darkneth our Light and dampeth the pleasure and blasteth the fruit of our Societies and Converse O how oft have I been solaced in God when I found nothing but deceit and darkness in the World How oft hath he comforted me when it was past the power of Man How oft hath he relieved and delivered me when all the help of Man was vain It hath been my Stay and Rest to look to him when the Creature hath been a broken Staff and deceitful Friendâ— have been but as a broken Tooth or a Foot that is out of Joint as Solomon speaketh of confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble Prov. 25.29 Verily as the World were but an horrid Dungeon without the Sun so it were a howling wilderness a place of no considerable Employment or Delight were it not that in it we may live to God and do him Service and sometime be refreshed with the light of his countenance and the communications of his love But of this more anoâ— Vse 1. WE see our Example and our Encouragements Let us now as followers of Christ endeavour to imitate him in this and to Live upon God when men forsake us and to know that while God is with us we are not
Friends on Earth is nothing to his Love O how plainly hath he declared that he loveth me in the strange condescention the Sufferings Death and Intercession of his Son What Love hath he declared in the communications of his Spirit and the operations of his Grace and the near Relations into which he brought me What Love hath he declared in the course of his Providences In many and wonderful preservations and deliverances In the conduct of his Wisdom and in a Life of Mercies What Love appeareth in his precious Promises and the glorious Provisions he hath made for me with himself to all eternity O my Lord I am ashamed that thy Love is so much lost that it hath no better return from an unkind unthankful heart that I am not more delighted in thee and swallowed up in the contemplation of thy Love I can contentedly let go the Society and converse of all others for the converse of some one bosom Friend that is dearer to me than they all as Ionathan to David And can I not much more be satiâ—fied in thee alone and let go all if I mâ—y continue with thee My very Dog will gladly forsake all the Town and all Persons in the world to follow me alone And have I not yet found so much Love and Gooâ— ness in thee my dear and blessed God as to be willing to converse alone with thee All men delight most in the company of those that love them best They choose not to converse with the Multitude when they look for solace and content but with their dearest Friends And should any be so dear to me as God O were not thy Love unworthily neglecteâ— by an unthankful heart I should never â—e so unsatisfied in thee but should take up or seek my comforts in thee I should then say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on Earth that I desire besides thee Though not only my Friends but my Flesh and Heart themselves should fail me it is thou that will still be the strength of my heart and my portion forever it is good therefore for me to draw near to thee how far soever I am from Man O let me there dwell where thou wilt not be strange for thy loving kindness is better than life Instead of the multitude of my â—uâ—moiling thoughts let me be taken up in the believing views of thy reconciled Face and in the glad Attendance upon thy Grace or at least in the multitude of my thoughts within me let thy celestial comforts delight my soul. Let me dwell as in thy Family and when I awake let me be still with thee Let me go no whither but where I am still following thee Let me â—o nothing but thy work nor serve any other but when I may truly call it a serving thee Let me hear nothing â—ut thy voice and let me know thy voice by whatever instrument thou shalt speak Let me never see aâ—y thing but thy self and the glass that representeth thee and the Books in in which I may read thy Name And let me never play with the out-side and gaze on Words and Letters as insignificant and not observe â—hy Name which is the sense Whether it be in company or in solitude let me be continually with thee and do thou vouchsâ—fe to hold me by my right hand And guide me with thy counsel and afterwards receive me unto thy Glory Psal. 73.23 24 25 26 28. Psal. 63.3 4. If God be with me I am not alone for I shall be with him whose Love is of greater use and benefit to me than the love of all my Friends in the world Their Love may perhaps be some little comfort as it floweth from His But it is His Love by which and upon which I Live It is His Love that gives me Life and Time and Health and Food and Preservation that gives me Books gives me books and giveth me understanding that giveth me provision and saveth me from turning it to pernicious fleshliness and excess that giveth me even my friends themselves and saveth me from that abuse which might make them to me worse than enemies The Sun the Earth the Air is not so useful or needful to me as his Love The Love of all my friends cannot make me well when I am sick It cannot forgive the smallest of my sins nor yet assure me of Gods forgiveness It cannot heal the maladies of my soul nor give a solid lasting peace to the conscience which is troubled If all my friends stand about me when I am dying they cannot take away the fears of death nor secure my passage to everlasting life Death will be Death still and danger will be danger when all my friends have done their best But my Almighty friend is All sufficient He can prevent my sickness or rebuke and cure it or make it so good to me that I shall thank him for it He can blot out my transgressions and forgive all my sin and justifie me when the world and my conscience do condemn me He can teach me to believe to repent to pray to hope to suffer and to overcome He can quiet my soul in the midst of trouble and give me a well grounded everlasting peace and a joy which no man can take from me He can deliver me from all the corruptions and distempers of my froward heart and ease me and secure me in the troublesom war which is daily managed in my breast He can make it as easie a thing to dye as to lye down and take my rest when I am weary or to undress me at night and go to bed He can teach Death to lay by its terrible aspect and to speak with a mild and comfortable voice to bring me the joyfullest tydings that ever came unto my ears and to preach to me the last and sweetest Sermon even the same that our â—aviour preached on the Cross Luke 23.43 Verily I say unto thee To day shalt thou be with Christ in Paradise And is this the difference between the Love of man and of God And yet do I lament the loss of man And yet am I so backward to converse with God and to be satisfied in his Love alone Ah my God how justly mayest thou withhold that Love which I thus undervalue and refuse that converse which I have first refused and turn me over to man to silly man to sinful man whose converse I so much desire till I have learnt by dear experience the difference between man and God and between an Earthly and an Heavenly friend Alas have I not tryed it oft enough to have known it better before this day Have â— not 〈◊〉 enough sound what man is in a time of tryal Have I not been tolâ— it over and over and told it to the quick by deceitful friends by self-seeking friends by mutable erroneous deceived scandalous backslding friends by proud and selfconceited friends by passionate quarrelsom vexatious friends by self-grieved troubled
he will bring his Followers to the fuller knowledge of themselves and shew them that which all their days should keep them humble and watchful and save them from pâ—â—â—sumption and trusting in themselves When we have made any full Confession of Christ or done him any considerable service we are apt to say with the Disciples Mat. 19.27 Behold we have forsaken all and followed thee VVhat shall we have As if they had rather been Givers to Christ than Receivers from him and had highly 〈…〉 his hands But when 〈…〉 him and the rest shift for themâ—â—lves and when they come to themselves after such cowardly and ungrateful Dealings then they will beâ—ter understand their Weakness and know on whom they must deâ—end 3. Hereby also they shall better understand what they would have been if God had leâ—t them to themselves that so they may be thankful for grace received and may not boast themselves against the miserable world as if they had made themselves to differ and had not received all that grace by which they excel the common sort when our falls have huâ—t us and shamed us we shall know to whom we must be beholden to support us 4. Christ would permit his Disciples thus far to forsake him because he would have no support from man in his sufferings for man This was part of his voluntary humiliation to â—e deprived of all earthly comforts and to beâ—r affliction even from those few that bâ—t lately were his faithful servants that men dealing like men and sinners while he was doing like God and as a Saviour no man might challenge to himself the honour of contributing to the Redemption of the world so much as by encouraging the Redeemer 5. Christ did permit the Faith and courage of his Disciples thus far to fail that their witness to him might be of the greater credit and authority when his actual Resurrection and the Communication of the Spirit should compel them to believe when all their doubts were dissipated they that had doubted themselves and yet were constrained to believe woâ—ld be received as the most impartial witnesses by the doubting world 6. Lastly by the desertion and dissipation of his Disciples Christ would teach us whenever we are called to follow him in suffering what to expect from the best of men Even to know that of themselves they are untrusty and may fail us and therefore not to look for too much assistance or encouragement from them Paul lived in a time when Christians were more self-denying and stedfast than they are now And Paul was one that might better expect to be faithfully accompanied in his sufferings for Christ than any of us And yet he saith 2 Tim. 4.16 At my first answer no man stood with me but all men forsook me and prayeth that it be not laid to their charge Thus you have seen some Reasons why Christ consented to be left of all and permitted his Disciples to desert him in his sufferings Yet note here that it is but a partial temporary forsaking that Christ permitteth and not a total or final forsaking or Apostasie Though he will let them see that they are yet men yet will he not leave them to be but as other men Nor will he quite cast them off or suffer them to perish Nor is it all alike that thus forsake him Peter doth not do as Iudas The sincere may manifest their infirmity but the Hypocrites will manifest their Hypocrisie And accordingly in our sufferings our familiars that were fals-hearted as being worldlings and carnal at the heart may perhaps betray us and set against us or forsake the cause of Christ and follow the way of gain and honour when our tempted shrinking friends that yet may have some sincerity may perhaps look strange at us and seem not to know us and may hide their heads and shew their fears and perhaps also begin to study some self-deceiving arguments and distinctions and to stretch their consciences and venture on some sin because they are afraid to venture on affliction till Christ shall cast a gracious rebuking quickning aspect on them and shame them for their sinful shame fear them from their sinful fears and inflame their Love to him by the motions of his Love to them and destroy the Love that turned them for him And then the same men that dishonourably failed Christ and us and began to shrink will turn back and re-assume their arms and by patient suffering overcome and win the Crown as we have done before them Vse CHristians expect to be conformed to your Lord in this part of his Humiliation also Are your friends yet fast and friendly to you For all that expect that many of them at least should prove less friendly and promise not your selves an unchanged constancy in them Are they yet useful to you expect the time when they cannot help you Are they your comforters and delight and is their company much of your solace upon earth Be ready for the time when they may become your sharpest scourges and most heart-peircing griefâ— or at least whom you shall say We have no pleasure in them Have any of them or all already failed you what wonder Are they not men and sinners To whom were they ever so constant As not to fail them Rebuke your selves for your unwarrantable expectations from them And learn hereafter to know what man is and expect that friends should use you as followeth 1· Some of them that you thought sincere shall prove perhaps unfaithful and dissemblers and upon fallings out or matters of self-interest may seek your ruine Are you better than David that had an Achitophel or than Paul that had a Domas or than Christ that had a Iudas Some will forsake God what wonder then if they forsake you Because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold Mat. 24.12 Where pride and vain glory and sensuality and worldliness are unmortified at the heart there is no trustiness in such persons For their wealth or honour or fleshly interest they will part with God and their Salvation much more with their best deserving friends Why may not you as well as Iob have occasion to complain He hath put my Brethren far from me and my Acquaintance are very estranged from me My kinâ—folk have failed and my familiar Friends have â—â—â—actten me They that dwell in my House and my Maidenâ— count me for a Stranger I am an Alien in their sight I called my Servant and he gave me no Answer I intreated him with my mouthâ— My breath is strange to my Wife though I intreated for the Childrens sake of my own Body Yea young Children dispised me I arose and they spake â—gainst me All my inward friends abhorred me and they whom I loved are turned against me Job 19.13 14 15 16 17 1â— 19. Why may not you as well as David be put to sav Yea mine own familiar Friend in whom I trusted which did eat of my Bread
same sin And so your friends may be in effect your most deadly Enemies deceivers and destroyers 15. And if you have friends that are never so firm and constant they may prove not only unable to relieve you but very increasing to your grief If they are afflicted in the participation of your sufferings as your troubles are become theirs without your ease so their trouble for you will become yours and so your stock of sorrow will be encreased And they are mortals and liable to distress as well as you And therefore they are like to bear their share in several sorts of sufferings And so friendship will make their sufferings to be yours Their sicknesses and pains their fears and griefs their wants and dangers will all be yours And the more they are your hearty Friends the more they will be yours And so you will have as many additions to the proper burden of your griefs as you have suffering Friends When you do but hear that they are dead you say as Thomas Joh. 11.16 Let us also go that we may die with him And having many such friends you will almost always have one or other of them in distress and so be seldom free from sorrow besides all that which is properly your own 16. Lastly if you have a Friend that is both true and useful yet you may be sure he must stay with you but a little while The godly men will cease and the faithful fail from among the Children of men while men of lying flattering lips and double hearts survive and the wicked walk on every side while the vilest men are exalted Psal. 12.1 2 8. while swarms of false malicious men are left round about you perhaps God will take away your dearest Friends If among a multitude of unfaithful ones you have but one that is your friend indeed perhaps God will take away that one He may be separated from you into another Country or taken away to God by Death Not that God doth grudge you the mercy of a faithful Friend but that he would be your All and would not have you hurt your selves with too much affection to any Creature and for other reasons to be named anon And to be forsaken of your Friends is not all your affliction but to be so forsaken is a great aggravation of it 1. For they use to forsake us in our greatest sufferings and streights when we have the greatest need of them 2. They fail us most at a dying hour when all other worldly comfort faileth As we must leave our houses lands and wealth so must we for the present leave our Friends And as all the rest are silly comforters when we have once received our citation to appear before the Lord so also are our Friends but silly Comforters They can weep over us but they cannot with all their care delay the separating stroak of death one day or hour Only by their prayers and holy advice remembring us of everlasting things and provoking us in the work of preparation they may prove to us friends indeed And therefore we must value a holy heavenly faithful friend as one of the greatest Treasures upon Earth And while we take notice how as men they may forsake us we must not deny but that as Saints they are precious and of singular use to us and Christ useth by them to communicate his mercies and if any Creatures in the World may be blessings to us it is holy persons that have most of God in their hearts and lives 3. And it is an aggravation of the Cross that they often fail us when we are most faithful in our Duty and stumble most upon the most excellent acts of our obedience 4. And those are the persons that oft-times fail us of whom we have deserved best and from whom we might have expected most Review the experiences of the choicest Servants that Christ hath had in the World and you shall find enough to confirm you of the vanity of man and the instability of the dearest Friends How highly was Athanasius esteemed and yet at last deserted and banished even by the famous Constantine himself How excellent a Man was Gregory Nazianzene and highly valued in the Church and yet by reproach and discouragements driven away from his Church at Constantinople whither he was chosen and envyed by the Bishops round about him How worthy a man was the eloquent Chrysostom and highly valued in the Church And yet how bitterly was he prosecuted by Hierome and Epiphanius and banished and dyed in a second banishment by the provocation of Factious contentious Bishops and an Empress impatient of his plain reproofs What person more generally esteemed and honoured for learning piety and peaceableness then Melanchthon and yet by the Contentions of Illyricus and his party he was made aweary of his life As highly as Calvin was deservedly valued at Geneva yet once in a popular lunacy and displeasure they drove him out of their City and in contempt of him some called their Dogs by the name of Calvin though after they were glad to intreat him to return How much our Grindal and Abbot were esteemed it appeareth by their advancement to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury And yet who knoweth not that their eminent piety sufficed not to keep them from dejecting frowns And if you say that it is no wonder if with Princes through interest and with People through levity it be thus I might keep up instances of the like untrustiness of particular Friends But all History and the experiences of the most do so much abound with them that I think it needless Which of us must not say with David that all men are lyars Psal. 116. that is deceitful and untrusty either through unfaithfulness weakness or insufficiency that either will forsake us or cannot help us in the time of need Was Christ forsaken in his extremity by his own Disciples to teach us what to expect or bear Think it not strange then to be conformed to your Lord in this as well as in other parts of his humiliation Expect that Men should prove deceitful Not that you should entertain censorious suspicions of your particular friends But remember in general that Man is frail and the best too selfish and uncertain and that it is no wonder if those should prove your greatest grief from whom you had the highest expectations Are you better then Iob or David or Christ and are your Friends more firm and unchangeable then theirs Consider 1. That Creatures must be set at a sufficient distance from their Creator All-sufficiency Immutability and indefectible fidelity are proper to Jehovah As it is no wonder for the Sun to set or be Eclipsed as glorious a body as it is so it is no wonder for a Friend a pious Friend to fail us for a time in the hour of our distress There are some that will not But there is none but may if God should leave them to their weakness Man is not
to draw the most guilty miserable sinner to seek to God and sue for mercy But yet the sweetest converse is for children for those that have some assurance that they are children But perhaps you will say that this is not easily attained How shall we know that he is our friend In brief I answer If you are unfeignedly friends to God it is because he first loved you Prefer him before all other friends and all the wealth and vanity of the world Provoke him not by wilfulness or neglect use him as your best friend and abuse him not by disobedience or ingratitude own him before all at the dearest rates whenever you are called to it Desire his presence Lament his absence Love him from the bottom of your hearts Think not hardly of him Suspect him not Misunderstand him not Hearken not to his enemies Receive not any false reports against him Take him to be really better for you than all the world Do these and doubt not but you are friends with God God with you In a word Be but heartily willing to be friends to God and that God should be your cheifest friend and you may be sure that it is so indeed and that you are and have what you desire And then how delightfully may you converse with God! Direct 2. Wholly depend on the Mediation of Christ the great Reconciler Without him there is no coming near to God But in his Beloved you shall be accepted Whatever fear of his displeasure shall surprize you fly presently for safety unto Christ whatever guilt shall look you in the face commit your self and cause to Christ and desire him to answer for you When the doors of mercy seem to be shut up against you fly to him that bears the keyes and can at any time open to you and let you in Desire him to answer for you to God to your consciences and against all accusers By him alone you may boldly and comfortably converse with God But God will not know you out of him Direct 3. Take heed of bringing particular Guilt into the presence of God if you would have sweet communion with him Christ himself never reconciled God to sin And the sinner and sin are so nearly related that for all the death of Christ you shall feel that iniquity dwelleth not with God but he hateth the works of it and the foolish shall not stand in his sight and that if you will presume to sin because you are his Children be sure your sin will find you out O what fears what shame what self-abhorrence and self-revenge will guilt raise in a penitent soul when it comes into the light of the presence of the Lord it will unavoidable abate your boldness and your comforts When you should be sweetly delighting in his pleased face and promised Glory you will be be fooling your selves for your former sin and ready even to tear your flesh to think that ever you should do as you have done and use him as you would not have used a common friend and cast your selves upon his wrath But an innocent soul or pacified conscience doth walk with God in quietness and delight without those frowns and fears which are a taste of Hell to others Direct 4. If you would comfortably converse with God be sure that you bring not Idols in your hearts Take heed of inordinate affection to any Creature Let all things else be nothing to you that you may have none to take up your thoughts but God Let your Minds be further seperate from them than your Bodies Bring not into solitude or to contemplation a proud or lustful or covetous mind It much more concerneth thee what Heart thou bringest that what Place thou art in or what work thou art upon A mind that is drowned in ambition sensuality or passion will scarce find God any sooner in any wilderness than in a croud unless he be there returning from those sins to God where-ever he seeth him God will not own and be familiar with so foul a soul. Seneca could say Quid prodest totious regionis silentium si affectus fremunt What good doth the silence of all the Country do thee if thou have the noise of raging affections within And Gregory saith Qui corpore remotus vivit c. He that in body is far enough from the tumult of human conversation is not in solitude if he busie himself with earthly cogitations and desires and he is not in the City that is not troubled with the tumult of worldly cares or fears though he be pressed with the popular crouds Bring not thy house or land or credit or carnal friend along with thee in thy heart if thou desire and expect to walk in Heaven and to converse with God Direct 5. Live still by Faith Let Faith lay Heaven and Earth as it were together Look not at God as if he were far off set him aways as before you even as at your right hand Psal. 16.8 Be still with him when you awake Psal. 139.18 In the morning thank him for your rest and deliver up your self to his conduct and service for that day Go forth as with him and to do his work Do every action with the Command of God and the promise of Heaven before your eyes and upon your hearts Live as those that have incomparably more to do with God and Heaven than all this world That you may say with David Psal. 37.25 26. as aforecited Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on Earth that I desire besides thee And with Paul Phil. 1.21 To me to Live is Christ and to Dye is gain You must shut up the eye of sense save as subordinate to Faith and live by Faith upon a God a Christ and a World that is unseen if you would know by experience what it is to be above the brutish life of sensualists and to Converse with God O Christian if thou hadst rightly learned this blessed life what a high and noble soul-conversation wouldst thou have How easily wouldst thou spare and how little wouldst thou miss the favour of the greatest the presence of any worldly comfort City or Solitude would be much alike to thee saving that the place and state would be best to thee where thou hast the greatest help and freedom to converse with God Thou wouldst say of human society as Seneca Vnus pro populo mihi est populus pro uno Mihi satis est unus satis est nullus One is instead of all the people to me and the people as one One is enough for me and none is enough Thus being taken up with God thou mightest live in prison as at liberty and in a wilderness as in a City and in a place of banishment as in thy native Land For the Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof and everywhere thou mayest find him and converse with him and lift up pure hands unto him In every place thou