more clearly to us the corruption and defilement of our nature In a calm the waters of the Sea appear to be clear enough but when the storm comes then it throws up the mire and dirt in prosperity and health we think we have very good hearts and considerable degrees of sanctification but when sin is set home upon us the spiritual Law of God begins to shew its purity Oh what multitudes of iniquities do then appear what unbelief what impatience what murmuring what unbecoming thoughts of God such hideous and strange thoughts as we never had before In health and strength and peace there are a thousand secular Affairs and Contrivances that take up our time and divert our minds and turn us to the view of things without but in the trouble of our Consciences our eyes are turned another way to behold with attention our own Souls and to see what lusts what impurities what venomous Creatures what Vipers have been entertained there and oh what a ghastly formidable sight is this to see such a numerous brood of Transgressions when we imagined that all had been very well with us it is even a wonder that God who saw so much evil in us should let us alone so long These spiritual Afflictions shew us what a sorry contemptible Creature man is what cause he has to be debased when he is most proud and what cause he has to be covered with shame and blushing when he is most fearless and undaunted when God does not blow upon our Garden instead of those Spices those Graces blowing forth that may be for his glory and for our comfort there is nothing but Weeds and Thistles nothing but Thorns and Briars that tear and wound us our Soul is then just like a dead Carkass full of putrefaction no sprightly motions towards Heaven no spiritual no warm desires like the cold Regions of the North which the Sun does only visit with his fainter and weaker beams and not like those Eastern Countries where his greater heat does produce Spices and fragrant Flowers 5. Another End that God hath in the continuance of Spiritual Troubles and Afflictions and the Sense of his Wrath long upon us is that from our own Experience Christ may be for ever very precious to us when we are at ease and think our selves whole we seldom think of him but our pain and our smart our guilt and our fears the sight of our present Danger and of approaching Wrath causes us to run to this Physician and to beg his help when we are sinking it will make us to stretch out our hands and say Master save us or else we perish Never did a poor Man with more earnestness beg an Alms than we shall beg his help never did a diseased Person after violent racking Pain more long for Rest and a Cure than we shall for Christ and having fallen among Lyons having been the flaves of fear and held in Captivity by the Temptations of Satan we shall most gladly shake of our Chains and embrace Liberty and Salvation when our Lord comes to set us free The fight of him to be our Saviour will make us run to meet him and to say Welcome thou only Friend of our Souls welcome thou dear Physician and Healer of our Souls Hosannah to the Son of David blessed is he that comes to us in the name of the Lord. Oh! how will our very hearts melt with love when we remember that as we have been distressed for our Sins against him so he was in greater Agonies for us We have had Gall and Wormwood but he tasted a more bitter Cup. The Anger of God has dried up our Spirits but he was scorched with a more flaming Wrath. He was under violent pain in the Garden and on the Cross ineffable was the sorrow that he felt being forsaken of his Father deserted by his Disciples affronted and reproached by his Enemies and under a Curse for us This Sun was under a doleful Eclipse this Living Lord was pleased to dye and in his Death was under the Frowns of an Angry God That Face was then hid from him that had always smiled before and his Soul felt that horror and that darkness which it had never felt before So that tho there was no Separation between the divine and humane Nature yet he suffered Pains equal to those which we had deserv'd fo suffer in Hell for ever God so suspended the Efficacies of his Grace that it displayed in that hour none of its force and virtue on him He had no Comfort from Heaven none from his Angels none from his Friends even in that sorrowful hour when he needed comfort most Like a Lyon that is hurt in the Forest so he roared and cryed out tho there was no despair in him and when he was forsaken yet there was trust and hope in those words My God My God Have we been abandoned of God He was much more so and was deserted for a while that we might not be so for ever Oh! how frequently should we remember such a Saviour How delightful should we think and speak of him who thought nothing too much for us We have by feeling of the Wrath of God drank in some measure of the Cup whereof he drank We justly for our Sins He out of Love and Kindness that he might make an Atonement and a Propitiation and if what we have felt was so terrible how much more dreadful was that which he endured If the smaller drops that have put our Souls into a flame have filled us with anguish what torment did he undergo that was plunged as into a Sea of Wrath Surely such a Friend such a Physician as he has been to us must be ever valued We cannot pray but in his Name we cannot be justified but with his Righteousness we can hope for nothing but by his Merits and his Intercession we cannot Live we cannot dye without him Let this be the constant Language of our Souls None but Christ none but Christ Cant. 3.1 2 3 4. 6. That we may put an high Value on the Scripture that we may search and look into it with more earnestness and frequency to see if there be any Promises in it that are reviving any place in it that may afford hope and comfor to Souls so miserable and so guilty For when our Consciences are awakened and pierced with the sense of Wrath from God if his Word would speak peace to us we could have ease but the terrible threatnings thereof are the things that wound us deep and that put us to the greater smart and we then know and fully believe beyond all doubt that this is the word by which we are to be tried in the great and solemn day 7. Another end of God in continuing Afflictions and a long remaining sense of his Wrath upon us is That we may be everlasting admirers of the freeness of his Grace when we are delivered Oh! with what wonder should we behold his
the Rod that hath made us smart for ever drive away that folly which was once bound up in our hearts Doleful Experience and Anguish and Tribulation has told us what a dreadful thing it is to sin By the Judgments that we have groaned under let us learn righteousness VVe are come off the Rack with broken Bones and with many Wounds which our good Physician has been pleased to set and heal again Let us not rebel against his Laws lest we be put to the Rack again 'T is not indeed the Corruptions that are within us that will bring us to it unless we cherish and approve them when they entice us to what is Evil. Tho they war if it be against the allowance of our mind they will not interrupt our Peace with God Let us not be secure tho the Devil have left us it may be only for a season and he may return again with greater fury Let us during the comfortable quiet that we now enjoy be preparing our selves to resist and oppose all his Assaults for the time to come Let us tho we triumph through the Grace of God remember that our Enemies are not yet fully overthrown they are not ashamed of one defeat but will rally their dispersed Forces and come again What did we think of Sin when it had caused the Son of Righteousness to be covered with Clouds that we could not see him nor feel his vital quickning Beams for many days What did we think of it when it had set us on fire round about and brought us to the very Gates of Hell when it sunk and overwhelmed and terrified us every moment Let us never henceforth begin to parley with an Enemy that has used us after such a barbarous and cruel manner VI. After we are delivered from the dreadful Apprehensions of the Wrath of God it is our duty to be publickly thankful Psal 66.16 Come and hear all ye that fear God and I will tell what he hath done for my soul 'T is for the glory of our Healer to tell the miserable Wounds that once pained us and to speak of that kind hand that saved us when we were brought very low 'T is for the glory of our Pilot to tell of the Rocks and of the Sands the many Dangers and threatning Calamities that he by his wise Conduct made us to escape and to see us on the safe Shore may cause others that are yet afflicted and tost with Tempests to look to him for help for he is able and ready to save them as well as us We must like Soldiers when a tedious War is over relate our Combats our Fears our Dangers with delight and make known our Experiences to doubting troubled Christians and to those that have not yet been under such long and severe Tryals as we have been VII The fears that we have had of God and of his Wrath must teach us not inordinately to fear any of those Evils that are of a lower nature Others that have been all their days in ease and quiet that have had no trouble of Conscience or none for a long while together may be afraid of temporal Evils and inconveniences but to us who have for a long time been afraid of God himself how flight a thing should the Wrath of Man appear When we have been under his Displeasure that can kill the Soul whit little cause have we to fear them that can only kill the Body Others may be afraid of a small distress of a little ill weather but it does not become us to fear who have been in so many several Storms for many months together when we have been afraid of Hell there is nothing upon Earth that looks with an aspect so formidable And if God have delivered us from the greatest Dangers we ought to believe that he will save us from the lesser Troubles of our Life Our Experience of so many terrible things should fortify our minds against all future Afflictions that are not of the same kind I shall close this part of the Verse with these two Advices 1. If the Servants of God are obnoxious to such sad apprehensions of his Wrath Then you have great cause to admire the Peace that is in the World Many an one among his People is crying The Lord hath forsaken me His Wrath lieth hard upon me and if all his People if all whose Sins deserve his Wrath should be all so sensible of it and complaining and crying out in the like manner oh what a doleful Cry would that be like the Cry that was in Sodom when it rained Fire and Brimstone like the Cry that was in Egypt when they found all their First-born slain Oh what a change would appear in the World if God should let out the sense of his displeasure upon all that have deserved it this World would be like Hell it self all Commerce and Business would immediately fail for what heart would men have to trade to buy or sell if they did not know but the very next moment they might be in Hell It is one of the mighty Acts of Providence that maintains so great a Calmness in a very sining-World For if he were not infinitely patient if he should open the eyes of all men to see his unspeakable Majesty Holiness Glory and their Offences and their Deserts and their nearness to Destruction and then suffer them as he justly might to be tortured with their guilty Thoughts to be tempted and overcome and to sink into despair oh what Lyons and Tygers would men be ◠they would tear themselves and one another All the Stilness of this Earth would be turned into Rage all its Joys would be turned into gloomy Sorrows and all its Laughters into Weeping and Wailing and gnashing of Teeth and all the Inhabitants thereof would be in Anguish and curse their God and King The most are for the present under insensibility they do not see whither they are a going nor feel the horrors that they are capable of they are treasuring up wrath and it is his goodness that it does not immediately fall upon their heads in burning drops there is but a thin Partition between this World that has in it so many several pleasant Objects and that World of flaming Torture where all is dismal and uncomfortable and if the Curtain were drawn aside and men could look into that fiery Furnace and the Wicked did apprehend that they were going thither oh what consternation what amazement what paleness would be seen on every Forehead that is now most proud and listed up 〈◊〉 2. Pray to God that you may not fall into such Diseases whereof Satan is apt to make very great advantage and also pray that Satan may not be suffered to bring such sickness upon you as will indispose you for the Service of your Maker It is of long and severe Afflictions that the Devil makes great use and they do in their own nature lead to impatience and murmuring and hard
Oh that I were in that Land of eternal Light and Joy and in that agreeable Society of Holy Souls who have already shot the gulph and rest from all their labours for I am weary with beholding Vanity These and such like will be the motions of an holy Soul for its warfare with Sin the World and the Devil is so painful that if cannot but desire to be releas'd It s Ignorance is so great that it cannot but long to be overspread with pure and eternal Light The Captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed Isa 51.14 and that he should not die in the pit nor that his bread should fail But then this longing must be attended with patience for we may sin even in desiring Heaven when we desire it with too much precipitancy and haste and in this good men are many times very much to blame many times when a Person meets with some heavy sickness or some very troublesome affliction he is apt to say Oh that God would now take me to Heaven there is a great deal of self-love in this and our Nature when it finds it self opprest would fain be at ease but we must not forget that we must bear the Cross and suffer before it will be our time to reign We must hold on in our Race though the Weather be foul and stormy many thousand pains may be our Lot ere God will call us hence and the first thing that we are to desire is that we may have faith and submission wherewith to bear those Pains and to persevere till he be pleased to call us Some indeed he is pleased to dismiss from this Earth to his Heaven as on the sudden but if you consider you will find the greatest part of his Servants have long troubles manifold Agonies tedious Conflicts and heavy Pains before they come to that Glory and in this respect they find the Gate that leads to Life to be very strait and narrow The Land of Promise is indeed a pleasant Land it flows with Milk and Honey but there are many Gyants to conquer in our way thither your desires of Heaven cannot be truly regular unless you be content o glorify him by suffering as well as by the doing of his Will And even with patience there may be an earnest and affectionate desire to be with God and thus some of the Saints have breathed out their Prayers Oh time run fast and remove days and hours out of the way that I may enjoy for ever enjoy the beloved of my Soul Farewel all ye my Friends and Relations for I am going to better Friends Farewel all my temporal Possessions for I am now going to be possessed of an Inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fades not away Farewel eating and drinking and sleeping and all my pleasures and recreations for I am now going to the Supper of the Lamb and shall not need these weak supports of frail Nature any more And others have cried out Oh my God! let me not still be in darkness and provoke thee and hazard my Salvation and please the Devil and add sin to sin Oh why is my desire still unsatisfied When shall I have nothing more to wish for when will it once be that I shall be delivered Oh come Lord lest I be weary of my work and duty lest my Graces be like poor tired Soldiers that fall into confusions and so lose the day Happy is the man that loves thee above all happy is the man whose hope and trust is in Thee but most happy is he that is with Thee where I also long to be Thus I have finished the Application And I hope there are several of my Readers whose Consciences after such a tryal do salute them with happy tidings and say You are those that have Gods Favour And oh what happy People are all such happy shall they be in life happy in their death and happy for evermore Some will say Happy are the men that are rich and great that have thriving Trades numerous Attendants and swelling Titles that have plenty of Gold and Silver that need take no care how to live and are freed from all the pinching anxieties of a poor and a low Estate Psal 144.15 It may be said to every such person in the Language of the Angel Gabriel to the blessed Virgin Hail thou that art highly favoured the Lord is with thee Luke 1.28 and in v. 30. Fear not Mary for thou hast found favour with God And what indeed can they fear whose Friend he is that is so good and so powerful CHAP. VIII Of the several Privileges that belong to those who have Gods Favour Cons 1. WHen you have this Favour all your sins are pardoned Your God will not remember your Iniquities any more All the Vanities of your Childhood and Youth all your Omissions and your Commissions shall not rise against you to condemn you Tho you have often quenched the Holy Spirit and stiffed his Convictions yet all this and many thousands of other sins that made you dead in Law shall be blotted out all your sins of Ignorance and all those that have been done against Light and Love and Knowledge shall all be covered by this Grace of God 2. All your Prayers shall be heard Being pardoned and your guilt removed you will have access with boldness unto God who will give you either the very things you desire or those that are better of another kind Your Persons are acceptable and so will all you Duties be and therefore successful because Christ is your Intercessor who as he hath once purchased Life for you with his Blood will apply it to you for your further purification Heb. 9.11 14. Nay you will not only prevail for mercies for your selves hat being Favourites in the Court of Heaven you will be in a capacity to obtain many blessings for others too Matt. 18.19 If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven God as one says sometimes stands upon a number of Voices for the carrying of some publick Mercy because he delighteth in the harmony of many praying Souls and also loves to oblige and gratify many in the answer and return of the same Prayer And therefore it is our duty to beg the prayers of those that we think good People because of their interest in God Many seek the Rulers favour Prov 29.26 their wants and their ambition push them forward and make them very complaisant and respectful to such in whose power it is to do them considerable kindnesses and they make a peculiar address to such as are principal Favourites and it is reckoned as a main step to Promotion to have a Friend in Court it is to our great advantage to be remembred in the Prayers of those that share in God's Favour 3. When you are the Favourites of God he will accept your sincere services though they
against all sad and doleful stories hasten from the sight of all such dismal objects as would make them grave and solid they will not rustle their thoughts with anticipations of evil and future trouble they are now at ease and they hope they shall be so very long and this false expectation has no other cause than their unwillingness and aversion to think of a coming change and because they seel no pain sickness or inconvenience they will not spoil their Musick with groans and sighs they will eat drink and be merry and hang sorrow and cast care away but as all the mirth of Sailors cannot hinder the winds and the storms so this insensibleness and jollity does not keep the evil day further off but rather swells the Clouds and lays in matter for a more durable and intollerable sorrow they may in their Jovial humours and with their full Bowls drown their own understandings but they cannot by this means overwhelm their miseries which after the fumes of the grateful Wine are past will have a Resurrection they may say indeed as Isa 57.11 Come we will fill our selves and to morrow shall he as this day and much more abundant but perhaps that morrow they may never see or if they do it may bring along with it some great or unavoidable calamity We know David said in his Prosperity I shall never be moved and yet as soon as God hid his face he was troubled Psal 30.6 7. so unreasonable is it to conclude from our present delight that we shall never grieve We may as well argue because we are now in health we shall never be sick or because we are now alive we shall never die Such false Conclusions and such vain hopes do but encrease our after-troubles and make them more heavy as it is said of Babylon the Great Rev. 18.7 How much she hath glorified her self and lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her for she saith in her heart I sit a Queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow therefore shall her Plagues come in one day death and mourning and famine Our miseries are sure but our joys uncertain our pleasures endure but a moment but our sorrows last a long time our pleasures no sooner begin to live but they begin to die and when we would with art prolong their date their continuance occasions either torment or loathing Grief as one says Senault use of the Passions p. 475. is more familiar to man than pleasure for one vain contentment we meet with a thousand real sorrows these come uncalled and present themselves of their own proper motion they are linkt one to another but pleasures are sought for with pain and we are forced to pay more for them than they are worth Sorrows are sometimes entirely pure and touch us to the quick as they make us incapable of Consolation but pleasures are never without some mixture of sorrow they are always dipt in bitterness and we are much more sensible of pain than of pleasure for a flight disease troubleth all our most solid Contentments a Fever is able to make Conquerors forget their Victories and to blot out of their minds all the pomp of their Triumphs Tho in some cases we may make our sorrows greater in our imagination than they are in reality for we are more ingenious and more particular in the computation of our griefs than of our mercies And many a thorn that annoys us is of our own planting and for one Cross that God sends our uneasiness and impatience makes a thousand more We apprehend some things to be evil which are not truly so and sometimes we augment our real evils beyond their natural proportion and so add new weight to that burden which made us groan before yet for all that and abstracting from our Irregularities since the fall man is a very dolorous and mournful Creature and our being so should excite us to take heed that we do not wound our selves afresh when we are already wounded nor lay in matter of new griefs when our unavoidable ones may be great enough There are two ways by which we aggravate our own miseries 1. By putting an higher value upon things than they really deserve by loving them more than we ought and then the Separation that is made between them and us gives us a more weighty sorrow 2. By seeking out of our selves for many things to make us happy whereas we should labour that our souls be duly order'd and our desires kept within their just and lawful bounds Inf. IV. We have cause to admire the wisdom of the Divine Providence that seeing the life of man is so very miserable he has ordered it also to be very short Tho our days are evil yet they are but few And that as the day is for hard labour there is a succession of comfortable nights wherein we may go to rest We find it a long tedious while to be in sorrows for fifty or sixty years but how loud would our groans be were we condemned to this toyl and these weepings for many thousand years The greater our misery is as one says the less while it is like to last the sorrows of a man's spirit being like ponderous weights which by the greatness of their burthen make a swifter motion and descend into the Grave to rest and ease our wearied Limbs and to knock our fetters off that eat as to the very bones Thus I have shewed what sorrows are common to the sons and daughters of men I am in the next place to shew what peculiar occasions of weeping Christians have above other men CHAP. III. Of the peculiar Occasions of weeping that good Christians have more than other men 1. THE Christian weeps for his own sins He is convinced of his own folly and bewails it he has by the inlightning of the Spirit a more tender heart than others have a more distinct view of the odiousness and malignity of the poisonous nature and dangerous qualities of Sin and that which was pleasant in the commission he finds by dear experience to be bitas gall and Wormwood afterwards This weeping is not the effect of mere softness or weakness of temper or from a want of courage there is nothing more reasonable more just or honourable than to bewail our Offences that we are guilty of against the Law of God And to what purpose hath he given us Innocent Passions but that they should be moved when suitable Objects present themselves He says with David Psal 51.3 I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me and such a sight of an Object so disagrecable pierces and wounds his very Soul and makes it to dissolve in a genuine and kindly grief and trouble saying Oh! what have I done against my God and my Saviour and the Holy Spirit Oh! how basely have I forgot a gracious and a loving God a God that has remembred me all my days for good He has loved me
are looking on and do not all that is in our power to hinder their going thither To this compassionate sorrow we may be excited by the kind example of our Lord Luke 19.41 he wept for those that rejoyced he pityed them that had no pity for their own souls because their hearts were hardned his was very soft and tender It is matter of mourning and lamentation to consider how few there are that profess Religion in its strictness and among those few how many that are scandalous or backsliders or hypocrites It has been often observed that among the bitter Ingredients of our Lords passion this was none of the least to foresee that there would be so many who by their final impenitence and persevering in wickedness would receive no benefit by it * Norris's Discourse on the Beatitudes pag. 44. And if we may judg by proportion the Angels in Heaven who rejoice at the conversion of one sinner do also mourn and lament for the Irreclaimable wickedness of so many Millions in the world To a zealous Magistrate it is an occasion of sorrow to see in his Dominions the great King and Ruler of the world so little valued and his grief will stir him up to use all the wholsome methods he can by good Laws and a necessary severity to keep the Divine Laws and Authority from being scorned and trampled on by profane and blasphemous sinners To a good Parent it is an occasion of grief to see the undutifulness and miscarriages of his children and very cutting to think that he has brought forth such as shall be his torment and factors for the Devil To a Minister it is an occasion of grief when he meets with a careless Auditory or with an unfruitful people that he is like to see them perish under the means of safety and that he is like to be their accuser in the great day and that they are like to be separated for ever when the judgment comes it is with an heavy heart and many a tear that he thinks of their forlorn state Rom. 9.1 2. Ye know after what manner I have been with you at all seasons serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations Act. 20.19 For the space of three years I ceased not to warn every me night and day with tears ver 31. 3. They weep for the manifold tribulations and persecutions they meet withal When God is pleased for their chastisement to let loose the passions and the fury of wicked men whose tender mercles are cruelty Cant. 2.2 As the Lilly among the thorns so is my love among the daughters She is beautiful and glorious but surrounded with difficulties and tribulations Psal 84.6 Passing through the valley of Baca they make it a well the rain also filleth the pools They are satisfied indeed to endure in the hope of Heaven but yet their sorrows and torments make them go weeping thither They have sense as well as Religion and their sensible nature Whether they will or no will be affected they cannot be sick but they must groan and sigh as well as others they cannot feel tortures racks tedious Imprisonments and flames without shrinking a little at them even the Apostles those great and couragious believers were troubled and perplexed tho they were not overthrown 2 Cor. 4.8 In times of Persecution there is a general license of doing mischief a bold oppressing of the poor a scornful despising of the affilicted and the desolate as they complain Psal 123.4 Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt of the proud and the scorn of evil men is so base a thing that the most patient cannot but be somewhat concerned at it Psal 42.11 My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me Where it thy God when I remember these things I pour out my soul in me 'T is true the servants of Christ esteem it abundant matter of joy when they fall into divers tribulations their minds are quiet and very well satisfied they love their Master and they will never leave him they will follow him to the Cross and die with him there but inasmuch as they are composed of flesh and blood and have a nature that is tender and soft and averse to suffering as well as that of others and that has several things that engage it to the world several Relations and Friends to part withal they cannot with respect to these leave this Earth without some grief and sorrow as the Hearers of Paul wept that they should see his face no more and it was even like to break his heart that he was to leave friends so affectionate so loving and so kind And we must think they did not part at last without flowing eyes on either side Act. 21.13 4. Christians however easie in their own Circumstances have still occasion of sorrow from that sympathy that they have with their brethren that are in distress The spirit of our compassionate Lord dwells in their heart and as he is afflicted with all the afflictions of his people so are they they are all the members of the same body and one part of the body cannot rejoice whilest another part thereof is in pain Thus they weep with them that weep Rom. 12.15 To hear of the desolations of others is extremely grievous to them nor can they laugh and be merry whilest others sigh and groan see Jer. 4.31 Ch. 8.21 22. Jer. 14.17 to the 20. They cannot chear themselves with Musick when the Harps of others are hanging on the Willows Lam. 1.12 16. Ch. 2.11 12. And this Book of the Lamentations is so very lamentable that it very well deserves to be read and considered by us that so the miseries of our Neighbours may affect us as they ought to do Job 30.35 Did not I weep for him that was in trouble was not my soul grieved for the poor It must be a temper very Hellish that has no relentings for the sufferings of others even such a Diabolical temper as reigneth in France at this day where by the encouragement of a Cruel King and as Cruel a Clergy the poor Protestants have undergone barbarous and more than Heathen severities if they had any thing humane left they could not have used those poor Harmless and Innocent people as they have done But they have long since degenerated into Wolves and to this day retain their brutal and savage nature tearing to pieces the sheep of Christ without any provocation and tho some have had such a brazen impudence as to say they have all along used with them nothing but sweet and gentle methods yet there are Witnesses enough and too many if it pleased God in all parts of Europe that tell us Melancholy stories of their Hillish Cruelties had there been the lowest degrees of Christianity left in that Execrable Country they could not they durst not have proceeded to