sacrifices of joy I will sing yea I will sing praises unto the Lord. Did we ever hope to see the Light of God again Did we ever hope to think of Heaven as our own portion and of Christ as our own Saviour Did we ever hope that we should be thus at ease and thus joyful as we now are God is our helper God is our refuge and our strong hold and blessed be the name of the Lord. 5. Let us call upon our Brethren and our Friends to help us to praise the Lord Psal 145.2 3 8 9 14. as to my self I make these requests Bless the Lord O house of Aaron and Levi Bless him ye Ministers of the Gospel that prayed for me in my trouble and have had your prayers granted Bless the Lord O House of Israel and all ye people every-where that sympathized and also kindly remembred me in my desolate condition Bless him ye Old men that you have got so far towards the haven without being thrown into the waves and so much endangered by the Rocks as I have been Bless him that you have not met with such violent tentations and great sorrows as I have met withal though I set out long after you Bless the Lord ye Young men that you have not been weakned in the way with sore affliction and with the terrors of the Lord which I long groaned under Bless him every one both small and great against whom he does not proceed in such smart and severe Providences and in such long and sharp Afflictions Bless him that you see before your eyes and to help your faith a person lately brought from the borders of the Grave and Hell one for whom you were concerned and for whom you prayed and one that still needs and beg your prayers that he may never come to such a sad and doleful night again It is a common Custom to congratulate our Friends recovery from sickness or when they return from some Foreign Land but nothing does more deserve our common thanks than when a Person is come from under the sense of God's displeasure to a sense of his favour and love again Thus it was with Job ch 42.11 Then came there to him all his brethren and all his sisters and all they that had been of his acquaintance before and did eat bread with him in his house and they bemoaned him and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him And with a design of exciting others to praise God with him is that Psal 66.16 Come and hear all ye that fear God and I will declare what he hath done for my soul Or as the Father of the Prodigal to his obedient Son that repined at the kind usage that he gave to him that was less dutiful upon his returning home Luke 15.32 It was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this thy brother was dead and is alive again and was lost and is found It is the design of God that the great and eminent Deliverances which he gives to some of his Servants should be taken notice of by all the rest that as they usually bring along with them a common Benefit so he should have a common return of praise Ps 66.8 O bless our God ye people and make the voice of his praise to be heard which holdeth our soul in life and suffereth not our feet to be moved And the joining with others that have been in great distress and are escaped is to answer the Obligation we are under to that Precept To rejoice with them that do rejoice And an encouragement to those who are yet in trouble Ps 130.7 Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him there is plenteous redemption And to those that yet are at ease we may say as Paul to Foelix that we wish they were such as we in some respects that is excepting our bonds our anguish and tribulation that they also had such experiences of the goodness and the mercy of God 6. Let us always wait and hope for that eternal Felicity which will at length dawn upon all his people in the great morning of the Resurrection and at their entrance into Heaven there will be joy indeed There is no night there 't is a place that is continually blest with a bright and shining day It is true as one says that as in nature the nights are not equal those of the Winter are much longer than those of the Summer but how long soever they be they are always followed with the light of day so whatsoever diversity there is among the Afflictions of the faithful to one they are much longer than to another yet they shall have an end as Jacob wrastled all night but in the morning got the victory I confess that Sinners in this World have their pleasures but so beset with thorns so attended with fears and pains so short and so vanishing that they deserve not the name But in Heaven the Sun that rises in the morning of our new Glory will never set again those pleasures are not like those of Sin for a season but for evermore There our now imperfect Joy will be compleat and full It will be satisfying and eternal too We shall feel the love of God in so sweet and transporting a manner that we shall never doubt whether he loves us or not We shall always behold our Father's face he will look on us with delight and we shall look on him with praise and joy This world because of its lowness is subject to Inundations and Miseries and innumerable Vicissitudes of Pain and Grief but that high and glorious World is the place of Triumph and of Victory then we shall see our Sin that made us weep to be it self totally defeated then we shall see that Devil that tempted us to be trod under our feet and never to be able to tempt us any more Let us often remember that saying of our Lord John 16.21 22. A woman when she is in travel hath sorrow because her hour is come but as soon as she is delivered of the Child she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world And ye now therefore have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce and your joy shall no man take from you Oh! what a glorious morning will that be that shall have no cloud to obscure its light and never be followed with a sad or gloomy night As our sufferings here did abound our Consolations then will much more abound We shall forget all our Labour and all our trouble when we see to what a glorious Kingdom we are born tho it was by pangs and torment our joy ' will be like the joy of Harvest of an Harvest that will requite us well for all our care and toil Our hopes here are like the first streaks of light in the Sky that shew the coming of the day but our possession of blessedness will be as the Sun in the fulness of his Glory That delight will indeed be the Sabbath of our thoughts and the sweet and perpetual calmness of our minds that will never be in horror and anguish any more Precious and admirable are those Tears that end so well and which prepare us for so good a state who would not chuse thus to weep that he may rejoyce for ever Lift up your eyes to the Jerusalem above the City of the Living God ye Mourners and Prisoners of hope for it is the City of Peace Rev. 21.3 4. Behold the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his People and God himself shall be with them and be their God and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away THE END
Commandments with inlarged hearts Some Families are filled with Lamentations and some with songs of Praise And all this gives us still greater occasions to magnify his Grace and Love that we have a moments ease that we can observe one Sabbath or make one Prayer with hope deserves our highest thanks and admiration Secondly Do not presume for all this for tho' he is not angry yet with you he may be so This was the fault of David Psal 30.6 In my prosperity I said I shall never be moved but it immediately follows vers 7. Thom didst hide thy face and I was troubled The Sun shines now upon you the Candle of the Lord does refresh your Tabernacle but you may meet with many Storms and Clouds and Darkness before you come to your journies end The Disciples were once greatly pleased with the glory of the Transfiguration and during the delightful interview between Christ and Moses and Elias they thought themselves as in Heaven but a cloud came and obscured the preceding glory and then the poor Men were afraid 'T is true the Anger of God endureth but a moment but even that moment is very sad and terrible beyond expression Weeping endures but for a night but it may be a very bitter and a doleful night for all that It is a night like that of the Egyptians when they arose they saw all their first-born slain and there was an hideous universal cry and mourning throughout all the Land So this night of the Anger of the Lord may destroy all our Comforts and make the first-born of our strength the confidence and the pleasure of our hopes to give up the Ghost Psal 77.2 3 4. My Sore ran in the night and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted I complained and my spirit was overwhelm'd Thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak Tho you are at ease to day and feel no trouble no disquiet Are you sure that it shall be so to morrow Are you sure that you shall never see any frowns in the face of God Presume not upon the strength of your grace nor the brightness of your evidence for Salvation for that may languish and this may be obscured and those of you that now think your selves at the door of Heaven may be brought for ought you know to the contrary to the very Gates of Hell Tho' God is pleased at the present to deal gently with you yet your sins may cause him to send his dreadful rebukes upon you your Souls lye open and naked to him Heb. 4.13 and he can make what impressions either of his goodness or his severity he pleases there Be not secure for it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Who can stand when he is angry Who can bear his blows or what hand can strike so hard a stroak as his There are these things in the sense of his Anger that may prevent your security and I will tell you not only what I have seen and heard but what I have experienced and felt in my own Soul 1. If you have once a serious and a fixed apprehension of the displeasure of God no creature can yield you the least comfort if you be never so rich all your Gold cannot purchase one hours Peace and Joy You may complain indeed to your Friends and you cannot but complain but alas they can give you no relief Their Language is Vnless the Lord help we cannot help You may go to your Ministers they may speak kindly to you but they cannot make their own words to take effect If the Heavens above you be as Brass they cannot give you Rain nor make the Dew of God to fall upon your Branches as it used to do they can mourn with you but they cannot wipe your tears away If you once apprehend that God is angry with you in vain shall you seek for rest in pleasures or diversions or change of Company for such a stinging thought as this will always pierce you to the quick God is mine enemy and what will these avail The sense of his Anger will put even your natural spirits into a strange unquiet agitation and after this you will not find your very bodies at ease as they used to be Psal 38.2 Thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore there is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin When I say My bed shall comfort we my couch shall ease my complaint then thou scarest me with dreams and terrifiest me through visions Job 7.13 14. All the Fountains on Earth will never quench your thirst if the Fountain of Living Waters be shut up Your Bed will not then be a place of rest nor your Meat delightful to your taste your sorrows will keep you waking all the night and your fears will haunt and pursue you in rhe day My sighing cometh before I eat and my roarings are poured out like Waters Job 3.24 Your Soul will then abhor all dainty Meat and your Life will draw nigh unto the Grave and when you have tired your selves in seeking rest among the creatures and have found none you must then sit down and say by a sad experience Miserable Comforters are you all for tho' you run to never so many crowds of quiet people you can meet with no quietness as the wounded Hart tho she run into the common herd yet by that means does not lose her pain but carries her wound with her where ever she goes 2. Whilest you are under the sense of God's displeasure you will find no comfort in his Ordinances every part of his blessed Word will be as a Sword cutting to your very Soul You will find every Threat to be as a dart thrown at you and see every promise that is full of Consolation to others yet to be as dry to you That Scripture which was once your delight will fill you with Gall and Wormwood That which you once reckoned to be the book of Life will then seem to be the book of Death and you will be afraid to read there for fear of reading your own Condemnation So great a change does the sense of God's displeasure make Those-Assemblies that were once your joy will then be terrible to you I go not says the troubled Soul there to meet a friend as I used to do but to see an Enemy To see others joyfully serving God and singing of his Praise whilst I am silent with deep Affliction and can only Mourn whilest they Rejoyce What pleasure is it to see others feasting at his Table whilst my Sins have destroyed my appetite and there is not one crumb of the bread of Life that belongs to me I pray and he shuts out my cry regards not my entreaties does not ease my distress nor seems to relent with all my Groans I have Sinned against him and I dare not say My God
how great an height have I fallen How fair was I once for Heaven and for Salvation and now am like to come short of it I was once flourishing in the Courts of the Lord and now all my Fruit is blasted and withered away his dew laid all night upon my branches but now I am like the Mountains of Gilboa no Rain falls upon me Had I never heard of Heaven I could not have been so miserable as I now am Had I never known God the loss of him had not been so terrible as now it is like to be Job 29.2 3. Oh! that I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me When his Candle shined upon my head and when by his light I walked through darkness These are some of the sorrows that deserted Souls often meet withal and indeed but a small part of what they feel in this dark and stormy night Before I proceed any further I will answer two Objections for I foresee that against what I have said some may object CHAP. V. Answering some Objections and of the further doleful state of a deserted Soul and whence it is that God is pleased to suffer a very Tempestuous and Stormy Night to come upon his Servants in this World Obj. 1. YOV make a great deal of noise and pother about desertions and God's forsaking of the soul and it is nothing in the world but Fancy or Imagination and the whimsies and the fumes of Melancholly Answ It is no new thing for us to hear such Language from Atheistical and Prophane People from men that are covered with ignorance and sloth With ignorance because they know not the ways of God and his dispensations and sloth because they will not search into the Methods of his Government To grant them for once that it is Imagination it is not the less tormenting because it is so for a Man that strongly imagines himself to be miscrable is truly miserable if a man think himself unhappy he is so whilest that thought remains But then they would do well could they but once obtain of themselves leave to consider a little they would find reason to suspect their own foolish Objections Who was a Man as appears by what we read of him more distressed with the sense of God's Anger than David yet he was of a Musical and a pleasant Temper of a Ruddy and a Sanguine Constitution Do they think that such a great Prince as Job was was led meerly by humour and by fancy when he complains so much of the Arrows of the Almighty Or that Heman Asaph and many others were men of no clear understandings It is their ignorant Pride that makes them to talk so boldly of the Judgments of God which they do not understand but if ever their Consciences be awakened with a sense of guilt they 'll find in what I have now discoursed something more terrible than Fancy or Imagination Obj. 2. You take a way to discourage men from all Religion If it be such a mournful business it is better to let it alone and to rejoyce and to be merry and to take our ease and our pleasure Go by your selves to Heaven if you will we 'll joyn our selves to more chearful Companions we see those that are gay and brisk that know no sorrow while they live and that dye in peace and to their Assembly we will unite our selves In Answer to this I desire such to consider That it is not our Religion that is the Cause of our sorrows but our wandrings and our deviation from it If we were always obedient we should have an Eternal day our heavenly Father chastises us because we are undutiful and he does not delight to grieve the Children of Men and even in these necessary Corrections he carries on a profitable design for our future and final good 'T is true this is nothing but anguish of Conscience that draws up a process against it self that presents it self as before the Tribunal of God without hope of pardon or escape and the weight of Mountains would not be a load so heavy as this it is a night wherein we are kept waking with our danger whether we will or not Wicked men tho they have as great a burden yet are not sensible they feel not the bitterness of sin they are like fishes bred in the Sea that tast not the saltness of the water they are like swine that find something agreeable to their meaner appetites even in that which is most nauseous to other Creatures When they sin they feel not the weight of it for it is their nature to do amiss their iniquities are like waters that are not heavy in their own Element as Intellectual joy is most refin'd pure and durable so is the trouble of the mind of all others most troublesome Job 6.2 3. Oh that my grief were throughly weighed and my calamity laid in the balance together for now it would be heavier than the sand of the Sea therefore my words are swallowed up 2. 'T is attended usually with great pain of body too and so a man is wounded and distrest in every part There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger says David The arrows of the Almighty are within me the poyson whereof drinketh up my spirit Job 6.4 Sorrow of heart contracts the natural spirits makes all their motions slow and feeble and the poor afflicted body does usually decline and wast away and therefore saith Heman My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave In this inward distress we find our strength decay and melt even as wax before the fire for sorrow that is an ingrateful languor of the soul * Natural History of the Passions p. 152. darkneth the spirits obscures the judgment blinds the memory as to all pleasant things and beclouds the lucid part of the mind causes the lamp of life to burn weakly In this troubled condition the person cannot be without a countenance that is pale and wan and dejected like one that is seized with strong fear and consternation all his motions are sluggish and no sprightliness nor activity remains Prov. 17.22 A merry heart doth good like a Medicine but a broken spirit drieth the bones Hence come those frequent complaints in Scripture My moisture is turned into the drought of Summer I am like a bottle in the smoke wy soul cleaveth unto the dust my face is foul with weeping and on my eye-lids is the shadow of death Job 16.16 Job 30.17 18 19. My bones are pierced in me in the night season and my sinews take no rest by the great force of my disease is my garments changed He hath cast me into the mire and I am become like dust and ashes Many times indeed the trouble of the soul does begin from the weakness and indisposition of the body Long affliction without any prospect of remedy does in process of time begin to distress the soul