so he hath Bowels of Compassion What Mercy may we not expect from so gracious a Mediator that took our Nature on him that he might be Gracious Let us therefore go to God by Christ who has satisfied his Justice by his Death and who without him is to us Sinners as a consuming fire Let us go boldly to his Throne in the name of Jesus and we shall find that the God of whom we were afraid will become our Friend and we shall experience him to be better to us than we ever thought he would have been Our unbelieving hearts whilst they are such will be full of darkness and of trouble but upon our Faith the Storm will cease and the Morning will begin to dawn upon us and instead of that wrath which we feared and had deserved we shall find there is Mercy with the Lord and plenteous Redemption Psal 130. The first thing that a convinced awakened sinner thinks of is his own danger and how he may avoid the Wrath of God and what it is that he must do in order to it now it is not to be accomplished by pompous ceremonious Services not by external mortifications nor by offering the fruity of his Body for the sin of his own Soul but by Faith in Jesus Christ and his Death by the means of which God is become propitious and favourable to us And the first view that as one says an humble Soul is to take of Christ is of his being a Saviour as made a Sin and a Curse and obeying to the death And Christ must be considered not only with respect to the Excellencies of his person but as cloathed with his Garments of Blood and the Qualifications of a Mediator and a Reconciler and this renders him the fit object of a Sinners Faith If we think of God without thinking of Christ he is vastly terrible and amazing to us but in and through him those otherwise-overwhelming apprehensions become very pleasant and comfortable to us Let us honour the Love that he hath shewed in him with admiring thoughts and never have low nor mean apprehensions of his Grace Christ is near unto God and pitiful to us able to help us and most willing to do so for those that come unto him he will in no wise cast out He will not upbraid us for our former follies he will not encrease our grief but when he sees us once lying at his feet and washing them with the tears of an unfeigned humiliation he will raise us up and bid us be of good cheer V. Faith will remove the troubles that we have from the sense of God's displeasure by conveying to us that life and strength from Christ which will enable us to subdue all our spiritual Enemies Phil. 4.13 It will bring him to us and when he is in our Vessel let the Waves threaten us with never so formidable a noise we are sure not to be cast away And all the Spectres that afright us will vanish if we do but hear him once say as to his Disciples It is I be not afraid This Grace will unite us to Christ and communicate to us of his Power in the several measures that we need and without his assistance long and sore afflictions will tire our Spirits and destroy our Hope He is necessary for us for he has a perfect knowledg of our Enemies of their Force their Policies and their Designs He has by his own Combat learn'd to Fight and by his Experience can teach us to get the Victory neither the multitude nor violence nor obstinacy of our Enemies can hinder the Success and the glory of his Triumph Col. 1.11 He prayeth that they might be strengthned with all might because as we have to do with divers Enemies and are sick of divers Infirmities we have need to receive not one or two kinds of strength but many different ones * Vide Daille in loc For as in nature you see the strength of Bodies is different one resisting one thing and yielding to another one has the virtue to repulse the force of one Element but not to guard it self from another So in a manner is it in the Souls of Men such a Man will free himself from the temptation of one sin that will not be able to defend himself from another such a Man will resist the temptations of prosperity whom adversity will overthrow such an one will bear troubles for a while whom the length or tediousness of them will overcome and if one of our Spiritual Enemies succeed against us we are undone for ever Therefore as the Apostle says we have need to have recourse to Christ who can furnish us with skill and strength to defeat whatsoever stands in the way of our Peace or our Salvation To have one on our side that has returned from the Field of Battel as a Conqueror is a mighty encouragement and privilege Such is our Lord he is a Victorious and a Triumphant Saviour he will not leave his Conquests incompleat for he goes on Conquering and to Conquer and the glory of his enterprizes has not fill'd him with disdain or contempt of the poor and needy for he that is the King of Zion is as I said before a meek and lowly King By Faith in Christ we obtain his Spirit which by opening our eyes will shew us that Fountain of Living-waters where we may both quench our thirst and wash away our filth This Spirit will take away the sting of guilt and sweeten the Cross that was very bitter to us and when our Lord is come to help us when we know that he is afflicted in our affliction that yoak which gall'd us before will become as an Ornament about our Necks and when we have the pardon of our sins and the hope of God's acceptance that affliction that we thought a burthen too heavy for us to bear will become light and easie to us Out of the devourer shall come forth sweetness From those very fears that overwhelmed us shall spring glorious hopes and those hearts which a slavish fear of the Wrath had contracted shall be enlarged with a sense of his Goodness and his Love and we shall not look upon him as an Enemy but as a Friend not as a Judge but as a Father Isa 33.14 The inhabitants shall not say I am sick the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquities Alas when God leaves us the smallest danger terrifies us the least Dart of Satan makes an impression on our spirits the least trouble sinks such low such inconsiderable creatures are we But if the Lord be with us if Christ be on our side neither the Law nor Sin nor Death can hinder us from bidding a defiance to all that is against us 2 Cor. 15. 56 57. VI. Faith will give us relief under the apprehensions of God's displeasure or our Sin as it will shew us the period and conclusion of those miseries which we now are groaning under our
were safe and well That sit down to eat and to drink and rise up to play and in the midst of those diversions Death seizes on their Bodies and when their Bodies dye their Souls dye and are past our help Oh! my Friends if you have any Life any Compassion put on the bowels of Christ and take up a lamentation for the dead Inf. IV. Why good Christians are so willing to depart from this World 'T is because the favour of God is their Life and when they are dead they live again because they cannot see God and live they are content to dye that they may enjoy the blessed sight They remember very well that they are strangers and pilgrims on earth that Affiction is as proper to this World as Heat in Summer and Storms and Snow in Winter they know how course soever their fare be how harsh soever the usage they meet withal that they are travelling to their dearest Countrey and every one of those Holy Pilgrims in the way to Sion is continually crying out as one says after this or the like manner As for thee Scituation of Paradise p. 95. O City of God how great and how transcendent is thy beauty Nothing but thee do I desire I think of nothing but thee I pant I thirst I long for thy felicity How do I long for thee thou sure reversion of never-fading pleasures O! Paradise thou art the recompence of my Travels and the sole aim of all my Hopes How fain would I leave these habitations of Clay to dwell in thy eternal and delightful Mansions What would I not give to enjoy the liberty of thy Citizens O! Jerusalem Jerusalem when shall I leave this ruinous and shaken House O that I had the Wings of a Dove for then would I fly away and be at rest O! when when shall I arrive there How long will it be ere I enter the Court of Heaven Oh! how have many on whom the face of God hath comfortably shined long'd to depart and to be with him They bear all disappointments and vexations in the hope of this and pain and sickness are welcome because they are as the wheels of their Chariots and drive them nearer to their home Such as these are like a Ship well fraighted that is ready to Sail and stays only till a favourable Wind present it self They dye not by surprise for these happy Travellers to Glory are always on the road that leads to the blessed place above Death is not frightful to them because they have often meditated what it is to dye and what is required for so vast a change There are indeed a great many formidable things in Death the separation of the Soul the many foregoing pains and an innumerable Army of Sorrows and Griefs that march before the King of Terrors all which by Faith these holy persons overcome they know that Christ hath taken from Death all its poysonous and hurtful qualities Their distance from God is the trouble of all good people and when he shews himself they rejoyce as when he hides himself they mourn And hence many a Religious Person when he came to dye has been heard to say I would not now for all the World be without an Interest in Christ I always found him to be a good Master and I still find him to be so he has taken away the sting of death and I am willing to go unto the House prepared for all living for my Lord hath been there before and has perfumed and sanctified the Grave Thou lookest O Grave with a dreadful aspect to Flesh and Blood but not so to Faith and I bid thee welcome as the way to Glory I commit my Body to thee to keep it safe till the Resurrection when my Soul that I now commit into the hands of my Saviour shall come and fetch it back again With the sense of this favour of God did the Martyrs so chearfully persevere and look upon their dying day as the day of their Coronation this Favour made them to scorn the threats and the frowns of Tyrants and all their rage and fury by this they went to the fiery furnace as to a bed of Roses because they knew God would be with them there In the hope of his acceptance old and young grave Matrons and tender Virgins have embraced the Stakes and kist the Flames and freely dyed and have rejoiced and look'd with an unmoved countenance on all the preparations of death whil'st those that were the spectators of their patience could not look upom them without flowing eyes To whom they have said Death would be frighful if we looked no further but it comforts us when we see the Crowns the Hallelujahs and the Glories that wait for us on the further side This will deliver us from an evil World from our corrupt hearts and from all those sins which we have long groaned under this will bring us to him whom all our days we have long'd to see Our Friends bewail us here but Angels are waiting for our Souls and will be glad to convey them to their Lord Christ and ours and conformably to this did those Forty Martyrs whom Basil and so many of the Fathers celebrate encourage one another when neither Promises nor Threats would prevail with them to forsake their God they were condemned to be exposed on Ice to be kill'd with Cold when they beheld the place casting away their Garments they ran to it with delight not as if they had been going to Death but to gather the spoils of Victory VVith our Garments said they we shall put off our old man our Sin and all the corruptions of our Nature VVhat great thing is it if the servant suffer that which his Lord endured before VVe were the cause that he was disrobed and afflicted the cold said these happy Souls is troublesome but Paradise is sweet This Ice afflicts us but the Rest there will delight us Let us endure this cold a litte while longer and the warmth of Abraham's Bosom will refresh us for ever VVe shall exchange this bitter and tempestuous Night for an Eternal Day Let us turn our backs upon the world and seeing we are once to dye Let us now Dye that we may Live And O Lord let us be acceptable to thee when we are offered to thee by this painful Death Thus they endured in the cold night rejoycing in the hope of Glory VVhat wonders of courage and of zeal have been produced by the sense of the Favour and the Love of God! Inf. 5. How inexcusable are they that refuse this Favour of God in which alone is Life Who would chuse to be a Beggar when he might be the King's Favourite Who would chuse to embrace a Dunghill when he might be treated with Plenty and all suitable accommodations Who would chuse to be Sick or Blind when he might receive his Sight And yet this is the sad case of Sinners God would be their friend and they
A DISCOURSE Concerning TROUBLE of MIND AND THE Disease of Melancholly In Three PARTS Written for the Use of such as are or have been Exercised by the same By TIMOTHY ROGERS M. A. who was long afflicted with both To which are Annexed Some LETTERS from several DIVINES relating to the same Subject LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst and Thomas Cockerill at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside and at the Three Legs in the Poultrey MDCXCI To the very much HONOURED and RESPECTED LADY The Lady MARY LANE MADAM YOUR LADYSHIP has a very just claim to this DEDICATION and under your Patronage this BOOK can with good assurance venture abroad You more than any other have enquired of me concerning the following Treatise and more frequently urged me to Print it You were pleased to Honour me during my long Affliction with your kind Visits and though I was greatly afflicted and in degrees beyond what are very common to Men yet you did not a little revive me by your Compassionate and Gentle words and by the Charitable hopes that you had of my deliverance though you have often heard me say That I should never be delivered I thought that I should never have any more ease in my pained Body nor ever any more hope or quiet in my troubled Soul But that God who is Omnipotent and who heard your Prayers and the Prayers of many others in my behalf hath wrought a double Salvation for me He who is the Lord of Nature has healed my Body and He who is the Father of Mercies and the God of all Grace has given rest to my weary Soul None have any Cause to presume when they consider what miseries I felt for a long time and how I was overwhelmed with the deepest sorrows for many doleful Months together neither have any cause to despair they cannot be more low more near to Death and Hell than I thought my self to be and yet I live and am not without some refreshing hope of God's acceptance and can say with the Prophet Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy And with him is plenteous redemption Your LADYSHIP has never indeed been afflicted with that Distemper and those Anxieties of Soul whereof I treat in the following Book and I heartily pray you never may For MELANCHOLLY is the worst of all Distempers and those sinking and guilty Fears which it brings along with it are inexpressibly dreadful But I know that you have been in manifold Afflictions and you have had several very great Losses You lost some years ago a Father who was indeed in all respects for his Holiness his Even-temper and his Publick and Charitable Spirit worthy to be loved and I am sure you greatly loved him as he you to the very last You lost a Mother whom all that knew her greatly valued for the skill and experience that she had in matters of Religion and especially for her admirable acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures and tho in the latter part of her Life she saw not the Light of this World yet her Soul was recreated with a Light Spiritual and Divine and the loss of her sight was abundantly recompenced to her by the clearer views which she had of God and of a Life to come And not to mention other Losses you have lost several Children in whom there was all the sweetness of youth all that good temper and those blooming appearances of hopefulness which could make such little Plants desirable but you have born even so great a Loss with a submissive and a Christian Patience as knowing that you have not so much cause to mourn for those that are gone as to rejoyce in those that are left and who are a very great Comfort to you and may they long be so As I have had for some time heretofore the Honour to sojourn in your Family I always observed in you that Meekness and Good Temper that Affability and Condescention to your Inferiors which made your Conversation very exemplary and made it easie and pleasant for any persons to be in your House If all the Ladies and Women in the World that are called Good were of a Temper so happy as your Ladyship 's What a quiet and peaceable World should we then have The mutual Love in which Sir THOMAS and You live renders indeed the Married state very excellent and Honourable I thought when I came to describe my inward Troubles I should have described them much more largely but I durst not review them too particularly lest the very thoughts of them should again in some measure overwhelm me And indeed Inward Terrors are things that may be sadly felt but they cannot be fully express'd To have the sense of Tormenting Racking Pain the immediate prospected of Death and together with this an apprehension of God's Displeasure and the fear of being cast out of his Glorious Presence for ever this was a part of my Case And who can describe that Anguish and Tribulation which such apprehensions cause in a desolate and a mourning Soul I have in the following Treatise said as much as will I suppose be believed by those who have never been in such a woful state and if I had said more it might perhaps sink some poor souls who are already low enough and if I cannot help them which I design yet I will be sure as far as in me lies not to make them worse MADAM I Could say a great many excellent things of your LADYS â—â— and which in the opinion oâ— all that have the happiness to be acquainted with you would be no flattery but I know your Virtues are Illustrious and evident enough of themselves without my endeavouring to place them in a more open Light Excuse I entreat your the boldness of this DEDICATION in which to speak sincerely I have a great deal of selfishness for I question not but by the means of your Name this BOOK will be more publick and so be more serviceable to people under long and sore afflictions whereof this miserable World is very full I wish you a continuance of the Blessings of Heaven with those of this Earth which you have in great abundance And that the Candle of the Lord may constantly shine on your Tabernaâ—â—â— on Sir Thomas your Self and all your Children and I desire you to be assured That there is none that moâ— heartily prays for your present and Eternal welfare than London Sept. 8. 1691. Honoured MADAM Your Ladyship 's Most Obliged Servant TIMOTHY ROGERS THE PREFACE CONTAINING Several Advices to the Relations and Friends of Melancholly People THERE is a very great difference between such as are only under trouble of Conscience and such whose Bodies are greatly diseased at the same time A sense of Sin and great sorrow for it may in some persons not change at all their former state of health and the mercy of God may so speedily relieve them that they suffer no visible decays in their
Constitution but are so happy as to have a sound Mind and Body both at once 'T is not with relation to such that I write this Preface but for such as are under a deep and a rooted Melancholly And to the Friends of such I think it is very necessary to give the following Advices First Look upon your distressed Friends as under one of the worst Distempers to which this Miserable Life is obnoxious Melancholly seizes on the Brain and Spirits and incapacitates them for Thought or Action it confounds and disturbs all their thoughts and unavoidably fills them with anguish and vexation of which there is no resemblance in any other Distemper unless it be that of a Raging Fever I take it for granted and I verily believe I say nothing but what is true When this ugly Humour is deeply fixed and hath spread its Malignant Influence over every part 't is as vain a thing to strive against it as to strive against a Fever or a Plurisie the Gout or the Stone which are very grievous to Nature but which a man by resolution and the force of briskness and courage cannot help One would be glad to be rid of such oppressing things but all our striving will not make them go away And of all the Inconveniences of Melancholly The want of sleep which it usually brings along with it is one of the worst It is very reviving to a man that is in pain all the day to think that he shall sleep at night but when he has no prospect nor hope of that for several nights together oh what confusion does then seize upon him he is then like one upon a rack whose anguish will not suffer him to rest by this means the Faculties of the Soul are weakned and all its Operations disturbed and clouded and the poor Body languishes and pines away at the same time And this Disease is more formidable than any other because it commonly last very long It is a long time before it come to its height and usually as long ere it decline again and all this long season of its continuance is full of fear and torment of horror and amazement It is in every respect sad and overwhelming it is a state of darkness that has no discernable beams of Light 'T is as a Land of darkness on which no Sun at all seems to shine It does generally indeed first begin at the Body and then conveys its venom to the Mind and if any thing could be found that might keep the Blood and Spirits in their due temper and motion this would obstruct its further progress and in a great measure keep the Soul clear I pretend not to tell you what Medicines are proper to remove it and I know of none I leave you to advise with such as are learned in the Profession of Physick and especially to have recourse to such Doâ—tors as have themselves felt it for it is impossible fully to understand the nature of it any other way than by Experience and that Person is highly to be valued whose endeavours God will bless to the removal of this obstinate and violent Disease And as old Mr. Greenham says * In his Comfort for Afflicted Consciences p. 137. There is a great deal of wisdom requisite to consider both the state of the Body and of the Soul If a man saith he that is troubled in Conscience come to a Minister it may be he will look all to the Soul and nothing to the Body if he come to a Physician he considereth the Body and neglecteth the Soul for my part I would never have the Physician 's Counsel despised nor the Labour of the Minister negected because the Soul and Body dwelling together it is convenient that as the Soul should be cured by the Word by Prayer by Fasting or by Comforting so the Body must be brought into some temperature by Physick and Diet by harmless Diversions and such like ways providing always that it be so done in the fear of God as not to think by these ordinary means quite to smother or evade our Troubles but to use them as preparatives whereby our Souls may be made more capable of the spiritual Methods that are to follow afterwards Secondly Look upon those that are under this woful Disease of Melancholly with great pity and compassion And pity them the more by considering that you your selves are in the body and liable to the very same trouble for how brisk how sanguine and how chearful soever you be yet you may meet with those heavy Crosses those long and painful and sharp Afflictions which may sink your spirits Many that are far from being naturally inclined to Melancholly have been accidentally overwhelmed with it by the loss of Children by some sudden and unlooked for disappointment that ruines all their former Projects and Designs O let every groan that you hear from persons so afflicted deeply affect your hearts and never look upon them but with a compassionate and a concerned eye never look upon them but make this use to your selves Man at his best Estate is altogether vanity Let it wean you from the world when you see that by such a Disease as this a man is quickly taken off of all his business and unfit to manage his Affairs or to pursue his former most delightful work Melancholly is a complication of violent and sore Distresses t is full of miseries 't is it self a fierce Affliction and bring to our Thoughts and to our bodies one Evil fast upon another Any other Distemper may trouble us but this does astonish and amaze O look upon your Friends in this case with great tenderness for they alas are wounded both in Soul and Body and in all the world there are none for the time in so doleful a state as they They are usually walking as in the midst of Fire and Brimstone and most frequently under the very pangs of death and the pains of Hell in great bodily danger and in no less spiritual Calamity Their Burthen is very often heavier than their groaning their sighs are deep their hearts are sunk their minds are in a slame and they are fallen very low They are thinking on what is sad and frightful and they cannot banish those Idea's that are so terrible If you saw a person wounded and torn and mangled on the High-Way the sight of so deplorable an Object would fill you with compassion the sight of your Friends under this Disease which I am now speaking of ought much more to move you for it is every moment tearing them to pieces every moment it preys upon their Vitals and they are continually dying and yet cannot dye When you visit a Melancholly person make this Reflection This Friend of mine awhile ago rejoyced in the love of God as I do he met with me in Holy Assemblies and sung the Praises of the Most High with as pleasant a countenance with as chearful an heart as I and now he
sore vexed and tho it 's true they get no good by complaining yet they cannot but complain to find themselves in such a doleful Case And tho they can say with David Psal 6.6 I am weary with my groaning all the night make I my bed so swim I water my couch with tears yet they cannot forbear to groan and weep more till their very eyes be consumed with grief Let no Carriage of theirs provoke you to passion let no sharp words of theirs make you to talk sharply Sick persons are generally very peevish and it will be a very great weakness in you not to bear with them when you see that a long and sore disease hath deprived them of their former good Temper Do not you find in Scripture several instances of Men that have uttered woful complaints That have said Their Hope was perisht That the Wrath of God laid hard upon them That against them his Terrors were set in array That their Prayers were shut out That their Iniquities were gone over their heads That they were as spectacles of Reproach and the scorn and wonder of other Men Do not therefore wonder at any thing that your Friends under great trouble say Eighthly Do not mention to them any formidable Things nor tell in their hearing any sad Stories because they do already Meditate Terror and by every sad thing that they hear of are much more terrified their troubled Imagination is prepared to fix upon any mournful thing and by that means will multiply its own sorrows The hearing of sad things causes in them more violent Agitations and throws them into great disorders having the same effects in them that Storms and Thunder have in Nature and which strike a Terror into Men. You must know that they are very ingenious in heightning every doleful thing And to argue thus If it be so dreadful to be so cruelly used so tormented so enslaved How dreadful then is my condition that have God against me and am like to be in Hell for ever Studiously avoid all Discourse of what is grievous to them and yet you must not be too merry before them neither for then they think you slight their Miseries and have no pity for them A mixture of affableness and gravity will suit their Condition best and if I might advise I would desire Parents not to put those Children who are naturally Melancholly to be Scholars or to any Employment that requires much Study for that will engage them perhaps to think too much and at last they will be overwhelmed with uneasie thoughts Ninthly Do not think it altogether needless to talk with them only when you â—â— so do not speak as if their Troubles would be very long It is the length of their Trouble that amazes them when after one Week or Month without Sleep or Rest or Hope still the next Week and Month is as painful and as terrible to them as the former was and this many times pushes them forward to seek to destroy themselves because they see no period of their Miseries and their Anguish is both tedious and insupportable Some of the Platonists thought that a Man might dislodge his soul by abstracted contemplation and turn it into the World of Spirits by the meer force of Thought but this is nothing else but talk for if any could so dye none would more frequently do so than Melancholly Persons whose disease is earnest intense undiverted thinking and yet they cannot dye for all that Of it self it very rarely kills any person Revive them therefore by telling them that God can create deliverance for them in a moment That he has often done so with others That he can quickly cure their Disease and shew them his Reconciled Amiable Face tho it has been hid from them for a long season You will convey to them some little support by such discourse as this Tell them that it may be in a little time their groans shall be turned into praises and that God will satisfy them early with his Mercies and make them glad according to the days wherein he hath afflicted them and the years wherein they have seen evil Tho they are like the burning bush yet they shall not be consumed and that there shall be more sweetness in the deliverance than there was bitterness in the Cross And that hereafter they may have cause to say with David Psal 43.4 I will go unto the Altar of God unto God my exceeding joy And that it will make their joys more pleasant when they come after so long sadness as to a Man that hath laid all the Night long in Waking Pain the Morning-Rest is very sweet And let them remember that the Greatest Mourner in Israel was the sweet Singer of Israel Pain indeed makes the Time seem to go on very slowly an hour seems a day and a day a week but if you can by the Blessing of God give them any hope that they may once be delivered they will be sensibly refresht and will be enabled to Pray and Read none of which they can do whilest they are in deep Despair but when you talk with them you must as I have said before by no means thwart or contradict them but allow what they say or taking for granted that what they say is true then to proceed with what applications you think most proper to their Case upon such a supposition and if you think they were truely good people and sincere in their Conversation before this woful distemper seized them Let them know what you think and that you have charitable hopes of their Salvation however it shall please God to deal with them as to Temporal deliverance Tenthly Tell them of others who have been in such Anguish and under such a terrible Distemper and yet have been delivered It is very hard indeed to persuade a person under great pain and anguish and a sense of the Wrath of God and a fear of Hell that ever any has heretofore been so perplext as he Such generally think themselves worse than Cain or Judas or any the most wicked People in the World as thinking that their sins have greater aggravations and that consequently they shall be more miserable but you may acquaint them with several instances of God's Gracious dealing with others after they have been for many Months and Years afflicted I could send you to some now alive that were long afflicted with Trouble of Mind and Melancholly as Mr. Rosewell and Mr. Porter both Ministers the latter whereof was six years oppressed with this distemper and now they both rejoyce in the Light of Gods Countenance I my self was near two years in great pain of Body and greater pain of Soul and without any prospect of peace or help and yet God hath revived me in his Soveraign Grace and Mercy and there have been several heretofore sorely perplex'd with great inward and outward trouble whom God after that wonderfully refresh'd Mr. Robert Bruce some time ago Minister at
of the World As also the Reason why good People are many times very willing to dye and of the inexcusableness and misery of those that are without God's Favour and whence it is that some grow in Grace more than others and are more earnest for a share in God's Love p. 207. CHAP. XIII Shewing that the Favour of God is diligently to be sought and what is to be done that we may obtain it p. 228. CHAP. IV. That we ought to take heed that we do not lose the Favour of God after we have once enjoyed it and what we are to do that we may not fall into a condition so miserable as this would be p. 241. CHAP. V. Of Assurance and of the false Grounds from which many are apt to conclude That they are God's Favourites when they are not so p. 263. CHAP. VI. Shewing by what means we may know whether we have God's favour or not And first by the Graces of his Spirit tho the acting of them is neither so strong nor so comfortable at one time as another And secondly by our hatred of sin and our being satisfied with all the Providences of God p. 275. CHAP. VII Of several other ways whereby a sense of God's favour may be preserved in our souls and how we may certainly know that we are in that happy state p. 294. CHAP. VIII Of the several Privileges that belong to those who have God's favour p. 309. The Contents of the Third Part. CHAP. I. OF the many miseries of this Mortal Life that are the usual occasions of sorrow to the sons of Men with respect both to their Bodies and their Souls p. 317. CHAP. II. Shewing that the Fall of Adam was the Cause of all our Miseries and in how excellent a condition the blessed Angels are and the folly of such as expect to meet with nothing in the World but what is easie and pleasant p. 331. CHAP. III. Of the Peculiar occasions of Weeping that good Christians have more than other Men. p. 338. CHAP. IV. Shewing what dreadful apprehensions a soul has that is under desertion and in several respects how very sad and doleful its Condition is from the Author 's own Experience p. 352. 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 p. 370. CHAP. VI. Shewing whence it is that Melancholly People love solitariness and whence it is that serious persons are not so light in their Conversations as others are with some Inferences deducible from the foregoing Doctrine as also some advices to those who have never been deserted and to such who are complaining that they are so p. 381. CHAP. VII Of the great joy that fills a soul when the sense of God's favour returns to it after having been long in darkness and that this is great in several respects as it was unexpected as it discovers God to be reconciled and gives the mourner an Interest in Christ by Faith through the Influence of the Holy Spirit It revives his Graces delivers him from the Insulting of the Devil and shews the soul irs right to the Promises p. 393. CHAP. VIII Of the further Properties of the Jâ—â—y that comes to a Soul after long desertion 'T is Irr sistible 't is usually Gradual it revives the Body and the Natural Spirits It fills the late Mourner with the hope of Glory and causes him to express his delight to others From all which we may justly admire the Wisdom of the Divine Providence p. 408. CHAP. IX Of the different ends that God hath in the Afflictions of the Good and the Wicked and what Reason we have to be reconciled to his Providence And that we must be satisfied that God carry us to Heaven in his oven Way and Method p. 421. CHAP. X. The Conclusion of the whole Treatise with Directions to such who have been formerly in the darkness of a sorrowful Night and now enjoy the Light of Day p. 427. A DISCOURSE Concerning TROUBLE of MIND AND THE DISEASE of MELANCHOLY PART I. PSAL. XXX 5. For his anger endureth but a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning The INTRODUCTION THE Miseries under which the whole race of Men have now for a long time groaned and under which they still groan are owing to the Fall of Man The day on which our first Parents complied with the temptation of the Devil was a mournful day to them and in its effects no less sad to us It filled their once pure and quiet hearts with trouble and disorder and made them unable to think of their great Creator with delight It intercepted those chearful and comfortable beams of his Love which were more satisfying to them than all the glories of the lower Paradise For tho' it did after the Fall abound with all the same natural refreshments with the same Rivers Herbs Trees and Flowers yet it was to them no more a Paradise No Musick could delight their sense when they heard a terrible voice from God summoning them to answer for their Crime no objects could please their eyes when they saw the Clouds thickning over their heads and dreadful frowns in the face of their mighty-Judge All the Creatures could minister nothing to their ease or safety when the great Creator was against them From their Apostacy we may derive all our miseries both the pains and sicknesses that afflict our Bodies and the fears and terrors that overwhelm our Souls Our Bodies are liable to a Thousand calamities that may be both long and sharp but how long and how sharp soever they be they do not altogether give us such a sensible and such lively grief as we have when we are under distresses of Conscience and when we are under a sense of the Wrath of God that is due to us for Sin There are many persons who endeavour by all the Rules of Art to give relief and help against the mischiefs that attend our Bodies but which after all their Art will go into the Grave and there are as many that by the Duty of their Office and the Character they bear are obliged to imitate their Saviour To preach good tidings to the meek and to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound Isa 61.1 But they are many times at a loss to know what Remedies to apply to these inward and spiritual Diseases and always unable to make their applications successful unless God himself by his Almighty Power Create Peace and turn that Chaos and those Confusions under which a poor troubled Soul is buried into the joy and light of day It pleases the Wife God that may make us serve to what uses he thinks most convenient for the good of the Universe and the welfare
of the Church to suffer some of his Servants to feel the bitterness of Sin and the terrors of his amazing-wrath to be overwhelm'd with the fear of Hell and to be for a long season even as in Hell it self that so when they are delivered they may warn those that are at ease that they beware of Sin lest it bring them also into a state so dreadful and so terrible and that from their own experience they may with tenderness and compassion strive more earnestly to assist and help those whose Consciences are in a flame and who are full of anguish and tribulation That when they are escaped out of the snare of the Fowler they may strive to disintangle those who are yet in trouble and being themselves cured of their horror and amazement they may lead their yet wounded brethren to that kind Physician to that laving Jesus with whose Blood their Wounds were cleansed and healed As to my self having been in Long affliction and great distress of Conscience for many Months and under a continued fear and apprehension of God's displeasure and being now through his inexpressible Grace not without some hope of his acceptance being delivered from violent and overwhelming sorrows I would most readily give all the advice and help I can to those that are yet mourning under desertions and complaining that God is departed from them and that he remembers them no more After the many waves and billows that went over me through the great goodness of God I now enjoy a calm and I pity and would fain help those who are yet labouring in the deep and for them peculiarly I write this Treatise in which tho' there be many things less exact than a Critical Reader may expect yet there are some in which I hope a distressed Soul may find relief The Method I intend to follow is this In this First Part 1. To shew what is meant by the Anger of God and whence it is that he is angry with his own Servants 2. What obligations we are under to Patience and Humility and several other Graces when we are under a sense of his displeasure 3. Whence it is that his Anger towards his own People is but for a short space CHAP. I. Of the Anger of God and whence it is that he is sometimes angry with his own Servants I. WE must know that the Infinite Majesty of Heaven is not subject to those unquiet passions to which our weak and frail nature is obnoxious he is not sometimes what he was not before he is always in himself the very same his Essence is unchangeable but he is pleased to stoop to our weakness and clothes his Intentions in words that may most suitably convey to our minds the knowledg of what he designs In his most pure and blessed nature there is a perpetual calm and tranquility nor does he suffer any of those commotions and disorders that are in angry men His Anger is his Resolution or his Will to punish his sinning-Creatures or sometimes it relates to the evils themselves which sinners endure as Pain and Fear and Sorrow and Wars and Famine and Pestilence and the like Calamities He is said to be pleased with us when we are obedient and when his face shines upon us in a comfortable and a gracious manner when he accepts our persons and our duties and refreshes our hearts with the reviving-hopes of Glory through Jesus Christ But he is then angry when he withdraws the chearful influences and quickning motions of his Holy Spirit also when we pray and he shuts out our Prayer and leaves our poor Souls to languish under despair or unbelief and when we find in our selves no spiritual and heavenly Life He may also be said to be Angry when he sends long and sore afflictions and distresses on our Bodies and our Souls and withholds his blessing from all the methods that are used with a design to give us help and when he proceeds to a terrible execution of his threats this Act of his is called Vengeance as in Psal 99.8 Thou wast a God that forgavest them though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions II. God is sometimes angry with his own people it is indeed Paternal castigatory wrath that he sends upon them but not destroying fury Thus he is said to be angry with Moses Aaron and Miriam and Psal 74.1 O God why hast thou cast us off for ever Why doth thine Anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture Thus Heman complains Psal 88.7 Thy wrath lieth hard upon me and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves And so the Church complains Lam. 1.12 ch 2.1 ch 3.1 The Reasons of this are such as these 1. Because their Sins are of a greater aggravation than the sins of others They sin against him when they have tasted of his Goodness when he has offered to them more clear Light more experience of his Love than to the rest of Men when he is wounded in the house of his Friends he will resent such Injuries and Affronts and they usually sin against more frequent Motions of his Holy Spirit and after they have engaged to be his they break their Vows and forget their Covenants they loyter in his Service when they have by the peace of their Souls and the hope of Heaven that he hath given them found his Work to be a reward and that he is a very good Master and shall he not visit for these things What fitter methods can he take than to lash them for their ingratitude and unbecoming Behaviour to so kind a Friend as he has been to them all along He is at more cost and charge with the Children of his Family than with others and if they disobey him they must feel his Displeasure and the smart of the Rod. You only have I known of all the Families of the earth therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities Amos 3.2 2. To warn others and to wipe off all Aspersions that might be cast upon his Holiness He is angry with his own to let the profane World see that he is no respecter of Persons and that Sin wherever it is shall not go unpunished He puts some into the fiery Furnace to let those that are at ease know what they have also deserved and what they may expect if they do not speedily Repent and turn Some Ages feel the weightier Blows of his Hand and are visited with severe Judgments to teach future Generations to be more careful to observe his Laws and to do his Will Deut. 29.22 24. The generation to come of the children that shall rise up after you and the stranger that shall come from a far land shall say when they see the plagues of the Land and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it c. even all nations shall say wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land What meaneth the heat of this great anger He lays some Countries desolate that their Desolations
more bitter and more violent and drawn out to a more formidable length but now because it is not so he hath visited in his anger yet he knoweth it not in great extremity Job 35.15 He has not stirr'd up all his wrath nor amaz'd us with all the Thunder of his Power let us not be like the Israelites Psal 106.7 who provoked him and remembred not the multitude of his Mercies 4. Consider that he uses no other methods with you when he is angry with you than what he has us'd with his dearest servants heretofore and this may tend to compose your Spirits under long and sore Tryals are you better than Moses than Job than Heman than David and Asaph and many other excellent and holy Men with whom he was displeased and who felt his Wrath though it was but for a moment Are we more dutiful and obedient than they were do we not merit the Chastisements of our Heavenly Father as much as they did yea and much more If we have the spirit and the priviledge of Children we ought not to murmur though we have our share in the discipline of the Family Would we have the Course of Providence inverted and changed for us Can we imagine that we shall be always spared when so many great Saints have smarted under the displeasure of God for their sin We are apt to think there is no sorrow like to our sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted us Lam. 1.12 but we do not wisely inquire in this matter for if we trace the steps of holy men of old we shall find that innumerable and very grievous Calamities were their portion as well as ours We have heard of the distresses and of the patience of Job of the pains of his Body and of the troubles of his Soul and when either our Bodies or our Souls are more afflicted than his was then it will be soon enough for us to begin to murmur and if we do it not till then we shall be as remarkable for our patience as he was Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing hapned to you 1 Pet. 4.12 1 Pet. 5.9 All these things are accomplished in your brethren which are in the world and this is duly to be thought upon for there is nothing of which Satan makes a greater use to perplex us in our hour of temptation than of the length and the sharpness of our trials as if therefore God were our Enemy because he does afflict or that we are no Children because we are afflicted so very long thus will the Evil Spirit suggest and say If thou wert a friend of God who is so compassionate and so flow to wrath would he follow thee with breach upon breach with one stroak after another and let his hand be heavy upon thee day and night He supports comforts and refreshes all his Servants but thou hast no refreshment nothing but anguish and vexation therefore thou art none of his but by Faith we must quench this fiery Dart and know that the fruit of our affliction may be very sweet though for the present 't is very bitter and that we are under the Conduct of that Wisdom which can order even this Cross for good and whatever mists that envious Spirit may raise before our eyes let us still remember that his anger is but for a moment that others whom we are sure he lov'd have undergone the like troubles and his own dear Son was still a Son when a man of sorrows and that his Afflictions were of a great length from the Manger to the Cross And if God will have us to be so far conformable to this blessed Person so that we have no rest from trial till we are quiet in the Grave we should not distrust his goodness nor murmur as it 5. Let us compare our present Sufferings and Afflictions with that Happiness which is to come His Anger is but for a moment but his love will be for ever He frowns for a moment but he will shew them his pleased Face for ever He corrects them and they weep for a moment but he will embrace them and they shall rejoice for ever Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning And do we not find our hearts begin to spring within us when we consider that we are in pain for a moment but we shall be at case for ever Is not this good news to those that fear God and yet are afflicted Lift up your heads ye Mourners ye Prisoners of hope 't is but for a little season Let not your hearts faint I know you will say Oh I could bear any thing but the wrath of God he is angry with my Soul he denies an answer to my Prayers he speaks not to me one comfortable word I look up to his Heavens and they are as Brass I run to his Ordinances and hear his Word in the Assemblies of his People but whilst others are wet with the dew of Heaven I remain dry and neglected as I was I seem to be as the mountains of Gilboa there is no dew nor rain falls upon me I seem to be under the Curse of God and because I have formerly not improv'd the means of Grace he seems to say of me as of the barren Figtree never let fruit grow upon thee more and can you tell me whither I shall go and what I shall do in such a case as this You must still in humble submission wait upon the Lord he stays from your present help upon a very gracious Design He bottles your tears and is acquainted with your griefs and that anger that now bows you to the ground shall in a little while be removed and your faith and your hope will not be in vain There are thousands of Joys prepared to meet you when you are a little more purified and prepared for them Isa 54. 7,8 For a small moment have I forsaken thee but with great mercies will I gather thee In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer Nothing can be less than a moment 't is the least part of time and yet so small a thing as that is are all our troubles here to that endless Eternity which is to come So if your outward afflictions and your spiritual fears should last for Life as none can give you assurance to the contrary yet all this Life is but as a moment as nothing to that state of Blessedness that comes afterward Nor are the degrees of your sorrows here proportionable to the degrees of your approaching glory For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 This great Apostle calls his afflictions very light and yet there was never any that suffered more troubles from the malice of the world
looked for some to take pity but there was none and for comforters but I found none they gave me also gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink Psal 69.20 Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt of the proud Ps 123.4 But above all abhor the thought of the least inward delight from their miseries Obad. 12. Thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger neither should'st thou have rejoyced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction neither shouldst thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress Job 19.28 Ye should say why persecute we him seeing the root of the matter is in him Roughness and severity is not the way to help such as are troubled and cast down and he had need be learned that speaks a word in season to the weary Isa 50.4 The rarity of such a one is expressed Job 33.23 If there be an Interpreter one among a thousand to shew unto man his uprightness Those that under the Characters of Ambassadors of the Gospel of Peace do nothing but thunder out the Law to a wounded and a troubled Soul shew they are unlike to the Jesus whom they would seem to represent and they shew that they have in such matters very little skill and no experience at all neither do such do as they would be done by in the like case There is a sort of balsome in compassionate and gentle words tho' they do not fully perform a Cure upon our wounds yet they make the pain and the smart less whereas a rough and sour carriage does exasperate and heighten them and is but the pouring of oyl into the flame CHAP. VII Shewing what is to be done by those that think God is angry with them And first of Prayer as a principal help against their trouble And some Objections of tempted persons answered I Am now to make application to those who are under an apprehension of God's Anger There are no people in the World whose case does require a greater pity and to whose relief we should be more forward to contribute all that we are able While we are at liberty their poor Souls are under the bondage of an overwhelming fear That God whom we serve with hope is terrible to them in those Ordinances and that Sabbath which yield sweetness and refreshment to us they find no delight because the Comforter that should uphold their Souls is departed from them if on a journey we saw any person wounded and mourning under his bleeding wounds and crying out for help the compassion that is fixed in humane Nature would move us to assist him and not to pass by and suffer him to groan under the smart of so deplorable a condition and much more should we be ready to help our fellow creatures in a Case that is far more sad and dreadful such as is this now before us There are a great many at this very time who are complaining that they have no hope no prospect of deliverance from their present miseries and afflictions that tell us They are cast off by God that he has forsaken them that their Sins are set in order before them and that they are afraid the God whom they once thought their own God will be favourable no more Oh! how little do we know what we do when we sin It is easie for a moment it yields us a little uperticial transient delight but it leaves a woful sting and a lasting bitterness behind Oh! what would such poor creatures give that they had never sinned or that they had never finned so wilfully so frequently against that God whom they once experienced to be very good and gracious but whom they now find to be very severe and very terrible They cannot look below but they think that Hell is opening its mouth to swallow them up they cannot look above but they see the great Creator of Heaven and Earth to be as an Enemy to them And who can stand before thoughts so cutting and overwhelming as these are Now this being a condition which I was in my self not long ago and from which the Mighty Grace of God has been pleased to save me I desire to give all the help I can to such dejected and trembling Souls and none among us but perhaps may at one time or other fall into such depths as these therefore I hope the following directions may be of some use or other I beg of you that are at ease now to regard these things for if you fall so low the anguish and bitterness of your spirits will nor allow you to give such a distinct and careful attention to what shall be spoken to you then as you now may First If you are under the sense of God's Anger for your sin pray earnestly to him to turn his Wrath away We usually deprecate War and Famine and the Plague and those other mischiefs which by the evils they bring upon our bodies are very formidable to us but this sense of the Divine Displeasure has something in it that is more formidable for it brings an unspeakable load of trouble on the Soul and wounds that part of our selves which is capable of having either a very pure and noble joy or a very piercing grief and sadness A man that is sunk under a burthen that is too heavy for him to bear cannot but groan to be at ease Thus Psal 6.1 2 3. O Lord rebuke me not in thy wrath neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weak O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed My soul is also sore vexed but thou O Lord how long Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake These are the breathings of one sensible of a great and a violent distress and tell us that even our weakness and our helpless condition is an argument that we may plead with God As here Have mercy upon me for I am weak q. d. Thy Goodness thy Glory and Power will be rendred more illustrious in giving some relief to one so desolate and lo low as I am But I know what poor trembling Souls will be ready to reply and Object 1. Alas I cannot pray the Spirit that should warm my Soul and kindle my Desires does not move upon me as he used to do I grieved and vexed him heretofore and now he has left me to grieve and to vex alone I am so troubled that I know not what to speak and when I endeavour to do it I find no Fervour no Life at all my Prayers are grown very troublesome and uneasie to me Answ I grant you this is a case sad enough it is sad for creatures so miserable and so full of wants as we are not to be able to pour out our Supplications before the Lord and it is more sad when
our sins have made the Spirit that only can teach us how to pray to retire but there are some Considerations that may support us even in so sad a case as this 1. Our Distress teaches us the Folly of our Sin and causes us to hate that which has cost us so very dear and it is well for us that we see the odiousness of it tho it be smart and pain that opens our eyes 'T is better to be wounded in order to a cure than to dye at ease and so to perish for evermore 2. The Spirit is not so withdrawn but that he will return upon our-earnest addresses for his Grace He hovers still about us and tho we did ill to shut him out before yet this blessed Guest does but wait for a favourable opportunity to do us good again He is not quite gone that sense which we have of Sin is his own work 3. Our indisposition to the Duty of Prayer is no sign that we are void of Life A bed-rid Person lives as well as one that is in his firm and pleasant Health a groan is a sign of Life as well as laughter and a merry Song It is very undesirable indeed to have such a feeble and decaying life but the way to make it more strong is to keep our Souls in exercise and the weak and creeping motion wherewith we stirred at first being continued will enable us to tread with a more steady foot and we shall get several Paces further in a very little while By praying tho it be in a very poor manner we shall learn to pray Tho we do but sigh after God yet even a sigh may a little ease us and by frequent use be turned into a loud and prevailing Cry God is still your Creator and he that hears the Ravens and the young Lions when they roar for meat will not be deaf to you 4. 'T is a more excellent state of Soul to pray to God and to persevere in it when you have no Comfort than when you have Sensible Consolation is a very desirable thing 'T is as the Dew of Heaven as Manna coming thence like Honey or the Honey-Comb very pleasant to the taste But a Dependance and Trust in God when he is a withdrawing-God is one of the most glorious Acts of Faith and if it be not treated with Feasts and splendid Entertainments here I can assure you nay God himself has assur'd you That it shall fare very well in the next world Sensible Consolation may be in the inferior nature as the Mystical People call it it may be occasioned by the Temper of the Body by the Harmony of the Passions or the agreeable Dispositions of the Natural Spirits but those other less pleasant acts are seated in the highest Region of the Soul in the Understanding and the Will and upon that account are more truly Spiritual and more abiding 5. Those poor troubled people that complain of their deadness and incapacity to manage the Duty of Prayer ought to consider what an influence their fears have had upon their bodies fear does naturally contract and dull the heart the motions of it are weak and languid despairing thoughts and apprehensions about our Everlasting State dry up our moisture and by cutting off our hopes make every thing that was pleasant to us to wither away and 't is a very hard matter for the Soul to retain its heat and warmth when its dear Companion the body does not assist it as it used to do when the Spirits with which it serves it self in so many several actions are stagnated into a feeble and almost undiscerned motion Some great Saints there have been who by a sort of Holy Anteperistasis have glowed in their hearts with a quicker Flame to God when all has been cold and storm round about them Some there have been who have never had more inward Health than when their outward man decayed and whose souls seem'd manifestly to thrive when their bodies were mouldring away but generally speaking the Neighbourhood or the nearness of a sickly body proves a great clog and hindrance to the mind and there is no question but God will make allowances for our weakness and the groaning after him by one under the power of a Disease may be as grateful to him as a long continued Prayer by one in Heath Pray therefore to God tho it be with heaviness tho it be mingled with many a bitter sigh yet it will be a payment of that homage which you owe to God and you know not how soon you may meet with a gracious return You may kneel down in sorrow and he may lift you up with Joy and say Be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee And I know that would be very welcome and pleasant news to you the news of a Kingdom to be your own would not be half so refreshing Obj. 2. It is not for me to pray I am Sinner enough already God knows and would you have me aggravate my Guilt for I have wandring Thoughts and an unbelieving heart I am a wicked person and the prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord Prov. 28.9 And therefore to what purpose should I pray If any man indeed break with contempt the Laws of God and then think to make satisfaction by his Prayers and an outward or a pompous Devotion he offers an affront to the All-knowing God and his holy Eye cannot look upon an Action so criminal without the greatest disdain and scorn If a man will Swear and Curse and Damn himself with one breath and then desire God to bless him with the next this would be a ridiculous Pretence to Religion and such are like to find severe Punishment from that God whom they abuse with so shameless a Confidence and of whom they speak with so little Reverence If a man should desire of God to help him to rob to plunder or to wrong his Neighbours this were as far as he could to make the Holy One of Israel a partner in his Crimes If a man should kill another unjustly and glut himself with Revenge and then as some have exprest it say Grace over his bloody Banquet this were to commit a double Wickedness It was an abominable thing when so many harmless Protestants were so barbarously Butcher'd in France to sing Te Deum at Rome for the Massacring so many poor Creatures as if the God of Mercy had been Cruel as well as they as if the Rage that came from Hell had descended from the God of Love As if a man that lives at the Prince's Charge and is maintained at his Table should break the most Venerable Laws of his Kingdom and then thank the Prince for giving him a power to do that which he knows he detests and hates There is no question but it is the Duty of a wicked man to pray to God I suppose there is none thinks Simon Magus a very good man and yet he was exhorted
even when he was in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity to pray if perhaps the thoughts of his heart might be forgiven him Acts 8.22 If you think your selves wicked there is nothing more your Duty than to beg the Grace of God to strive to knock to call upon him whilst he may be found but beware that you do not think that some failings even in some considerable Duties are a sign of your total Apostacy Unbelief is in the best but not indeed in its reigning Power Strive as much as you can and then bewall your weakness and implore the help of God and he will be favourable to you Obj. 3. 'T is true I know 't is my Duty to pray and I have prayed for several Months and for several Years and I have still the same Diseases and the same Fears that I ever had I have no less pain in my Body no less disquietness in my Soul than I had the first moment that I began to pray He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out he hath made my chain heavy also when I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayer Lam. 3.8 I am just like Saul when he enquired of the Lord 1 Sam. 28.6 The Lord answered him not neither by dreams nor by Vrim nor by Prophets He would have no Communication with him take no notice of what he did Even in such a case am I I enquire after him in his Ordinances but have no news of his Gracious Presence there In Tears I pour out my Soul day and night and pray but my Prayers that I send up to Heaven bring to my poor weary Soul no tidings of Comfort or of Peace back again mine eyes fail with looking up my heart faints and I can hold out no longer in a Duty wherein I find no delight and which brings me no advantage why should I wait upon the Lord any longer Answ This I think to be one of the greatest Temptations wherewith Satan does assault troubled Souls He knows well that if they once quit their hold of God they fall into his hands they lengthen out his Chain and whet his Malice and come within his reach And there is no Duty which the Devil hates more than Prayer for it has many a time defeated his Designs and made his Kingdom shake Therefore I earnestly desire you as you love your Souls as you would not dishonour God nor gratify the Devil that you would never give it over tho you do but chatter like a Crane yet 't is better than to be altogether silent tho you do but mourn after God 't is better than to resolve to let him go Tho you can but say Lord he Merciful to me a sinner Tho you can but smite upon your breast and look up to Heaven tho you can but creep in his ways 't is better than to leave them tho you can but speak a word or two in Prayer 't is much better than not to pray at all Oh what a terrible thing is it to leave calling upon God to give our selves for lost to say it is vain when nothing is too hard to do for Almighty Power and for Infinite Goodness and woe unto us when we quit the Rock of Ages and commit our selves unto the Waves what sorrows do we then meet withal and how low do we sink How intolerable is it to have the rebukes of our Conscience the upbraidings of Satan the guilt of Sin the fear of Hell and to have no God to whom we can go with hope do not suffer the greatness of your Evils to deprive you of that support which is to be found in the performance of this Duty tho you have not a present answer to what you desire yet it no way follows that your Prayers are not heard God knows better than you what will be the most proper season in which to bestow the Mercy that you think to be most necessary His delays in this kind are no sign of his abhorrence He may suffer us to fall into very great Agonies that so like our Lord in the Garden we may pray more earnestly and our Request are not vain tho we have no dawnings of a near and immediate deliverance The Prayers of the Primitive Church for Kings and all in Authority were answered many years afterwards when Constantine was converted to the Faith Beware of fainting under the hand of God and yet when we can look upon him only as an Enemy 't is almost impossible not to faint Under smart and sore troubles we must frequently look up to God and beg his strength and seeing in such a case we cannot perform any long or very regular duties we must often renew tho it be the very same desires Psal 142.4 5. Epb. 6.18 And to this purpose consider 1. There is none besides God himself can help you and this should cause you to persevere in Prayer His hand alone can heal the Wounds 'T is common for the troubled Soul to say Oh what would I give for one Beam of Hope I would give all the world if I had it for one pleasant Sight of the Face of God It is not so to be obtained not by bare wishes nor by the purchase of any thing that is so low and contemptible as is all that which is in the world When the Heavens are brass none can cause the Rain to fall when the Sun is set not all the artificial Fires which the skill of man can make will yield so large and so pleasant a light unto this Earth as he did his return chases the darkness and brings to us the welcome day In a distrust of your own weakness have recourse to this God and say with David Psal 51.12 17. It must be the Act of a Power that is Omnipotent to give you comfort not all the Angels in Heaven nor all the men on earth can help you unless he be pleased to do it As you contribute nothing to your first Regeneration as the thing created does nothing to bring it self into Being only receives from the Creator's Power and Goodness what he is pleased to give expect not overmuch from the most knowing Ministers or from your dearest friends they are but Cisterns which can yield no water to quench your thirst unless they be filled with Water by the Clouds of Heaven As to the satisfaction and the quiet of a Troubled soul all men are vanity and it is an uncommunicable Prerogative of the Divine Nature certainly and infallibly to relieve the miserable Isa 57.19 Other friends either know not your wants or by their own Poverty or their distance are not in a capacity to supply them But God is always near always full of Goodness and is acquainted with whatsoever we need or do expect If all the world were your Friends and he your Enemy the Gaiety of their Looks the Pleasure of their Smiles would not take away the Terror of his Frowns the threatning Cloud would
221. and were not Forgiveness in God somewhat beyond what men could imagine no flesh could be saved Isa 55.88 My thoughts are not your thoughts neither are my ways your ways saith the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts It is not the manner of men to pass by multiplied Transgressions as he doth The consideration of his Infinite Mercy removes all those obstructions which our unbelief viewing the greatness and aggravations of our sins throws in the way and tho our sins have been every way inexcusable and do upon every reflection that we make upon them fright and trouble us yet the Mercy of a God surely will yield us some relief for there is no other reason why he does good to this or that sinner but his own Grace Hos 3.4 He freely chuses justifies adopts and renews the Souls of his Elect 't is all not from their merit or from any thing that he foresaw in them but from the good pleasure of his will Eph. 1.5 All that he does for them all that he will do for them to Eternity will be to the praise and glory of his own grace This is the true way to humble us when we see nothing in our selves but what exposes us to misery and that is true Gospel Obedience which is the fruit and product of his Love shed abroad in our hearts This is the only Rock whereon we are to build our Comfort when the Storm comes This Free Grace of God is that which the Saints admire on earth which revives their drooping spirits and which they will wonder at for ever 'T is a shelter from the accusations and the malicious insultings of the Devil for tho he set our sins with all their overwhelming circumstances before us tho we cannot deny the charge and believe that we are miserable in our seves yet do we resolve to flye to the Mercy and the Love of God in Christ We should disparage the Excellencies of his Nature and the Offers of his Goodness if we did not lay hold upon them And this is that which some call a natural Novatianism in the timerous Consciences of Convinced Sinners whereby they doubt and question pardon for Sins of Apostacy and falling after Repentance IX Beware of running into further sin and so to provoke God to further Anger When our Hope is perished there is nothing so evil which we shall not dare to do If help do not speedily come we are apt to say it is in vain to pray it is vain to look up to a God that has thrown us of Jer. 2.25 Thou saidst There is no hope no for I have loved strangers and after them will I go You are lost for ever will the Devil say and therefore it is all one whether you sin or not you can but still be loft this is one of his fiery darts and if by our compliance we suffer it to take hold upon us it will terrifie us the more he will rejoice at our fall and put our Souls by every new Transgression into much more violent and scorching Flames What monstrous Injections what unbecoming Thoughts of God does he suggest and alas how frequently do we entertain them for they come thick upon us In the time of God's displeasure when the edge of his Holy Spiritual Law does wound our Souls what vast multitudes of Corruptions do we then discover that we never saw before How do our old Sins amaze us and new ones arise and spring from them And what can we do in the swelling of Jordan What in so great an inundation but endeavour in our poor feeble manner to look up to Christ for help Beg the Spirit for as one says There is no heart so unclean which this Spirit will not cleanse no soul so feeble which he does not fortifie none so forrowful which he does not comfort none so desolate which he does not cause to rejoice none so slavish which he does not set at liberty none so sick which he does not heal none so dead which he does not quicken Surely he will regard us for he knows that of our selves we cannot bear up against the Winds and Waves And let us always remember That among so many cruel Enemies 't is Unbelief that leads the Van It encourages and draws them on and when we have got the Victory over this all the rest will be daunted and run away By Unbelief we open our hearts and let in all those Thieves and Robbers which deprive us of our Peace It is the defilement of our Consciences by manifold acts of sin that makes us like the troubled Sea which cannot rest And for a Conscience guilty of many neglects to lay claim to God's Mercy is to do as we see Mountebanks sometimes do who wound their Flesh to try Conclusions on their own Bodies how sovereign the Salve is yet often they come to feel the smart of their own Presumption by long and desperate Wounds Let us in the case even of sore Afflictions be afraid to sin Sibbs Souls Conflict p. 31. for that Devil that tempts us will immediately vex and torment us the more for it X. Mistake not those things for evidences of the certain Wrath of God which perhaps are not really so He may suspend the expressions of his Love tho he love us still as Joseph had the tenderness of a Brother whilst his Brethren thought him very angry with them Nay in our secret supports we are not destitute altogether of his care tho we know not how they come As the Metals that lye deep in the ground partake of the Influence of the Sun tho he does not shine upon them with his Light There are few Afflictions but have rather the marks of a Fatherly Kindness in the seasonable Correction of our Faults than the Marks of Displeasure No outward losses no inward troubles that are but for a time are the certain signs of Wrath no tho they be very long and very grievous for it was not so in the case of Job But how shall I know will some say when Afflictions are in wrath It is a question to be answered with great tenderness and caution They are by Divines said to be so 1. When they come with great Violence and suddenly destroy as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah and in the Deluge Psal 58.9 Before your pots can feel the thorns he shall take them away as with a whirlwind both living and in his wrath Nahum 1.9 He will make an utter end affliction shall not rise up the second time And yet this must have some limitations for a good man may be seized with a violent Disease and suddenly dye of whom we ought not to say that he died by the Wrath of God 2. When there is no Mercy discernable in the Cross but only what is evil 3. When one Evil makes way for another and none are sanctified 4.
and to throw my self at his feet whom I have provoked in the submissive terms of the poor Prodigal saying Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son And not because I have once wandred still to wander in a strange Countrey far from my proper home Our grief for sin is too great when it causes us totally to despair to give our selves over as hopeless and lost for ever This we never ought to do we weep too much when we cannot see the Goodness and the Mercy of God as well as his Justice and Severity When we think that it is good to him that he should oppress and crush the works of his own hands and when we judge him to be Tyrannical and Cruel as if he intended nothing but our Ruin and when we peremptorily say that he will not hear our Prayers nor shew us any Favour When we have no suitable thoughts of his Amiable Nature his Covenant and his Promise When by the Painfulness of the Rod we call in question all that he has ever done for us and when because he frowns we say he has thrown us off When because he delays his help we say that he will be gracious and favourable no more for ever When we charge him foolishly and either deny his Providence or blame his Conduct because he uses not so gentle a method towards us as we would have him to take or when from our distress we make desperate Conclusions of him or of our selves And most of all when seeing that others whom we reckon as great sinners as our selves to be in health and peace whilst we groan and languish we are apt to say Psal 73 11. We have cleansed our hearts in vain That it is a vain thing to be Religious to fear such a God who suffers his Servants to be so very much afflicted and with such sort of sorrows that are more spiritual and consequently more bitter than the rest of the world is acquainted withal 3. We are then too much troubled for our sins when that trouble does not only indispose us for duty for if it be attended with pain and trouble if will be apt so to do but when it â—â—â—kes us altogether to omit our duty that we owe to God when our sorrows damp our affections which are the wings of our souls to carry us up to God When it causes us to mind nothing else but what is sad and grievous When our sorrow swells to so great a height that it covers with its imperious Waves all the foundations and grounds of Peace and Comfort it was not so as some have observed with our Blessed Lord for when he was upon the Cross he was in extreme in a mighty pain and violent agonies and yet did not these take away from him his care for his Mother So the Good Thief in the midst of his pangs laboured to gain his fellow and to save his own soul and to glorify Christ These were indeed extraordinary instances for our sickness may be such that all that we can perform to God is a quiet submission to his will and a desire of the Prayers of others thus our forrows for sin are excessive when they make us to give over Prayer or Hearing or the like Duties when they unstring our Harps and dull our Traises and make us unfit for our Calling 4. When our sorrow puts us upon indirect means for relief when we put that trust in men that should be placed in God when we expect that Cure from them which he alone is able to give when we seek it in vain Company in Recreations or the things of this World but if our fense of God's displeasure be very great we soon know that all these things are of no value XIII Call to mind those experiences that you have heretofore had of the goodness of God remember the years of the right hand of the most High you are now fearing his Wrath But can you not remember the time when his Love was your dayly solace and delight You are now complaining that he does not hear your cry But how many Prayers has he sent back with a gracious answer How many times have you laid at his feet in humiliation and tears and his hand has wiped your tears away How many times when you have been fainting has his Word revived your poor troubled souls And tho' his Word be now bitter to your taste and fill you with Gall and Wormwood yet it is still able to revive you Those places of Scripture that heretofore revived you are still able to refresh you those breasts are still as full of consolation as they ever were but only you are for the present under a decay of spirits and have lost your appetite that you cannot draw that consolation thence as you used to do Do not forget the many Mercies of your Infancy your Childhood your Youth and your Riper Age how seasonable how unexpected how necessary have your Mercies been both for your bodies and your souls and tho' I know it is your abuse of them that grieves and troubles you yet remember that he that once forgave you can forgive you still and that he that did you once so much good is still able to do you good Judg. 13.23 If the Lord had meant to destroy us he would not have received a sacrifice at our hands nor have done all this for us Shall we distrust shall we forsake shall we limit a God that has been heretofore so very mericful and so gracious And tho it is very true that it is no comfort to a poor man to think that he was once rich or to a sick man to think that he was once in health for the bitterness of his present evils takes away the relish of his former comforts and when a Man has lost God in his terrible apprehensions it makes it to be more intollerable than if he had never enjoyed him yet the having once had Communion with him by his Grace and by his Spirit may give us some reason to hope that the root of the matter is in us and that God will cause it to bud and spring forth again tho' it now lye under water and be covered with many storms and tribulations And I may add also with many sins and corruptions with which we were not troubled before XIV Remember that God will not judge you according to what you are in such a woful distemper as that of Melancholly but it will go with you as you were in the time of your health This is highly necessary to be considered for many good people when they are under the disease of Melancholly which can no more be prevented than a Consumption or a Fever they are very apt to express themselves after this or the like manner I thought I had once been serious but now I see that all was a deceit I see that I heard and prayed and received
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
must lead them to my Physician and tell them the nature of my cure when others are fallen into the Pit out of which we are newly got let us strive to draw them up Let us put on bowels of compassion let us patiently hear what they say and not rebuke them for complaining let us not be weary of their discourse because it 's doleful and troublesome let us not smile at that which makes them weep nor simply call that fancy which is the anguish and trouble of their Souls Let us remember all that speech and that usage that made us worse when we were ill and avoid all such to them Let us remember what it was that gave us some support and let us minister the same to them When any of our Friends are very sick if we know any Cordial any Receipt that has been beneficial to us under the like case we make all the speed we can to fetch it and we cannot see them faint without finding at the same time a very sensible commotion in our own hearts no outward Affliction though never so painful is so terrible as these spiritual Troubles are let us therefore be more affectionately concerned for such distressed Persons than for any other when we see the Anger of God beginning to kindle in their Consciences Let us use all the methods that are most like to quench the beginning flame For as God commanded the Israelites to be kind to strangers because they themselves were such in the Land of Egypt So let us be very kind and pitiful to all that are in distress we having been so our selves Let us take all opportunities to visit to exhort to direct them Let us wrastle with the God of Jacob in their behalf let them see that we sympathize most heartily with them and that though the Grace of God has wiped our tears away yet we can still weep with them that weep Let us take all the ways we can to make them believe we are afflicted with their affliction and sincerely concerned for the sadness of their Case and by this means they will more ruminate on what we say and regard the more what we tell them that have been once as they now are then they will regard others that may speak well indeed but not from their own Experience If a man were in a bodily Disease he would rather have recourse to a Physician that had been himself lately cured of it than to any other that can talk it may be more learnedly about it but knows not by information or study half so much as he that feels it the knowledge of the one is but speculative but the other's is more distinct and practical and he knows how to make suitable applications to his Patient from the remembrance of what he felt in his own Body Heb. 2.17 18. 2 Cor. 1.6 Secondly God continues the sense of his wrath very long upon the Souls of his People that they may learn to pity wicked men and instruct them in the way of happiness Psal 51.11 12 13. that they may teach them by their words their serious Exhortations and their faithful Reproofs by their holy Conversation and by their every action that they go about there are many Lessons that we our selves are not taught but by the rod and the frowns of an Angry God by a very smarting and severe discipline we see not till after a long teaching the real evil of Sin and the true worth of Christ to the knowledge of which when we are once arrived we must communicate some measures of it to others though the misery is the most will scarce believe our Report till they themselves come to feel what we have felt He that is escaped by the mercy of God out of long trouble of Conscience can thus say to Sinners I have dearly paid for all the delight that I once had in sin for all my indifference and lukewarmness my cold and sluggish Prayers my lost and misimproved time beware that you do not provoke him for he is a jealous God for if you do you shall also find that those Sins which you make a slight matter of will tear you to pieces hereafter you will find them when your Consciences are awakened to be an heavy and intolerable burthen they will press you down to Hell it self I could not have thought that the displeasure of God had been a thing so bitter and so very dreadful It is a tertible thing to fall into the hands of the living God for he is a consuming fire if his Anger be kindled but a little you cannot then fix your minds upon any pleasant Objects nor have one easie Thought you cannot then go about your business your Trades or your secular Affairs for your Souls will be so much amazed that you will be full of horror and consternation Those of us that have felt the terrors of the Lord do most earnestly persuade you to forsake every Sin for if you indulge and love your Iniquities they will set you on fire round about Oh that you did but know what you do when you sin you are opposing that Authority that will avenge it self of all its obstinate opposers you are heaping up fuel for your own destruction you are whetting that Sword that will enter into your Bowels you are preparing your selves for bitterness and trouble and though God is patient for a while yet he will not always be so the shadows of the night are drawing on and the doleful time will come when all your mirth will end in tears and all your false confidence and your foolish hopes will expire and give up the Ghost And which of you will live when God shall enter into Judgment with you VVhat will you do VVhere will you go for help when he that is your Maker he that has weighed your actions and observed your wandrings shall call you to give an account of all these things If our blessed Lord when he came near Jerusalem lift up his voice and wept saying O that thou hadst known even now in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace What cause have we to mourn over our fellow-creatures whom we see to be in danger of misery and alas they know it not Can we see them sleeping on the very edge of ruine and not be greatly troubled for them Oh poor sinners you are now sleeping but the Judge is at the door you are rolling the pleasant morsel under your tongue but it will be great vexation to you in the latter end How can you rest how can you be quiet when you have none of your sins pardoned no comfortable relation to God! no well-grounded hope of Heaven How can you with any assurance go about those things that concern your buying your selling and the present Life when your poor souls that are of a thousand times more value are neglected all the while We have felt great terrors inexpressible sorrows from an angry God and we
the Spices to flow forth he excites and quickens our Graces when they begin to languish and when we are lukewarm and cold he makes us to be lively and fervent in the performance of our holy Duties for as one says what the Soul is to the Body to move it to natural things to breathe to eat to walk and the like the same is the Spirit of God in our Souls to move us to spiritual actions as the fear of God love to him and trust in him and all the works of Righteousness Charity Humility Patience and Sobriety that are the motions of the new creature so that we may say of this Spirit that he is the Soul of our Souls and take away this Spirit and the Soul resembles a dead Body it has no zeal for God no compunction no tenderness When we are disconsolate one kind look from God makes us to be of good chear When our hearts are benumb'd and our Eyes are dry he melts them into tears with his Love When we are unfruitful he sends his Dew upon our branches that makes us to flourish in his Courts and to look fresh and green and when we are under Spiritual decays he causes us to thrive when we backslide he heals our backslidings he brings us through the great Mediator into a nearness to and acquaintance with himself For as far as we are distant from him so far are we removed from true and real Life When we wander he recals us he sends us fresh influences and establishes our goings when our motions are like those of a wounded body very faint and tottering 3. Eternal Life is in his favour Hence it is said That Eternal life is the gift of God Rom. 6.23 Psal 16.11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence it fulness of joy at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore It is there that they are said to see God for the sight of his face is that which makes it to be such a glorious and delightful place His Wrath is that which kindles Hell the withholding of his Favour makes it to be such a dark and gloomy Dungeon and the clear manifestation of it does make all the Glories of the Coelestial Paradise And therefore Jacob when he had a Vision of God's Favour to him said This place is no other than the gate of Heaven Gen. 29.17 Frame not to your selves a gross and a material Happiness 't is all in the Love and Favour of God To see him fills all the Souls above with ineffable delight to be deprived of this blessed privilege fills all the Souls in misery with Mourning and Lamentation To his Saints God will be all in all his Communications will be entire and full there Lettres de Monsieur Claude p. 10. †As the Creatures are of divers orders every one receives its portion of Divine Favour different from that of others He communicates himself otherwise to the Heavens than to the Earth otherwise to an Angel than to a Man The Earth hath an Image of his firmness the Sun hath an image of his beauty the Heaven an image of his immensity and so in others but there is no Creature that has assembled in it self all the beams of the Communications of God It shall be otherwise in Paradise God shall be all things in the Saints and they shall be filled with his Favour And as he further says God is not so all in all in the Faithful here the troubles of our Conscience the weakness of our Faith the languors of our Devotion the shadows of our Knowledge our Sins our Miseries our Sickness and our Death are the fruits of the Fall and of the Malice of the Devil But in that Felicity there shall be nothing of US in us nothing of the Impression of the Devil All shall be of God our Shadows shall be swallowed up by his Light and our Weakness by his power It is a state of Glory and Glory is a mixture of all the Blessings of God in a degree Sovereignly perfect That Country that is above is indeed the Land of the Living they Live and shall never Dye But this Earth is a Region and a place of Death For beside that which is Natural the most part of men are dead in Sin and truly even those that are alive have but a weak and a fainting Life There it is that that the Saints shall be admirers of the Grace and Favour of God That after various difficulties and innumerable temptations and overwhelming fears did at last bring them to that happy Place For the poor trembling Saint that thought himself cast off and forsaken of God to find himself in his Arms in his Presence in his Heaven how great will his joy and praise be How will he ascribe all his life there to the meer Favour and Grace of God that shall set him at liberty when by his many Sins he had deserved to be bound in Eternal Chains That shall cause him to sing Hallelujahs when others weep and wail for ever How will he admire that Grace that has placed him in Heaven when so many others are in Hell And the more admire when he shall consider that this distinction of States was freely made That that Crown which will adorn his Head was freely given How will every look on God fill his Soul with a wondring Joy because he freely gave his Son How will every view of Christ encrease his wonder When he shall consider that he freely undertook the kind work of his Redemption that he freely shed his Blood and paid the debt which the Sinner himself could never pay and that he freely gave the Spirit and offered that Salvation upon easy terms without money and without price which cost him very dear All the Saints above will continually adore the Riches of his Grace that admitted them to Glory when they deserved to be shut out as well as others That they were deformed till he put his comeliness upon them That they were liable to Death till he justified them and polluted in their Natures till he renewed them and dying till he made them to live That they learned nothing but what he taught them had nothing but what he gave them did nothing but what he enabled them to do So that all must be wonderful in their Eyes from the beginning of God's design for their Salvation to the conclusion of it And when it is all finished they must with loud Praises sing Grace Grace By Grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the Gift of God Eph. 2.8 First No common Mercy yields any Comfort without the Favour and Love of God His loving-kindness is better than life Psal 63.3 If a man have all that he can wish every thing that is splendid and delightful every thing that may please his Eye or gratify his Appetite if he have not this with the Love of God he is a Miserable man For this will mingle
Wormwood and Gall with all his Entertainments to think the God is his Enemy that these common Blessings may conclude in Hell and that by all that he Eats and all that he Drinks he may be but Fatting for the day of Slaughter Whilst he is allowing himself in all the Carnal gratifications by a little consideration he may discern a Two-edged Sword that hangs over his head and see a Gulph below that is ready to swallow him and devour all his hopes and joys and that all his comforts depend upon the slender thread of Life and that here is but a shall partition between him and Everlasting Burnings How does this fill him with Amazement and Consternation With Fear and Horror And whilst he is most Jovial he may see a dreadful Hand writing on the Wall that may make his Knees of smite one against another and overthrow all his mirth and pleasure Alas What does it signify to a man if all the World smile upon him if he be under the Wrath and the Frowns of God They cannot shelter him from the coming storm nor screen him from the Consuming Fire What a small satisfaction is it to a Condemned Malefactor that the partakers of his Wickedness applaud and caress him when his Execution draws near and the day of his Death will put an end to all his Hopes What Peace can a Sinner have who has the Lord of Hosts against him How can he lye down with Comfort when he knows not but he may awake in Flames With what ease can he look upon any thing he enjoys when he knows not but the next moment he himself may be destroyed and lost for evermore And that his next remove may be to the Grave and to a place full of Torment What Comfort can he find from loud laughters from cheerful Company from vain Sports when it may be the next moment he may be in a place where there is weeping and wailling and gnashing of teeth Without the Favour of God and that is in the World all its Promises all its Pleasures all its Friendships all its Entertainments are meer Vanity and Vexation of Spirit If a man fare deliciously every day if he drink of the most sparkling VVine if he procure all the Spices of the East and all the Riches of the VVest those will not keep his heart from Sorrows nor these secure him from the Wrath to come These things are very grateful whilst he is embodied whilst he can Hear and Smell and Tast But what shall a man that is a stranger to God do when he is turned into a Spirit VVhat shall an Immortal Soul do when all these Corporal goods are past away VVhere will be his provision VVhat will be his entertainment when he is lodged in the Eternal world VVhen he shall no more hear the Musick that once charmd and gratified his Sense when he shall no more see those Beauties that he once admired and doted on How must his Soul that pursued nothing but a Temporal and a Carnal Happiness in that State of Separation be filled with Uneasiness and Regret with Anguish and Despair to see it self stript of all its ancient Comforts and to have nothing remaining that is Comfortable To be full of flaming desires and to have nothing wherewith to quench the raging Flame All that is present without the Favour of God is but like Grass upon the House tops it flatters us with a false opinion of its high station it looks fair and green but the mower has not wherewith to fill his hand it quickly fades and withers away but with God is the Fountain of Life Psal 36.9 a Fountain that supplies us with vital streams and ceases not to refresh till it mingle with the River of delight that makes glad the City of God Psal 46.4 The glories of this World are soon covered with night and darkness but he is a Sun that ever shines and from whence issues nothing but cheering and reviving Light Hence a little that a righteous man hath it better than the Revenue of many Wicked Prov. 15.16 Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith His little is given him with a Blessing and their multitude of things attended with a Curse His Temporal Mercies are the forerunners of Eternal he tasts a sweetness in what he has because he is sure that it flows from the Love of God He can eat his bread with joy and drink his wine with a chearful heart because his works are accepted Eccles 9.7 2. The Favour of God is Life in all temporal Wants and Afflictions No Affliction can be born if a man do not see his Fatherly Goodness orders and directs the most sharp and bitter Cup. How can a man hold out in trouble when he knows not but it may be to him the beginning of Sorrows With what grief must he weep that knows not that his tears shall ever be wiped away How deeply must he sigh that looks upon his stroke to be the stroke of an Enemy and the chastisement of a Cruel one Jer. 30.14 15. But now the Favour of God reconciles the Soul to his most severe and mysterious Dispensations and teaches it to be silent under his hand and to believe that though he is angry now yet he will not be so for ever When a poor Soul looks round about and sees vexation and trouble over all the World this Favour of God encourages him to look above where he finds a calm and rest When the men in whom he most confided prove deceitful and when from those from whom he expected the greatest kindness he meets with the greatest disappointments then he can have recourse to that God that will never change when he is left alone and forsaken the Divine Presence gives him Honey in the Wilderness and turns his Dungeon into a Paradise what he wants in the Creatures is plentifully supplied in his blessed and glorious Creator And though he be poor in the World yet he is rich in faith Jam. 2.5 Though he have nothing on Earth that he can call his own yet what a sweet support is it to think that God is his what need he care though he be cast off by all the World when God receives him What need he care if they condemn him when thâ— Sovereign Judge of all does acquit him and bids him be of good chear for his sins are forgiven He need not fear all their daring Threats their Insolence and Pride when he can look up with Stephen and see Jesus at the right hand of God to plead his Cause Though he lose his Friends and his Earthly Comforts yet he has an Almighty Friend that he can never lose Every Correction is grateful to a Soul thus priviledg'd for how unpleasant soever it be for the present he knows it shall promote his final good Rom. 8.28 He knows that his heavenly Father tutors him by so sharp a discipline for his own glorious
Kingdom and relies upon his faithful Promise to bring him thither he knows when he is most pained he is under the Conduct of a tender and a skilful Physician that though he search his Sore will not fail to advance and compleat his Cure and therefore does encourage himself to trust in him whom he shall praise as the health of his countenance and his God He knows that when he is thrown down by Sickness the Everlasting Arms will be underneath and that he shall be strengthned with strength in his Soul when his Body begins to decay but now without the favour of God every little Cross proves a burthen too heavy for us to bear When a man thinks with himself thus These pains that I feel are the wounds of an Enemy when a man sees nothing but what is dismal dark and troublesome and has do prospect of a dawning or approaching Light how sad and how overwhelmed must he needs be how small a thing will sink us when the Comforter that should relieve our Souls is departed Lam. 1.16 3. This Fâ—â—â—â—â— of God is Life to us in the Troubles of our Conscience and there are no Troubles in the World like to these Psal 88.3 4. In all other Troubles our Friends by their kind Discourses and their pitiful Expressions may mitigate our Sorrow but how can they speak peace when God has declared a War against us Job 34.29 When he giveth quietness who then can make trouble and when he hideth his face who then can behold him When he in his just displeasure raises a Storm who can make the Warers smooth again When the Sun is once set can all the power of Nature make it to rise again Other Troubles make the Body droop but these make the Soul it self to languish and to pine away What but the Favour of God can revive us when our Hearts under the sense of Sin and Guilt begin to dye within us When our Sins are set in order before us who can free us from the formidable sight Who but he can teach our hands to fight and to get the Victory When we are awakened with the sense of Wrath with the fear of Hell and of Destruction who can close our eyes again When we are under these inward Wounds who can pour in Oyl who can bind them up or heal them but he alone When our Consciences accuse us for our former and our later Sins who then can plead our Cause who can be on our side when God himself has overthrown us When the spiritual and holy Law slays us who can give us Life When the Word pronounces a dreadful Sentence against us who is able to reverse it Who in Heaven or Earth can be our Helper if we find not help he God Who will give us any comfort when through the terrors of our Souls we are looking for the Wrath to come Who will give us rest when we lie down and rise again with a sense of the Fury and the Displeasure of the Lord Deut. 28.66 67. VVhen a Soul is continually venting its presaging Fears and saying Now I am troubled but I shall shortly be in much greater trouble now I am with my Friends but it may be shortly I shall be with Devils now I am on Earth but it may be shortly I shall be in Hell now the Favour of God brings life to the dying Soul one beam of his favour causes the disconsolate Mourner to lay aside his mourning Garments and to rejoice After long Terrors how sweet is the Voice of God that brings the news of a pardon how welcome are the Tidings of a Pardon to a Malefactor at the very place of Execution and when God has brought us out of the deep VVaters and the miry Pit our very Bones begin to rejoice it spreads a chearfulness over every part to think that one whom we had so highly offended will yet be reconciled again it raises us even to transport and wonder what will he be gracious and merciful to such as we are Is it not pleasant after a long war to be at peace after hard labour to rest after a long Journey to arrive at our home so it will be to see the Face of God after a long darkness to shine upon us again As a devout Lady once said I have found him whom I sought the Love of my Soul and the Joy of mine Heart My Lord and my God Now my Joys return I now behold the Face of God and feel his Comforts in the service and worship of him and therefore every hour seems five till the hour of Prayer comes till by Contemplations and Meditations I bring my God to my Soul I could wish every one of the days for the solemn worship of God to be a Joshua's day the longest is too short for me and my wonted hours of Devotion and Meditation are too narrow a confinement for them and when I am refresht with the Comforts of God my heart dilates it self further by looking on the Joys of Heaven for if there be such joy during the Seed time See Life of the Countess of Falkland p 22. now infinite is the soy Harvest VVhat can be more great more delicious and more comfortable than to find that the Sun of Righteousness will shine upon us with his healing beams assuring us of his Grace here and of his Glory in the VVorld to come To see that Hell and that Curse of the Law in which we thought our selves involved to be under our feet to see the Yoke of Sin broken and the power of Death abolisht to see the Heavenly Sanctuary open and Christ our Salvation on the Throne reaching out to us his hand and guarding us to that happiness which he hath purchased with his Blood Oh! how cold and how miserable are all the Delights of the VVorld to such a delightful sight as this and how happy are the People whose God is the Lord No Pleasures no Creature-comforts no merry Songs can give quiet to a troubled Soul without the Favour and the Love of God till he come all other methods do but make the Clouds more black and encrease our Sorrows 4. His Favour is Life in the vehement Assaults and Temptations of the Devil VVhen the strong man armed comes against us when he darts his fiery darts what can hurt us if he compass us about with his loving-kindness as with a shield Psal 5.12 He can disarm the Tempter and restrain his Malice and tread him under our feet If God be not with us if he do not give us sufficient Grace so subtle so powerful so politick an Enemy will be too hard for us how surely are we foild and get the worse when we pretend to grapple with him in our own strength How many falls and how many bruises by those falls have we got by relying too much on our own skill How often have we had the help of God when we have humbly ask'd it And how sure are we
be better than a thousand elsewhere What will one day in Heaven be There we shall not live upon things meaner than our selves we shall there have no mean complacencies nor dishonourable cares in the favour and the sight of God we shall have a taste of all excellencies and delights without the least mixture of evil and what transports shall we have when we come to the full view of him the sight of whom even at this distance was so sweet and comfortable to us When after all our doubtings our fears and our sad thoughts we find that we have through many dangers gain'd our Port. Inf. 2. If the favour of God be life O! what a doleful place is hell where this favour never comes Job 10. last vers How black is their darkness and how long and tedious is their night that shall never have the dawn of day Oh! how terrible and how frightful is the second death A death that torments the separated soul A death that banishes it from the presence of the Lord A death that excludes it from all comfortable sight of God! There the Damned see him as a Judge feel his amazing terrors but they would gladly if they could wrap themselves in darkness and never see such a frowning and a dreadful God there is anguish and wo and tribulation and the continual groan and cry of that place God is gone away from us for ever His Face and his Light chears his Saints but it scorches us and puts us all into a flame This is the language of their misery That God will shew them no pity That he is deaf to their cries and has shut up his bowels that once earned over them in Eternal wrath That he once indeed would have been reconciled and they would not and now they shall never have an offer of his favour any more Oh! poor forsaken souls what shall they do that have no God to give them help no Mediator to plead their Cause no Physician to bind up their wounds no kind hand to give them the least comfort nothing but wrath and no love nothing but vengeance and destruction and no mercy with it The Servants of God never taste so much of Hell as when his face is hid it brings upon them desolation terror and the very pangs of death but they have now and then some support some little beams of light but in that doleful place there is nothing else but sorrow and despair Here in all the temptations of his Servants Christ is concerned sympathizes with them and in his due time sends them relief But he will never concern himself with the Damned nor cast one gracious eye upon them they are fallen and he will not raise them up they are perish'd and they must perish they thirst indeed but shall never have a drop of water to cool their tongues What will the poor creatures do when they are overwhelm'd with the wrath of one that is Almighty Oh! how loud will be their Cries and how dreadful their complaints when after millions of years are past they have still as many more to come When they have been long tost upon the lake of fire they will never be nearer to the shore never hear one comfortable word from the mouth of God! Oh! how glad would they be to have one smile of his face one days refreshment but it must not be the gulph is fix'd and the sentence is irrevocable Isa 27.11 He that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour Oh! what can be thought more desolate than to be forsaken of God! to be forsaken of God in whom alone is Life and to be cast into outer darkness And what will be the consternation of the great day when he shall say to the wicked Depart from me c. To hear that voice and that word Depart from me will be their Hell They shall not be able to turn their thoughts from the contemplation of their own miseries nor their eyes from the sight of those objects that will fill them with grief and horror and be themselves abominable for what a despicable deformed â—â—ing even now is an Apostate Angel that is stript of the Life of God! Inf. 3. If Life be in the favour of God then the greatest part of the World is dead for the most are alienated from him by their evil works the most are stupid and insensible in a dead slumber and are his enemies She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 And if this be a symptom and a mark of death How many dead have we among us How many that find time enough for their Games their Sports and their Recreations and find no time wherein to call upon the Lord and to seek his favour How many eat and drink and are merry even when their Souls are in the greatest danger and their Maker is their enemy 'T is a sign that when they are so little sensible of their greatest interest and have so little taste and liking of Divine Joys that they are spiritually dead How much greater is the number of the dead than of the living How many Families are there that are without Prayer without any sense of God at all and in which all the whole Family is dead And in those where there are some alive How many are there yet not quickned How many good Parents are mourning over their dying Children whom they cannot bring to life They see them stepping into the Grave and all their intreaties all their Tears all their Prayers cannot bring them thence And in our Congregations how many are there that have indeed a name to live but are dead Rev. 3.1 that have never yet been in earnest for their Salvation that suffer days and years unconcernedly to rowl over their heads and are never the nearer Heaven at the conclusion of the year than they were at the beginning of it They have indeed it may be risen early and sate up late but all their cares have been as much for the Body as if they had no Soul They are grown crooked with looking downward and are as earthly and as sensual as if they had no Heaven to mind And what an heartless thing is it to the Ministers to find that they spend their labour in speaking to the dead and who in a great measure remain dead still Tho' they do it not without hope that at some time or another their Master will say to them as to the Prophet Ezek. 37.2 3. 4 c. Oh! what a Plague is among us and we feel it not Gray hairs are here and there upon us and we discern it not How many Captives has the Prince of darkness that are no way grieved at their own Captivity How many are strangers to the favour of God that never saw his reconciled face never felt the quickning Influences of his Spirit to this very day And yet rejoyce as if all
will not have him to be so he would save them and they will not be saved he would bless them and they chuse to be curs'd How many are there that prefer a Lust before a Saviour and Earth before Heaven and the applause of their vain sottish Companions before the approbation of the All-seeing Judge O blind Sinners Why will you lay hands upon your selves and do all you can to deprive your Souls of Life What a sad thing is it as one says to deny sustenance to thine own Life The breath of God is in thee what shall be done to him that starveth a Prince's child Symmond 's Sight and Faith p. 214. What have we of like worth to Spiritual Vigour Agility Courage and Peace of Soul And shall we who have a door of Life at once offer contempt to Divine goodness and violence to our own Life by not using what God hath put in our hands for our relief Is there so much allurement in destruction and so much Beauty in Eternal Flames that you cannot forbear going thither Why will you suffer your Souls to starve whilst you are contriving to gratify the Flesh Why will you still serve the Devil and your own Sins Are they so good Masters will they pay you so well in the latter end Are you content to have the pleasures of Sin for a season though you lose your share in Paradise Oh what bitter reflections on so bad a choice will this cause hereafter VVhen you shall lift up your Eyes in misery and see the Kingdom of Heaven afar off and say I was once offered that Kingdom and those Joys and I would not have them I was once fair for Salvation but I slighted I might have had the Favour of God and I would not have it O my cursed Sins How you have deceived me You promised me delight and you have brought me to bitterness and wo you promised me safety and you have made me to perish Oh that some Angel or some Saint might be sent to bring me some relief The word of God told me of that Glory his Ministers earnestly intreated me to prepare for it my Friends were always bidding me to leave my wicked course my Conscience checkt me for it and I broke through all these exhortations and these checks and so am come laden with guilt to Eternal Misery I was at my Games and Sports when I should have been upon my Knees I had indeed time and strength and health and many helps and advantages O that I had all my days watcht and strived and denyed my self then I should not have come to this place of Torment O that my Sun would rise again O that I might have another Tryal and more time But alas the Judge is my Enemy I have heard my Sentence and he will not change his purpose I am condemned I am lost for ever O Sinners As you would never fall into such a hopeless state now even now seek the face of God Have you not already spent time enough in Sin in walking in the imagination of your own heatts and the sight of your own eyes Have you not loved your sottish pleasures long enough O! come leave the tents of Wickedness come and Love your God for he is ready to receive you come to him and all your sins shall be forgiven O let not Mercy it self that speaks for your hearts be denyed Who will be so good a friend as God Who will abide with you when life it self is gone And now surely the heart of some sinner or another begins to relent some that is saying with himself Though I never prayed in secret before yet now I will begin to pray Though I lost abundance of my youth and my health I will strive to lose no more I have put off God and my Conscience with vain excuses and delays but I will not put them off again He shall have my thoughts my heart and my endeavours who gave me life and I will ever admire the riches of his Love if he will pardon such a Malefactor and condescend to such a Worm and entertain such a Prodigal as I have been Inf. 6. In what a woful Condition are those poor Sinners that are without this Favour of God! To how great a danger are they every day exposed And which is a part of their misery they know it not Spiritual Death has closed their eyes and they see not where they go What a sad object is a poor sinner that is yet a stranger to this God that is every hour liable to his Eternal Wrath that seeks the Friendship and the Favour of men and has no thoughts of his Creator no dread of his Displeasure no taste or relish of his Love Surely they must be fallen into a dead sleep whom all the Terrors of the Lord all the Threats of his Word and all the Calls of his Ministers will not awaken With what peace can you eat and drink or work or rest whilst so great a God is your Enemy Will his Wrath that makes the Devils in their Hellish Agonies to roar and tremble be tolerable to you When his Vengeance pursues you whither will you run for help When he frowns what will it avail you tho all the world should smile upon you When he casts you off who will shew you pity When he condemns you who will plead your Cause Do you not know that your Life is short that your Change is near that the Judge is at the door Do you not know that this World will leave you that you may quickly go into another And can you dwell with Eternal Burnings Can you venture to go to the Judgment-Seat before you have an Interest in Christ Are you fruitless and barren here and do you think to flourish in the Coelestial Paradise Do you remain dead here under all the means of Grace and do you hope to live for ever What pleasures are those that enchant you that you will not come and taste the Joys of God Who is that that will be a better Friend than he If you laugh at destruction it will not be the further off Oh let not the Devil be your Master nor the world your God Let not sin cheat and impose upon you with its false and counterfeit Delights Others are mourning in secret after the Lord and have you not as much cause to mourn as they Others are striving with earnest Prayers and Supplications and holy Endeavours to enter in at the strait gaâ—e and will it open of it self to you Or have you not also Souls to save as well as they Others Read and Hear and Pray and do all that they can for Salvation being afraid they should fall under the Power of Eternal Death and have you no cause of fear VVhence is it that when they are running so fast in the way of Heaven you run faster in the way of Hell VVhy do you with so great a care tend and regard your Bodies to preserve
should wish to be learned and yet never read or study as if a Soldier should wish for victory and yet never fight or an Husbandman for a gainful Crop and yet neither plow nor sow It is not a careless wish for God's favour that will serve the turn you must pray constantly and resort to those places of Worship where he usually manifests his presence in his own Ordinances and read his word with reverence humility and frequency you must seek him with your whole heart you must expect and wait tho it be long for a gracious answer of your Prayers how many days will men give their attendance for some Preferment or High Place in a Prince's Court And it should not grieve us to stay for the Favour and the Love of God for when it is once bestowed it will requite all your pains and labour 1 Cor. 15. last verse You will meet in the quest of this with manifold trials and with great oppositions your Carnal Nature and your old Sins will present motives to your sense to draw you back Satan will perplex you with a thousand doubts and troubles for you may be sure this Lyon will roar when he is like to lose his Prey but nothing of this must discourage you The Favour of God is so great a mercy that you may justly be importunate and restless till you get it notwithstanding all the dangers that you meet withal No great things are obtained but with difficulty you 'll see hereafter that it was worth the while to take pains in a matter of so great consequence You now find that after all the pleasure of Sin is past it leaves a sting and fills your minds with bitterness and trouble but you 'll hereafter find nothing but comfort nothing but an overflowing-pleasure in the love of God and you 'll find it to be so very pleasant that you will wish that you had done more for him than you have done There 's not a Soul in Heaven that repents of the pains he took to get thither 3. You must he deeply sensible of your own miserable and undone state without it Luke 5.31 They that are whole need not a Physician but they that are sick Matth. 18.11 The Son of Man is come to save that which is lost Job 33.27 He looketh upon men and if any say I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it profiteth me not he will deliver his soul from going down to the pit and his life shall see the light If you are once convinced that your sins have made him angry that his Anger is very just and yet so severe that if it continue it will be intolerable If you are once sensible what a great God you have provoked what an holy Law you have broken what an Hell you have deserved you will reckon it as a great mercy that you are not already there whence there is no return If your Conscience have been awakened with a deep impression of his Wrath all the Riches the Honours and the Pleasures of this World will seem to you to be very poor and empty things The sight of Sin that has deceived you that has defiled you that has exposed you to so great danger will fill you with shame and sorrow with fear and trouble Of all your desires this will be your chief and your only desire Let me have the Favour of God whatever else I want Let me have his Favour or I dye for ever you will be restless and unsatisfied till you have the hope of this The reason why men are so industrious for all other things and so little concerned for the Favour of God is because they are blinded by the Devil and their own Lusts and under a spiritual insensibility But if you once find Sin to be bitter this will be very sweet If that has thrown you into painful Agonies and deep distress of Soul this will greatly comfort and revive you you will see then great cause to humble and to loath your self and not find any cause of pride or of the boast of the Pharisee but in the better posture and temper of the Publican say Lord be merciful to me a sinner Never did a Traveller after a tedious Journey more desire his home or a Mariner long tost with Tempests to see the quiet Shore than you will desire this Favour of God When you have been scorcht with inward thirst you will pant for this Fountain of Love wherein you may quench your thirst when you have been in a long war with God and come at length to see the danger of it Oh how beautiful will be the feet of those who are Ambassadors of Peace You will then say as it is in Luke 1.53 He bath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away 4. The Favour of God is only to be had in and through Jesus Christ and you must apply your selves tn him for it It is not all your Zeal your Repentance your Self-denial or your Mortifications that of themselves will be sufficient to bring you to the Favour of God Tho you labour in his Service all the day and mourn for your Miscarriages all the night what satisfaction will this give to his offended Justice and to the honour of his violated Law We were happy indeed at our first Creation in his Love and happy had we been still had we persevered but our first Apostacy by the fall from that Innocent Condition has made a large breach between God and us and there is none found in Heaven or in Earth that can make it up but his only Son The loss of Original Righteousness has made us to lose his Favour and occasioned a vast distance between him and us this has brought forth all the miseries of the World Irregular Seasons overflowing Inundations and dreadful Wars all the sickness and pain of our Bodies and all the guilt and unquietness and disorder of our Souls in Adam we all died both natural and spiritual death came upon all because all have sinned but God has in his mercy not left us hopeless As soon as Adam fell He was pleased to provide for his rising a-again and as soon as ever he had wounded himself he did prepare a Balsom to heal and cure his Wounds and when he was stung and poisoned with the Venom of the Serpent he did prepare an Antidote The poor guilty Creature could have expected nothing but a Curse and yet God gave him the Promise of Redemption and of a Blessing by the Seed of the Woman that should break the Serpent's head when he drive Adam out of Paradise he might have put him out of Heaven and out of his Presence for evermore and have said Go and dwell with that Devil that tempted thee to sin Upon the Fall he withdrew indeed his usual Favour this raised a cloud that obscured the beauty of his morning-glory and that intercepted the beams that a little while before
snare they frequently minister to Pride and Vanity and Luxury and Excess to Sensualities and worldly Lusts and for that reason it is that our Saviour says A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven Matt. 19.23 Few meet with Heaven here and an Heaven hereafter Luke 16.19 20 21. The Rich man had all manner of Accommodations a stately Dwelling a throng of Admirers soft Garments and curious Entertainments composed of every thing that could be fetch'd from the Land the Sea or the Air and in the midst of all this Plenty had the Curse of an Uncharitable Spirit the poor Lazarus was cloathed with Rags whilst he ruffled in his Silks the poor man whilst he had his excesses and his plenty had not what was necessary to life He was a modest Beggar he asked but for the Crumbs that fell from his Table the sweepings of his House and yet he was denied And to all this want there was added an increase of miseries by his painful Sores and the poor man had no Friends to visit him no Physician to bind up his Wounds no Cordial to support his Spirits in this sorrowful posture lay the poor Lazarus and his Carkass was even putrefying before he came to dye the Dogs were cue only kind Creatures they lickt his Sores and asswaged the vehemence of the pâ—iâ— with their healing Tongues ' They as one expresses it were Humane ' though then Master was a Brute and yet this poor man was very happy when his pains made him at length to dye Angels were sent to convey his newly-delivered Soul away to carry him that was starved on Earth to the Feast of Glory where he will never be in distress or trouble any more The poor Man had a very weary Journey but most sweet refreshment when he comes to his Journeys-end He was exposed to the injuries of the VVeather and the sharpness of the Cold but in Abraham's Bosome he was inexpressibly comforted plenty enough had he in his Father's House though he could not obtain here with all his begging so much as one Crumb and the Rich-man a little after had his polluted and unready Soul torn away and was condemned to greater destruction for having been so cruel to this poor man This proud and scornful VVretch whom with his flaming eyes he saw at rest whilst he was in his Torment and who was become the beggar then and fain would have had one drop to cool his burning Tongue but it was denied and he that shewed no mercy found none v. 23 24. and his Hell was hotter to him for having lived so much at ease here on Earth and it increased his Flames to remember how many were hasting to the same place by his ill Example and who when they come thither would encrease his torment So that we may say to Rich men what a good old Minister said to a Lord after he had shewed him his stately House his Gardens his Fish-ponds and his other Conveniences for a pleasant and easie Life My Lord said he you had need make sure of Heaven for it will be bad going to Hell from such a place as this Many People think that because their Endeavours succeed well their Trades flourish and their VVealth increases that surely they are loved of God and that these things are the marks of his peculiar Favour You may live in pleasures and yet be dead while you live Your Bodies may want nothing and yet your unregarded Souls suffer under miserable decays you may be lifted up to Heaven with outward enjoyments and yet they may only expose you to a greater fall and a more amazing danger You are healthful it may be while others are sick but your health is not any other than a greater Talent which is given to you and of which you must render a very strict Account Your ways it may be are smooth but do they not lead you to ruine and the Grave There is nothing more formidable than spiritual Judgments and of all spiritual Judgments none so great as for God to let you alone to chuse your own way to take your own course and to follow the devices of your own hearts And it is a mark of his Anger kindled at a more than ordinary rate when he says Hos 4.14 I will not punish their sons and daughters any more Rest not therefore in this but seek for sanctifying Grace and the pardon of your sins with your whole heart 3. Do not think that because your Consciences are not under trouble that for that very reason you have God's Favour The Ease that many Sinners have is distempered and will fade way 't is like the Ease of an Apoplexy that benumbs the sense and weakens life 't is like the slumbers of the sick that are caused with Opiates and stupifying Potions As many times true Believers fear where there is no cause of fear so do Sinners hope where there is no cause of hope at all Many a Saint weeps that is going to Jerusalem because he sees not the blessed place that is before him and many a secure soul is asleep at the very door of Hell because he does not perceive the danger that is underneath if he did it would terrify him to see that the flood is coming and his House is only built on the Sand to see that the Sword is drawn and his Adversary is on the way and he has not prepared to meet him Some indeed have questioned whether be the greater Sin Presumption or Despair It is no question but they are both very bad they are both Rocks and if a man be Shipwrackt it is no great matter on what Rock he splits when he is cast away Though God will make allowances even for the despairing Expressions and Thoughts of his Servants in great and long desertions he was gracious to David though he despairingly said I shatl one day fall by the hand of Saul And to Zion tho she said the Lord hath forgotten me My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord Lam. 3.18 But yet it is a sin that we ought to resist and strive against and no less against Presumption which flays its thousands every day Oh how many are there there are too many that eat and drink and are merry and yet know not whether God be their Friend or their Enemy Psal 55.19 They feel no changes and therefore they fear him not But if speedy and serious and hearty Repentance prevent not they will shortly feel a change that will spoil and blast all their hopes they 'l feel a change that will at the same time conclude their Life and send them to Judgment and lodge their Souls in misery and where will their hopes then be My Friends the way of Life is strait there are abundance of mistakes about it there are abundance of windings and turnings of labyrinths and dangers by the means of which you may be hindred in your Pilgrimage if you do not take great care
there are several ways like to this way that have a resemblance to it and yet vastly differ from it there is the Peace of God and there is the Peace of Satan it is the design of that malicious Spirit to let you be quiet in your Sins that you may not see their evil nor feel their bitterness and then you save him the labour to make you miserable for you make your selves so Suffer not him to blind your eyes nor to lead you to destruction whilst you never so much as make one halt nor startle at it You hear others complaining of their Sins and crying out that they are forsaken and undone and miserable and you thank God you have no trouble your Consciences are still and quiet I beseech you take heed that it be founded upon good Reasons that it prove not to be only a short slumber and not a lasting peace It may be you never doubted of God's love to you and it is very well if you have no cause to doubt You think it may be that such as are in Soul distresses are so because they have committed greater sins than other men and that Vengeance therefore like the Viper on Paul's Hand fastens on them because they have been guilty of some very great and monstrous Sin but you must know the Judgments of God are too great a deep for you to fathom he has wise Ends in those severe Dispensations though those that are at ease may have committed as great Sins as those that are in trouble many times a great Calm precedes an Earthquake many times the Sky is very clear just before the Clouds gather and the Lightning and Thunder comes Beware lest you be unsafe whilst you are most confident Beware lest you go down to the Grave as thousands do with a foolish and ungrounded hope Remember the foolish Virgins and that of the Apostle 1 Thess 5.3 CHAP. VI. Shewing by what means we may know whether we have God's Favour or not And first by the graces of his Spirit though the acting of them is neither so strong nor so comfortable at one time as at another And secondly by our hatred of Sin and our being satisfied with all his Providences THE next thing is to Examine and to try whether you have indeed this Favour of God in which is Life There are a great many people that think God to be their Friend when he is their Enemy and a great many troubled distressed Christians think that he is their Enemy when he is their Friend Let us I beseech you be very careful in a thing that so nearly concerns both our present and our future peace Let us take heed that neither the Devil nor our own hearts cheat us in a matter that is of so vast a consequence and we have need of the greater care because if we should flatter our selves with a foolish hope that we are God's Favourites when we are not truly so as our vain Expectations would leave us at the last so the Ruine that it would bring forth would come with a double weight upon us for to fall from great hopes is worse than never to have hoped at all to be miserable after we have thought our selves happy gives a more acute and bitter sting to that misery There is many an one in Hell now groaning under the Eternal Wrath of God that thought he should have seen the Smiles of his Face and not have been terrified with his Frowns that thought he should have walkt in the Streets of the New Jerusalem in liberty and light and peace whereas he is now in Chains of darkness and in anguish inexpressible With what tenderness with what caution and with what holy fear should we manage such an Affair as this with what solemnity ought I to proceed when I am enquiring whether I am a Favourite of God or not whether I belong to the Living or yet remain among the Dead whether I am an Heir of Heaven or an utter stranger to the blessed place and the God that makes it to be so blessed as it is And there is not one person that reads this but has cause to make such an Enquiry and to say with himself I feel by the warmth and vigorous motion of my spirits that I have a natural Life I eat and drink and sleep and take abundance of care and use a thousand projects to maintain this same dear and pleasant Life but whilst my Body is indulged and thrives is not my poor slighted Soul in a state of death and whilst men shew me favour and are friendly to me have I the favour of that God that is to be my Judge and who is either the best Friend or the worst Enemy Now in this matter we may proceed by such Rules as these 1. Have you those graces of the Spirit wrought in you which are the certain pledges and tokens of his Favour Are you rich in faith and yet poor in spirit Are you hungring and thirsting after Righteousness And when you find your own best Actions fall vastly short of the strict and pure demands of the Divine Law do you prize and seek the Righteousness that is in Christ Is that Sin now bitter to your taste and grievous to your thoughts which was once highly esteemed and prized Do you hate and bewail that with a relenting spirit that was once your dearly beloved and your joy Are you mortified to this World and do you walk humbly as wisely considering how weak you are and how liable to be surprized and to fall always considering that you are very sinful and very frail These Graces of Faith Mortification Humility and the like are certain tokens of the Love of God and in a Soul thus qualified he delights to fix his Habitation Isa 57.15 in such a Soul there is a Heaven begun and it not only lives but will attain new strength and proceed to further degrees of life though it now flourish in the Courts of the Lord yet his Light shining upon it will cause it to take the deeper root and to look with a more amiable freshness the Self-conceited shall miss abundance of refreshments that a Soul so lowly will meet withall as those showers of Rain that slide away from the tops of Mountains descend into the Valleys and make them more fruitful Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty He does not give this to remain for a small space only but to remain with his Servants till their work be done it is called the earnest of our Inheritance Ephes 1.14 An Earnest you know is part of the Payment not to be returned again and we are said to be sealed with this Spirit unto the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 i. e. that is as one explains it God does by that distinguish Believers from other men as Seals are employed to make a difference from other things that are not so much to be regarded and as we seal our own Goods or Papers
or some particular thing that is most precious which Expression calls us to meditate on the infinite tenderness of God's Love to men For a man does not love any thing so much as that which is his own he looks upon other things in which he has no propriety with an indifferent and unconcerned eye even the stately Glories of a Palace do not affect him with so great a joy as the Little Conveniences of his own unobserved Cottage because it is his own And further a Seal often carries the Arms of him whose Seal it is or the Image of some great Person so the work of the Spirit is to engrave in our hearts Faith Hope and Love these are the Ensigns of the New Covenant and form in us the Image of God which consists in Righteousness and Peace and Holiness God does not set this mark but upon those that are indeed his Favourites that by the tenderness and softness of their hearts are prepared to receive Impressions * Claude sur Eph. 4.30 p. 20. But in this matter we are in a great measure passive as the Wax receives the same marks that the Seal stamps upon it these are saving-works of the Spirit which I have mentioned whereas a great many common Gifts are bestowed upon those whom God abhors many a man may have Light enough to shew others the way to Heaven and yet never walk therein himself and he that was a Star in the Firmament of the Church on Earth may sit in darkness 1 Cor. 13.1 2 Thongh I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity I am nothing You must under this Head observe these two things 1. Not to expect to be alike strong in every Grace 2. Not to have at all times the same Comforts 1. You must not expect to be a like strong in every Grace We ought to strive to be compleat to have all the pieces of our Christian Armour polish'd and fit for action and well fitted and put upon us but those parts where is the most danger of a Wound those parts where is the seat of Life we are principally to secure and guard So those Graces we are first of all to look after and to cherish which produce and keep the rest in vigour such as Faith and Repentance and Humility Tho' most certain it is that all Men even of those that are God's Favourites are not of the same stature nor the same strength nor have they as much skill in every Duty as it may be they have in one or two it is so ordered by the Holy Providence of God that all in Christ shall have Tribulations but very different many times from one another that so the different Grace that they are to exercise under their several Tryals may shine with a brighter Glory Thus of old Abraham was peculiarly eminent for his Faith Moses for his Meekness Job for his Patience All Believers by the Privileges with which they are invested are Stars but yet even here one Star differs from another Star in Glory As there are several gifts of the same Spirit that are all useful to the whole so the Graces that are wrought by him do according to his Soveraign pleasure produce several effects according to the subjects in which they are and many times are very much advanced or obstructed by a good or ill temper of the body Hence those that have a cholerick temper the fieriness of their natural spirits that upon every small occasion are apt to be enflamed does very much hinder that meekness and calmness which is one of the Graces of the holy Spirit and so others that are naturally tenacious and close and narrow-soul'd do many times smell too much even of these ill qualities when they are converted but it ought not to be so for if there be any particular sin to which we are more enclined by our constitution than to another we ought more industriously to set our selves against that sin 2. You must not expect a continuance of the same comforts at all times for the Spirit blows where he listeth and when he will Joh 3.8 Tho' the new Creature be formed in you by the Grace of God yet you cannot perceive its motions with so distinct a sense at one time as at another tho' by the intercession of Christ his Favourites are secured from a total and final Apostacy yet they may fall now and then and their Life seem to decline and a spiritual faintness come upon it and a very deep sorrow may cover and as it were bury your hopes and your joys but yet there is that vital Principle that shall not see corruption that seed of Grace that will now and then flourish with acceptable fruit Your Faith may in violent temptations be like the weak and undiscernable stirring of the soul when the body is in a Swoon the soul does seem for a while to be departed but after the spirits are refreshed it animates the whole body and exercises all the functions and offices of Life as it used to do When the Ship was most violently tost with a Tempest yet our Lord was there tho' the poor trembling Disciples thought he did not care whether they were lost or saved Thus Mary was drowned with Tears after his Resurrection and not finding him where she expected nor as soon she gave way to sorrow They have taken away the Lord says she Joh. 20.13 and I know not where they have laid him when the very person that she had then in view was the same dear Saviour and Friend that she long'd to see And when with great tenderness and familiarity he discovered himself and called her Mary then she full well knew that it was her Master and her poor drooping heart was filled with joy and transport She fell at his feet and kissed them God does not equally manifest his favour no not even to the same person who sometimes triumphs and sometimes is very desolate as the same vessel that is sometimes lifted up even as to Heaven it self by the rising and the swelling Waves is the next minute sinking to the bottom of the Sea and ready to be swallowed in the formidable depths tho' if we were duly prepared the face of our God would appear with as amiable an aspect at one time as at another for if any frowns be there our sins are the cause and because we are sinful 't is necessary for us now and then to weep as well as always to rejoice The Clouds and the Showers are as needful to the Earth as is the constant shine and the fairer weather Our Graces yield no delight to us till the Spirit actuate and enliven them till he blow upon the garden Cant. 4.16 the spices
do not flow forth nor do the sweetest of the flowers smell with such a perfume and such a fragrant scent as they then do If we would have a warm sense of the Love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts it must be done by the efficacy and influence of the Holy-Ghost he brings the most suitable Truths to remembrance and he seasonably applies those Promises that are most comfortable and reviving he raises in us holy courage and hope and he fills our Sails with his favourable blasts he banishes that fear and those perplexing doubts that enslave us and sets before us the Mercy and the Loving-kindness of God and pours into our smarting and bleeding Wounds the Consolations of the Gospel There are indeed some particular times when God is pleased to give to the soul the clear manifestations of his favour and they are usually by Divines said to be in such particular circumstances as these 1. He is pleased to condescend to New Converts that are suddenly cheared with mighty Joys and filled with an admiration of his Grace He considers the weakness of these tender Pilgrims and his joy becomes their strength he feeds them as with Angels food for he knows they have a great way to go and therefore he carries them in his Arms and leads them gently along and they meet not with those sharp and heavy Tryals that more experienced Christians meet withal The sudden change that such perceive when they go from gross darkness into a marvellous light when their Chains are struck off and their Prison-doors set open makes them to wonder and adore Hence it is that they have vigorous affections and are very active for the Glory of their Saviour hence it is that their Zeal is so fervent and the flame of their Love burns so clear and bright 2. Another season when God Communicates to his Servants peculiar manifestations of his favour is at the Lord's Supper when they see their Redeemer Crucified before their eyes when they see the torments of his Body and the Agonies of his Soul how pained how amazed he was and that all this pain was for them and for their Salvation and that as surely as they receive the Bread and the Wine so surely do they receive this Jesus and all his benefits Direction for the present and a title to everlasting Glory this carries them up to the top of the Mount this makes them to tast of the Tree of Life This sight of a dying Saviour and of the Heaven that he purchased makes them to worship him with praise and to think themselves even as already there where he is To this Table of the Lord the believing soul goes hungry and a thirst and from the same Table returns greatly pleased with so Divine a Banquet tho' not without the most earnest desires of that entertainment that is reserved for it above 3. God is pleased to give his Servants a clearer manifestation of his Love when he intends to employ them in some remarkable or extraordinary service and as he encouraged Joshua that met with great difficulties by saying Fear not but be of good courage I am with thee Josh 1.9 When he sets before them the Labours and Dangers of the Combat he displays at the same time the greatness of the Reward and the glory of the Victory Thus docs he animate his Soldiers to fight his Battels thus he prepares his Martyrs to witness to his Truth and with such a sense of his favour no Cup seems too bitter for them to drink no danger too great for them to Conquer Hence Moses said If thy presence go not with me carry us not up hence Exod. 33.15 But with that he was content to go to what place of difficulty soever he was called he would rather as one says * Culverwell's White Stone p. 125. be in a desolate and howling Wilderness than in a pleasant and a fruitful Land without the presence of his God he knew there was no sweetness in Canaan without him there is more Sting than Honey in the Land of Promise unless he be there and Canaan it self will prove a Wilderness if he withdraw himself Thus God as the same person says when he called Abraham to that great expression of obedience in the sacrificing of his Isaac he first warms his heart with his Love and seals up the Covenant of Grace to him he spreads before him ample and comprehensive Promises I am thy God alsufficient I am thy buckler and thine exceeding great reward and this will bear up and support Abraham though the staff of his old Age be taken away and by his own hands cast into the Fire Or 4. In Prayer God is many times pleased to shew his favour to the Soul giving it a secret assurance of his Mercy saying I am thy God and portion and so sends it away filled with good things Or 5. In great straits and pinching wants when there is least of the creature there is usually most of the Alsufficient Creator when all the Cisterns of Earthly Comforts are broken then this Fountain overflows and sends out his comfortable streams He carries his people into a Wilderness and there he speaks comfortably to them Hos 2.14 And is then most kind when the World will shew them no kindness Or 6. after they have got the victory over some Lusts and Corruptions that were both dishonourable to him and uneasie to them such a Conquest is attended with his approbation and that gives them a mighty joy like the joy that the poor Israelites had when they saw their Enemies drowned in the Red Sea Or 7. in the day of death When all the shine of Earthly delights is clouded and their Sun is just upon his setting they lift up their feeble and their longing eyes toward Heaven and he draws away the Vail and they see the Son of God standing at his Right hand as their Advocate and Mediator and then it is that a poor weary Soul says with Paul I desire to depart and to be with Christ As Mr. Flavel says of old Mr. Lyford that being desired a little before his death to let his Friends know in what condition his Soul was and what his thoughts were about that Eternity to which he seemed very near he answered with a cheerfulness suitable to a Believer and a Minister I will let you know how it is with me and then stretching out an hand that was withered and consumed with Age and Sickness Here is says he the Grave the Wrath of God and devouring Flames the just punishment of Sin on the one side and here am I a poor sinful soul on the other side but this is my comfort the Covenant of Grace which is established on so many sure Promises hath salved all There is an Act of Oblivion passed in Heaven I will forgive their iniquities and their sins will I remember no more This is the blessed Privilege of all within the Covenant among whom I am one What
order to Eternal Riches I am very well satisfied if I must be very low and contemptible and despised before I come to thee that lowness and that contempt shall be my real glory If during all the days of my Pilgrimage I must sow in Tears I will go on however for I know that I shall reap in joy If my corruptible Body must languish away in pain and my sinful Soul have its troubles too I will wait in hope and not repine or fret at thy Decree If I must be friendless here I will still prize thee as my best and Eternal Friend even when I am sorely opprest I will keep close to thee I will lay hold on thy Perfections on thy Covenant and on thy Promises and I will not let thee go till I be blessed This Favour of God causes a person to rejoice in him tho the Fig-tree do not blossom and when any dear Comfort any Relation is taken away by Death will make him say My God is better to me than Ten of these Comforts nay than many Thousands of them put together And tho he snatch from my Embraces what I most valued in this World yet he shall have my best affections my desire my love my delight as much as ever A Soul thus prepared to be quiet under the severest dispensations has Life in the Favour of God he has that Life that shall never expire but end in Eterâ—â—â— Life CHAP. VII Of several other ways whereby a sense of Gods favour may be preserved in our souls and how we may certainly know that we are in that Happy state V. IF you have this Favour of God you will desire the continuance of it above all other things and this will be both an evidence of your present sincerity and a means to convey to you a more pleasant sense of this favour In all outward actions as Prayer Hearing Giving to the Poor and the like there may be a very great resemblance between a true Christian and an Hypocrite but spiritual desires being the immediate off-spring of the soul are not liable to so many cheats and your desires after God will be very strong and earnest and produce powerful and sensible effects for they will be the fruit of a lively Faith and of an enlightned Understanding that sees the value of a God And this will render more strong the motions of your Souls for ignorance of him is the Mother of all feeble and languishing Desires Your breathings after him will be like Hunger and Thirst which are very uneasy to Nature and give us the most raging and eager Appetites and make us not well satisfied till they meet with their proper Gratifications Psal 42.1 2. As the heart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before him Even as that poor Creature when 't is pursued with Hunters and greatly heated with its flight longs to be refresht with the cool Streams of Water so will you when harassed with the Temptations of the Devil and his malicious and most cruel Suggestions fly with haste to the Embraces and Arms of God longing and panting after him nay the warmth of your desires may be so great as that you will even as it were melt away in flaming Zeal Psalm 84.2 My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God And Psal 119.20 My soul breaketh for the longing it hath to thy commandments Hope deferred makes the heart sick Prov. 13.12 An eager desire of absent amiable Good raises an agreeable Sensation and somewhat of Disorder in the Natural Spirits they are heated and stirred up with more vigour through the vehemence with which they move tho this does very much abate their strength and occasion that which we call fainting Such is the Sympathy that the Soul hath with its dearest Body that when the Soul meets with an Object suitable it is filled with warm Affections and fills the Body either with sadder or more chearful Spirits as it finds reasons of Sadness or of Joy Tho these desires of holy Men after God do not always burn with an equal Flame for in Desertions in some very perplexing Difficulty or in great bodily Indisposition and Sickness they are damped and cannot usually be so quick so chearful and so sensible as at other times tho even then they may be very sincere and acceptable for in so gloomy a time one Groan that comes from an humble heart may go up to God in as grateful a manner as many long Prayers at another season And in your desires after his Favour you will have regard to these two things 1. You will remember what it was that once heightned your desires and endeavour by the same means to quicken them when they begin to languish You will often consider what perfection in God it was whether his Goodness his Mercy his Truth his unchangeable Faithfulness or the like or what promise in the Scripture or what Act of Providence towards you it was that warmed your hearts And apply your selves again to the same profitable methods you will often recollect what passages they were in Sermons that you heard or in the good Books that you read that gave you the first amiable Sense of God 2. You will carefully observe what it is that cools and damps your desires What Passion what worldly Pleasure what vain Company what foolish Hopes what tormenting Cares what enslaving Fears and avoid all these as much as in you lies You will avoid those Snares that intangled you those Tentations that have clipt your Wings and made you when you were soaring aloft to fall to this Earth again Whatever secret Sin it was that weakned your holy Breathing after God or what omission of Duty it was that estranged him from you and immediately begin to mortifie that Sin and to set upon that Duty tho when we have done all we can there will be a vast difference between what we are and what we ought to be between our longing and the most Glorious Object after which we are to long But do we find no more any pleasure in our old Lusts Do we find our Hearts dead to this deceitful World and to those Objects that once we called Amiable and to which we sacrificed our time our endeavours our morning and our evening Thoughts Do the things that heretofore we most admired now seem less elegible Does all that we called beautiful seem deformed when compared with God himself Can every one of us sincerely say to our most beloved Sins and to the enjoyments of this World I once indeed over-admired you but I will never do so again for ever I bid you all farwell never pretend to a share in my Affections for I have now found a better good I have long pursued you to no purpose now in finding God I have found a
close with Death keep your mind full of these pleasant Ideas endeavour to get a greatness of soul that may not cease aspiring after these glorious Privileges and look with contempt upon all other Grandeur and Magnificence Having seen how honourable it is to be favoured by the Lord of Hosts Let us all resolve that we will never admire this vain World any more for we have now discerned a better World The End of the Second Part. A DISCOURSE Concerning TROUBLE of MIND AND THE DISEASE of MELANCHOLY PART III. PSAL. XXX 5. Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning CHAP. I. Of the many miseries of this mortal Life that are the usual occasions of sorrow to the Sons of Men with respect both to their bodies and souls 1. THE Life of Man is full of sorrow which yet is not so to be understood as that it is in every part full of darkness and calamity We have indeed stormy days but then we have fair weather too we have not only the sharpness of the Winter that pierces us with its Cold and Frosts and Snow but we have the mild and the favourable Summer afterwards that causes all the whole frame of Nature to rejoice and brings to us many grateful pleasant things that gives us occasion to praise the Wisdom of our Maker that has made a World so beautiful wherein we are to dwell That has provided for us all innumerable Comforts not only such as are absolutely necessary to maintain our Life but such as may give us delight and recreate our sense We can no way turn our Eyes but they behold wonders of his goodness his Sun his Moon in his Stars whose influences are for our benefit as well as for his Glory give us daily cause to say with David Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him He does not willingly grieve the Children of Men he does not make us always to weep but affords us frequent occasions of rejoicing whereas all our time might be as one Rainy day from the rising of our Sun to its going down but his Providence does permit us however to be laden with many Miseries before we come to another World And let us take a view of them for it will be useful to subdue our Pride to keep us from Vain-glory to make us to remember that we are not at Home that here is not our Rest and that we ought earnestly to desire a better State 1. Let us consider Man in his first arrival in the World or in his Infant-state And there we discern this same Creature that in his after years makes so great a noise and bustle in the VVorld to be a poor helpless thing that is no way able to cherish the newly begun Life nor to keep the Candle that is lighted from expiring the same minute wherein it began to shine Man comes crying into the VVorld an action very suitable to him at the entrance into a VVorld whose pleasures are floating and transcient but whose griefs are very sure Other Creatures are endued with instincts and inclinations for their own preservation and know in some measure as soon as they begin to live how to maintain their own Life but Man of all others is most destitute and helpless in this respect he is so tender and so frail that the least cold or dangers do more easily affect him Tho God has put that great love into Parents that they do as well as they can support and comfort and help their Children and with his blessing and their own great care and labour they make a shift to rear these little Plants But then there are abundance of diseases that begin to set upon the new-born Creatures Convulsions and other pains which greatly torment and vex them but which they are not able to express and which we do not know But we are sure they begin betimes to weep and to be sorrowful and their pains and sorrows make their Parents also to be afflicted and to weep with them when they see their miseries indeed but cannot help them This soft and tender Age is easily troubled and disquieted every little thing troubles and molests them so that the first hour of the night in which we travel when we begin to live is an hour of sorrow 2. When we are got over the weakness of our Infant-state and begin to have more strength and Reason dawns a little and yields us a little light to guide our selves That Light is mingled with darkness our small skill hath abundance of imprudence and we run into a thousand dangers that we do not see and those dangers make us to weep and to be sorrowful our careless youth is full of miseries and the blooming Rose has many Thorns about it When our Reason begins to display it self with our increasing-years then the several tasks that are set us the several things we are obliged to learn in order to a good and well-improved Education bring forth grief and pain our unwillingness to Labour and the Corrections that we meet with if we do it not do both afflict us our Ignorance is our misery and the difficulties that are planted about the Tree of Knowledg do fright and vex us Many of our early days are spent in digging for this hidden treasure and which we cannot find but with a vast toil and sweating for it and which when we have found does not satisfy It 's true indeed our first youth has to sweeten it many pleasures many recreations and diversions and we are then void of the many Cares of Life that afterwards do pierce our hearts but even then we are so confident and so foolish so apt to trust our own understandings and so backward to receive the advice of others who are more experienced that we do often wound our selves and sow those seeds of sorrow that yield us an uncomfortable Harvest many years afterwards And when in our freer time we come to reflect upon what we have done that reflection makes us weep to think that we have done so little for God or for our own Souls and that we lost so great a part of our Age in Trifles and Vanities For we can then say by sad experience Childhood and youth are vanity Eccles 11.10 The Joys that we then were pleased with are past and gone but the Wounds that we then received do many times smart and bleed afresh 3. When we have got the yoak of out Masters and Instructors off our necks and begin to manage and guide our selves and our Actions then we have many sorrows still And that 1. With reference to the Common Affairs of Life 2. With respect to knowledg and understanding 1. With reference to the Common Affairs of Life They are usually very many they bring along with them a huge Train of Cares of grave anxieties and sollicitude if Men have no imployment or business they grieve for the want
cannot remedy and which to behold is very sad and by knowing a great deal is liable to abundance of contradiction and opposition from the more peevish and self-willed and ignorant part of mankind that are vex'd because he will not think and say as they do and they are very prone to censure and condemn the things they do not understand for it is most easie so to do whereas to pierce into the Reasons of things requires a mighty labour and a succession of deliberate and serious thoughts to which the nature of Man is averse And lazily and hastily to judge requires no trouble and were it not that it is a man's duty to know and that his soul if it have any thing of greatness and amplitude in its faculties cannot be satisfied without it it were a much safer and quiet course to be ignorant Study and painful enquiries after knowledg do oftentimes exhaust and break our spirits and prejudice our health and brings upon us those Diseases to which the careless and thinking seldom are obnoxious Eccles 1.13 14 15. I have seen all the works that are done under the Sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit that which is crooked cannot be made straight and that which is wanting cannot be numbred CHAP. II. Shewing that the fall of Adam was the cause of all our miseries and in how excellent a condition the blessed Angels are and the folly of such as expect to meet with nothing in the world but what is easie and pleasant Inf. 1. SEeing the life of man is a state of weeping what sin there must needs be in the fall of Adam that has provoked God so much as to send so many miseries upon his own Creatures Had mot he fallen we had always rejoyced and never mourned we had always sung the praises of God with delight and never have hang'd our harps upon the willows We should have always lived upon the food of Angels pure and Coelestial joys and not have had that bread of sorrows which we now have to feed upon We may justly cry out O Adam what was it that you did when you rafted the forbidden fruit Why did you ruin your self and us your helpless posterity in one day and by one Act you turned the pleasant world into a place of wo and made your self and us of free men to become prisoners of this Earth It was a sad day indeed that opened a Sluce to that vast Inundation of miseries that have from that time overwhelmed the lower world thence came storms and tempests wars and desolations and all the burdens under which we groan and which we cannot escape 'T is to this Spring that we may trace all our troubles Oh how happily how pleasantly might we have lived had we not Apostatiz'd And now we can only say Wo unto us for we have sinned and when any Plagues molest us can only say this is the fruit of our own choice this is the product of our own Iniquity Tho thanks be to God through the blood of Jesus Christ we have a way to escape at length from all those Plagues and Sins Inf. 2. Seeing this life is full of weeping how much more happy are the blessed Angels than we At the view of the Harmony and order of the Worlds Creation those Sons of the morning sang together it pleased them to see their Creator's glory so appear and they still continue to sing and praise him not a sad look has from that time to this clouded their faces not a troubled thought has possest their minds those holy Spirits are always joyful serene and undistutb'd they are not linkt to such bodies as we are and consequently not liable to so many thousand miseries A soul in flesh is forced to sympathize with its neighbour and companion the body and is altered or changed as to its joys and griefs according to the several objects that are suitable or disagreeable to that and yet our imbodied condition gives us some privileges of which the Angels being Spirits are not capable for by this means we can glorifie God by sufffering for him and by our patience in our several trials convert many to the faith of Christ which their Spiritual nature gives them no opportunity to do As long as we are united to the body so long must we expect to be afflicted and when this union is happily dissolved then does the time of our freedom and our pleasure come In the Resurrection we shall be as the Angels of God we shall not be busied in those perplexing and intricate affairs that now molest us We shall be like to them in vigor and activity and joy We shall have bodies indeed even then but such as will be spiritualized such as will not be capable of mourning and lamentation nor by their heaviness their pains and indispositions be any more an hindrance to the nimbler operations of our Souls and it should comfort us to think that one day we shall have such excellent Companions so knowing and so kind and loving as Angels are and that then we shall rejoice as well as they and with our common praise give our Great Creator an Eternal Hymn of Thanks Inf. 3. They have a wrong notion of the life of man that expect to find nothing in it but what is pleasant And who because now their mountain stands strong say with David That they shall never be moved Psal 30.6 7. How clearly soever their Sun now shines yet sooner or later storms and darkness will overtake them The day is coming that will cast a vail upon all their smiling glory and turn their laughter into mourning and lamentation For man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards Job 5.7 This world is as an Hospital or Lazaretto full of various miseries and calamities and therefore those that promise nothing to themselves but diversion and mirth and soft and easie pleasures labour under manifold mistakes which arise from these two Causes 1. VVant of Experience and Consideration Hence it is that young people and such as have lived but a little while are mightily taken with the sweetness and delight of life whereas those that have tried it some years longer find several crosses and disappointments and vexations in it and tho the morning of their day was clear yet they see many thick Clouds gather as the shadows of the Evening are drawing on It is nothing else but gross ignorance that occasions the loud and mad Triumphs of so great a part of the world for if they did but a little survey the condition of their suffering-neighbours and the weakness of their own bodies the uncertainty of their hopes and the vanity of their desires they would sit down and bewail their miseries and they would find their biggest joys to be confin'd with grief Or 2. It arises from this That they resolve not to disturb their present ease and pleasure with any mâ—urnful meditations They 'l shut their ears
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
it self David was a man often exercised with sickness and the rage of enemies and in all the instances almost that we meet with in the Psalms we may obobserve * Dr. Gilpin's Treatise of Temptat Part 2. p. 296. that the outward occasions of trouble brought him under an apprehension of the wrath of God for his sin Psal 6.1 2. and the reason given ver 5 6. all his griefs running into to this more terrble thought That God was his enemy as little Brooks lose themselves in a great River and change their name and nature it most frequently happens that when our pain is long and sharp and helpless and unavoidable we begin to question the sincerity of our estate towards God tho at its first assault we had few doubts or fears about it Long weakne s of body makes the soul more susceptible of trouble and uneasie thoughts I would have more largely insisted on the troubles of a deserted soul but that I find them so excellently described by Dr. Gilpin in the second part of his Learned and Experimental Treatise of Satan's Temptations and to that I must refer my Reader as not knowing any other Book that does with so much exactness and truth set forth these inward and Spiritual afflictions I now proceed to enquire why God suffers such a night so tempestuous and so frightful to come upon his servants 1. That they may be conformable to Christ As they are tempted and distress'd so was he as it is with their souls a season of darkness so was it also with his holy soul that was full of amazement under a sense of God's wrath tho he never despaired indeed as many of his servants are apt to do under the violence of sorrow Isa 53.3 He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief When he was so sadned for our sakes 't is reasonable to think that we should sometimes taste of the bitter cup and not always rejoyce and be at ease If God spared not his only Son why should we expect to feel nothing thing but what is very mild and gentle And our Lord has told us The world shall rejoyce but you shall be sorrowful Joh. 16. from v. 20. to v. 22. The sufferings of Christ were to give a satisfaction to the Divine Justice ours are not to be lookt upon with such an eye by these terrors and desertions we learn to value and esteem the love of Christ who was pleased to redeem us when it cost him so very dear and who was pleased not to decline the field of Battel tho it was not to be managed without vast labour and a mighty pain And says the Apostle Rejoyce in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings 1 Pet. 4.13 Secondly Another reason may be Because our fall and our ruin came by pleasure A delight it was tho a very short one that made our forefather Adam Apostatize and it is equitable that we should be cured by something contrary to that which occasioned our disease seeing our joys are dangerous he makes our grief and sorrows to be healthful and Medicinal Thirdly 'T is a very proper season wherein to be sorrowful Among all the other excellent appointments of Providence this is one That there should be a time to weep Eccles 3.4 There is in this weeping-night nothing strange or uncouth all our fathers have in some respect passed under a Cloud and a Cloud that has dissolved in rain and which has given to the good Pilgrims much trouble as they went along 1 Pet. 2.6 Now for a season ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations 'T is no more strange to see mourning in the Church on Earth than to see storms or snow in Winter every thing is beautiful in its season and so this affliction is The night is useful to the world tho not so pleasant as the day our sickly state will not admit us to have nothing but what is grateful to our pallats the wise God therefore many times instead of very pleasant things confers the best upon us we must allow the Great Master of the Family to maintain its order prosperity and welfare by his own methods to chastise us when and how and as long as he pleaseth for his strokes tho very smart yet are still very just and it is in order to some better thing that he designs for us that at the present we are made to grieve for grief as one observes * Dr. Harris's Serm. p. 277. is an imperfect passion not made for it self but for some higher use as also all the rest of the declining affections are as Hatred for Love Fear for Confidence and the like and so Sorrow for Joy unto which it is subservient as launcing and searing are not for themselves but for ease and remedy and a bitter potion is not for sickness which it may cause for a time but for health so Sorrow is made for Joy and Joy is the end of Sorrow and God we may be sure will have his end IV. To shew his own Soveraignty both in afflicting and comforting He causes such a Prince as Job to sit upon a Dunghill in anguish and trouble whilest another sits in unclouded Glory on the Throne He pulls down one and sets up another and does whatsoever he will in Heaven or Earth 't is the withdrawing of his Spirit that is an occasion of mourning to the soul and he variously acts upon it for tho he deny not what is absolutely necessary to the being of the Christian yet he many times does not vouchsafe to give what would make it very comfortable he upon wise Reasons does many times suffer the hearts of his people to be overwhelmed with sorrow when he could make them brim-full of joy as in nature he lets the Earth gape for thirst when he could immediately refresh it with seasonable showers Who in all this mysterious variety of his Administrations can say unto him What dost thou Some Countries are desert barren and forsaken burnt up with scorching heat and fill'd with Beasts of Prey and others are inhabited and fruitful and greatly blessed and he sees fit to have the parts of his Dominions thus qualified Some does he draw with the sweet savour of his Ointments they perceive nothing but what is grateful and refreshing but others he sorely terrifies with the greatness of his Power his Holiness and Majesty and they never eat nor live with pleasure The Captain of our Salvation causes some of his Soldiers to meet with much more formidable dangers than others do they have more sweat and fatigue and toil and painful duty tho he will be sure himself to help them when they are ready to give way the manner of his dispensations to his servants is various both in life and at death Some are chastned all the day long and with sore pain upon their beds too whilest others have no pain at all some go drooping to the Grave bowed down with his
watry Clouds Job 26.27 28. When I looked for good then evil came unto me and when I waited for light there came darkness My bowels boiled and rested not the days of affliction prevented me I went mourning without the Sun I stood up and cried in the congregation Now the Servants of God are going to the Port of Blessedness as Jonas to the Shore covered with the Waters of Affliction They seem now to a careless Eye like the Seed that is buried in the Ground to be quite cast away but they shall arise with new Lustre Inf. 4. This assures us that there is another and a more happy Life after this Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Matth. 5.4 He that goeth forth weeping c. Psalm 126.6 John 16.16 This Sorrow is the forerunner of abiding Joy these Tears of holy Persons are fruitful and profitable Tears and those Souls that now are vext with the Sins of others and their own shall ere long be sweetly refresht the Night is long and doleful but the Morning comes that will cause them to forget all their former trouble God puts their Tears into his Bottles tho in appearance they fall upon the Earth unregarded and seem to be lost even then they fall into the Lap of his Providence which will make them to fructify by his Blessing and to their eternal Joy This little Grain that is sown will return back again into their bosoms with measure filled up and running over and their floods of Tears that now surrounded them shall be turned into Rivers of Pleasure for evermore * Charles Recueil de Sermons p. 119. If in this life only we had hope we were of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15.19 Miserable indeed if we were obliged to bear so many Crosses to meet so many Dangers and such various Calamities and to have no reward but thanks be to God this is not our case Whilest we look upon this World upon the manifold Evils that are here we weep but when we lift up our Eyes to that pure and calm and blessed World that is above we may be chearful and rejoyce here we are tost among Rocks and Shelves with threatning Waves and high Winds but there we behold our rest In this Wilderness we are pursued with the roaring Lyons annoyed with Hunger and with Thirst and other Inconveniencies but we are all the while in our Journey to the promised Land and shortly shall be there and then we shall receive a blessed period of all our Conflicts and our Difficulties Inf. 5. Seeing there is such a weeping Night to the Servants of God this verifies and confirms that Maxim of the Gospel That strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life Thither must we go through the very depths and wade through many Seas of grief though all others find it to be difficult because of the frequent self-denials and mortifications to which they are obliged because of the many sins that beset them and the many sufferings they must undergo yet deserted Souls find it to be a strait way indeed and to them it is covered with Thorns and Bryars and though you whose Mountain is yt strong whose hopes are yet unshaken think it easie yet if ever you come to be sorely tempted to be afflicted with long and sharp Tryals if you come to be greatly pained in your Bodies and greatly troubled in your Souls if you be awakened with the sight of Hell and the threatnings of the Law and broken with the terrors of the Almighty you will joyn your cry to ours and say That the way is very strait Joh and Hunan and Asaph and David and all others have found it to be so There is indeed a Lion in the way but that must not be an excuse to sloth but a motive to our Courage we must take the more caution and be more watchful to avoid him The sense so God's displeasure is as an hot Furnace into which many of his Children are thrown though they shall come out unhurt and when they are come forth they shall be like Gold yet it is grievous to Sense when they must be saved so as by Fire when they must come to their Crown by Racks and Torments by Anguish and Tribulation and to Heaven by the very Gates of Hell I shall close this Chapter with two Exhortations 1. With respect to those with whom it is yet day and who have never been forsaken of God And 2. To such disconsolate souls with whom it is as yet a weeping and a mourning Night 1. If you have not been forsaken and have ever had the light of God's Countenance shining on you beware of the approach of Night Prevent as much as you can the declining of the Day I have shewed you into what a Pit I and some others have fallen take warning by our danger and take heed lest you also come into the like doleful Case You have the smiles of your Heavenly Father you have been ever with him Oh! do not provoke him to turn those reviving smiles into killing frowns be not secure be not self-confident be not faithless but believe and guard your Faith and be watchful for your Enemy the Devil goes about seeking whom he may devour Work while it is day for when this night comes I can assure you by sad experience that you cannot work Pray now with fervour for then you cannot Pray Now Read and Hear the Word of God for then you will find no taste even in the Bread of Life Beware of Indifference and of Lukewarmness beware of grieving the Spirit and of slighting his motions for all these are the shadows of this doleful night Your day is comfortable and your journey pleasant while the Sun shines Oh! make hast to your Eternal home lest your feet stumble on the dark Mountains If you linger wrath will overtake you terrible and amazing wrath such as you cannot now believe and such as you then cannot bear Credit the Report that we bring you from the Land of darkness and go not in the way that will lead you thither We have fallen among Thieves and Robbers among Temptations and Dangers and Tryals that deprived us of all our Comforts do not you tread a path where you will surely be set upon and greatly wounded if you do escape though it may be you say as Job 29.18 I shall dye in my nest and multiply my days as the sand 2. Do not severely judge or censure persons under spiritual trouble It is night with them indeed but they may live to see the morning come God has overthrown them but he will build them up again they are in darkness but rejoice not over them for he will be a light unto them Speak not to the hurt of those that he has wounded look not on with unconcernedness or a secret pleasure in the time of your Brother's trouble Job 30.11 Because he hath loosed my cord and afflicted me
enough Enter into thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee When it can reflect and think of him as its own portion then the sorrows and darkness of the Night are gone for it has God that is all light and with him is no darkness at all and to see the light and to possess it is the same thing There is as one observes a reflected and a direct Light I see Palaces and Mountains and Towns and Fields and Trees with a reflected Light and hence it is that I see them without possessing them but I see the light of the Sun and of the Stars by direct rays and in seeing them I possess for to rejoice in the light of the Sun and to possess it is the same thing We now see God indeed by a reflected light which comes to us from the Creatures and hence it is that all those that see him do not possess him but in Heaven God will be seen without Vails and Reflexions His light will be a direct light which will fill us throughout it was a comfort to the Patriarchs and holy men of old to have the hope of Christ's appearance they saw his day afar off and they rejoyced but how much more is it to that soul that has actually seen him come and not only spreading his beams to remove the general darkness of the world but shining with a peculiar light and heat into its self It is peculiarity that endears the most of things to us our own Friends our own Relations our own Joys are the most pleasant It is not from Christ's being singly considered as a Mediator that we derive this comfort but from the reflexion that we are able to make of our happiness in him it is that which creates the sweetest motions in our hearts Before this propriety there may be a calmness of spirit and lesser degrees of Complacency expressing themselves in love and hope and desire but 't is the actual possession of a good as our own that is the Parent of a real joy the Christian may find some comfort in beholding the Incarnation the Sufferings and the Promise of his second Coming but when the soul can say He died and rose again for me this touches it with a very lively satisfaction and makes it say as in Hab. 3.17 CHAP. VIII Of the further Properties of the Joy that comes to a Soul after long desertion 'T is Irresistible tho usually Gradual it revives the body and the natural spirits It fills the late mourner with the hope of Glory and causes him to express his delight to others From all which we may justly admire the Wisdom of the Divine Providence 7. THis Joy is Irresistible As all the darkness of the Night cannot hinder the approach of the welcome day so neither can all our doubts nor our fears nor all the horrors of the Night hinder the beams of God's favour when he is pleased to shine upon us Job 34.29 When he giveth quietness who then can make trouble Notwithstanding all the directions and the helps that our Ministers or our friends give us in our trouble we refuse to be comforted but when he speaks the word we must obey He creates the fruit of the lips peace peace and we can no more resist his Almighty power than the first Chaos could withstand his Command when in the Language of a God he spoke and said Let there be Light Our escape from our Spiritual troubles bears some proportion with the Resurrection of our Lord from the Dead as that was owing not to a power ordinary or created so neither is ours but to a power that is Coelestial and Divine It was not as * Claude Traite de Jesus Christ Liv. v. 12. one observes the effect of the Power of God in the ways of nature such as is the Rising of the Sun the Return of Seasons the Fruitfulness of the Earth but the effect of a power altogether Infinite and Supernatural it is not according to the usual Laws of Nature or the course of Ordinary Providence 8. This Joy is usually Gradual and not all at once I say usually for sometimes persons in great distress and agonies of soul have been suddenly relieved in their darkest Night and in the deepest Dungeon a great Light has shined upon them so that those that have one hour cried out they were damned and lost have the next triumphed in the hope of glory and from the fear of Hell have come to a glorious view of Heaven to their own exceeding comfort and the comfort of all that heard them But tho God may do what he pleases this is not his ordinary way as the Night comes and the Sun goes down by degrees so does the morning come and the Sun arise by the same degrees as it rarely happens that any fall into great distress of Conscience on a sudden some lesser afflictions make way for greater strokes so seldom are any comforted immediately but their comfort comes like the break of day there are some faint streaks of light some little supports and quiet hopes before the Sun arise And God in this accommodates himself to the weakness of our nature for a sudden passage from a great Affliction to a great Joy is a thing which our tender nature is hardly capable to bear and usually the Consciences of those that have been very long terrified and afflicted begin to be calm as the humours of the body that have been disordered return to their Ancient course for so long as the Spirits and the Blood are disordered so long the Soul will unavoidably be in some unpleasant agitation 9. This joy has a pleasant influence on the Body and revives that with the reviving mind they fall sick and droop and they recover and rejoyce together When God is our God it causes health in our Countenances as well as pleasure in our Hearts and though I know that abundance of poor people that have been long amazed with the fear of God's Wrath have very feeble sickly Bodies to the day of death yet this calmness and peace of mind does greatly mitigate their pains and pour Honey and Sweetness into the most bitter Cup For what is it that makes affliction in trouble of mind to be so intollerable but that the afflicted person looks upon it as the beginning of sorrows as a few drops before a more dreadful storm and as the introduction to hell and woe But when the sting of guilt is removed and sin is pardoned the yoak sits very easie on their shoulders that used to gall them before Prov. 15.13 A merry bea rt maketh a chearful countenance Joy as well as grief cannot be dissembled if it be real and very strong Joy in the Heart is like the Rain at the Root of the Grass it will after being moistned to the bottom appear much more green and flourishing Prov. 17.22 A merry heart doth good like a medicine Even that chearfulness which arises
from natural and ordinary Causes is very healthful and adds very much to the strength and vigour of the body much more then will that joy promote it which is founded on the Word of God and on the hope of his Acceptance And no question David had a respect to this when he said Psal 51.8 Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoyce Ps 35.10 All my bones shall say Lord who is like to thee which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him and the needy from him that spoileth him No troubles wast our natural spirits more than our inward griefs and fears no joys refresh and make them more sprightly than the joys of our Souls See Job 33.19 to 26. God is gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going down into the pit I have found a ransome his flesh shall be fresher than a childs he shall return to the days of his youth he shall pray unto God and he will be favourable to him and he shall see his face with joy Those that have writ of Long Life and the means to obtain it advise us to keep our minds always full of splendid and illustrious objects of Histories and the contemplations of Nature and the like but the best Medicine is a quiet Conscience And tho all our Religion will not indeed save us from sickness yet it will enable us to bear it not to be too much concerned and overwhelmed with the manifold and unavoidable Calamities of this mortal Life This is Joy indeed that will recreate our souls and our bodies too that will prepare the one for its passage to Glory and the other for its lying in the Grave Thus our soul which is our glory shall rejoyce and our flesh also shall rest in hope Psal 16.9 and both at length as they have mourn'd so rejoyce together and that for evermore For when God is pleased to speak and to help us both in our bodies and our souls 't is multiplied Salvation and many thousand Cures in one The third General is that Joy arises from the hope of some future Good and this good must be both very agreeable to the soul and very certain For if it be not so there cannot be any other than a weak and a trembling joy There is a great pleasure in expectation of what is to come if it be great and lasting and attainable now to one that hath the returning-sense of God's favour ' tis-very pleasant to look for that hour or day or rather for that chearful Eternity when he shall have the same reviving smiles of his heavenly Father in a more bright and conspicuous manner when not only the night of weeping is gone but that morning is come which shall shine more and more to a perfect day And thus will the comfortable person say If the tast that I have now of God be so sweet Oh! what will the full enjoyment of him be If in this strange Land I am entertained as with the Bread of Angels What Feasts will refresh me when I am at home when I am past the Storms and beyond the Grave and Sin and Tears shall give me no further molestation The first Fruits make them to long for the full Harvest thus says the Apostle We rejoyce in hope of the glory of God and this made the Church to say Make hast O my beloved and be thou like a Roe or a young Hart upon the mountains of spices Expectation of any main event as one says is a great advantage to a wise heart If the fiery Chariot had fetcht away Elias unlookt for we should have doubted of the favour of his Transportation 4. This Morning-Joy will express it self As our griefs cause us to groan and sigh so does this make us in an open pleasant way to manifest our gladness The reviving sense of God's favour does so fill our hearts that we cannot without dishonour to him and prejudice to our selves conceal or stifle it When we apprehend our selves to be happy we take a peculiar pleasure in communicating to others the notice of that happiness and are much more pleased by such a communication This Joy is always attended with an expression of the Mercies of our Deliverer that we cannot but say to our Brethren Come and behold what God has wrought for us Behold what Salvation his own Arm and Power has accomplished so Psal 51.12 Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit then will I teach transgressors and sinners shall be converted unto thee Then I shall be able to tell them That thy ways however rugged they seem to be for a while yet are at length even and pleasant ways That they lead to Life and Happiness and beholding the beams of thy Love that make me so pleasant and so chearful they shall by such a sight be incouraged also to Religion And to the same purpose Psal 16.9 My heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth His inward Joy was not able to contain it self We testify our pleasure on lower occasions even at the gratification of our senses when our Ear is filled with harmonious melody when our Eye is fixed upon admirable and beauteous objects when our Smell is recreated with agreeable odours and our tast is so by the delicacy and rareness of Provisions and much more will our soul shew its delight when its faculties that are of a more exquisite constitution meet with things that are in all respects agreeable and pleasant to them and in God they meet with all those with his Light our Understanding is refresh'd and so is our Will with his Goodness and his Love So in Psal 126.1 2. When the Lord turn'd again the captivity of Sion then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing It was a sign their hearts were very sull of joy seeing the mouth and the tongue poured it out in so great abundance nay their Neighbours could not but take notice of it They said among the heathen the Lord hath done great things for them far beyond the methods of an ordinary Providence Their Liberty was strange and miraculous that surpassed all Imaginable Reasons and behold as people take delight to go over and over again with a pleasant thing they Eccho to this saying of the Heathens saying Verse 3. The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad Others knew it only by report that God had been so good to them but they by sweet experience In the delivered people it was indeed an inward Jubilation with a loud Cry and Song of Triumph as when God is withdrawn we are forced to speak in the anguish and bitterness of our Souls so when he returns the return is so pleasant that we cannot hold our tongues In our troubles there is a latent grief so sinking and so very sad that no words can express so in the good hope of God's acceptance
there is a sweetness that cannot be declared Ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 We dare not give a particular relation of our grievous sufferings lest we should discourage many poor people that are apt enough of themselves to sink and be discouraged or if we would we cannot they are so very terrible So the sight of God after long darkness fills us with wonder and with pleasing astonishment we feel we are delighted but we cannot fully tell what it is to be so and sometimes we are in such transporting joys that like the blessed Apostle when he had the view of Paradise whether we are in the Body or out of it we scarcely know The poor soul is so transported that it is every way surrounded with delight Will God dwell in such an heart as mine that has been so full of murmurings and so full of unbelief Will he pardon and accept of me Shall I that was doomed to dye in my own sad thoughts have the hope of glory and instead of my slavish fears from the dread of Hell have the sight of Heaven Shall I be his Favourite of whom I had such hard and unbecoming thoughts Oh! what Grace is this how unlook'd for how undeserved and yet how suitable Is this the manner of men O Lord God! Is this thy kind usage of a poor sinner and of so great a sinner as I have been This is Grace indeed this is all free Love and Mercy How can this be past over in silence Such a person escaped after such apprehensions of so near a danger is like the Lame Man that was healed He leaping up stood and walked and entred into the Temple walking and leaping and praising God And all the people saw him walking and praising God Acts 3.8 9. and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which happened unto him As inward anguish causes the distressed many times to roar out vehemently so heavy is the load that presses them on the contrary when the fear of Wrath is removed they rejoyce with shouting and with a loud voice like those that Conquer or reap the Harvest For as when a Man is under inward anguish and tribulation he looks upon himself as a Beacon fired on a Hill to give warning to others and to shew them the danger of Sin so when he comes to peace and hope again he wishes that he might be placed as on a Mountain and enabled to trumpet out to all the World the Riches of the Grace of God that as none may presume when they see his misery so none may despair when they see his safety and his escape from that misery Inf. 1. The Wisdom and the Beauty of the Divine Providence That as in the World there is a comfortable Succession of Night and Day so in his Servants mourning after the Sorrows of the Night the Joy of the morning comes this Night comes and this morning dawns when it is most proper for it so to do He hath made every thing beautiful in his time Eccl. 3.11 The Storms and Rain and Cold of Winter are as beneficial to the Universe as the Summers heat Tho we from our Self-love judge of God either with more admiring or less becoming Thoughts as he deals well or ill with us but it is not particular Churches nor particular Persons that God only regards but his whole Creation his Providences to us contribute to the good of that We know not to what uses God will put us but it ought something to support us to think in what state soever we are we are serving his Design how pressing and how violent soever our Dangers and Tribulations are he can save us even by methods contrary to those which our Reason apprehends by throwing us down he can make us to be more established and by seeming so destroy us promote our welfare he can make unlikely things to advance his purpose 'T is many times more dark just before the break of day and the going back of the Sun on the Dial of Ahaz was to be a sign of Hezekiah's longer Life Isaiah 38.8 Therefore if you will allow me a small digression 't is a very evil thing for men to censure the Providence of God because of the present Miseries that he suffers his Servants to be afflicted with there are many that think it a piece of Zealous Loyalty not to blame their Superiors for the higher Matters of Government which are above their reach and yet dare to Arraign at their Bar the Supreme Ruler of the World if what he does be not according to the Model of their Fancies or suitable to their Imaginations or because whilest others are gratified their Humours are crost and disappointed not considering that the difference and variety of Circumstances amongst particular Men are necessary to the general and publick Good To censure God and to reflect upon his Conduct is as if a Country Clown who never travelled beyond the Smoak of his own Cottage should condemn the Proclamation of a King or the Votes of a Parliament when he does not know the great Reasons of State that these Actions depend upon But as St. Basil observes When Men are first crossed in their Worldly Affairs they begin for want of Patience to doubt whether God in very deed regardeth the things of this World whether he take notice of particular Men when they see no end of their Miseries but one evil continually is attended with another they are blasphemously apt to think there is no God God can bring Affliction to try and manifest the Graces of his People as the Stars that are a chief part of the Glory of the Worlds are then most illustrious and visible when the day is gone and then he makes the Sun to rise again that displays new Objects to us The Rods of God are many times very sharp but at last we shall find that they were dipt in Honey and managed with Love The Conduct of Providence is always Wise and Good but very often Mysterious and Unfathomable and in nothing more so then in his bringing abundance of his Servants to Heaven by the very Gates of Hell and in suffering Satan to buffet and to vex them that they may triumph over him in the latter end He makes them to be in great perplexities that the sweet wonders of his deliverance may the more appear We went through fire and through water but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place Psal 66.12 Thus he preserved Moses in a Cradle of Bull-rushes and would not suffer the great Infant to perish though he was in manifest danger either to be carried away by the force of the Water or to be devoured by Crocodiles with which that River did abound So was Noah preserved in the Ark not by any Art in Navigation but by the Government and Conduct of God himself He hastens deliverance many times when it seems to be at the remotest distance In the Evening
Sickness and Recovery I trust that God that hath given you as it were a resurrection from the dead hath designed you for more than ordinary work in your Generation Your Deliverance and Salvation has been extraordinary and t is more than probable that so must your After-work be God who gives to his Servants the Talents of Gifts or Graces will find imployment for them answerable unto the same I long to see something you hint in your Epistle before your Book about your spiritual Conflict under your bodily Affliction It will be I hope of use to all tender afflicted Consciences I have blessed the Lord on your behalf for his signal favour shown you in your wonderful recovery And shall pray to God for you That he will please to continue your life health and opportunities to you that you may be eminently useful in your Ministerial Capacity for his Name Your dear Parents would have rejoyced if they had been alive to have heard and seen the fruits of your Labours Dear Sir though I am a little straitned for time at present yet my heart is inlarged towards you wishing you all health and happiness in this World and in the next Eternal Felicity I am Dear Sir Your unfeigned Well-wisher and Servant GEO. NICHOLSON From Hudleskeugh in Cumberland Apr. 17. 1691. LETTER VI. Dear Sir IT was your signal happiness to be deeply writ upon the hearts of many of God's praying Servants when in your own apprehension you seemed as if you had been cast out of God's heart And I heard some when you were at your lowest ebb express their saith and hope That God was but preparing you by those afflictive Methods for more eminent Service And now it cannot but greatly rejoice me to see such blooming appearances of the Issue answering both their Prayers and Hopes Ministers of all Persons had need to set up upon a good stock of Experience spiritual and useful Experience And no School more proper to improve us in that kind than the School of Affliction which made Luther sometimes say That Affliction Temptation and Prayer were the three Things that made a Minister And hence it is that God in his wise and holy Providence many times puts his Servants to School under the preparatory Pedagogy of Affliction whom he designs for more than ordinary usefulness When we enter upon the service of Souls we know not what Cases may occur to require our wise and tender management And a Scribe cannot be better instructed for the Kingdom of God than when he has felt in himself what he meets with in others When we have been brought to the mouth of the Pit our selves and there have been conscious to the thoughts and fears and workings of our own hearts we can better tell how to minister proper applications to others in the like condition When we have our selves been toss'd upon the tumultuous waves of temptation and one deep has call'd to another to put the greatest discouragement upon our condition we are the better furnish'd to speak a word in season to others under the like circumstances Every Storm weathered furnishes the Pilot with more dextrous skill not only to work his own Vessel in succeeding Tempests but to be singularly helpful to others when they fall into the like depths and Straits Our Blessed Lord himself learned experience by the things which he suffered And if he must be put to School to lead him into a practical experience of what he was to pity and help in others How much more is it requisite in such poor unskilful Creatures as we A Wise and Holy God has been hewing you upon the dark Mountains and I hope it has been to make you a more expert and polite Pillar in his Sanctuary And the more workmanship he has bestowed upon you the more eminent Station probably he designs for you God works his greatest works many times in the dark and forms his most curious Pieces in the gloomy shades of Adversity so that neither our selves nor others can tell what he is a-doing till he hath accomplish'd his Work He throws us into the Furnace Lead or Iron and for a long time no body can tell what he will make of us Sometimes he looks as if he would consume and make an utter end of us And yet at last he brings us forth as Gold We go into the Fire light and foolish and frothy and when he has melted and tried us what time he sees meet he brings us forth serious holy and gracious Souls When we thought we should have lost Life and Soul and All we have lost nothing but our dross and feculency to make us more refined for Temple-service When you seriously reflect upon your by-past days of trouble whatever thoughts you had then yet I hope now you can say through grace that God has made you no loser but a blessed gainer by that gloomy dispensation And what wisdom and grace and experience you have obtained I pray God you may be helped humbly to imploy in his Holy Sanctuary We should labour to diffuse a more shining and burning Light when God has been trimming us from our dross and filth and has set us up again in his Temple-Candlestick God has been dressing and trimming you a long time and after a long and dismal time of complicated afflicton he has restored you to your station in the Assemblies of his People Now the good Lord make both your gifts and graces so much the more resplendent not only for your own sake but also that you may minister the more light and warmth to others in their way to glory You promise a Second Volume of Discourses giving account of the spiritual part of your Affliction which I shall be very glad to see as soon as your leisure will permit you to make it publick In the mean time I commend you to God and to the riches of his Grace in hopes that what God has done for you is but a pledge of what he designs to do by you To which I shall only add my earnest Prayers and tell you That it is in all sincerity SIR Your affectionate Fellow-labourer in the Work of the Gospel THO. WHITAKER Leeds Nov. 25. 1690. LETTER VII SIR I Do now at last return you my hearty thanks for your Book ........................ I should not have been thus far behind in expressing my gratitude but that I have been hindred by weakness ........................ It was a Book to me both seasonable and suitable I pray God it may be as well improv'd as 't is generally liked by Christians If I were to give an account of my Visitation it would in very many things correspond with yours I have been for some years past under an Hypochondraical evil habit of body which has had many grievous Symptons attending it viz. Vertigo's Convulsions Paralytick Effects with a Fever thought to be Hectical and with it I have had an universal languor and decay of Spirits together with
dreadful Temptations Clouds Confusions and Terrors of Soul c. so that there was no hope or help to be expected but from Heaven in answer to many Prayers which through mercy were succesful .............................. though still I am under weakness though I hope rather going forward than contrary As to my Soul I have not been without good experiences blessed be the free Grace of God! I cannot neither may I trouble you to enlarge upon any of these things My old Enemy will not lay down but by force strong Temptations and Corruptions c. are my daily Exercise Good Sir help me by your Prayers over to the Lord Jesus there 's as much in that as if I had made more words Pray Sir forget me not and please to put others in remembrance of me you know what Graces are necessary to such a Condition 'T is a true saying Tranquillus Deus tranquillat omnia the Lord teach me to be as humble as he would have me be and in every thing give thanks I desire to rejoice with you and them that rejoice concerning you for your restauration Good Sir again remember them that are still out in the storm such have need of patience c. I know not how to break off But time and strength failing me I remain Daventry March 10. 1690 1. SIR Your Friend and Servant Joh. Worth Jun. LETTER VIII From a Young Student in Divinity Dear and much respected Cousin LOng Experience proves it beyond a thousand Arguments that they who have made choice of God for their happiness must expect none here 't is a contradiction to expect Heaven on Earth or to look for a setled duration where all things rush round in vicissitude I cannot tell what they may find who have the world at will but I am sure Believers upon a reflection and consideration of the hard usage and unquieting perplexities which they are still meeting with cannot but long to be where the weary are at rest The Saints who have now got to the end of their way may well rejoyce for they have good reason for it happy are they who have got safely to their Father's House through so many threatning Difficulties When others are lawless as to their practices we are limited to the holy Rule of the Word our life must be a life of Self-denial mortification and contempt of the World I know not what thoughts many Professors may have of Religion but for my self when I seriously think what a life a true Christian's is I am ready to cry out True Religion is a rare thing Dear Cousin What manner of men should you and I be who are designed for such special work I desire to bear part in the praises for your wonderful Deliverance the Lord teach us the true nature of Thankfulness that we may live more to and for God ............................ I desire an interest in your Prayers that God would keep me from Melancholly which I am inclined to and that God would bless my study to me and make it successful and in so doing you will add one more to the Favours you have bestow'd on Rauthmell in Yorkshire Novemb 17. l690 Your very Loving Cousin THO. BARNS LETTER IX To a Relation of the Author's who was long under Melancholly from a Minister who several years was under that Disease My dear Christian Friend AS Christ has given me any bowels of mercy I cannot but pity you under your Soul-affliction and disquietment of spirit being greatly oppressed by Satan that malicious and active Spirit who hates you for the Truth 's sake and no doubt therefore hates you because he finds in you the love of the truth by the proper and convincing evidences of it And that you might not have any comfort by it as the work of the Spirit of Grace in your heart as also that God might not have from you the praise and glory due unto his Grace for it for he envies him all the worship and glory that 's given him by his Saints in Heaven and Earth Therefore he does all he can to hide the knowledge of it from you by clouding your mind by darkning your evidences by his own malicious suggestions against you as also by stirring up all sorts of sin in you but more especially Unbelief the sin of sins his First-born the Mother of all Abominations in the Soul and so the Provocative whereby he well knows if he can work it up to its perfect and full dominion he shall effectually hinder the income of all peace and joy and so fill the poor despairing Soul with all heaviness and horror never to be removed but by faith and its actings on Jesus Christ the King of Righteousness and the King of Peace I beseech you therefore Dear Sister and the Lord himself work it in you turn away your mind from all the malicious deceitful lying Suggestions of the Adversary whom you know by the Scripture of Truth to be a Lyar and a Murtherer from the beginning and will do all that he can to beguile you of the Grace of God in you as also of all that mercy pardon and peace which God has provided in his Son for all believing broken-hearted Sinners such as I doubt not you are whatever you may seem to your self in your present darkness and hour of temptation Turn your self yea the Lord do it for you and in you from him to your Saviour who will not accuse you with the Father as he does but is pleading his Sufferings and presenting his Blood and Atonement made thereby for you Look to him dear Sister look to him whom you shall find to be as the true Brazen Serpent to your love-sick Soul which has been sore wounded by that fiery-flying Serpent and old Dragon but your Lord has overcome him by death and you also I doubt not have overcome him in divers Combats and Temptations already and shall overcome him fully and finally by the Faith of your mighty Redeemer and the Captain of your Salvation who as he is able to save you to the utmost so I doubt not he will do it whatever your Doubts and Fears may be at present He is with you taking care of your Soul and all its Concerns though your eyes are withheld that you cannot discern him as it was sometimes with the Apostles themselves but he will ere long manifest himself to you and then you shall know and acknowledge also That he has born with you and will be with you for ever even as I now do though I were as much to seek for his gracious presence with me as you are or can well be The Lord himself even our Lord Jesus Christ work this very thing in you and cause you to hold fast your confidence firm unto the end and you shall find that it has great recompence of reward as the Apostles has testified to the Hebrews For he that shall come will come and will not tarry He will not only come to Judgment at
them from pain and yet suffer your Souls to languish and pine away If you did but know how miserable you are without the Favour of God it would create a vast horror in your thoughts How deeply would you groan if you were but sensible of the vast load of Guilt that is upon you How earnestly would you cry for help if you did but see whither you are sinking and where you are like to be for ever How would you start if you did but perceive that the Devil flatters you that he may destroy you That it is his work you do his Lusts that you embrace his Designs that you comply withal There is no Dungeon so doleful no Place so full of Torment no Fire so hot as that whither he leads you and which will be more insupportable to you because you let him lead you captive at his own pleasure If we receive any Life from God let us bewail our Dead let us pity them that have no pity for themselves let our eyes and our hearts melt and be troubled for them tho they will not shed any tears for the sadness of their own case Inf. 7. Hence we see the Reason why some grow more in Grace than others do and are also more serviceable in the world Fear and sadness damp and contract our Spirits but joy and comfort dilate them and cause them to act with spriteliness and vigour The Displeasure of God weakens the Faculties and Powers of the Soul by the terrible apprehensions which it is then fill'd withal but his favour-bringing life fills it with defight and Faith is then strong and unmov'd when it can behold God his Son and the Promises all as her own Portion Love is then genuine and durable when it has a warm sense of the Love of God and under the constraining power and force of this the heart is dissolved into a tender Sorrow and a true Repentance It is the shining of the Face of God that makes us active for his Glory and unwearied in his Service And under his pleasant and reviving Beams the Christian travels with delight and haste to his dearly-beloved home But when this Favour is eclips'd this Sun covered with a cloud then the poor Christian is as one who travels in the darkness of the night and has lost his way he is full of fear and perplexity and so is the deserted Soul but the first Beam of day makes him to go on and to finish his Course and then is accomplished that promise Isa 35.1 2. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad and the desart shall rejoice and blossom as the rose it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing c. The Favour of God is as dew upon the grass it causes fruit where there was nothing but withering and decay before According as he is pleased to favour us or to be displeased so there is either a great Ease or Restlesness and Indisposition on our Spirits His Favour excites Admiration and Praise and Love and Joy and with these cheerful Affections a man may do a great deal for God Whereas most usually with our departing Comforts does our strength depart what can we do for the Salvation of others if we are under great fear that we our selves shall not be saved How can we work in the Vineyard if we fear that our Master will in Anger cast us out Psal 51.11 Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from me v. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit And so it is as it 1. Delivers us from those Lusts and Corruptions which chain us down that we cannot run the way of God's Commandments 2. As it keeps us from being intangled with the affairs of the world that subjugate and enthral our minds 3. As it is in us a Spirit of Adoption and frees us from those slavish Fears of the Justice and Sovereignty and Holiness and Power of God which overwhelm our hearts Job 22.26 Then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty and shalt lift up thy face unto God Thou shalt pray unto him and he shall hear thee It gives us access to the Throne of Grace it takes off our unwillingness to and our restraint in holy Duties it gives a freedom and enlargement of Soul and it is then as the flower that opens it self to the shining Sun †See Mr. Burrough's Gracious Spirit p. 20. Tho a man suffer no alteration in his Constitution or his outward appearance yet if God withdraw all greatly decays within When the Spirit came upon Saul 1 Sam. 10.6 He prophesied and was turned into another man He was inspired with greater courage and had a disposition more Heroical and better qualified but when this Spirit was taken away an evil Spirit succeeded in his room then Saul was no more the same nothing but fear and horror and despair and vexation raged in his breast he was in all respects a very miserable man he had the name of a King but was divested of all Royal Qualities when he was left of the God of Israel and went to ask Advice of the Witch of Endor see his own Complaint 1 Sam. 28.15 I am sore distressed for the Philistines make war against me and God is departed from me and answereth me no more neither by prophets nor by dreams Does not every Christian find it by his experience that he is not the same in his Duties at one time that he is at another Sometimes his heart melts under a sense of the Love of God and he feels such a vital Influence of the Spirit that it seems as the Foretaste of Heaven he seems to be even swallowed up with Joy he seems to be within the Courts of God and to set his foot within the Land of Promise Oh who can express the sweetness that spreads over all the panting Soul when it sees the Face of God! it lives then indeed but hardly knows whether it be in the body or out of it so many wonders of Grace and Mercy does it view And yet this same person that is now in Triumph at the Gate of Heaven may at another time be bewailing its own case and in deep sorrows as at the very door of Hell When the Dew of God ceases to fall upon it it looks no more so fresh and so fair but sighs and groans for her Saviour tho a little while ago she could say I am my beloved's and he is mine The same person may look upon God as a Judge that before thought him to be a Father The Life as one says which God gives his servants may be weakned but 't is never extinguish'd there is oftentimes upon them a spiritual fainting tho not a total Death when the Spirit does not produce any chearful motion nor display any of his usual Beams of Light so that they are tost between Fear and Hope between the