from him as we did but he designs not to raise them again they groan'd under the wrath of the mighty Judge and they must always groan under it no beam of chearful Light will shâ—ne into their Dungeon no Messenger will be dispatched to give them the glad-tidings of Salvation the anger of God threw them out of Heaven and the door is for ever shut they know this to be their woful Case and therefore they rage against him and against his Servants and his Interest in the world What could move Christ to take the nature of Man and not of Angels Heb. 2.16 to say to us Live and to suffer them to dye to visit our sinning World to set us at Liberty to set open the Prison-doors whilst he suffers them to roar in chains of wrath As they have greater Capacities and Natures more knowing than ours so they might have honoured their Creator more than we had they been redeemed but they must mourn for ever and never sing his Praise they must grieve whilst we rejoice whilst we look for our Lord they tremble in the fear of his coming whilst we have the sweetness of hope they are in anguish and vexation in despair and horror we have our Sabbaths but they have no days of rest we can through Jesus Christ call God our Father but they know him not by such a comfortable Name they feel his Power but they tast not his Love they tremble under his Vengeance but all comfort and Joy is fled away from them for ever why are we in the light and they in darkness Why is Christ a Phisician to us whilst he is a Judge to them truly nothing makes the difference but his own love and what manner of love is this 2. It was great love in Christ to bear the anger of God because now his poor tempted Servants have one to whom they may repair in all their straits Heb. 2.18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succor them that are tempted 'T is a great relief to the miserable and afflicted to be pitied by others as Job 19.21 Have pity upon me have pity upon me O ye my friends for the hand of God hath touched me It is some relief when others tho they cannot help us yet seem to be truly concerned for the sadness of our case when by the kindness of their words and of their actions they do a little smooth the wounds that they cannot heal but it is an unspeakable addition to the Cross when a man is brought low under the sense of God's displeasure to have men to mock at his Calamity or to revile him or to speak roughly this does enflame and exasperate the wound that was big enough before and it is an hard thing when one has a dreadful sound in his ears to have every friend to become a Son of Thunder It is a small matter for people that are at ease to deal severely with such as are afflicted but they little know how their severe speeches and their angry words pierce them to the very soul 'T is easie to blame others for complaining but if such had felt but for a little while what it is to be under the fear of God's Anger they would find they could not but complain It cannot but make any person very restless and uneasie when he apprehends that God is his Enemy It is no wonder if he makes every one that he sees and every place that he is in a witness of his grief but now it is a Comfort in our Temptations and in our Fears that we have so compassionate a Friend as Christ is to whom we may repair Heb. 4.15 For we have not an High-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in every time of need Had it not been for his Mediation the absolute and pure Deity would have been too glorious and inaccessible to us but he is cloathed with our nature and though it has undergone several alterations since he is exalted yet we are sure that he retains a tender sence of our miseries And tho he be very high he does not think it below him to regard the most troubled and sorrowful Believer He was on earth acquainted with grief Isa 53.3 And has carryed to Heaven with him a remembrance of what he felt in his own Temptations and of what he felt when his Father frown'd upon him and his own experience renders him more capable of helping us and makes him full of pity when he sees us mourn well knowing what was his own Case As God has fashioned the hearts of all men and some who have naturally more mercy and pity than others and then the holy Spirit by its renewing grace carrying their good Dispositions to greater degrees and proceeding and working usually according to their tempers so it is certain he temper'd the heart of Christ and made it of a softer mould than all the tenderness of all the men in the world put together would have made it he had such a humane nature that might be more merciful than all Men and Angels together Goodwin Christ's Heart in Heaven p. 55. Our groans and our sighs teach his Heart above and tho he does not come with help just when we desire it yet he is providing for our welfare he sends us some inward supports when we have not an immediate deliverance he will not suffer us totally to sink tho he may leave us for a while to try our faith or to let us understand our own weakness we may think that our vessel will be covered with waves when he is guiding us to shore even when we think that he is asleep and has forgot us and cares not though we be cast away only let us never cease to say Master save us or else we perish CHAP. V. Shewing the unreasonableness of long-continued angers among good People as also that the temporary effects of God's displeasure are more elegible than the wrath of Men. Of the Excellency of Religion and that the Enemies of the Church have no cause to insult over it because of its certain deliverance and the dismal Conclusion of their own Wickedness upon which account Christians have no Reason to envy their Prosperity Inf. 2. SEeing God is angry but for a moment How unreasonable are long-continued Anger 's among good People Let not the sun go down upon your wrath Neither give place to the devil Eph. 4.26 27. i. e. he that has injured or provoked another must come to a Temper and sue for a Reconciliation speedily or else before the time of solemn praying to God which was constantly at Evening and so the Exhortation bears proportion with that Matth. 5.23 24. If thou bringest thy gift unto the altar and there remembrest that
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
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
the last day but he will come to you in the Spirit and judge for your Soul against your Enemies to deliver you from all even Sin which is such a burthen to you As also from Satan the great Troubler of your peace who does either accuse you falsly or aggravates all your Infirmities and Miscarriages though such as he has tempted you to above all reason I shall be glad to have some account from you how it is with your Soul .......... I shall endeavour what lies in me as enabled by the Spirit of Christ to be a helper to your faith and joy ............ I shall add no more at this time but only to let you know That I have you and others in your condition daily in my prayers so I commend you to the mercy of God in our dear Redeemer I am Your very affectionate Friend and Brother in Christ GEORGE PORTER Febr. 21. 1688 9. LETTER II. Written to a Relation of the Author 's by one that had been under Melancholly Mrs. Rogers IF you dare believe one that hath been in your Case which I confess is very sad and much to be pitied you have very much of a Bodily distemper and tho by reason of your Clouds you cannot hope for relief either by spiritual or natural means yet know that nothing is too hard for God to do use both and look up to God as well as you can for a Blessing The Lord's arm is not shortned that he cannot save nor his ear heavy that he cannot hear And tho your Sins and sad Apprehensions keep you in sadness that you cannot see the Lord Jesus nor call him yours yet he sees you bemoaning your Misery and Disability to love and serve him I know you would give all the World were it at your disposal for a glimpse of this favour Do not side with your Enemy so far as to believe that you would not accept of the Lord Jesus to be your King as willingly as to be your Saviour If you can get so much ground of your self then judge you are not alone in this for those that have been in deep Melancholly have not only had hard thoughts of themselves but hard and sinful thoughts of God as if he delighted in the death of a Sinner although he hath sworn the contrary In that dismal condition they could not see the loveliness of Christ nor hardly discern desires after him unless only to be saved from Hell they could plead against themselves That their Day of Grace was past and that they had sinned the unpardonable sin and that for several years Much more I could say but I know it is to no purpose none can speak to the heart but God alone only I beg of you to cherish that hope you have which the Devil would have you disown but had you none you would not ask any to pray for you I knew one that was in so despairing a Condition that did not that nor believed it more possible to be saved than the Devil At length was persuaded to use a Steel Course and Drink the Waters and other means which by God's Blessing did good and as the bodily distemper wore off more clearness came into the Mind and hope returned which before seemed to be quite dead and tho the Party still hath Clouds ........... and Satan is apt to put in that all is naught still through God's Mercy the poor creature can reply I am changeable in my frame God is unchangeable in his Covenants Tho I cannot find the sensible joy nor love nor delight that I would yet blessed be God that he inables me to wait on him in the use of the means by which he hath promised to renew my strength and tho I want that sweet sensible Communion with God which is the Life of Heaven Is it not a Mercy that I can hope in his Mercy Have I deserved such high favours that I must be always full of Joy This is what I would but if the Lord will keep me a poor Beggar 't is infinite Mercy that I am not in Hell and that the desire of my heart is after him I chuse to love him I cast my self on him I neither expect nor desire any other Saviour if I perish it shall be in serving him as well as I can and let him do his will There is forgiveness with him that he should be feared This poor Creature often thinks of that Scripture when Christ spoke to Thomas Thou seest and believest blessed are they that do not see yet believe You say this is no Comfort to you it is not your Case true but you know not how soon it may be This Party that I speak of was in your Case and I verily believe in worse therefore pray cast not off your confidence the Lord I verily hope will shew you Mercy But you must wait be not impatient Is not Redemption from Hell and hope of Heaven-worth waiting for .... The Lord shine in upon your Soul and let you see that whatever he doth is in love and faithfulness Pray for me that I may not forget how it hath been with nor be insensible of your Condition or others in your case ................ I am in some small manner sensible of your trouble I wish I were abundantly more so for then I should hope to be hereafter a partaker with you in your Joys July 24. 89. LETTER III. To a Relation of the Author 's MY very kind and dear Friend whom I much respect and love in the Lord even as I have Cause having found you to be one who I am persuaded Love the Lord Jesus in sincerity which you have fully manifested by your longings after him and your great inward sorrow when you could not enjoy him as you would And now he is returned unto you your soul is at rest rejoycing in him as the Lord your Righteousness Peace and Life in whom you have all your soul needs and desires And the Lord manifest himself to you more and more and fill you with abundance of Peace and Joy in Believing which I doubt not you desire for this end That his Joy being your Strength and your Heart enlarged by it you may be able to run the ways of his Commandments and to serve him not only in sincerity but with all gladness in all love and thankfulness for all his loving-kindness and all the great things he has done for your soul in bringing it out of that horrible pit of darkness and the shadow of death wherein you saw neither Sun nor Moon nor Stars but were afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted without all light comfort and joy tho the Father of Lights and the God of all Consolation were with you when you perceived him not and could discover no tokens of his Gracious Presence as neither could I in the like gloomy Condition But I now find as you also do blessed be the Father of Mercies That he was ready at hand to
the time fails me Let us lift up our heads in faith and patience our Redemption draweth near shortly we shall be out of the reach of Satan Sin Melancholly Sickness c. we have a Jordan to go over but the Ark goes before us it shall be made passable Christ will take us by the hand and bring us through to the other side I mention you daily in my prayers do you the like I am Yours in Christ your Fellow-soldier and Sufferer T. L. LETTER VI. Sent to a Relation of the Author 's Christian Friend THE Lord hath made me so sensible of your disconsolate Condition that you are seldom out of my thoughts and frequent remembrances in my Prayers that God would give you comfort and peace in believing which he can convey by what instrument he pleaseth We read in Job 33.23 24. If there be a messenger with him an interpreter one among a thousand to shew unto man his uprightness Then he is gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going down to the pit I have found a ransom Elihu in these words makes a defence for God's proceedings with man where he shews it is not man's Ruine that God desires by his various methods he speaks in dreams and by afflictions and he sends a Messenger sometimes with the affliction to shew unto a man his uprightness I hope God hath no design to manifest his wrath to you but to give you evidences of your sincerity for if you did not love God you would not lament for his absence as you do Supposing that your delays in opening to Christ have caused him to depart from you never to return more if you had rejected the good motions of the Spirit it appears by your sorrow that it was not out of malice nor no other fault but what the Spouse was guilty of If he should cast off every one that does not always readily obey his call he would not manifest so great willingness to receive all those that come to him You may be and I doubt not but you are mistaken in your Condition as Mrs. Honnywood was whom God convinced by a Miracle Peter tho he denied his Lord and forswore him yet he manifested himself first to him rather than to any of the other Disciples and took care that he should have the first news of his Resurrection Christ is a merciful and faithful High-Priest he considers our Infirmities he is full of bowels of Compassion and came to seek and save that which was lost Give no credit to Satan who would make you believe that God is not willing to be reconciled who sends Ambassadors on purpose to beseech us to be so If we do our utmost we cannot depend on our own Righteousness but must rely on the mercy of God in Christ which if you do it will be the way to comfort here or at length you will come safe to Heaven which is the Prayer of Your Compassionate Friend G. D. THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART THE Introduction Page 1. CHAP. I. Of the Anger of God and whence it is that he is sometimes angry with his own Servants p. 5. CHAP. II. The Anger of God towards his People is but for a short season and why he is pleased to order it to be so p. 11. CHAP. III. Of the several Advantages that are designed by God to his Servants in his being angry with them only for a moment together with the Obligations which they are under from such a merciful Dispensation of his Providence and the several improvements we are to make of it p. 22. CHAP. IV. Of the great Love of Christ in suffering the Wrath of God in his Soul which is the more to be admired it that he bore it for us and not for the fallen Angels and because now he is from his own experience more qualified to relieve us under all our Temptations p. 39. CHAP. V. Shewing the unreasonableness of long continued Anger 's among good People as also that the temporary Effects of God's Displeasure are more elegible than the Wrath of Men. Of the Excellency of Religion and that the Enemies of the Church have no cause to insult over it because of its certain deliverance and the dismal Conclusion of their own Wickedness upon which account Christians have no reason to envy their Prosperity p. 46. CHAP. VI. Of the Duty of such as have never been under God's Wrath and Terrors and what is the doleful Condition of a Soul that apprehends it self to be under his hot Displeasure p. 66. C HA P. VII Shewing what is to be done by those who think themselves under the Displeasure of God and first of Prayer as a principal help against their Trouble and some Objections of tempted Persons answered p. 83. CHAP. VIII Of Faith in Christ as another help under the sense of God's Displeasure and the several Tendencies it hath to calm a Soul under long and sore Tryals p. 99. CHAP. IX Of the Direct Acts of Faith as the most suitable to a distressed Soul as also of waiting upon God with several Considerations to enforce it and that a Person in great affliction ought to hope that it may be better with him p. 114. CHAP. X. Shewing that People under great Trouble and Anguish of Soul are not to look for Assurance or great Joy on a sudden but as far as they can to enquire into the Reasons of God's Displeasure towards them and to look up to him through the Great Mediator and not further to provoke him as also how they may know when Affliction are sent in Wrath and when in Love p. 127. CHAP. XI Shewing that present Distress of Conscience is no sign of Reprobation There may be too great Trouble for Sin and when it is Excessive former Experiences may be helpful to afflicted People And that God will not judge those that have been good according to what they are in the Woful Disease of Melancholly p. 139. CHAP. XII Of the several Ends that God hath in suffering his Servants to be under long Afflictions and spiritual Distress and Anguish p. 150. CHAP. XIII Shewing what is the duty of those whom God hath delivered from Melancholly and from the Anguish of their Consciences as also what a wonderful Providence it is that suffers a very sinful World to be in so great peace and what cause there is for all People to pray against such Diseases whereof the Devil serves himself to their great Vexation And as the Conclusion of the First Part what we are to think of those that are distracted with trouble for their Sins and of those that dye in great darkness as to their spiritual State p. 171. The Contents of the Second Part. CHAP. I. OF the several sorts of Life that we enjoy by God's Favour and in what conditions of our present Pilgrimage it doth more especially revive us p. 189. CHAP. II. Of Heaven and Hell and of that spiritual Death which hath seized the greatest part
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
and my Father any more I have lost all my Fervor and all my Confidence and all my hope in Prayer I go round the streets to seek him that was once my beloved Help me all ye Servants of the Lord to find my God again but for my former undervaluing of his Presence he is now departed and I find him not Woe Woe is me what have I done Woe is me that I have lost him whom to lose is Hell 3. All this will be attended with great anguish of Spirit and with great Tribulation Job 16.12 13 I was at ease but he hath broken me asunder he hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces and set me up for his mark c. Then all our Sins are brought fresh into our minds with a new and a cutting remembrance as if they had all been committed but as Yesterday They rank themselves in order every one of them being set before us give us a new stab and a wound to encrease the sore and the pain of our former wounds They present themselves with all their hideous Aggravations against what Mercy what Goodness what checks of Conscience and what Warnings and what motions of the Blessed Spirit they were committed And who can bear so terrible a fight as this Job 13.26 Thou writest bitter things against me and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth i.e. 1. Always to think upon them 2. To feel pain and smart in that Remembrance 3. To be astonisht with my guilt and fears Then all our thoughts of God himself are uneasy We can think of nothing but his Greatness his Majesty his Justice and Holiness How does it overwhelm us to think what a powerful God we have against us It troubles us to think that he is displeased and yet we know that he is justly so If God were for me says the troubled soul I would bear any pains and wait and hope but He who only can help me is gone away He who alone could speak peace seems to take no notice of the sadness of my case My Sins have taken my God away and what have I more And when we are set on fire with the sense of his Wrath the more we think the more we are distressed every thought returns with sad tidings and pours oyl into the flame And what that anguish is which we feel when we continually think of a displeased God There is nothing on Earth that does resemble neither are any words capable of expressing it We do then smell the Fire and Brimstone of the Infernal pit then a man may say with David The sorrows of death compass me and the paint of hell gat hold upon me Psal 116.3 And I think that these Spiritual terrours are of the same kind with those which they feel who arc now in Hell only they differ in the degree and in the duration For a Sinner under the sense of God's displeasure and in terror for his Sin is as if he were in a burning Oven or in scalding Oyl he is every way beset and every way tormented Trouble of Conscience indeed is a slighter thing but the sense of wrath kindled there is vastly terrible 't is the suburbs of destruction 't is the noisom smell of the bottomless Pit Job 6.4 The Arrows of the Almighty are within me the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit The Terrors of God do set themselves against me whatsoever he thought of which way soever he turned himself he saw nothing but what filled him with amazement Ps 88.16 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me thy terrors have cut me off 4. That which these troubled Souls are afflicted with is the fear they have thut this displeasure will be Eternal this is implied in that Is his mercy clean gone will he be favourable no more Ps 77.7 So the Church Lam. 3.18 My strength and my hope it perisht from the Lord. So Psal 88.5 I am free among the dead like the slain that lie in the Grave whom thou remembrest no more And that sickness is grievous to us when we have no hope of being better That wrath is not to be born which we think to be forerunner of eternal wrath and thus does the troubled soul argue God has withdrawn himself and it may be will never return again I have lost him for the present and Oh! What will become of me should I lose such a God for ever I have now no beams of light and what if I go hence into outer darkness What if my lot and portion should fall among those that are abhorred of the Lord Have I once tasted how good he was and must lose henceforth all the pleasant sense of his Mercy Must not Christ be my Saviour nor Heaven my home after all this Oh! what shall do where shall I appear should he say at last Depart from me for I know thee not Shall I be placed at the left hand of Christ shall I after all that I have read and heard after all my profession strivings and my prayers be shut out of that Kingdom when others shall enter in How shall I bear so great a disappointment How shall I dwell with everlasting burnings III. If you have not yet been under the apprehension of Gods displeasure take warning by those that are so dare not to venture upon any sin when you behold their grief and their sorrows for their Iniquities You see their tears you hear their lamentable groans you see that nothing in this world is refreshing or comfortable to them and made you â—hug the Serpent that has stung them and made them to cry out in the bitterness of their Souls Oh stop where you are go no further lest you fall into the depths lest the Fire that scorches them begin to seize on you lest the God whom they account their Enemy begin also to frown on you learn obedience by their Stroaks lest you also be made to feel the smarting Rod. You see how those that once were as chearful as pleasant and as little afraid as you are now cast down and troubled and perplexed and cannot be merry as they used to be The sense of God's displeasure has untuned their Harps that they cannot sing the Songs of Zion You see how their Pleasure and their Hope is shipwrackt beware lest you run upon the same Rock for the doing so after the sight of their example will make you to be guilty of a double Crime first of doing ill and then in doing it after such a warning as their sorrows gave you Job says he was set up as a mark ch 7.20 And so are others in the like case They now receive the shots of that Justice which they have provoked but if their punishment do not make us to humble our selves and to repent we may be set in their place and it will render the Wounds we shall then receive more poisonous and malignant for not having taken and improved the warning that was given us by
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
neither perform this nor any other spiritual action with calmness and deliberation but in other Cases where the disorder of the spirits is not so great and violent He that believes makes not haste Isa 28.16 is not furious and precipitant and indeed it is our common fault that we would have the help of God to come just when we will to be eased as soon as ever we find our selves in pain to get to Heaven immediately when we find our selves no longer fit for service here on Earth and to have an unpainful and easie passage thither but God that is not so tender of our Flesh as of our Spirits will suffer us long to be in trouble that all may know by their own feeling how evil and how bitter a thing it is to sin and that by the methods that please us least he may do us the most good and by our temporal inconveniencies promote our eternal welfare We ought in patience in an humble and a quiet silence to possess our souls and to approve of all the dispensations and the works of God for how it is possible for us not to manifest our sense of grief even in doleful expressions I know not When a Man is under a burthen that he cannot bear or when he is in sharp pain 't is natural for him to groan and to sigh 't is a thing which he cannot help It would be as I have intimated before a needless labour to advise people under great affliction and spiritual distress not to complain for say what we will they cannot but complain Can a Man think God his Enemy and his Soul in danger and Hell like to be his portion Can he see his Comforts wither and his Hopes expire and others at ease while he is in wo and trouble and not be greatly concerned or be so and not express his concern for the sadness of his Case Blame not people that are under the Terrors of the Lord for complaining if your souls were embittered with Wormwood and Gall you would complain as much as they Can they be silent when they think that God is departed from them and as they fear departed for ever Can they be in so terrible calamity as quiet and as much unmoved as when they were at ease Our blessed Lord himself in the days of his flesh when his suffering encreased upon him offered up prayers with strong crying and tears Heb. 5.7 And in the pain of his inexpressible agonies on the Cross he cryed out with a loud voice My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Matt. 27.46 And Psal 32.3 When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long And he assigns the Reason of it in Verse 4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer Selah There are some natural unavoidable expressions of grief and sorrow which are consistent with that waiting and dependance upon God which I have mentioned before nor is it contrary to this waiting to desire a speedy and a quick deliverance you may lawfully pray for if For which we have several instances as Psal 22.19 Be not thou far from me O Lord O my strength haste thee to help me Psal 31.2 Bow down thine ear to me deliver me speedily Psal 69.17 Hide not thy face from thy servant for I am in trouble hear me speedily And so Psal 102.2 Psal 40.17 Make no tarrying O my God You may in imitation of so great examples frame your requests after this or the like manner but if when you have done so relief does not immediately come if your distress and your anguish remain you must be content still to wait and to justify your Maker in his delays and in his proceedings towards you tho' they be very terrible as in Psal 22.1 2 3. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring O my God I cry in the day time but thou hearest not and in the night season and am not silent But thou art holy O thou that inhabits the praises of Israel Those that aver Religion to be in all respects an easie thing know not what they say did they know what it were to be under the sense of God's displeasure and under violent painful distempers for many Months together and yet to wait and to be satisfied with that Providence that thinks fit to continue on them long pains and terrible fears they would find it is not such an easie matter to be truly Religious But that you that are exercised with severe and sharp Tryals may arrive to this excellent disposition of being able still to wait on God Cons I. How long has God waited upon you How long did he knock at your doors How did he entreat and beseech and call to you ere you let him in How did he follow you from day to day and from Sabbath to Sabbath How did he wait for your Repentance one year after another doubling and renewing his expostulations with you saying as to Jerusalem Jer. 13. last Wilt thou not be made clean When shall it once be And if you denied to hear the Calls of the Great God for so long a space Can you think it hard that he does not grant a present answer to your Prayers Would you have help on a sudden when you made the Eternal wait for your hearts so very long He waited on us to do us good when we ran from him when we spent our Thoughts our Strength our Lives and our Time in vain after all our rebellious our undutifulness and disobedience he moved upon our souls by his Spirit he excited us to mind our Interest and gave us space wherein to repent Let us remember these things to humble us and to encrease our patience and to keep us from thinking it strange if God even for a long time delay his help Cons II. The Soveraignty the Greatness and the Wisdom of God We are his own and he may do what he will with us being his creatures he may cause us to serve to whatsoever purposes he pleases and his Wisdom will guide even our miseries to make them useful to others tho' they be sharp and severe to us his ways are far above us his Greatness and his Glory being so far above our thoughts the most suitable temper of a creature towards so great a God is to be silent and to wait to see what a period Infinite Wisdom will at length put to those Dispensations of his Providence which are so dismal and so terrible to us If all our Comforts that we have in this world all that we most valued and esteemed be taken from us if our Afflictions be long and tedious and accompanied with such stinging particularities as have scarcely been mingled with the Crosses of others that have gone before us God may do what he will with us we can have nothing to
say to him because we are the work of his own hands Our hearts in sore distresses are apt to say Why are we so much and so long afflicted Why are we compassed with such terrible Calamities when others are at ease that to appearance have sinned as much as we But these first risings of Murmuring and Disquiet are to be resisted by the considerations of the Majesty and the Greatness of God who may put his Creatures to what use he pleases and so as may tho with their own smart promote the good of others and their own final good Tho Job as Mr. Charnock observes Discourse on the Attributes pag. 781. were a pattern of Patience yet he had deep Tinctures of Impatience he often complains of God's usage of him as too hard and stands much upon his own Integrity but when God comes in the latter Chapters of that Book to justifie his carriage towards him he chargeth him not as a Criminal but considers him only as his Vassal he might have found flaw enough in Job's carriage and corruption enough in Job's Nature to have cleared the Equity of his Proceedings as a Judg but he useth no other medium to convince him but the Greatness of his Majesty the Unlimitedness of his Soveraignty which so appales the good man that he puts his finger on his mouth and stands mute with a self-abhorrency before him as a Sovereign rather than a Judge His Wisdom also that makes the Night to precede the Day and Storms to clear the Air and make way for a fairer Season ought to silence and pacifie our Souls Isa 30.18 And therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you and therefore will he be exalted that he may have mercy upon you for the Lord is a God of judgment blessed are all they that wait for him He knows the fittest times and seasons wherein to heal our Diseases to remove our Fears and to do us good Cons III. How great the Mercies are that we are to wait for 't is for Heaven and Glory and we have his Promise That our Faith and our Patience shall not be in vain Isa 35.3 4 5 6 7. And after all the dangers the snares and hindrances and temptations of this world to come to Salvation at the last is so great a Mercy that it is surely worth staying for Tho we labour Six days yet the rest of the Sabbath does refresh our Spirits and so will after the sufferings of this mortal Life that Eternal Sabbath that is to be kept above with God give us great Refreshment our time on earth is a season wherein by several Trials and Afflictions to prepare us for that Happiness and Glory As the Night does affright us the Morning will surely bring us Joy It is but a little while and our Lord will come and save us Let us not surrender our selves to our Spiritual Enemies tho we are straitly press'd for our Saviour is marching to our Relief Jam. 5.7 Behold the Husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the early and the latter Rain Be ye also patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh The Husbandman gives not his Grain for lost tho it be covered with Snow and Storm he expects to see it rise with the returning Spring so neither should we despair of finding Comfort tho the Prayers that we have made bring us no present satisfaction You know David had the promise of a Kingdom but what strange Difficulties did he meet withal And what a long time was it before he came to sit upon a Peaceful Throne We must have Conflicts before we get the Victory we must run our Race and strive hard ere we get the Reward but when it shall once be bestowed upon us it will abundantly recompence us for all our Tears and all our Heaviness we are to take up our Cross daily every day on earth will afford us cause of Patience we are to watch for all our time is but as a moment to Eternity Let not our Lord that will bless us with a long and unspeakable Felicity have cause to say to us as he did to his sorrowful Disciples Could ye not watch with me one hour Mat. 26.40 He looks on knows our weakness and will give us help he could immediately solace and refresh and save us if he would but seeing that he is not pleased so to do let us humbly be silent and acquiesce in the Wisdom of his Appointment and Decree for tho he delay he is not unmindful of our sorrows and in the very Minute that is most for his Glory and for our Good he will come and save us Isa 64.4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear neither hath the eye seen O God besides thee what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him V. Entertain a secret hope that it will not always be thus sad and dismal with you Tho you have made several Prayers that have not yet received a Gracious Answer of Peace yet pray still and be not discouraged but like blind Bartimaeus cry the more earnestly You know that the Woman of Canaan persevered in her attendance on our Lord tho the words he spake seemed to have in them a great deal of sharpness and severity yet she was resolved not to leave him nor be denied and at the last our Saviour commended highly that Faith of which he seem'd to take no notice before It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait to see the salvation of God Lam. 3 27. The reason whereof is alledged v. 31 32. For the Lord will not cast off for ever but tho he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies Tho every thing that you look upon within your own hearts terrifie and perplex your thoughts yet the vastness of that Mercy that is in God and which through his Son he is willing to communicate to you may afford you support and relief the very possibility of help tho never so remote may a little quiet and calm your souls for tho you see nothing for the present but Frowns and Anger in the Face of God yet you cannot you ought not to say that it will never shine again tho his strokes are increased and every day more painful than they were the day before yet you must not then conclude That he who chastens for your profit will not lay aside the Rod Tho you are sinking with your fears and you have no power left yet lay hold on the strength of God he will not strike off your trembling hand but encourage your dependance and your trust in him you are not everlastingly perisht you have not yet received your final doom it is possible that you may escape There is great comfort in a May be I shall be saved even tho by fire
When the Affliction brings some special Sin to remembrance and when Sin it self deprives us of a Mercy when Intemperance brings Sickness Ambition Disgrace Covetousness and an over-eager Desire of Riches Poverty But then even great Crosses are in Mercy 1. When God does not afflict us only but teaches us at the same time And 2. When we can be thankful for that Comfort which we have lost that is if it be outward for I see not how any person can be thankful for Desertion while it remains upon him for that were to thank God that he is departed or that he has restrained the manifestations of his Love which no man is obliged to do 3. When all our Losses are made up in God and in the Graces of his Spirit CHAP. XI Shewing That present Distress of Conscience is no sign of Reprobation There may be too great Trouble for Sin And when it is excessive former Experiences may be helpful to Afflicted People And that God will not judge Persons that have been good according to what they are in the woful Disease of Melancholly XI JUdge not of your Eternal State by what you now feel you may by the Terrors of the Lord be in Anguish and Tribulation in the very Suburbs of Hell and yet never go thither God may be displeased and yet after a moments sorrow you may find him to be your Gracious and your Everlasting Friend You are now it may be thrown down but his hand and his promise can quickly raise you up again You may conclude your selves through the Power of your dismal thoughts to be Reprobates and yet God may bring you to Salvation at the last You may for many years lye in terror but you cannot you ought not to say that it will be so for ever I my self have been so afflicted in so great Anguish and Perplexity under such dreadful apprehensions of the Wrath of God and of his Power and Greatness as I thought employed against me that I thought my self in Hell knowing that it is not so much a Place as a State I thought that my Soul would be gathered with Sinners and that I should be found at the left hand of Christ I thought I was cut down for ever banished from the Courts and from the Presence of the Lord and should never see Light nor Comfort nor Refreshment any more and yet through the Grace of God you see I am revived and am not now without hope as I once was and from the very Gates of Death from the very door of Destruction I come to tell you That tho God be Just yet he is also Gracious There is mercy with him that he may be feared and that as the Night comes so will the Morning too for tho we have provoked him which was our Folly yet he will not contend for ever which is our Comfort Psal 31.21 22 23 24. Blessed be the Lord for he hath shewed me his marvellous loving-kindness c. For I said in my haste I am cut off from hefore thine eyes nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my Supplications when I cried unto thee O love the Lord all ye his saints Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your hearts all ye that hope in the Lord. When we are in deep and sore Affliction that smarts and makes us groan 't is hard indeed to believe that what makes us so sick will promote our health or what breaks us to pieces will joint our bones again But our sense and present feeling is not to guide our thoughts We feel our selves indeed miserable but we ought to believe that our present Misery may promote our Happiness tho by ways that we do not for the present see we are not to judge of God by the Darkness of his Providences but by the Light of his Word not by his afflicting Strokes only but by his Promise which obliges him to correct us for our Sin but yet not altogether to destroy us XII Remember that it is an evil thing to be over-much troubled even for Sin it self tho this advice does not concern the greatest part of men the most are secure they break the Laws of God and do not tremble they pollute themselves with manifold abominations and are not ashamed they sin with lofty looks and with hardned hearts and do evil with both hands earnestly They take the Name of God in vain they profane his Sabbaths they scorn his Word they defy his Threats they scorn his Messengers and yet few or none strikes upon his Thigh and says What have I done They are daring where they ought to fear and rejoice where they ought to mourn The greatest part of the world are in a deep slumber in misery and in danger but they are insensible they know not that the end of these things will be very bitter and vexatious But I now speak to such whose Consciences are awakened with a sense of the Greatness the Majesty the Justice of God and the Strictness and Holiness of his Law and have at the same time a deep sense of their own Gulit and liableness to Condemnation their thoughts in such troubles are too much apt to sink and to be over-whelmed and indeed the view of all their sins set in order before them is too terrible for them to look upon The burden and the weight of them is too heavy for any mortal men to bear But they should consider That God is not only severe but very good that he is not only angry but reconcilable and willing to be at Peace again This will represent his love to us and it is that and that alone that will melt our Hearts with a kindly grief and keep our sorrow from overflowing the due bounds as it is very prone to do And it does so in several Cases 1 When our sorrow for sin hinders our regular proceeding in the true judgments of things We know that in dark and cloudy seasons we cannot distinctly perceive the several Objects that we clearly discern in fair weather so when our sorrows have raised a mist before our eyes we dim our reason and weaken our faculties and see not things as they really are but as they do appear in a dark and confused manner When we are not able to apprehend things as they are in themselves but as our Afflictions represent them that is a false Medium whereby to form our Judgments when they do make us heighten our troubles and it may be make them greater than they really are and when they make us altogether inattentive to those directions methods and advices that are suggested for our help 2. When our sorrow for sin drives us away from God the sight of our Wounds should make us haste to the Great Physician for a speedy relief When I have throughly beheld my sin the next thought should be Oh what need have I of a God to forgive me of a Saviour to plead my Cause and of the Holy Spirit to renew me
awakened Consciences he shews Hell upon Earth and both by his wise and holy Providence are designed for the good of others The language of their groans does thus bespeak all that behold their sorrow Oh sin not against so great and so terrible a God lest the flames begin to scorch you that have almost consumed us we no more thought of falling into his hands than you do we thought no more than you that our sinning would cost us so very dear but you see what we have felt and what you may expect if you do not repent and turn and make your peace with so holy a God as he is his Power will amaze you his Arm will crush you if ever you provoke him to send on you such a stroke as ours is endeavour therefore to profit by such sorrowful Examples 3. God does it to keep us from carnal Security all our lives Psal 9.20 Put them in fear O Lord that the nations may know themselves to be but men When our sin has fallen upon us like a Giant newly refresht with wine surely the remembrance of that horror pain and smart will keep us that we shall not dare to sleep in sin nor be unwatchful and presumptuous any more for ever Surely this will quench all irregular desires and cause us only to desire that God whose favour we need so very much this has surely shewn us how great is our weakness and our folly and how low we sink when he hath left us this will make us to be humble and to walk softly all our days remembring we are not every hour more than what God makes us to be if he leaves us but for one poor moment where are we We that have tasted so much of his displeasure have cause to rejoice with trembling every remembrance of that doleful time must be to us as a new motive to obedience and a powerful restraint of sin Heb. 12.10 He chastens us for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness Oh what an abundance of folly must there have been lodged in our hearts that God is forced to use so sharp and so severe a method to whip it out how benummed were we that nothing else could awaken us how diseased that nothing but a potion so bittter could promote our Cure how great was our pride that he was forced to beat it down by so violent a stroke Deut. 8.15 16. Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness wherein were siery serpents and scorpions and drought where there was no water That he might humble thee and prove thee to do thee good in thy latter end So Paul had 2 Cor. 12.7 a thern in the flesh 3. To convince us of his own All-sufficiency and the nothingness of our selves and of all osher Creatures He let us fall to shew us how small our strength is and that if we would have our goings established we must depend on him alone We are in our prosperity apt to think that this or that Creature this or that Person will yield us relief but in spiritual Troubles God shews us that all men even the best of men are vanity and those from whom we expect the greatest help do us the least good Nay those Watchmen of whose skill and kindness we have the greatest opinion are frequently suffered to smite us by their imprudent or by their harsh Speeches and Censures that so we may not look to those Cisterns which we find to be broken ones but to that Heaven whence all our Consolation flows When we go to the Creatures with the most raised expectations we meet with the most unlookt-for disappointment And indeed whilst we look only to them we are like people that go begging to the doors of the poor Our Fellow-creatures are all Eleemosynary and have nothing but what they receive and unless God helps us they cannot help as unless the wind blows not all the skill of the Pilot nor all the industry of the Mariner can make the Ship to sail forward to the Port. We think indeed that if our Friend be sick we would hasten to his help and immediately relieve him but our best Friend stays a long while ere he delivers not from any pleasure that he takes in our sorrows but that he may render his Power and his Wisdom more illustrious as Christ John 12.6 7. when he heard that Lazarus was sick stayed two days in the place where he was that so the glory of God might be more conspicuous in his Resurrection And when the season that is most beautiful comes we shall discern the reason of his delay He lets us fall low to a wonder that he may display his Power that is Almighty and his Wisdom that is never at a loss that we may know when all other methods have been tried in vain 't is he alone that can make our broken bones to rejoice that when we are beset with difficulties which we think insuperable we may stand still and see how glorious how suitable and how speedy is the Salvation and the Grace and the Help of God and that he alone is the God of Comfort 2 Cor. 1.3 That all other things are inconsiderable but that he is Alsufficient and it is an excellent Lesson that he teaches us by our most heavy Crosses None can calm the tumults and uneasiness of a troubled Soul but he alone our Spirits are so remote from humane Observations our Diseases are so inward and so great that men cannot reach them but nothing is too hard for him that is the Father of Spirits and he calls us peculiarly to regard this his mighty Work Isa 57. v. 17. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart I have seen his ways and will heal him I will lead him also and restore comforts to him and to his mourners I create the fruit of the lips peace peace to him that is far off and to him that is near saith the Lord and I will heal him He creates it he not only brings peace but brings it from nothing by his all-powerful efficacy that nothing can resist I say again this I believe is one of the principal lessons that God designs to teach us by our inward and spiritual troubles even that in him alone our help lies and that all even the best of men are vanity we must not look for much from them for if we do so we shall most surely be disappointed they have either not patience to hear our Complaints and to understand the particularities of our Case or if any one have so great patience and so much tenderness as to hear our sad story they will it may be sigh or shake their heads at it but alas they can give us no relief 4. Another End that God may have in the continuance of long and sore afflictions and great inward troubles is to discover
sentiments of Life and the apprehensions of Death What dryness what hardness comes upon our hearts How little Life or Enlargement or Comfort have we in duty when the Spirit of God is withdrawn from us All our endeavours all our strivings with our selves do not warm our Spirits as he used to do How little delight have we in Prayer And how loth are we to pray And we know how lame and defective our Petitions and Desires are And we are at as great a loss as Job when he said chap. 23.3 4. Oh that I knew where I might find him that I might come even to his seat And v. 8. I go forward but he is not there and backward but I cannot perceive him c. Inf. 8thly and Lastly Hence you see the reason why the Servants of God do so earnestly beg this favour and are so deeply troubled when it is removed It is their life their portion their all Every thing is strangely changed all its Comeliness and Beauty and Glory vanishes when the Life is gone Life is the pleasant thing 't is sweet and comfortable but Death with its pale attendants raises an horror and aversion to it every where The Saints of God dread the removal of his favour and the hidings of his face and when it is hid a faintness and a cold amazement and fear seizes upon every part and they feel strange bitterness and anguish and tribulation which makes their joints to tremble and is to them as the very pangs of death Psal 22.14 15. I am poured out like water and all my hones are out of joint my heart is like wax it is melted in the midst of my bowels my strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws and thou hast brought me into the dust of death Psal 38.2 3 6 8 9 10. And Job 23.8 9. Psal 13.1 3 4. Psal 27.9 Hide not thy face from me put not thy servant away in anger thou hast been my help leave me not neither forsake me O God Psal 69.17 Hide not thy face from thy servant for I am in trouble hear me speedily Psal 4.6 There be many that say Who will shew us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us CHAP. III. Shewing that the Favour of God is diligently to be sought and what is to be done that we may obtain it 1. SEeing in the Favour of God is Life seek it earnestly If I were to bid you to take care of your Lives or your Estates you would quickly think it a needless Request because your own safety and interest would prompt you to it but if we bid you to take care of your Souls there indeed you can hear one Sermon after another one Exhortation after another and still be as secure and careless as before VVe hear many People wishing for other things and very few that are desiring this VVe hear the Poor say Oh that I were rich The Sick Oh that I were well And the Prisoner sighing for his liberty the Trader busily concerned for his gain and the Merchant for good returns but oh how few are there that are saying Oh that I might find grace in the sight of God! Oh that I might be his and he mine Many have their eyes fixed upon the World admiring and doating on it though they daily see how vain it is and how its fashion passes away but oh how few are there whose eyes are fixed on Heaven and whose hearts are panting after the Living God! If I could teach you a way to be the Favourites of the King or of some Powerful or Great Men you would think to derive great Advantages from such a Privilege and quickly strive to get it but here is a greater than they even the King of kings whose Favour is tendred to your acceptance and your choice his Throne is accessible tho his Majesty might confound you yet his Goodness bids you welcome to his presence Seek and you shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you And methinks every Soul here should rejoice even to know that it is possible for him to have God to be his own God That how abject how sinful soever he may have been yet he may be advanced and honour'd by the Lord of glory if he do but return and when he bids us seek his face we should answer Thy face Lord will we seek Psal 27.8 and seek it presently while he may be found lest Sickness and Death and Judgment should prevent us and lest grieved with our delays he should cover himself from us by an Eternal Separation and we should seek him and not find him and because we did not hear his Calls he should shut out all our cryes And laugh when our calamity comes like an armed man Prov. 1.28 If you have no need of him to forgive your Sins to heal your Souls to protect you from danger or to bring you to Salvation then let this Work alone then be unconcerned whether you seek his favour or disesteem it whether he be your Friend or your Enemy but if you have need of God as I am sure you have then pour out your supplications to him for his Grace and say O Lord I have been dead in sin but I know that nothing is impossible to thee Thou openest the Graves and makest even the Dead to live Let my Soul feel thy Almighty power and have a share in the first Resurrection that over me the second Death may not prevail O let me be one of thy Children one of thy blessed Family one whom thou lovest and whom thou wilt love for ever thou hast pardoned many who were once as guilty as I have been O magnify the Riches of thy Grace in blotting out mine Iniquities Thou hast quickned many that were once dead Let me also be quickened by the vital influences of thy Spirit Many Prodigals hast thou received Let me not be thrown off Many hast thou blessed many Blessings hast thou in store Therefore bless me even me also I pray thee O my God 2. Joyn Endeavours to your Prayers and use all the means of grace with conscionable diligence 2 Cor. 5.9 We labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him Psal 119.58 Oh do not mock him with a meer form of words but let your affections and your words be joined together be as the Hart that when it pants for the Waterbrooks runs with all the speed it can thither when your Souls are once warmed with a sense of God use all the care you can to maintain the sacred and the comfortable Flame lest by your neglect it be extinguish'd and go out again For a man to wish that he had the favour of God and not to use all his prescribed means is foolish and ineffectual as if a Traveller should sit in a lazy posture without any motion in the Road and yet wish to be at his Journeys end as if a man
doth behold the upright Psalm 11.7 He encourages the weakness of that Soul that is tender and afraid of sin he will not treat you with the kindness that he shews to his honourable Subjects if you take part with his open enemies Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Joh. 15.14 Obedience is the genuine effect of so excellent and so near an alliance and 't is the proof and evidence thereof Joh. 14.21 He that hath my Commandments and doth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my father and I will love him And vers 23. We will come unto him and make our abode with him A Promile full of Mercy Words that have in them all that is desirable that are big with consolation What can a soul wish for more than to have God the Father and the Son to have them for his Friends for his Guest and not only to tarry for a night or a day but for ever Not to comfort him with a transient visit which were a great privilege but to dwell with him Oh! blessed is the House that hath such Inhabitants and blessed is the Soul who is thus honoured and esteemed By obeying his Commands you shew your selves to be vessels of Honour and when you are so he will at one time or other fill you brim-full of Joy If you serve the Devil you can by no means have that satisfaction that flows from the hope of being a Son of God and an Heir of Heaven And tho' his Showers fall upon the Sands as well as on the manured and cultivated ground yet till you are fruitful you cannot expect to be refresh'd with his gentle and comfortable Dews There are peculiar influences of his Grace that fall upon his inclosed Gardens and not upon the Deserts If favour should be shewed to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness Isa 26.10 It shines like the Sun on a Rock he is no more fruitful no more tender-hearted than he was before if you embrace your ancient Sins if you hold on your correspondence with your former Lusts God will not pour the oyl of gladness into such old and depraved hearts if we go on in sin we violate our own serenity and raise within our breasts a multitude of storms whereas Psal 119.165 Great peace have they which love thy Law and nothing shall offend them And so Gal. 6.16 As many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy Isa 64.15 Thou meetest him that rejoyceth and worketh righteousness By these means you shall obtain the favour of God and when you have so obtained it CHAP. IV. Shewing 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 at this would be 7. TAke great heed that you do not lose the favour of God again It is true indeed that those whom God once loves he loves to the end they are not suffered totally to be miserable but yet they may lose the sense of his favour and all the comfort that once flowed from the pleasant thought That he was their God Those that have sailed with a very prosperous gale may upon their negligence be tost with very many storms and may be terrified with a Thousand dangers and calamities whilest they do not see the Sun Moon and Stars for many days and nights together and tho' they do not at length fall short of Heaven yet they may travel as through a Wilderness in their way thither and not meet with those clusters of the promised Land with those joys and comforts that others meet withal The Spirit may suspend his influences and leave the Conscience in a very lamentable slate and take away the peace that he once gave so that the poor soul in that condition cannot but look upon it self with as sad an eye as if it were a reprobate and great difficulties and dangers there are ere the spirit return again to repair the breaches which our sin hath made The disorders of our souls afterwards remain a great while and it will cost us vast labour to remove them as when some River that is very muddy has overflowed the neighbouring Fields tho' it do return to its ordinary Channel yet it nevertheless leaves those places all covered with slime and dirt The least Eclipse of the Face of God is a very formidable thing 't will shake all the powers of your souls and put you into such terror as will seem to be like Hell it self If you be so foolish as upon slight temptations to forfeit his favour you ll dearly pay for that folly you may do that in a moment that may fill you with astonishment and sorrows all your days and make you go at last mourning to the Grave You may by a sudden fall have your Bones broken and it may be never again recover your former ease and strength do not therefore wound nor bruise your selves If you are not very careful that Candle of the Lord that shines upon your Tabernacle may be removed and then you I know by a sad experience that it is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against him Tho' you now do not question your title to Salvation yet you shall then be full of doubts and fears tho' you are now looking to God as to a Friend yet you shall then be forced to look upon him as an Enemy and think your afflictions not the rebukes of a Father but of an angry Judge He will be indeed the same God still as full of Goodness and of Love but to you he will be as a Fountain sealed up and your poor mourning souls like the Mountains of Gilboa curst and barren there will be no Dew nor Rain upon them Tho' you are never so flourishing now yet then the sharpness of the Winter will blast all your Fruit that the Fig-tree shall not blossom neither shall there be any fruit in the Vine and the labour of the Olive shall fail Consider how great was the sorrow of David when God was for a season departed from him How many were his Tears how heavy his Complaints and how sad his Thoughts Tho' he was as 't is usually judged of a sanguine and a merry temper and had a peculiar skill in Musick which is the usual allayer and charm of Grief yet in the sense of God's displeasure his Joy was turned into Lamentation his Harp and those Songs with which he had driven away the melancholly of Saul could not stifle or chase away trouble from his own soul the Storm was too loud to listen to those softer Airs the Wound was too deep to be Cured by those gentle and easie Methods Beware lest you lose the sense of the Favour and the Love of God lest you make your Heavenly Father to visit you with painful Rods and severe Afflictions Take
heed that you do not weaken your selves for the joy of the Lord is your strength Neh. 8.10 Is it not motive enough to say that his Favour is your Life and his Displeasure is your Death Let us but take as much pains for our spiritual as for our natural Life and all will be very well When we find the least decays of Nature we are very industrious to repair them when we find the least faintness or indisposition on our spirits we have recourse to Cordials or to something that is very comfortable and reviving to refresh them when we are sick we complain of our illness we make abundance of inquiries and use a great deal of care to know what it is that will do us good we have a great value for our dear Life and are afraid of every thing that may deprive us of it and when we are in Health What do we not attempt for our own preservation What Arts do we use What provisions do we make for Meat and Drink and Cloaths and Houses and Gardens and other accommodations that we may live at ease And my Friends is not our Soul of more worth than the Body Are not its decays and its death more painful and more intollerable than all the languishing and decays of our outward Man Let us therefore as we have a great horror of natural death have no less for that which is spiritual Let us keep with a greater care the Favour of God that is our Spiritual and Eternal Life And that we may not lose it 1. Let us not grieve his Holy Spirit Ephes 4.30 Tho' we are not so happy as to have a familiar Conversation with Christ as those had who enjoyed his presence here on Earth tho' he be withdrawn from our eyes and we see him not in his exalted and glorified state yet he has sent his Spirit to dwell in our hearts and we ought with all manner of obedience and respect to treat and entertain so Divine a Guest to do nothing that is unsuitable to so great a Presence not to pollute our selves nor to defile his Temple with any sort of sin lest we grieve and vex him The Divine Nature indeed is incapable of our passions 't is above our joys and our sorrows and as 't is said of those that are upon Mount Olympus they see the Clouds gather below their feet they see the Hail and the Thunder disturb and lighten on the Plain whilest they rejoice in the pure light of the Sun In such manner the Divine Essence sees all the troubles and agitations of the Creatures remaining always in its own peace and tranquility * Claude Serm. Sur. Eph. 4.30 p. 29. This expression is borrowed from humane affections and when the Holy Spirit does that in us which our nature does when it is seized with sorrow then he is said to be grieved And if we make him sad we cannot expect that he will make us to rejoyce if we affront and abuse him he will not be our comfort if he retire all our Evidences will be covered with darkness and we shall be plunged in the lowest depths Let us therefore obey all his suggestions whatever he bids us do let us do let our minds always be yielding to his good and profitable motions let us not slight the Revelation he hath made nor be unmindful to grow in all the Graces that are pleasing to him let us remember the kindness that he does us how he chases away our darkness and when we are fainting how seasonably he does apply the Promises and brings to our remembrance those Truths that are most suitable and refreshing to us let us not grieve him by neglecting to read or meditate upon the Word which he endited or by foolish Communications by rash Anger 's or Malice or Bitterness or Wrath or Contention Ephes 4.31 but let him be the absolute Master of our souls when we are afflicted let us not grieve him by our murmuring or impatient complaints in our afflictions nor by security and hardness of heart in our prosperity And when he would carry us towards Heaven on the wings of spiritual desire and love let us not suffer our selves to be seduced by the World the Devil or the Flesh and if we obey him he will maintain a sense of the Divine Favour on our souls and the Life that he will give us will not be like that of the sick the feeble and the dying but like the Life of the most strong and healthful 2. Let us beware of Spiritual pride The contrite and humble are those that he regards The proud he looks upon afar off Psal 138.6 Though the Lord be high yet hath he respect unto the lowly but the proud he knoweth afar off That is with disdain and scorn 'T is nothing but our ignorance that makes us Proud We are ignorant of God and of the multitude and greatness of our Sins were it possible for us to be Proud if we frequently considered the Great Majesty of God and our own Vileness His Holiness and our Pollution His Almighty Power and our Weakness His Glory and our Darkness His Eternity and our own fading being What comparison can be made between the Great Ruler of the World and us that dwell in houses of clay It was a mighty Condescention in our Blessed Lord and one of the chiefest parts of his Humiliation to be cloathed with our Nature that is in it self so mean and low And as one says The whole World from East to VVest lies very sick but to cure this very sick world there descends an Omnipotent Physician who humbled himself even to the assumption of a Mortal Body as if he had gone into the Bed of the diseased 'T is an Ignorance of our selves that is the cause of our Pride we remember not how often it is that we offend in Thought VVord and Deed How we are by Nature children of wrath And how we make our selves more so by repeated acts of Sin God resists the Proud but he hath a regard to the Contrite and Humble Soul Isa He fills the hungry with good things but the rich he sends empty away Luke 1.53 All on whom he bestows his Favour he first convinces of their own misery shews to them the Curse the Hell the Condemnation that they have deserved and when they are pardoned after such a sight that Pardon fills them with low and self-abasing thoughts and when he comes to embrace them he finds them in the posture of the poor Prodigal Luke 15.18 19. Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son One sight of the face of God will dash all our Confidence and lower all our Pride and the more this is revealed and discovered to the Souls of the Faithful the more they see cause to loath and abhor themselves in dust and ashes Hence it is that our Apostle that knew so much of God was so very
humble saying 1 Cor. 15.10 By the grace of God I am what I am I laboured more abundantly than they all yet not I but the grace of God that was with me He calls himself the chief of Sinners and admires the grace of our Lord that towards him was exceeding abundant 1 Tim. 1.14 And elsewhere he styles the mercies of the Gospel the exceeding riches of the grace of Christ Eph. 2.7 As ever you would have the favour of God continued strive against all pride A man is then proud 1. When he attributes that to himself to his own Industry Wisdom or Prudence which he hath received from God 2. When he attributes to or expects that by merit which is a free gift Or 3. When he thinks he hath that which he hath not Or 4. When he despises others and affects preheminence It is usual with us to take the measures of Pride from the garb or attire from the outward behaviour gesture or the use of some less grave or decent Fashions and indeed there may be an excess in these things that may be very justly blameable But my Friends there is a Pride worse than all this even spiritual Pride that hath in it the very Image of the Apostate Spirit and is truly Diabolical when a man is proud of the Graces or the Gifts of God it alienates from him the Divine Favour for which we are more prepared when we are covered with shame and sorrow And when we are poor in spirit then we may hope that he will enrich us with his Love When we are emptied of all Self-conceit or a flattering opinion of our own Actions then we may hope that he will fill us both with grace and glory VVhat a sorry unbecoming thing is it for a man even the best of men to be proud Alas How soon can the Great God cause all his glory to wither and to fade away What a vain thing is it for a man to pride himself in things that relate to the Body when it is liable to Agues Fevers Consumptions Convulsions and many tedious days and years of pining sickness and must at last be the prey of death and moulder in the Grave And it is no less evil and foolish for a man to pride himself in any thing that relates to his Soul in his knowledge in his faith in his serviceableness for upon his sin an hour of temptation may come upon him that will be an hour of darkness that will cause the light of all these to vanish and what is man when his Conscience is awakened with a sense of guilt when his Sins are set in order before him when the Devil is permitted to sift and vex him to ruffle him with amazing Terrors and the constant view of Hell If God depart from us that Envious raging Spirit who is of great power and malice does with ease insult over us and tread us under his feet Oh! how vain is it for us to be proud that live a miserable life and may dye a very painful death All the Designs of God are to exalt himself and abase the Creature The Consciousness that the Saints have of their own Unworthiness will produce an eternal admiration of his Love and they will all cast down their Crowns before the Throne 1 Cor. 4.7 Who maketh thee to differ from another And what hast thou that thou didst not receive 1 Pet. 5.5 6. 3. That you may not lose the Favour of God you must beware of formality and all slightness of spirit in the performance of holy duties It will be also very prejudicial to us when we can omit them and have no great trouble or regret for so great a Sin Whereas if we were duly tender of the welfare of our Souls we should refresh them with frequent thoughts and meditations as we do our Bodies with two or three meals a day When we bring dead Sacrifices to the Altar of God we need not wonder that we have so little spiritual and heavenly life we need not wonder that we have no more sense of his Favour when we often pray for it as if we prayed not the coldness and indifference of our Petitions shews that we do not much care whether they be granted or denyed and God will not thrust his Mercies upon us whether we will or not none shall enjoy his gracious comfortable Presence but those that strive and wrestle and such as have the zeal of Jacob that will not let him go till he bless them Heaven and Salvation we would all have but God knows we beg it after a very poor fashion and he may justly expel us from the sight of himself because we draw near to him with so little fervour and give him cause to complain of us as of those in Isa 29.13 We are guilty of slightness and formality in duty in these following Instances 1. When we perform them as a task and not with delight and love 2. When we do not excite and stir up our selves to call upon the Lord. 3. When we are satisfied in the bare outward performance and have not those inward exercises of contrition faith and holy sorrow and vigorous desires which are as the life and the soul of Prayer 4. When we suffer our Thoughts to wander or when we run to such Duties from a hurry and a croud of worldly business not considering the greatness of our wants and of that Majesty that fills the Throne before which we pray and how he will be sanctified of all that draw nigh to him 5. When we look not for the answer of our Prayers and when having done our duty we are unsollicitous whether it produce any good effect or no. 6. When we are more studious to approve our selves to the eyes of Men than to the eye of God I might add That if we would not lose the Favour of God we must duly improve all his other Ordinances we must hear as for our lives and take heed that his word do not at any time slip out of our minds We must receive the glad tidings of Salvation with obedient and joyful hearts and upon all fit occasions in the Celebration of the Lord's Supper with holy Affections and a melting zeal keep up the remembrance of the Love of Christ till he come again and with great constancy and seriousness read the Scriptures that direct us how to obtain this Favour of God that is our life but if any person has so little value for the Favour of God that he will not earnestly pray for it he must go without it and smart for his refusal of so excellent a Blessing when it shall be too late to repent 4. That you may not lose the Favour of God that is your life you must avoid all sloth What pains hath God taken what Exhortations what Promises has he used to bring you near to himself what hardships and sufferings did Christ undergo to gain your love and will you do nothing in answer to
and down in a thick and foggy night and which lead the deceived Traveller into some Pit or Gulf but the Joys of God are like the brightness of a Summers day their clearness their comfortableness and their continuance render them worthy of our highest admiration The smiles of the World many times cover a designed mischief but the smiles of God are to make us happy Whether then shall we most prize the Fountain or the polluted Streams the rich Ocean or the smaller Brooks Why should we love the Creatures when we have a God to love Why should we doat upon a Bubble that every little Storm blows away and not embrace that Salvation that is offered and that is both suitable to our faculties and not liable to perish With Angels and with glorified Saints let us make God our all our portion and our hearts-desire for our great Creator is much more amiable than his own handy-work Let us leave the Men that know not God to fall down before their Idols of Clay and Dirt but let us with the highest reverence with the most cordial submission adore him from whose Favour we have life Let us leave them to dig in the Bowels of this Earth for a sordid happiness but let us arise and go hence Let us go and seek after God Let us go and seek till we find him and when we have found him let nothing in this World no pleasure no pain no promises no threats nor life nor death make us part with our dear God again Let us never cease to sigh and to long for him Let us never be weary of his work nor ever think that we call do too much for so good a Master Let us feast our selves with the chearful expectation of his Eternal Love and so take up the good resolution of the Church Cant. 4.6 Vntil the day breaks and the shadows flee away I will get me to the mountain of Myrrh and to the hill of Frankincense 6. That you may with more care seek and endeavour to obtain the Favour of God improve your experiences to this purpose Have you not found what a pleasant thing it is to be near to him to have access to his Throne and to see his Face And on the contrary Have you not known what a dismal and uncomfortable state it is to be without him And there are two sorts of Experiences that may be very seviceable to you in this great affair 1. Those Experiences that you have of all other things in common with the rest of Men Have you not found that the Promises and Friendships of this World have been very changeable Have you not embraced many a time a Cloud when you have promised your selves a real and a solid happiness Has the World given you that pleasant entertainment that cordial satisfaction that you proposed to your selves when you first let your minds run upon it Have you not a Thousand times called it a very vain World Have you not a Thousand times found it to be so Have you not prick'd your hands and vex'd your souls when you thought to have gathered the pleasant flower that you doated on Have you not seen that the most beautiful Rose is attended with a neighbouring Thorn Has it smelt so sweet and lasted so long as you once thought it would Has not all your Wine had some Wormwood and Gall mingled with it Has not every Comfort had a mixture of a Cross and where you hoped for the greatest pleasures have you not met with a sad allay of grief Have you not been eager and importunate and restless for this or that creature-good and when you have obtained it has it been so suitable so delightful so every way amiable as at a distance it did seem to be He must be a young Man indeed that hath not found this World to be a cheat and he must be a Fool that when he has been once cheated will suffer himself to be again impos'd upon A few years experience will make us all to say with the Wise Man That all is vanity and vexation of spirit and if we hope to extract more from it than so great an Observer of Nature as he did we shall be miserably deceived In our first and rash desires we flatter our selves with something here on Earth that is great and plausible and charming but in our more sedate and second thoughts we find that all that is under the Sun is but a shew and a meer appearance And when we find it to be so as a great many have already and all shall in a little time it becomes us to apply our selves to something that is more durable and satisfying and that is only the Favour and the Love of God 2. Improve not only your common but your Spiritual Experiences to this end and purpose I suppose there are a great many people here that have been under distress of soul and that in such distress have been brought very low Now What was it I pray you that gave you relief in so sad a Case Was it that you had many Friends and great Estates and a flourishing Trade and abundance of outward Accommodations I am sure you will answer No no none of these things gave us the least help Methinks I hear you saying We tried several methods for a Cure we tried several diversions and pleasures the Conversations of our Friends and whatever innocent Recreation it was that we thought might give us ease we heard Sermons we read good Books we enquired of our Ministers but we found them all to be Physicians of no value they did not open our Eyes nor heal our Wounds nor answer our Doubts nor refresh our tired and weary Souls till God himself was pleased to do it Nothing in all the World did avail us nor could all the means we used pull out the Sting that the sense of our guilt and condemnation pierced us with Abanah and Pharphar all the Rivers of Damascus and all the streams of sensual delights were not able to mitigate or quench our thirst All was desolation and terror and amazement till his Face was pleased to shine through the threatning cloud We lived in darkness and in the deepest sorrows till he became our light and joy we were sinking till he held us up and dying till he was pleased to revive us All the delight and mirth that ever the World gave us was but as a flash of Lightning to that clear and serene day that his Grace created in our hearts his Love did indeed mitigate our pains and remove our sores and one beam from him was as the dawn of Heaven He has fed us like John the Baptist with Honey in the Desert his Loving-kindness did indeed quench our thirst This I know is the sense of your Souls that have tasted how good the Lord is and having had so pleasant a relish of his Mercy I beseech you let not the remembrance of it wear away Oh! remember with delight
whom the Prophets and Apostles and Martyrs and all your Ministers and your Christian Friends have spoke so much to be at length your own Saviour how will you be at ease when you see his Excellencies to be yours and that you are among the joyful and adoring-throng that wait upon him To love him and to have his love shewed to you and to have these mutual Delights to increase but never to decay to possess one another for ever with renewed and repeated Extasies this is an Heaven begun that no thoughts can fully apprehend nor words declare in order to this you must give all diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Often you must try your hearts and your Actions by the Word of God and beg his Spirit and obey his motions and excite your Graces and watch against Sin and deny your selves The Trader endeavours all he can to get a plentiful Trade and would have a great deal of business and money flowing in upon him The Merchant strives to have all the plentiful Returns imaginable Oh! Let us strive that our Souls may not only be safe but that they may prosper too not only that we may pray but pray with boldness to God as Children to a Father and when we are able to look upon him as so related and as our Friend our Service will be more fervent and all our work done with greater life and heart our slavish fears and despondence will give way to Love and Hope and then every thing that concerns us will undergo a most comfortable change we shall be able to hear the Thunders and the Curses and the Threatnings of the Law without astonishment and terror because we shall dwell as in God's Pavilion We shall be able to think of Hell and not be overwhelmed because we shall look upon it as a Dungeon from which we are saved by the Grace of God We shall attend to the Messages of the Gospel for it will bring us glad tidings the blessed Angels will be your Guardians the Ministers of the Church your Directors and your Helpers the Malice of the Wicked and the Rage of Devils will fall below us and not reach our happiness 8. Take heed of concluding the special favour of God from the Common Mercies you enjoy 1. You must not conclude you have this Favour from any of your outward Privileges God may long dwell among a People by the outward Testimonies of his Presence by his Word and the means of Grace and yet leave them at last Who were once more happy than the Jews in his Protection and yet none are more miserable than they are by his departure Jerusalem where he had placed his Name and that was once the glory of all Cities is now no more remarkable for its glorious Temple and its stately Towers for its Riches Grandeur and Splendor wherewith it shined heretofore The Holy Land the Countrey of Judea which our Saviour blest with his presence which he instructed with his heavenly Sermons and honoured with his Miracles is now no more the same Judea that it once was it is now groaning under the cruel Dominion of the Turks and the Seven Churches have lost their Golden Candlesticks and the blessed Guest that one walkt in the midst of them The Stars that shone there are now eclips'd and their glory gone It is a great mercy indeed so have the Gospel but it will not in the issue be so to you unless it shine into your hearts If it do not prevail to the conversion of your Souls it will aggravate your ruine inasmuch as you will go from the clearest Light to the thickest Darkness from the brightest Day to the most dismal Night You cannot conclude that you have this Favour from any common gifts of knowledge or of understanding unless you be sanctified throughout When our Lord ascended he gave gifts to men * Du Monlin's Sermons XI Decade Serm. 2. Like those Liberalities which Kings scatter indifferently among their Subjects in the day of their Coronation without making a distinction between the good and bad and of those pieces of Gold and Silver several partake that least deserve them but their great Honours and the Principal Offices of the Crown they reserve for their peculiar Favourites and for those that belong to the Houshold and wait upon their Persons so Christ distributes many Favours to all that enjoy his Gospel but there are some that are peculiar to his own Family as distinguished from the rest of men such are the gifts of Faith of Regeneration and Adoption Happy was the Womb that bare him and happy were the Paps that gave him suck and yet more happy are those that keep his Words Luke 11.27 28. Neither circumcisim nor uncircimcision availeth any thing but a new creature Gal. 6.15 2. You cannot conclude from your outward Prosperity your Richer or abundance in the World that you have this Favour of God in which is Life Our Lord that by his own Example did intend to shew to men better things than the Goods of this World did first cause his Angels to appear to the poor Shepherds not to the Courts of Princes and the Schools of Philosophers He could have had Kings if he had pleased to wait upon him and to lay their Crowns and Scepters at his feet but he chose a Train of poor Followers whom he did enrich with Heavenly Treasures and not with those of this Earth though the whole Creation and all its glories were at his Command The Poor were they that received the Gospel and not many Noble are called c. 1 Cor. 1.27 The poor of the world are rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom Jam. 2.5 Tho as Riches are no sign of God's Election neither is Poverty a mark of Grace but yet with the Lower sort of People and those that are not many times very wise for this World God does often build his Church Afflictions and Crosses are no mark of his displeasure nor is a continued Prosperity the character of his Love for many times God lets his Sun shine upon the Wicked to their dying day their strength is firm the Rod is not upon them they fear no evil they know no sorrow there are no tears in their eyes no sadness in their hearts no complaining in their Families See Job 21. from the 7th to the 13th verse Riches are indeed of themselves great blessings with them a man may do abundance of good works which the poorer sort of People cannot by reason of those straits and difficulties that they are to wrastle with they are great Talents and serviceable to great purposes they do afford men great leisure for the affairs of their Souls and not being perplexed with anxious cares how to get a livelihood they may read and meditate and pray with more devotion but then these soft and easie Blessings meeting with the Corruptions that is in Humane Nature they prove frequently to be a
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
a quiet and a blessed soul was this How full of joy in a time of usual amazement and terror With what strength was he furnish'd to fight with his last Enemy God grant that you and I may have such strength and such comfort when it shall be our time to dye 2. That you may know whether you have the Favour of God in which is life you must examine whether you esteem him more than the world There are two Qualifications of this Esteem 1. That it be serious and deliberate 2. That it be prevalent 1. That it be serious It must be the product of many solemn repeated thoughts a viewing of him as invested with many glorious Perfections as he is represented in his Word and as he shines in the face of Jesus Christ a due considering both what he is in himself and what he will be to you This Esteem is not wrought by a hasty glance or a passant view but by deep thoughtfulness attended with calm and sedate reflections on our own guiltiness and his mercy on our own emptiness and miseries and his Alsufficiency and then a ballancing of all things that pretend to a share in our Affections and submitting at length to the juster claim of God Saying after this or the like manner Lord I yield up my self to Thee as Thine own I was a little while dazled with the gay Pleasures of a vain World but now I bid them all farewell that I may come and taste thy Joys I have served Sin and Satan but they have cheated and deceived me they have given me Vexation instead of Rest and Husks instead of Bread therefore now O my Father in Heaven poor Prodigal as I am I return to Thee to live in Thy Family to do Thy Work and never to wander or to be extravagant any more Oh! give me not all my portion in this World but let me have an Inherittance in that which is to come Let others pursue their several projects and obtain what they pursue let them succeed in their Affairs and bathe themselves in the softest pleasures It is God that I seek it is he that I will most value 'T is a sign that a beam of heavenly light hath shined upon your souls if this be your frame 2. Your esteem must be prevalent the worst of Men have some esteem of God as of a Glorious a Powerful a good and happy Being and they think those the safest and the most Honourable persons that enjoy his favour but then there are a thousand trifles that they more esteem and labour after as Riches or Ease or Gain or Applause But can you truly say I would not if I might have all the World without God himself I had rather have him tho in Poverty and Disgrace and trouble than to be compass'd with throngs of flowing joys without his Love If you have this Favour of God you will easily look through all the painted Varnish of the World and see its real vanity God and things Divine will not only gain your hearts but gain them in a Soveraign and a Powerful degree and till we thus prize and value him he is not our God nor is his favour our portion If you have this you will say with David Psal 4.6 Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me It is not outward prosperity or grandeur or the favour of Men or the ease of the flesh that I seek but thy self Thou art my Exaltation my Joy my every Good all that I wish for and all that I desrire 3. If you have this favour of God you will know it by the hatred that you have of sin Where-ever this comes it will banish that it will weaken and expel it and tho it do not altogether destroy it yet it will take away from it all its former amiableness and beauty you will not sin with such boldness as you used to do nay you will be so far from that that you will not dare to commit the least iniquity and if there be fixed in your souls a real and abiding hatred of Sin and if you use all good endeavours against it it 's a most certain mark that you are past from death to life you cannot but remember what bitterness the remembrance of your former iniquities filled your souls withal what consternation did then seize upon your poor spirits when you thought God your Enemy and Hell your Portion What would you then have given for the least beam of that Sun that now shines with his gentle beams upon your heads How welcome was the voice of that Messenger that brought you glad tidings and that assured you there was Mercy and Hope even for you Era you obtained this favour of God you have had many a restless night and many a weary day in a sollicitous enquiry what would become of your immortal souls for ever 4. If you have this favour of God in which is Life you will be satisfied with all his dispensations that will bring you nearer to himself It is an observation not without its Truth That where-ever God gives Grace he will send afflictions to exercise that Grace and those that have the strongest Grace must look for such conflicts such temptations and such assaults from the Devil in their way to Heaven as will put all their Grace to the utmost and the largest stretch None shall come to Heaven without suffering none can tell how many Millions of sufferings he may endure before the day of Salvation dawns upon him but he is a very happy person that is not overwhelmed with these innumerable calamities That whilest he swims as in a Sea of grief can lift up his head and exercise his Faith and say Lord let thy will be done It thou wilt be with me in the fiery Furnace and in the deep Waters I shall not fear tho those Flames be very hot and these Waves roul fast one upon another Tho it is our Duty to deprecate long and severe and heavy Tryals it is a common thing in our Prayers to say Lord if thou wilt save me at last bring any sort of affliction on me I will refuse nothing But alas alas we generally do not know what we say there are those Arrows in God's Quiver which if they should be shot against us would cut us to the very soul and make us quickly to change our language There is that unspeakable weight in his hand when he lays it much upon us that we cannot bear There are those Pains at his disposal and which our sins deserve that are in all things setting aside their duration as the very pains of Hell He is the good Man that does not desire affliction for he will be sure to have it whether he do or not but that can submit to it when it comes upon him that does not make to himself a Cross but takes it up when he finds it lying in the way that can say Lord if I must be poor in
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
to thy self I have indeed deserv'd this usage for thou wast with me and I did not value thy presence thou didst call but I did not obey thy voice thou didst stand at my Door but I shut thee out wo wo unto me that I have sinned wo unto me that I did not improve thy Grace thy Presence and thy Love as I should have done But tho I have been a Prodigal thou art a Father still and tho I have not done as becomes a Child yet I will return to thee because thou wilt not cast off the comfortable Name of a Father Thus I say do those that have had experience of God's favour mourn for his absence Their Spirits are like the tender Flowers that hang their heads when the Sun is set and they walk more disconsolately than any Subject can be supposed to do who after having once shared in the peculiar Graces of his Prince sees him at length because of his Crimes to look upon him with a severe or a less savourable eye VII If you enjoy the Favour of God you will have a great value for his Word for the Spirit and the Blood of Christ For his Word as discovering to you this God and persuading you by many comfortable Promises and Entreaties to accept of him and not only so but conveying to you saving light and knowledge with its great and powerful efficacy You will love the Word because of the many Supports and Consolations which you have received from it you will love it as the Rule of your Duty and all its Precepts will be dear to you as conveying to you life and strength you will love it so as to read it often so as to meditate upon it and to lay it up in your hearts you will love it as the Instrument of your Regeneration and rejoice in it not only for a season but for ever You will value and obey the Spirit that sets home revealed truths upon your hearts and when you were destitute of this life convinced you of your miserable state and restored vigor and motion to those Faculties of yours that were stupified and benumbed chasing away their ancient darkness and guiding them to their proper Objects and causing those Objects so discovered to produce glorious effects in your once barren Souls You will also prize all the Ordinances of God in which you may have communion with him as Prayer Hearing Meditation and the like and it will leave a sensible grief upon your minds when you miss of these Ordinances by your own fault VIII You will be very humble and heavenly minded His Favour fills all his Servants with the lowest and most self-abasing thoughts you will never speak of him but in terms full of respect never pray to him but with great reverence and veneration the nearer access you have to him the more will you discern of his Infinite Holiness and Purity and how vile you are when compared with him you will wonder at his Condescentions and cast down your Crowns before the Throne and imitate his humble Language in 2 Sam. 9.7 8. when David told Mephibosheth Thou shalt eat bread at my Table continually he bowed himself and said What if thy servant that thou shouldst look upon such a dead dog as I am This will cause you to admire the distinguishing Grace of God that is vouchsafed to you more than to many others in the World great numbers whereof are buried in Ignorance or open Idolatry and the rest in Profaneness or Hypocrisy many it may be are passed by in the same Families where you live and whilst you are alive your next Neighbour perhaps is dead And then if you have obtained this Favour you will be heavenly minded your Treasure and your Hearts will be above you will taste and relish spiritual and divine things and never be more pleased than when you are least earthly and carnal and this holy temper will be your comfort and security against the Temptations of Satan and the Evils of this lower World as those Birds that soar aloft are out of the danger of Guns and the Snare of the Fowler who catches those that fly nearer to the ground IX You may then know that you have the Favour of God if you are industrious and zealous in the performance of all holy Duties If you perform them not only from the force of awakening convictions but from love and delight if you refuse no service that may glorify him though it seem to thwart your worldly Interest and to be painful to the Flesh and it is impossible but to find a very calm and chearful progress in your obedience when you know that God accepts what you do As it is a mighty encouragement to the labour of a Servant when he sees that his Master is very well pleased with his work Darkness you know with its many Inconveniences does greatly put a stop to diligence which yet is quickned and excited by the return of Light So if God's Countenance shine upon you it will make you not only to walk uprightly but even to run the way of his Commandments with enlarged hearts Psal 119. and you will associate with such as are serious holy Persons for the living do not use to take pleasure in being among the dead X. And Lastly If this Favour of God be your Life it will make you patiently to long for Heaven This Favour will be sweeter to your taste than honey or the honey-comb it will yield a more delightful relish to your renewed Appetite than all the Joys of this World the little drops that now and then refresh your hearts will cause you to pant for those Rivers of Pleasures that are at his Right-hand for evermore Are you weary of sinning weary of your imperfect Faith and Hope and Love Does the prospect that you have of God at this distance render him so amiable to your Souls that you would fain be with him where he is Are you so sensible of the evil of your Sin that you would fain be in that place where you shall sin no more for ever where your panting Soul shall have all its longings turned into an eternal Complacence and Delight You will often lift up to Heaven your longing eyes and send thither many a servent wish saying with David Oh! when shall I come and appear before God! Psal 42.2 When will it be that I shall see his glorious Face and feel beyond all doubt that I am loved of him and that I love him better than I now do where the joys of hope shall be turned into fruition and when that which I have now but in the promise I shall have in the sweetest and most comfortable possession When shall I be near his Throne and see that glorious Majesty that I have adored When shall I see that Face all serene and have no black or mournful Cloud to interpose between my God and me for ever Oh that I might join in the Hallelujahs of the Blessed
of it and if they be imployed they are hurried and disturb'd and grieved and vexed they meet with many people that are false and treacherous with many businesses that are intricate and perplexed and thus their plodding Heads are stung with Cares and their Breasts with sorrow all groaning under the Curse and proving the punishment to be true That in the sweat of his Brows Man must eat his Bread Gen. 3. Eccles 2.23 All his days are sorrows and his travel grief yea his heart taketh not rest in the night This is also vanity All his drudgery and his toyl is to small purpose it is indeed vanity when a Man deprives himself of sleep the sweet repose of Nature and next to the Grace of God the greatest blessing in the World The Poor are almost every where shedding Tears of Impatience and Discontent for the straitness of their Circumstances they are mourning because they are like to want what would bear their Charges to the Grave and the Rich are troubled how to secure the Riches they enjoy and fear to lose them as many have done before for they cannot live long but they shall see many whom a few days and some unforeseen Accidents have brought from the greaest heights to the lowest poverty whom the Rising-Sun found rejoicing and whom he left for their sudden miseries plunged in Tears How many Foreheads do you see covered with a Cloud of grief for their Losses and their Disappointments Look into the Country-fields there you see toyling at the Plow and Sythe * Bp. Hall Vol. 1. p. 451. Look into the Waters there you see tugging at Oars and Cables Look into the City there you see a throng of Cares and hear sorrowful complaints of bad times and the decay of Trade Look into Studies and there you see paleness and infirmities and fixed Eyes Look unto the Court and there are defeated Hopes Envyings Underminings and tedious attendance all things are full of Labour and Labour is full of Sorrow and these two are inseparably joyned with the miserable Life of Man 3. In the next place consider the miseries of the Body of Man that make him to weep and mourn Persons of weak constitutions are liable to tedious and languishing pains that afflict them for many months together and those that are of a stronger temper to such that are so sharp and so violent that they dispatch them it may be in a week or two Man is seldom without pain and always near to sickness to sickness that will make him groan and sigh whether he will or not and some sickness which is all sorrow throughout such as Melancholly which is all sad and has not one bright or clear side all disconsolate and grievous stagnating the Blood changing the brisk and chearful motion of the Spirits and fixing the Mind unavoidably upon amazing and dreadful objects So is that of Job verified His flesh upon him shall have pain and his soul within him shall mourn Job 14. last The several Seasons of the year have their inconveniencies which annoy poor mortal men not only the Winter-quarter as one expresses it is full of storms and cold and darkness but the beauteous Spring hath Storms and sharp Frosts the fruitful teeming Summer is melted with heat and choaked with dust and the Autumn is full of sickness And how can the Eyes but shed innumerable Tears when they consider the doleful pains to which they themselves and all the other parts of the body are exposed How can the Man but groan to find himself present in such a Body from which he cannot for many painful years be dislodged and in which he has no delight or ease What grief is it to him to have no help or relief when his spirits are broken and his heart is overwhelmed To have many cutting afflictions upon him and the fear of more to come Eccles 8.6 7. To every purpose there is time and judgment and therefore the misery of man is great upon him For he knoweth not that which shall be for who can tell him when it shall be To be daily dying in anguish and vexation and not to be able to die To be surrounded with Troops of Diseases of Agues Fevers Consumptions Cholick Gout Stone and not to be able to keep any of these off nor to run away from them when they come 4. Add to all these natural sorrows such as are distributed by God in Judgment Such are the Tyrants that God suffers long to Flourish and to Triumph in the World that tread upon the necks of others to advance themselves and glut themselves with the Blood of the Innocent daring to do what is most unjust to gratify their Lawless Ambition and their Lustful desire of Empire and from them and their arbitrary designs flow innumerable injuries and wrongs and robberies and mischief Eccl. 4.1 Then the other Judgments Plagues and Famine spreading Contagions or Bloody Wars Plagues that at the same time seize and kill that Conquer whereever they come and send Thousands of miserable mortals to the Grave on a sudden that tear the Children from their Mothers Breasts that separate one part of the Family from another and make them afraid of each others Company or else send them together to the House prepared for all Living that turn flourishing Cities into solitudes and put a stop to all Commerce and Trade Or Famine that kills by as sure but by flower methods That makes them to know they are dying before they die That causes them to walk to and fro with pale and meagre and drooping looks and turns a fruitful Land into barrenness where the poor starving Children come begging to their Mothers for Bread and they have none to give but are forced to see them die before their Eyes as Lam. 4. Or War where many Children are deprived of their Fathers many Wives of their Husbands many that lived plentifully bereaved of all their dear and pleasant things War which fills every place with Blood and Violence with Noise and Clamour and Oppression and Woe That lays Countries waste and desolate and sacrifices multitudes of harmless people to its cruel rage and fury These are the terrible Voice of God which will cause us to weep and to be afraid 5. Consider Men as associated together in their several Relations and so their sorrows and their cause of weeping is increased The Courts of Princes have their occasions of grief and trouble they grieve tho their grief be more pompous and clad in a more solemn dress Those that that have a numerous and great Kindred and Alliance are oftner in Mourning than others for Death does oftner visit their greater Friends and Acquaintance Few Families there are without sorrow that House that now rejoyces is quickly turn'd into a House of mourning and where this day there is nothing but the sound of the Timbrel the Harp and the Viol it may be the next day there is the voice of Crying and Lamentation How many
what will become of me that flattered my own soul to ruin that thought my self safe when I was not and well when I was diseased To come to misery after I thought so long of happiness is a double misery I am like after all my prayers my endeavours and my hopes to be a Reprobate and a cast-away And such a soul concludes it self to be in a condition much more dangerous than they are that never named the name of Christ nor ever pretended to Religion because it reckons their misery will be much more tollerable than its own it judges it self to be an Hypocrite and then all the threats that are made against such do every moment overwhelm it with inexpressible confusion Thus the Graces of the Spirit and the former fruits of holiness are not discerned in this sad and mournful night Fourthly During this sadness the soul cannot thinly of Christ himself with any comfort For thus it argues He will be a Saviour to none but those that believe I have no faith and therefore he will be no Saviour to me he that is to his Servants as the Lamb of God will be to me as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah he that deals gently with them will tear me to pieces I have heard of his sufferings and his death but if his blood has not cleansed and purified me I am like to perish for all that I heard his voice and I disobeyed it I heard his Gospel and did not improve it and now even the glad tidings of Salvation are not so to me I did not know in the long day that I had the things that belong'd unto my peace and now they are hid from mine eyes Now I have to deal with the great and the dreadful God himself and I have none to plead my cause Oh how can I resist his power or bear his wrath Christ indeed called me but I did not open to him and now he calls no more he seems to be angry and enraged against me for my disobedience and tho I have cried sometimes Have mercy on me thou Son of David he passes away and does not regard my cryes And O what shall I do when he comes in the Clouds of Heaven when I am to stand at his Bar and to be punished as an unbeliever To others that will be a day of Refreshment but what will it be to me the thoughts of it are now amazing And thus by a sense of unbelief the deserted soul is plunged in the waves and sees no way of escape and by this Unbelief it thinks of God as absolutely considered and the thoughts of him are as terrible as if there were no Mediator and it is continually saying I have all my sins to answer for and have none to undertake for me I am condemned and have none to procure a pardon and salvation for me Fifthly In this Night the soul is full of terror and how can it be otherwise when every thought of God and of Christ overwhelms it Job 6.4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me the poyson whereof drinketh up my spirit the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me Such arrows that are shot by an Almighty arm with a great power and force they must needs being so directed pierce very deep deep and painful must the wounds be that a God makes and then they are poysoned arrows too that being dipt in his wrath inflame the wounds they make and put the distressed person into pain and anguish inexpressible Night is a time of terror especially in commotions uproars and the like mischiefs Psal 91.5 and in this night it is much more so when a man 's own Conscience discharges a thousand accusations against him for his guilt for then every sin gives a blow and altogether being set in array make a formidable force and when God sets on peculiar impressions of his wrath and it falls upon the naked soul with its scorching burning drops there is not then one quiet thought nor one easie moment all is amazement confusion and wo. Lam. 3.3 Surely against me is he turned he turneth his hand against me all the day A person that is thus distress'd sits and muses on his misery and would gladly find something that might be comfortable but he cannot what he first thinks of is tormenting he changes that uneasie thought for another and that is as tormenting as the first there is a circulation of flaming disquiet thoughts and such a person dwells as in a nery Furnace or as in a thicket of briers which way soever he turns himself he is pained and wounded all the terrible places of Scripture that are made against the wicked do continually present themselves to his consideration and he thinks that he shall most certainly have their portion every thing in nature that is frightful frights him as still believing God to be against him from all the terrible things imaginable he fetches something that does still more afflict him and thus he will be imagining Suppose I were to be sawn asunder to be burnt to be flea'd alive or to be torn to pieces Oh what a sad thing would that be and yet I am in a case worse than all this for I am now continually racked with guilt and am like to be in Hell for ever The terrors of the Lord we may seel indeed but we cannot express them they are so very terrible they wound our most sensible and tender part they cause our very souls to pine and languish away they fix our minds to the contemplation of every thing that is sad and doleful they fill us with confusion and Heman says Ps 88.15 they are terrors that compass us round about they seize upon every faculty and distress us in every part to have God against us his holiness to dazle us his Power to overthrow us his Law to condemn us our Consciences to accuse us is the sum of terrors Sixthly Fear is another occasion of sorrow and the night is usually a time of horror we are apt then to be imposed upon with false as well as with real dangers We can think of nothing but out misery and the continual unavoidable thinking of it makes us more miserable Job 13.21 these fears are as so many Fetters from which we cannot fly and when we think to shake them off we put our selves to more pain If I say I will forget my complaints I will leave off my heaviness and comfort my self I am afraid of all my sorrows I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent Job 9.27 28. we are frighted with the Greatness and Majesty of God with the Glory of his Being and the Thunder of his Power We are frighted with the view of our innumerable sins and with the dangers that attend them the thoughts of Heaven fright us because we think we have lost that blessed place and the thoughts of Hell are no less frightful because we think we shall soon be there
it shall be light in a season when it was not to be expected In all his works of Nature and of Grace he makes things that having a seeming contrariety to what he designs to further his design Thus some observe the Earth hangs upon nothing in the midst of the fluid Air though it be the most heavy of all the Elements he renders it fruitful for the Production of all necessary things though it be of it self cold and dry and so the Sea which by its scituation is above the Earth and does seem to threaten it with new deluges yet is kept in its own Channels for after it has been raised even to the Clouds in threatning Waves its fury dies again into a Calm and observes the bounds that God has set it Thus our Lord Jesus also works By being Tempted he Conquer'd the Tempter and by Dying he subdued Death and so at the sending of the Spirit first the House shook and trembled and then it was filled with the Glory of the Lord First deep Sorrows and then as mighty Joys First John Rev. 14.2 heard a voice as the voice of many waters and as the voice of a great thunder and then the voice of harpers harping with their harps and that sang a new song before the throne A due consideration of the Providences of God will keep us from the absurd Opinion of the Heathens That the Deity envied the felicity of Men and that he who was most prosperous was near to a sudden overthrow And even the Learned Men among them were so apprehensive of it that they durst not acknowledg their own tho but ordinary welfare without an excuse See instances of this in Dr. Casaubon's Original Cause of Temporal Evils Upon this account Augustus in whose days the Saviour of the World was born once in the year turned Beggar and received Alms of such of the Common people as would give him He mistrusted his own felicity and dreaded that so frightful in those days Invidiam Numinis The Heathens had but parcels of the Scripture and those too by Tradition much adulterated no wonder if they made a contrary use of it and by sad experience finding the effects of Adam's Fall and God's Curse and not well informed of all particulars the Devil also being busie with them as he was with Eve to promote a misapprehension of God as if he were envious * See Dr. Casaubon p. 27. whereas upon due consideration what in the Judgment of blind and corrupt nature seemed envy and malignity will appear Mercy being used by God as a profitable Medicine or Antidote against the greatest and most dangerous infection of the Soul for crosses and afflictions in this World are not effects of envy in the supreme dispenser of all things but Arguments of his Goodness and Providence All things shall work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8.28 Sickness and Health Poverty and Riches Anguish and Fear and Horror shall contribute to their Salvation and in the most fiery Furnaces and the most painful Troubles they shall find the refreshments of his Grace His Providences work together they are in Concert and are not to be taken apart like Composition of divers Ingredients for there are some that if taken alone might kill the patient but when they are joyned with others which by their contrary qualities temper their excess they do marvellous things being counterpoized †Fragmens de Morus p. 62. God many times lets our darkness stay long that we may know what a pleasant thing it is to see the light 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 carries us to Heaven in his own Way and Method Inf. 2. THis shews us the different ends that God has in the afflictions of the Good and of the Wicked To the one they are Medicinal to the other Penal to the one in Love to the other in Wrath to the one the shadows of an Eternal night and to the other the forerunners of the morning Often his people are thrown down by their Fears by Satan and the World but as often may they say Rejoyce not against me O my enemy c. They may be dejected but they may say with David O my soul hope still on God c. Afflictions as one says are common to the good and bad as the entrance into the bottom of the Sea was to the Israelites and to the Egyptians but the Israelites conducted by a Cloud and a Pillar of Fire were inlightned and assured and passed in safety and came out praising God but to the Egyptians this Cloud that separated them was full of darkness and they were drowned in the Waves whilest the others stood upon the dry Land so God comforts his people by the light of his Word and the support of hope from his holy Promises whereas the wicked are finally swallowed up of sadness and despair The Righteous fall and they rise again but the feet of the Wicked stumble on the dark Mountains and never rise again Tho indeed as the same person observes * Fautheur Sermons first part p. 132. Even as the Chaldeans formerly measured their natural day differently from the Israelites they put the day first and the night after but the Israelites on the contrary according to the order that was observed in the Creation for in the beginning darkness was upon the face of the deep and of every one of the six days it is said The evening and the morning made the first day So the times of the World and of the Church are differently disposed for the World begins hers by the day of temporal prosperity and finishes it by a night of darkness and anguish that is Eternal but the Church on the contrary begins hers by the night of Adversity which she suffers for a while and ends them by a day of Consolation which she shall have for ever The Prophet in this Psalm begins with the Anger of God but ends with his Favour as of old when they entred into the Tabernacle they did at first see unpleasant things as the Knives of the Sacrificers the Blood of Victims the Fire that burn'd upon the Altar which consumed the Offerings but when they passed a little further there was the Holy Place the Candlestick of Gold the Shew-bread bread and the Altar of Gold on which they offered Perfumes and in fine there was the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy-Seat and the Cherubims which was called the Face of God * Mussard Sermons sur divers Texes p. 30. Inf. 3. This may then reconcile you to his Providence The night of trouble makes you not to see the Beauty of the Church but tho she is black she is comely still he that makes his Sun to shine upon the unthankful and the
Sense will tell us that our Troubles are tedious and very long but our Faith will rectify our Judgment and shew us that tho' we have been in heaviness yet it is but for a season our Sense makes us think our night of weeping very long but Faith sets the morning before our eyes And indeed when that comes the time of sorrow will appear to have been very short our Weeping will bear no proportion with our Joy nor our Groans with our Hallelujahs The luster of our Crown and the glories of our Triumph will make us to forget the Blood and Sweat and Labour of the Combat tho' whil'st here below we thought it hard Faith will wipe away our Tears and cause us to take a further prospect and to see where they now are that were mourners once as well as we Job is no more wondred at upon a Dunghil by his Friends but shining with glory in the Highest Heaven Heman is no more distracted with terrors but infinitely pleased with the sight and enjoyment of his God There is Asaph also singing praises to him tho' he thought and was afraid that his Mercies were clean gone and that he would be favourable no more Faith will solace your drooping spirits by causing you frequently to remember that tho' God is angry yet it is but for a moment and that tho' you have now four Grapes yet they are only to prepare you for a better relish of the Joys above it is this that sets our feet upon a Rock and produces in our fainting Souls a secret support and hope that tho' it be night with us for the present yet that it will not always be so Rev. 3.21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my father on his throne The dangers and distresses on the way will make us better to like our home All the years of our Life tho' spent in sore afflictions and anxieties will be but a very little space when we are Landed at our haven of Joy and Immortality CHAP. IX Of the direct Acts of Faith as the most suitable to a distressed Soul as also of waiting upon God With several considerations to enforce it And that a Person in great Affliction ought to hope that it may be better with him THird General Look forward to Jesus Christ when you find things perplex'd and troubled in your own souls and indeed in the direct Acts of Faith we have nobler objects to converse withal than when we look and pore upon our guilty selves when we look into our troubled hearts we can see nothing besides confusion and disorder there but we may at the same time discern an alsufficient fulness in God and Christ to relieve our wants It is a long and a tedious work to consider by the several steps by which we are to proceed in such a Case whether we have believed or not our Duty is at this very instant to believe i. e. under a penitent sense of what we have done amiss to look unto Christ for help We must carefully distinguish between Justification and Sanctification between those habits and those holy actions that are the effects of Faith and Faith it self Our Sanctification is full of imperfection but that Righteousness of Christ wherein alone we are to trust for acceptance with God is compleat and perfect These are things to be considered by people under spiritual distress but if you be under the disease of Melancholly to any great degree I am sensible that neither this nor any other direction will be altogether available It is such a stubborn and obstinate disease that it is not to be overcome by rational methods and perswasion no more than a broken Bone can be set again by words and talk 'T is only God that is fully acquainted with the Nature and Violence of this worst of Distempers 't is his Power and his Grace alone that can chase it away and all those things that depend upon consideration and that may succeed in other Cases have not the same tendency to good in this because it is our disease always to pore and think and it is our misery that we cannot think to any purpose I beseech you to remember that the foundation of all our Peace and Comfort is Christ alone and Faith in him Mortification Self-denial and other Graces are the superstructure that is laid upon it but truly all that we can do in great and deep affliction and sore distresses of Soul is only to look up to Christ as a poor wounded bleeding Man does look and cry to one that passes on the Road for help and our Saviour and our Physician is so compassionate that he will regard us tho' we are able to say little more than this Have mercy on us thou son of David Under the prospect of our great infirmities and of the manifold imperfections of our Duties and under the sense of our own nothingness and unworthiness let us humbly betake our selves to Christ he will not disdain nor slight our approaches to him nor leave them unattended with some manifestations of reviving Grace and Mercy IV. When you have done all this you must wait till the Lord appear to your relief and help Psal 123.2 Behold as the eyes of servants look unto the hands of their masters and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hands of her mistress so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that he have mercy upon us Tho' his stroaks be very smart yet we are sure that we have deserved them tho' his delays of help be tedious yet we have merited at his hands a much longer delay We are as so many poor Slaves indeed under the bondage of our fears and our troubles but alas we have brought our selves to that slavery and we must look unto God till he set us free again and tho' our Master be angry with us yet he is a Master still and that relation that we have to him that Interest which we have in his Covenant may be somewhat supporting and comfortable to us 't is a more easie thing to bear any trouble that continues for a Week or for a Month and then passes away but this will be the tryal of our Faith if we can maintain our dependance and trust in God when he afflicts us very sore for many Months or Years together If we see no sign of help no prospect of deliverance we are still to wait till the time even the set time to favour us be come and this must be done with patience with a silent and a quiet resignation to his Will it is the product of a calm and a quiet Soul that is satisfied in the Justice of Providence tho' it be severe only with this limitation that you have the freedom and the command of your natural spirits for if they be put into a hurry and confusion by a disease then indeed you can