to lament immoderately when we lay the bodies of our friends in the grave because we see not whither the Soul is gone nor in what triumph and joy it is received unto Christ Which if we saw it would moderate our griefs And even so we over-pity our selves our friends in our temporal sufferings because we see not whither they tend and what will follow them We see Job on the dunghil but look not so far as his restoration Jam. 5.11 Behold we count them happy which endure Ye have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy There is no judging by the present but either by staying the end or believing Gods predictions of it Use It is allowable in Christs disciples to grieve in faith and moderately for any of his departure from them They that have had the comfort of communion with him in a life of faith and grace must needs lament any loss of that communion It is sad with such a Soul when Christ seemeth strange or when they pray and seek and seem not to be heard It is sad with a believer when he must say I had once access to the Father by the Son I had helps in prayer and I had the lively operations of the Spirit of grace and some of the joy of the holy Ghost but now alas it is not so And they that have had experience of the fruit and comfort of his Word and Ordinances and Discipline and the Communion of saints may be allowed to lament the loss of this if he take it from them It was no unseemly thing in David when he was driven from the Tabernacle of God to make that lamentation Psal 42 and 43. As the hart 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 God My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me where is thy God O my God my Soul is cast down within me c. And Psal 84.2 3 4. My Soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God yea the Sparrow hath found an house and the Swallow a nest c. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house They will be still praising thee For a day in thy Courts is better than a thousand I had rather be a Door-keeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness It signifieth ill when men can easily let Christ go or lose his word or helps and ordinances When sin provoketh him to hide his face and withdraw his mercies if we can senslesly let them go it is a contempt which provoketh him much more If we are indifferent what he giveth us it is just with him to be indifferent too and to set as little by our helps and happiness as we set by them our selves But we little know the misery which such contempt prepareth for Jer. 6.8 Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my Soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not Inhabited Hos 9.12 Yea Wo also unto them when I depart from them When God goeth all goeth Grace and Peace Help and Hope and all that is good and comfortable is gone when God is gone wonder not therefore if Holy Souls cry after God and fear the loss of his Grace and Ordinances and if they lament the loss of that which dead-hearted Sensualists are a weary of and would drive away it will be the damning sentence Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity And therefore all that is but like it is terrible to them that have any regard of God or their Salvation Doct. 3. The sorrows of Christs Disciples are but short It is but NOW that they have sorrow And how quickly will this NOW doctrine 3 be gone Reas 1. Life it self is but short and therefore the sorrows of this Life are but short Man that is born of a Woman is of few days and full of trouble He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not Job 14.1 2. Though our days are evil they are but few Gen. 47.9 As our time maketh haste and posteth away so also do our sorrows which will attain their period together with our Lives As the pleasure of sin so the sufferings of the godly are but for a season Heb. 11.26 Now for a season if need be ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations 1 Pet. 1.6 The pleasures and the pains of so short a life are but like a pleasant or a frightful Dream How quickly shall we awake and all is vanished If we lived as long as they did before the Flood then worldly interest prosperity and adversity would be of greater signification to us and yet they should seem Nothing in comparison of Eternity For where now are all the fleshly pains or pleasures of Adam or Methuselah Much more are they inconsiderable in so short a life as one of ours Happy is the Man whose sorrows are of no longer continuance than this short and transitory life Reas 2. Gods displeasure with his Servants is but short and therefore his corrections are but short Psal 30.5 His anger endureth but for a moment but in his favour is life 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 Isa 26.20 Come my People enter into thy Chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment until the indignation be overpast Thus even in Judgment doth he remember mercy and consumeth us not because his compassions fail not Lam. 3. He will not always chide nor will he keep his anger for ever For he knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are dust Psal 103.9.14 His short corrections are purposely fitted to prepare us for endless consolations Reas 3. Our trial also must be but short and therefore so must be our sorrows Though God will not have us receive the Crown without the preparation of a Conflict and a Conquest yet will he not have our Fight and Race too long lest it overmatch our strength and his Grace and we should be overcome Though our Faith and we must be tried in the fire yet God will see that the Furnace be not over hot and that we stay no longer but till our Dross be separated from us God putteth us not into the fire to consume us but to refine us That when we come out we may say It is good for us that we were afflicted Psal 119.71 and then he will save the afflicted People Reas 4. The power of those that afflict Gods
have yet much unbelief and judge of Gods Love as the flesh directeth you instead of judging by the effects prognosticks which he himself hath bid you judge by We will grant to the flesh that no chastisement for the present seemeth joyous but grievous If you will believe the Spirit that nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that arexercised thereby and that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth Heb. 12.6 11. Misunderstand not then the prognosticks of your present sorrows Think how they will work as well as how they tast They boden good though they are unpleasant If you were bastards and reprobates you might feel less of the Rod. When the Plowers make furrows on you it prepareth you for the seed and the showers that water it prognosticate a plenteous harvest Think it not strange if he thresh and grind you if you would be bread for your masters use He is not drowning his sheep when he washeth them nor killing them when he is shearing them But by this he sheweth that they are his own And the new shorn sheep do most visibly bear his name or mark when it is almost worn out and scarce discernable on them that have the longest fleece If you love the world and prosperity best rejoice most in it grieve most for the want of it But if you love God best and take him for your part and treasure rejoyce in him and in that condition which hath the fullest significations of his love and grieve most for his displeasure and for that condition which either signifieth it or most enticeth you to displease him If things present be your Portion then seek them first rejoice in them mourn when they are taken from you But if really your portion be above with Christ let your hearts be there and let your joys and sorrows and endeavours signify it The sense of bruits doth judge of pain pleasure only by their present feeling but the Reason of a man and the Faith of a Christian do estimate them according to their signification and importance I know that it is in vain to think by Reason to reconcile the flesh and sense unto its sufferings But if I may speak to you as to Men much more if as to Christians and reason with your Reasonable part I shall not at all despair of the success Qu. 1. Tell me then who it is that you suffer by that hath the principal disposing hand in all Is it one that you can reasonably suspect of any want of power wisdom or goodness Is he not much fitter to dispose of you than you or any mortals are If the Physician be fitter than the patient to determine how he shall be ordered and if you are fitter than your infant Child and if you are fitter than your beast to determine of his Pasture work and usage sure then you will grant that God is much more fit than We. And if he would give you your choice and say It shall go with thee all thy daies for prosperity or adversity life or death as thou wilt thy self or as thy dearest friend will you should say Nay Lord but let it be as thou wilt For I and my friend are foolish and partial and know not what is best for ourselves Not our wills but thy will be done Qu. 2. Do you not see that carnal pleasure is far more dangerous than all your sorrows Look on the ungodly that prosper in the world and tell me whether you would be in their condition If not why do you long for their temptations and to live in that air whose corruption causeth such epidemical mortalities If you would not with the Rich man Luk. 16. be damned for sensuality nor with the fool Luk. 12.19 20. Say Soul take thy ease c. When your Souls are presently to be taken from you or with him Luk. 18.22 23. Go away sorrowful from Christ desire not the temptations which brought them to it If you would not oppress the people of God with Pharaoh nor persecute the Prophets with Ahab and Jezebel nor resist the Gospel and persecute the preachers of it with the Scribes and Pharisees 2 Thes 14 15 16. Desire not the temptations which led them to all this Qu. 3. Would you not follow your Saviour and rather be conformed to him and to his Saints than to the wicked that have their portion in this life I doubt you do not well study the life and sufferings of Christ and the reason of them when you find your selves so little concerned in them and so desirous of another way And would you not go to Heaven in the common way that the Saints of old have gone before you in Read the Scripture and all Church history and observe which is the beaten path of life and whether even among believers and the Pastors of the Church it was the persecuted or the prosperous that most honoured their profession which of them it was that corrupted the Church with pride domination kindled in it those Flames of contention which are consuming it to this day And sowed those seeds of divisions whose soure fruit have set their Childrens teeth on edge Mark whether it was the suffering or the prospering part that hath had the greatest hand in her after-sufferings Qu. 4. What saith your own experience and how hath God dealt with you in the time that is past Hath not your suffering done you good If it have not you may thank your selves For I am sure Gods rod hath a healing virtue and others have received a cure by it How much is mankind beholden to the Cross When David went weeping up mount Olivet he was in a safer case than when he was gazing on Bathsheba from his battlements And when Christ was sweating blood upon mount Olivet it was a sign that mans Redemption was in hand and when he was bleeding on the Cross and drinking vinegar and gall it was almost finished And if the Cross hath born such happy fruit what reason have we to be so much against it If it have proved good for you that you were afflicted and no part of your lives have been more fruitful why should your desires so much contradict your own experience If bitter things have proved the most wholsom and a full and luscious dyet hath caused your disease what need you more to direct your judgment if you will judge as men and not as bruits Obj. But you 'l say it is not all sorrow that foretelleth Joy some pass from sorrow unto greater sorrow How then shall we know whether our sorrows tend to worse or unto better Ans It is true that there are sorrows which have no such promise as these have in the text As 1. the meer vindictive punishment of the wicked 2. The sinful sorrows which men keep up in themselves proceeding from their sinful Love of creatures 3. And
the corrections which are not improved by us to our amendment and reformation But the promise belongeth 1. to those sorrows which in sincerity we undergo for the sake of Christ and righteousness 2. To those sorrows which we our selves perform as Duties either for the dishonour of God or the sins or miseries of others or our penitential sorrows for our own offences 3. And to those sorrows of chastisement which we patiently submit to and improve to a true amendment of our hearts and lives For though sin be the Material cause or the Meritorious cause yet Love which maketh Reformatâ—on the effect will also make the end to be our Comfort Vse 2. If this be Gods Method condemn not then the generation use 2 of the just because you see them undermost in the world and suffer more than other men Think it not a dishonour to them to be in poverty prisons banishment or reproach unless it be for a truly dishonourable cause Call not men miserable for that which God maketh the token of his love and the Prognostick of their joy Methinks he that hath once read the Psal 37. 73. and Mat. 5.10 11 12. Joh. 13. 15. 2 Thes 1. and well believeth them should never err this old condemned Errour any more And yet it is common among carnal men to do as some beasts do when one of their fellows is wounded they all forsake him so these stand looking with pity or fear or strangeness upon a man that is under sufferings and slanders as if it must needs be a deserved thing and think it a great dishonour to a man how innocent soever when they hear that he is used as offendours malefactours are forgetting how by this they condemn their Saviour and all his Apostles and Martyrs and the wisest best and happyest men that the earth hath born And all this is but the blind and hasty judgment of sense and unbelief which hath neither the wit to judge by the word of God nor yet the patience to stay the end and see how the sorrows of the godly will conclude and where the triumph of the hypocrite will leave him And yet some there be that are apt to err on the other extream and to think that every man is happy that is afflicted and that such have all their sorrow in this life and that the suffering party is alwaies in the right and therefore they are ready to fall in with any deluded sect which they see to be under reproach and suffering But the cause must be first known before the suffering can be well judged of doctrine 2 Doct. 2. Christs death and departure was the cause of his disciples sorrrows This is plain in the words Ye Now therefore have sorrow but I will see you again And the causes of this sorrow were these three conjunct 1. That their dear Lord whom they loved and whom they had heard and followed and put their trust in must now be taken from them If the parting of friends at death do turn our garments into the signs of our sad and mournful hearts and cause us to dwell in the houses of mourning we must allow Christs disciples some such affections upon their parting with their Lord. 2. And the Manner of his death no doubt did much increase their sorrows That the most innocent should suffer as a reputed malefactour that he that more contemned the wealth and pleasures and glory of the World than ever man did and chose a poor inferiour life and would not have a Kingdom of this World and never failed in any duty to high or low should yet be hanged ignominiously on a Cross as one that was about to usurp the Crown That deluded Sinners should put to death the Lord of life and spit in the face of such a Majesty and hasten destruction to their nation and themselves and that all Christs disciples must thus be esteemed the followers of a crucifyed usurper judg if we had been in their case our selves whether this would have been matter of sorrow to us or not Had it not been enough for Christ to have suffered the pain but he must also suffer the dishonor even the imputation of sin which no man was so far from being guilty of and of that particular sin usurpation of Dominion and Treason against Caesar which his heart and life were as contrary to as light to darkness And was it not enough for Christians to suffer so great calamities of bodies for righteousness sake but they must also suffer the reproach of being the seditious followers of a crucifyed malefactour whom they would have made a King No! our Lord would stoop to the lowest condition for our sakes which was consistent with his innocency and perfection Sin is so much worse than suffering that we may take this for the greatest part of his condescension and strangest expression of his Love that he should take not only the nature and the sufferings of a man but also the nature and the Imputation of sinners Though sin itself was inconsistent with his perfection yet so was not the false accusation and imputation of it He could not become a sinner for us but he could be reputed a sinner for us and die as such And when our Lord hath submitted to this most ignominious kind of suffering it is not fit that we should be the choosers of our sufferings and say Lord we will suffer any thing except the Reputation of being offenders and the false accusations of malicious men If in this we must be made conformable to our head we must not refuse it nor repine at his disposal of us 3. And their sorrow for Christs departure was the greater because they had so little foresight of his Resurrection and return It is strange to see how dark they were in these articles of the faith for all their long converse with Christ and his plain foretelling them his death and resurrection and how much of their teaching Christ reserved to the Spirit after his departure from them Joh. 12 16. Luk. 18.31.32.33.34 Then took he unto him the twelve and said unto them behold we go up to Jerusalem and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles and shall be mocked and spightfully entreated and spit upon and they shall scourge him and put him to death and the third day he shall rise again And they unstood none of these things and this saying was hid from them neither knew they the things which were spoken Had they known all that would follow and clearly foreseen his Resurrection and his Glory they would then have been troubled the less for his death But when they saw him dye and foresaw him not revive and rise and reign then did their hearrs begin to fail them and they said Luk. 24.21 We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel Even as we use