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A61192 Solace for saints in the saddest times from the consideration of the happy temperature and lovely composure of all times and providences as to Gods glory and their good : held forth in a brief discourse on the first words of the Canticles / by Joshua Sprigg. Sprigg, Joshua, 1618-1684. 1648 (1648) Wing S5075; ESTC R28871 13,744 53

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we beleeve comes upon us the other hand whereby we are troubled is taken off us the spirit of faith comes not but the spirit of the world must be cast out as Hagar and Sarah the bond-woman and free-woman could not live together and you see musick was the instrumental means in those cases Therefore I have chosen a Subject of this nature in the discoursing whereof if the Lord Jesus the wise charmer make me by his spirit to charm wisely I hope it wil be in some measure conducible to the end proposed A Song of Songs which was Solomons So that I desire you to bear me witness I do it not out of respect to the time of the yeer * It being a festivall time when this Sermon was preached which is with unreasonable superstition preferr'd by too many but to the times of the Church the occasions and necessities of the Saints which call for all the help of this nature that we can make I mean to hold up their spirits in the present carriages or miscarriages of things and the truth that this Text travells of bears no smal proporrion of conducibleness to this end and were it but cleerly understood strongly believed and effectually applyed to you by the spirit of Christ it would be like a bundle of mirrhe between your brests the virtue whereof is that is preserves from corruption and infection and a cluster of Camphire which makes men vegetiores et firmiores as Pliny observes Here therefore I shal not spend time about the division of this Text into the Title and the Authour of the Book But the Notion or Observation I shal present to you at this time and press upon you is from comparing the name of this Book with the subject matter of it The name is A Song of Songs The Subject matter what is that There are divers opinions of this chiefly three Some make the Subject to be the mutuall and reciprocall makings out of affections and fellowship between Christ and every Beleever 2ly Others between Christ and the Catholick Church or generall Assembly from the beginning to the end 3ly A third sort of Interpreters make it a brief compendious Prophesie of the mutuall carriages and aspects of Christ and his Churches the particular Churches of the Gospell as wel as the Church of the Jews from Solomons time to the end of the world And though there be as a * M. Cotton of Boston in New England reverend Divine well observes a holy and useful truth in the two former yet this latter might be convinced to be the more adaequate scope and subject of this Book by many Arguments if it were our business now which doth exceedingly commend this Book to us as being a Prophetical history and Historical Prophesie giving us a brief and delightful view of all the acts and Monuments of the Church of particular Churches in their severall and successive times and this book is called a Song This is that which is remarkable that such a Subject should make a Song You wil say wherein lies the remarkableness Herein If this be a compleat and a perfect Prophesie as it is of all times then it must record as wel the evil times of the Church as the Halcion days and the defections of the Church as wel as her perfections Gods chastening dispensations as wel as his affectionate embraces his frowns as well as his smiles his placking up of Churches as wel as his planting of them the calling off the Jews as wel as the calling of the Gentiles And that this should be fit matter for a Song seems strange I beleeve As if one should write the story of Gods dealing with England from the first Reformation to the present or to the end of the present agitations cal it a song you would think it an unfit name though we have had much mercy yet you would think that the Denomination should rather follow deteriorem partem and it should be more proper to call it the Lamentation of England that is fallen from such a height of peace and prosperity then a Song yet are there as sad times as these recorded in this book yea and worse not only these but others worse I say for here Solomon by the spirit of Prophesie touches the very tops and eminent points of all times that should succeed from his own yet this he by the holy Ghost cals a Song yea a Song of Songs 1. to shew you this in some particulars that there are very doleful notes in this Song 2. That yet it is a Song 3. What use we should make of this For the 1. to instance but in a few things in the beginning of this Prophesie First you have the blackness of the Church through the defection of Solomon who kept not his own vines his own v. 5. I am black wives from Idolatry and yet this is one particular that goes to this Song 2. You have the division of the Kingdom the revolt of the 10. Tribes from the house of David for Rehoboams stifness and folly v. 6. My mothers children were angry with me 3. You have the sad estate of the faithful dispersed through those 10. Tribes in that revolt in what distress were they to avoid Idolatry and to enjoy the pure Ordinances of God while they could not injoy their Consciences without exposing themselves to one of these great evils either the wrath and persecution of Jeroboham if they should not go up to the Calves but to Jerusalem or else they must forsake their habitations of a sudden perhaps to their undoing This was a sad strait yet this is part of the Song v. 7. Tell me oh thou whom my soul loveth where c. Then 4ly You have the sad estate of Judahs falling away from God as after 3 yeers of Rehoboam they did then God sent Pharoah Shishack King of Aegypt to yoke them 2 Chron. 12. 8. This you have v. 9. and so I might run through the next Chapter In the 16. v. of this 1 Chap. you have a commendation of the House and Worship of God that it was pure and green yet v. 1. of Chap. 2. I am the rose of Sharon whether you take it of Christ or the Church though Josiah had made the bed green by his Reformation yet Christ comes not to his spouses bed but rather cals his Church abroad Sharon was an open field under Lebanon where the beasts did feed Or take it of the Church she was the Rose of Sharon There was no fence nor culture weeds might grow up with her or the beasts of the field might crop or tread her down and so it was you know Josiah how fair a Rose but how soon cropt by Pharoah Necho and the succeeding Kings were placed and displaced by the Babylonians and the Egyptians at their pleasure and at length the Kingdom was laid waste by the Babylonians yet this is part of the Song and such is the composure of the whole book