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
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
of the World As also the Reason why good People are many times very willing to dye and of the inexcusableness and misery of those that are without God's Favour and whence it is that some grow in Grace more than others and are more earnest for a share in God's Love p. 207. CHAP. XIII Shewing that the Favour of God is diligently to be sought and what is to be done that we may obtain it p. 228. CHAP. IV. That we ought to take heed that we do not lose the Favour of God after we have once enjoyed it and what we are to do that we may not fall into a condition so miserable as this would be p. 241. CHAP. V. Of Assurance and of the false Grounds from which many are apt to conclude That they are God's Favourites when they are not so p. 263. CHAP. VI. Shewing by what means we may know whether we have God's favour or not And first by the Graces of his Spirit tho the acting of them is neither so strong nor so comfortable at one time as another And secondly by our hatred of sin and our being satisfied with all the Providences of God p. 275. CHAP. VII Of several other ways whereby a sense of God's favour may be preserved in our souls and how we may certainly know that we are in that happy state p. 294. CHAP. VIII Of the several Privileges that belong to those who have God's favour p. 309. The Contents of the Third Part. CHAP. I. OF the many miseries of this Mortal Life that are the usual occasions of sorrow to the sons of Men with respect both to their Bodies and their Souls p. 317. CHAP. II. Shewing that the Fall of Adam was the Cause of all our Miseries and in how excellent a condition the blessed Angels are and the folly of such as expect to meet with nothing in the World but what is easie and pleasant p. 331. CHAP. III. Of the Peculiar occasions of Weeping that good Christians have more than other Men. p. 338. CHAP. IV. Shewing what dreadful apprehensions a soul has that is under desertion and in several respects how very sad and doleful its Condition is from the Author 's own Experience p. 352. CHAP. V. Answering some Objections and of the further doleful state of a deserted soul and whence it is that God is pleased to suffer a very tempestuous and stormy night to come upon his Servants in this World p. 370. CHAP. VI. Shewing whence it is that Melancholly People love solitariness and whence it is that serious persons are not so light in their Conversations as others are with some Inferences deducible from the foregoing Doctrine as also some advices to those who have never been deserted and to such who are complaining that they are so p. 381. CHAP. VII Of the great joy that fills a soul when the sense of God's favour returns to it after having been long in darkness and that this is great in several respects as it was unexpected as it discovers God to be reconciled and gives the mourner an Interest in Christ by Faith through the Influence of the Holy Spirit It revives his Graces delivers him from the Insulting of the Devil and shews the soul irs right to the Promises p. 393. CHAP. VIII Of the further Properties of the Jâ—â—y that comes to a Soul after long desertion 'T is Irr sistible 't is usually Gradual it revives the Body and the Natural Spirits It fills the late Mourner with the hope of Glory and causes him to express his delight to others From all which we may justly admire the Wisdom of the Divine Providence p. 408. CHAP. IX Of the different ends that God hath in the Afflictions of the Good and the Wicked and what Reason we have to be reconciled to his Providence And that we must be satisfied that God carry us to Heaven in his oven Way and Method p. 421. CHAP. X. The Conclusion of the whole Treatise with Directions to such who have been formerly in the darkness of a sorrowful Night and now enjoy the Light of Day p. 427. A DISCOURSE Concerning TROUBLE of MIND AND THE DISEASE of MELANCHOLY PART I. PSAL. XXX 5. For his anger endureth but a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning The INTRODUCTION THE Miseries under which the whole race of Men have now for a long time groaned and under which they still groan are owing to the Fall of Man The day on which our first Parents complied with the temptation of the Devil was a mournful day to them and in its effects no less sad to us It filled their once pure and quiet hearts with trouble and disorder and made them unable to think of their great Creator with delight It intercepted those chearful and comfortable beams of his Love which were more satisfying to them than all the glories of the lower Paradise For tho' it did after the Fall abound with all the same natural refreshments with the same Rivers Herbs Trees and Flowers yet it was to them no more a Paradise No Musick could delight their sense when they heard a terrible voice from God summoning them to answer for their Crime no objects could please their eyes when they saw the Clouds thickning over their heads and dreadful frowns in the face of their mighty-Judge All the Creatures could minister nothing to their ease or safety when the great Creator was against them From their Apostacy we may derive all our miseries both the pains and sicknesses that afflict our Bodies and the fears and terrors that overwhelm our Souls Our Bodies are liable to a Thousand calamities that may be both long and sharp but how long and how sharp soever they be they do not altogether give us such a sensible and such lively grief as we have when we are under distresses of Conscience and when we are under a sense of the Wrath of God that is due to us for Sin There are many persons who endeavour by all the Rules of Art to give relief and help against the mischiefs that attend our Bodies but which after all their Art will go into the Grave and there are as many that by the Duty of their Office and the Character they bear are obliged to imitate their Saviour To preach good tidings to the meek and to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound Isa 61.1 But they are many times at a loss to know what Remedies to apply to these inward and spiritual Diseases and always unable to make their applications successful unless God himself by his Almighty Power Create Peace and turn that Chaos and those Confusions under which a poor troubled Soul is buried into the joy and light of day It pleases the Wife God that may make us serve to what uses he thinks most convenient for the good of the Universe and the welfare
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
them before Be you drawn by his Goodness and his gentle Methods that you may never know what his severe displeasure is For God has further ends in long and terrible afflictions than the Correction or the Good of the Person so afflicted They are a part of his Government of the World and he has a regard to the Welfare of the Publick in that which seems to relate only to us Deut. 17.13 All the people shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously IV. Beware of provoking God dread the beginnings of his Wrath if his wrath be kindled but a little blessed are all they that trust in him Psal 2.12 Whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul Prov. 20.2 And in such a case the evil spirits have a power given them to molest and trouble us with their impure suggestions and with strange and unaccountable fears Psal 78.49 He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger wrath and indignation and trouble by sending evil angels among them And in that unhappy moment when our sin has stirred up his Wrath there is nothing in Heaven or in Earth but what will range it self on the part of God against us and the Devil himself will then take the same part not out of Love to God but out of Revenge to us to execute the Designs of his Justice and all the world will be so far from yielding us the least shelter from his Wrath that it trembles at it Psal 18.13 14 15. Ps 104.32 He looketh on the earth and it trembleth he toucheth the hills and they smoke all the proud helpers stoop under him What Minister can speak Peace to such a Soul when the God of Peace will not His Ambassadors cannot go upon a reviving Message unless they be charged with it by their Lord and Master If he make the Heavens to be as Brass all the Fountains of Waters will be dried up The spirit of a man will indeed bear his infirmities i. e. his bodily weakness and his pain for a little while but if he be followed with Breach upon Breach and more heavy Crosses press upon the former lighter Evils then his Spirit and his Courage will begin to fail but no briskness of Temper no strength of Nature no liveliness of Spirits can stand before one spark of the Wrath of God they cannot shut their eyes that they should not see it they cannot sleep that they may forget it they cannot lose the sting that afflicts them with all the diversions and the pleasures in the world the sense of Guilt will haunt and pursue them where-ever they go V. Strive to be safe from the Eternal wrath of God from that wrath which will not be for a moment but for ever If his wrath here make his Servants a Terror to themselves and to others what terror will the damned have when they are compast about with pure and unmingled wrath that is more hot and scorching than all the Eruptions of it here on Earth Whilst you see but a small Cloud the least intimations of his Displeasure seek to make your peace with God through Jesus Christ lest on a sudden Ruin and Desolation fall upon your heads left if you stay a little longer you have no time no space wherein to repent Oh how can you fold your arms and be at ease if the Great God of all the world be your Enemy and you know not but the next day the next hour or the next minute his Arrows may be shot against you Job 36.18 Because there is wrath beware lest he take thee away with his stroke then a great ransome cannot deliver thee The withdrawing of the Favour and the Love of God the least Eclipses of his shining Light are very terrible but Oh how much more dreadful would it be should you fall into the terrors of an Eternal Night You can no way escape his Justice Psal 139.8 Betake your selves to God whilst he is treating with you for your good and tho his Justice fright you for your guilt yet upon your humble Submissions his Mercy will relieve you It is he alone through Christ with whom you have chiefly to do His Anger will pursue you whereever you go unless you meet him with humble and repenting Tears and plead the Blood of Jesus and this will quench that Fire that has already begun to flame your Salvation is concerned your souls are in danger therefore make the most earnest applications to God that he may be merciful to you ere it be too late If I could tell you that there is a person that designs to fire the House in which you live and gave you clear information of the Time I need not after this persuade you to be watchful the love that you have to your own safety would oblige you to prevent his purpose This is what I cannot acquaint you with but I can tell you of that which is more formidable The Devil is laying a Train to destroy your Peace your Comfort and your Hope Seek you to countermine his malicious Design lest he betray you to danger whilst you think there is none at all VI. Speak kindly and compassionately to those whom you perceive to be under the sense of God's Anger Job complains ch 19.2 How long will ye vex my soul and break me in pieces And as men that have been long used to pore upon their troubles he tells them how often they had vext him v. 3. These ten times have ye reproached me ye are not ashamed that ye make your selves strange to me 'T is very likely they did not designedly vex him with their words for being good men they could not be so extremely barbarous they made good Sermons but a very sorry and mistaken Application It is easie to trample upon those with sharp and cutting Speeches whom God and their Sorrows have already thrown into the mire It is easie for those that are in no trouble to silence and upbraid those that are As Job fays to Eliphaz Shall vain words have an end I also could speak as you do if your soul were in my souls stead I could heap up words against you and shake mine head at you But I would strengthen you with my mouth and the moving of my Lips should asswage your grief When any of your Friends are under spiritual trouble you must carefully abstain from any passionate or sowre word or action that may increase their grief it will be some small help to them to see that you pity them tho' you cannot give them relief Use all the compassionate and the kind words to them that you can and seek to bind up their sores with a gentle hand beware of using the least savour of sharpness and reproach and scorn for these will as they did to Job vex their Souls more and they will be evil in you as well as unpleasant to them Hence is that complaint Reproach hath broken my heart and I am full of heaviness and I
looked for some to take pity but there was none and for comforters but I found none they gave me also gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink Psal 69.20 Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt of the proud Ps 123.4 But above all abhor the thought of the least inward delight from their miseries Obad. 12. Thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger neither should'st thou have rejoyced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction neither shouldst thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress Job 19.28 Ye should say why persecute we him seeing the root of the matter is in him Roughness and severity is not the way to help such as are troubled and cast down and he had need be learned that speaks a word in season to the weary Isa 50.4 The rarity of such a one is expressed Job 33.23 If there be an Interpreter one among a thousand to shew unto man his uprightness Those that under the Characters of Ambassadors of the Gospel of Peace do nothing but thunder out the Law to a wounded and a troubled Soul shew they are unlike to the Jesus whom they would seem to represent and they shew that they have in such matters very little skill and no experience at all neither do such do as they would be done by in the like case There is a sort of balsome in compassionate and gentle words tho' they do not fully perform a Cure upon our wounds yet they make the pain and the smart less whereas a rough and sour carriage does exasperate and heighten them and is but the pouring of oyl into the flame CHAP. VII Shewing what is to be done by those that think God is angry with them And first of Prayer as a principal help against their trouble And some Objections of tempted persons answered I Am now to make application to those who are under an apprehension of God's Anger There are no people in the World whose case does require a greater pity and to whose relief we should be more forward to contribute all that we are able While we are at liberty their poor Souls are under the bondage of an overwhelming fear That God whom we serve with hope is terrible to them in those Ordinances and that Sabbath which yield sweetness and refreshment to us they find no delight because the Comforter that should uphold their Souls is departed from them if on a journey we saw any person wounded and mourning under his bleeding wounds and crying out for help the compassion that is fixed in humane Nature would move us to assist him and not to pass by and suffer him to groan under the smart of so deplorable a condition and much more should we be ready to help our fellow creatures in a Case that is far more sad and dreadful such as is this now before us There are a great many at this very time who are complaining that they have no hope no prospect of deliverance from their present miseries and afflictions that tell us They are cast off by God that he has forsaken them that their Sins are set in order before them and that they are afraid the God whom they once thought their own God will be favourable no more Oh! how little do we know what we do when we sin It is easie for a moment it yields us a little uperticial transient delight but it leaves a woful sting and a lasting bitterness behind Oh! what would such poor creatures give that they had never sinned or that they had never finned so wilfully so frequently against that God whom they once experienced to be very good and gracious but whom they now find to be very severe and very terrible They cannot look below but they think that Hell is opening its mouth to swallow them up they cannot look above but they see the great Creator of Heaven and Earth to be as an Enemy to them And who can stand before thoughts so cutting and overwhelming as these are Now this being a condition which I was in my self not long ago and from which the Mighty Grace of God has been pleased to save me I desire to give all the help I can to such dejected and trembling Souls and none among us but perhaps may at one time or other fall into such depths as these therefore I hope the following directions may be of some use or other I beg of you that are at ease now to regard these things for if you fall so low the anguish and bitterness of your spirits will nor allow you to give such a distinct and careful attention to what shall be spoken to you then as you now may First If you are under the sense of God's Anger for your sin pray earnestly to him to turn his Wrath away We usually deprecate War and Famine and the Plague and those other mischiefs which by the evils they bring upon our bodies are very formidable to us but this sense of the Divine Displeasure has something in it that is more formidable for it brings an unspeakable load of trouble on the Soul and wounds that part of our selves which is capable of having either a very pure and noble joy or a very piercing grief and sadness A man that is sunk under a burthen that is too heavy for him to bear cannot but groan to be at ease Thus Psal 6.1 2 3. O Lord rebuke me not in thy wrath neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weak O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed My soul is also sore vexed but thou O Lord how long Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake These are the breathings of one sensible of a great and a violent distress and tell us that even our weakness and our helpless condition is an argument that we may plead with God As here Have mercy upon me for I am weak q. d. Thy Goodness thy Glory and Power will be rendred more illustrious in giving some relief to one so desolate and lo low as I am But I know what poor trembling Souls will be ready to reply and Object 1. Alas I cannot pray the Spirit that should warm my Soul and kindle my Desires does not move upon me as he used to do I grieved and vexed him heretofore and now he has left me to grieve and to vex alone I am so troubled that I know not what to speak and when I endeavour to do it I find no Fervour no Life at all my Prayers are grown very troublesome and uneasie to me Answ I grant you this is a case sad enough it is sad for creatures so miserable and so full of wants as we are not to be able to pour out our Supplications before the Lord and it is more sad when
our sins have made the Spirit that only can teach us how to pray to retire but there are some Considerations that may support us even in so sad a case as this 1. Our Distress teaches us the Folly of our Sin and causes us to hate that which has cost us so very dear and it is well for us that we see the odiousness of it tho it be smart and pain that opens our eyes 'T is better to be wounded in order to a cure than to dye at ease and so to perish for evermore 2. The Spirit is not so withdrawn but that he will return upon our-earnest addresses for his Grace He hovers still about us and tho we did ill to shut him out before yet this blessed Guest does but wait for a favourable opportunity to do us good again He is not quite gone that sense which we have of Sin is his own work 3. Our indisposition to the Duty of Prayer is no sign that we are void of Life A bed-rid Person lives as well as one that is in his firm and pleasant Health a groan is a sign of Life as well as laughter and a merry Song It is very undesirable indeed to have such a feeble and decaying life but the way to make it more strong is to keep our Souls in exercise and the weak and creeping motion wherewith we stirred at first being continued will enable us to tread with a more steady foot and we shall get several Paces further in a very little while By praying tho it be in a very poor manner we shall learn to pray Tho we do but sigh after God yet even a sigh may a little ease us and by frequent use be turned into a loud and prevailing Cry God is still your Creator and he that hears the Ravens and the young Lions when they roar for meat will not be deaf to you 4. 'T is a more excellent state of Soul to pray to God and to persevere in it when you have no Comfort than when you have Sensible Consolation is a very desirable thing 'T is as the Dew of Heaven as Manna coming thence like Honey or the Honey-Comb very pleasant to the taste But a Dependance and Trust in God when he is a withdrawing-God is one of the most glorious Acts of Faith and if it be not treated with Feasts and splendid Entertainments here I can assure you nay God himself has assur'd you That it shall fare very well in the next world Sensible Consolation may be in the inferior nature as the Mystical People call it it may be occasioned by the Temper of the Body by the Harmony of the Passions or the agreeable Dispositions of the Natural Spirits but those other less pleasant acts are seated in the highest Region of the Soul in the Understanding and the Will and upon that account are more truly Spiritual and more abiding 5. Those poor troubled people that complain of their deadness and incapacity to manage the Duty of Prayer ought to consider what an influence their fears have had upon their bodies fear does naturally contract and dull the heart the motions of it are weak and languid despairing thoughts and apprehensions about our Everlasting State dry up our moisture and by cutting off our hopes make every thing that was pleasant to us to wither away and 't is a very hard matter for the Soul to retain its heat and warmth when its dear Companion the body does not assist it as it used to do when the Spirits with which it serves it self in so many several actions are stagnated into a feeble and almost undiscerned motion Some great Saints there have been who by a sort of Holy Anteperistasis have glowed in their hearts with a quicker Flame to God when all has been cold and storm round about them Some there have been who have never had more inward Health than when their outward man decayed and whose souls seem'd manifestly to thrive when their bodies were mouldring away but generally speaking the Neighbourhood or the nearness of a sickly body proves a great clog and hindrance to the mind and there is no question but God will make allowances for our weakness and the groaning after him by one under the power of a Disease may be as grateful to him as a long continued Prayer by one in Heath Pray therefore to God tho it be with heaviness tho it be mingled with many a bitter sigh yet it will be a payment of that homage which you owe to God and you know not how soon you may meet with a gracious return You may kneel down in sorrow and he may lift you up with Joy and say Be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee And I know that would be very welcome and pleasant news to you the news of a Kingdom to be your own would not be half so refreshing Obj. 2. It is not for me to pray I am Sinner enough already God knows and would you have me aggravate my Guilt for I have wandring Thoughts and an unbelieving heart I am a wicked person and the prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord Prov. 28.9 And therefore to what purpose should I pray If any man indeed break with contempt the Laws of God and then think to make satisfaction by his Prayers and an outward or a pompous Devotion he offers an affront to the All-knowing God and his holy Eye cannot look upon an Action so criminal without the greatest disdain and scorn If a man will Swear and Curse and Damn himself with one breath and then desire God to bless him with the next this would be a ridiculous Pretence to Religion and such are like to find severe Punishment from that God whom they abuse with so shameless a Confidence and of whom they speak with so little Reverence If a man should desire of God to help him to rob to plunder or to wrong his Neighbours this were as far as he could to make the Holy One of Israel a partner in his Crimes If a man should kill another unjustly and glut himself with Revenge and then as some have exprest it say Grace over his bloody Banquet this were to commit a double Wickedness It was an abominable thing when so many harmless Protestants were so barbarously Butcher'd in France to sing Te Deum at Rome for the Massacring so many poor Creatures as if the God of Mercy had been Cruel as well as they as if the Rage that came from Hell had descended from the God of Love As if a man that lives at the Prince's Charge and is maintained at his Table should break the most Venerable Laws of his Kingdom and then thank the Prince for giving him a power to do that which he knows he detests and hates There is no question but it is the Duty of a wicked man to pray to God I suppose there is none thinks Simon Magus a very good man and yet he was exhorted
so he hath Bowels of Compassion What Mercy may we not expect from so gracious a Mediator that took our Nature on him that he might be Gracious Let us therefore go to God by Christ who has satisfied his Justice by his Death and who without him is to us Sinners as a consuming fire Let us go boldly to his Throne in the name of Jesus and we shall find that the God of whom we were afraid will become our Friend and we shall experience him to be better to us than we ever thought he would have been Our unbelieving hearts whilst they are such will be full of darkness and of trouble but upon our Faith the Storm will cease and the Morning will begin to dawn upon us and instead of that wrath which we feared and had deserved we shall find there is Mercy with the Lord and plenteous Redemption Psal 130. The first thing that a convinced awakened sinner thinks of is his own danger and how he may avoid the Wrath of God and what it is that he must do in order to it now it is not to be accomplished by pompous ceremonious Services not by external mortifications nor by offering the fruity of his Body for the sin of his own Soul but by Faith in Jesus Christ and his Death by the means of which God is become propitious and favourable to us And the first view that as one says an humble Soul is to take of Christ is of his being a Saviour as made a Sin and a Curse and obeying to the death And Christ must be considered not only with respect to the Excellencies of his person but as cloathed with his Garments of Blood and the Qualifications of a Mediator and a Reconciler and this renders him the fit object of a Sinners Faith If we think of God without thinking of Christ he is vastly terrible and amazing to us but in and through him those otherwise-overwhelming apprehensions become very pleasant and comfortable to us Let us honour the Love that he hath shewed in him with admiring thoughts and never have low nor mean apprehensions of his Grace Christ is near unto God and pitiful to us able to help us and most willing to do so for those that come unto him he will in no wise cast out He will not upbraid us for our former follies he will not encrease our grief but when he sees us once lying at his feet and washing them with the tears of an unfeigned humiliation he will raise us up and bid us be of good cheer V. Faith will remove the troubles that we have from the sense of God's displeasure by conveying to us that life and strength from Christ which will enable us to subdue all our spiritual Enemies Phil. 4.13 It will bring him to us and when he is in our Vessel let the Waves threaten us with never so formidable a noise we are sure not to be cast away And all the Spectres that afright us will vanish if we do but hear him once say as to his Disciples It is I be not afraid This Grace will unite us to Christ and communicate to us of his Power in the several measures that we need and without his assistance long and sore afflictions will tire our Spirits and destroy our Hope He is necessary for us for he has a perfect knowledg of our Enemies of their Force their Policies and their Designs He has by his own Combat learn'd to Fight and by his Experience can teach us to get the Victory neither the multitude nor violence nor obstinacy of our Enemies can hinder the Success and the glory of his Triumph Col. 1.11 He prayeth that they might be strengthned with all might because as we have to do with divers Enemies and are sick of divers Infirmities we have need to receive not one or two kinds of strength but many different ones * Vide Daille in loc For as in nature you see the strength of Bodies is different one resisting one thing and yielding to another one has the virtue to repulse the force of one Element but not to guard it self from another So in a manner is it in the Souls of Men such a Man will free himself from the temptation of one sin that will not be able to defend himself from another such a Man will resist the temptations of prosperity whom adversity will overthrow such an one will bear troubles for a while whom the length or tediousness of them will overcome and if one of our Spiritual Enemies succeed against us we are undone for ever Therefore as the Apostle says we have need to have recourse to Christ who can furnish us with skill and strength to defeat whatsoever stands in the way of our Peace or our Salvation To have one on our side that has returned from the Field of Battel as a Conqueror is a mighty encouragement and privilege Such is our Lord he is a Victorious and a Triumphant Saviour he will not leave his Conquests incompleat for he goes on Conquering and to Conquer and the glory of his enterprizes has not fill'd him with disdain or contempt of the poor and needy for he that is the King of Zion is as I said before a meek and lowly King By Faith in Christ we obtain his Spirit which by opening our eyes will shew us that Fountain of Living-waters where we may both quench our thirst and wash away our filth This Spirit will take away the sting of guilt and sweeten the Cross that was very bitter to us and when our Lord is come to help us when we know that he is afflicted in our affliction that yoak which gall'd us before will become as an Ornament about our Necks and when we have the pardon of our sins and the hope of God's acceptance that affliction that we thought a burthen too heavy for us to bear will become light and easie to us Out of the devourer shall come forth sweetness From those very fears that overwhelmed us shall spring glorious hopes and those hearts which a slavish fear of the Wrath had contracted shall be enlarged with a sense of his Goodness and his Love and we shall not look upon him as an Enemy but as a Friend not as a Judge but as a Father Isa 33.14 The inhabitants shall not say I am sick the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquities Alas when God leaves us the smallest danger terrifies us the least Dart of Satan makes an impression on our spirits the least trouble sinks such low such inconsiderable creatures are we But if the Lord be with us if Christ be on our side neither the Law nor Sin nor Death can hinder us from bidding a defiance to all that is against us 2 Cor. 15. 56 57. VI. Faith will give us relief under the apprehensions of God's displeasure or our Sin as it will shew us the period and conclusion of those miseries which we now are groaning under our
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
221. and were not Forgiveness in God somewhat beyond what men could imagine no flesh could be saved Isa 55.88 My thoughts are not your thoughts neither are my ways your ways saith the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts It is not the manner of men to pass by multiplied Transgressions as he doth The consideration of his Infinite Mercy removes all those obstructions which our unbelief viewing the greatness and aggravations of our sins throws in the way and tho our sins have been every way inexcusable and do upon every reflection that we make upon them fright and trouble us yet the Mercy of a God surely will yield us some relief for there is no other reason why he does good to this or that sinner but his own Grace Hos 3.4 He freely chuses justifies adopts and renews the Souls of his Elect 't is all not from their merit or from any thing that he foresaw in them but from the good pleasure of his will Eph. 1.5 All that he does for them all that he will do for them to Eternity will be to the praise and glory of his own grace This is the true way to humble us when we see nothing in our selves but what exposes us to misery and that is true Gospel Obedience which is the fruit and product of his Love shed abroad in our hearts This is the only Rock whereon we are to build our Comfort when the Storm comes This Free Grace of God is that which the Saints admire on earth which revives their drooping spirits and which they will wonder at for ever 'T is a shelter from the accusations and the malicious insultings of the Devil for tho he set our sins with all their overwhelming circumstances before us tho we cannot deny the charge and believe that we are miserable in our seves yet do we resolve to flye to the Mercy and the Love of God in Christ We should disparage the Excellencies of his Nature and the Offers of his Goodness if we did not lay hold upon them And this is that which some call a natural Novatianism in the timerous Consciences of Convinced Sinners whereby they doubt and question pardon for Sins of Apostacy and falling after Repentance IX Beware of running into further sin and so to provoke God to further Anger When our Hope is perished there is nothing so evil which we shall not dare to do If help do not speedily come we are apt to say it is in vain to pray it is vain to look up to a God that has thrown us of Jer. 2.25 Thou saidst There is no hope no for I have loved strangers and after them will I go You are lost for ever will the Devil say and therefore it is all one whether you sin or not you can but still be loft this is one of his fiery darts and if by our compliance we suffer it to take hold upon us it will terrifie us the more he will rejoice at our fall and put our Souls by every new Transgression into much more violent and scorching Flames What monstrous Injections what unbecoming Thoughts of God does he suggest and alas how frequently do we entertain them for they come thick upon us In the time of God's displeasure when the edge of his Holy Spiritual Law does wound our Souls what vast multitudes of Corruptions do we then discover that we never saw before How do our old Sins amaze us and new ones arise and spring from them And what can we do in the swelling of Jordan What in so great an inundation but endeavour in our poor feeble manner to look up to Christ for help Beg the Spirit for as one says There is no heart so unclean which this Spirit will not cleanse no soul so feeble which he does not fortifie none so forrowful which he does not comfort none so desolate which he does not cause to rejoice none so slavish which he does not set at liberty none so sick which he does not heal none so dead which he does not quicken Surely he will regard us for he knows that of our selves we cannot bear up against the Winds and Waves And let us always remember That among so many cruel Enemies 't is Unbelief that leads the Van It encourages and draws them on and when we have got the Victory over this all the rest will be daunted and run away By Unbelief we open our hearts and let in all those Thieves and Robbers which deprive us of our Peace It is the defilement of our Consciences by manifold acts of sin that makes us like the troubled Sea which cannot rest And for a Conscience guilty of many neglects to lay claim to God's Mercy is to do as we see Mountebanks sometimes do who wound their Flesh to try Conclusions on their own Bodies how sovereign the Salve is yet often they come to feel the smart of their own Presumption by long and desperate Wounds Let us in the case even of sore Afflictions be afraid to sin Sibbs Souls Conflict p. 31. for that Devil that tempts us will immediately vex and torment us the more for it X. Mistake not those things for evidences of the certain Wrath of God which perhaps are not really so He may suspend the expressions of his Love tho he love us still as Joseph had the tenderness of a Brother whilst his Brethren thought him very angry with them Nay in our secret supports we are not destitute altogether of his care tho we know not how they come As the Metals that lye deep in the ground partake of the Influence of the Sun tho he does not shine upon them with his Light There are few Afflictions but have rather the marks of a Fatherly Kindness in the seasonable Correction of our Faults than the Marks of Displeasure No outward losses no inward troubles that are but for a time are the certain signs of Wrath no tho they be very long and very grievous for it was not so in the case of Job But how shall I know will some say when Afflictions are in wrath It is a question to be answered with great tenderness and caution They are by Divines said to be so 1. When they come with great Violence and suddenly destroy as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah and in the Deluge Psal 58.9 Before your pots can feel the thorns he shall take them away as with a whirlwind both living and in his wrath Nahum 1.9 He will make an utter end affliction shall not rise up the second time And yet this must have some limitations for a good man may be seized with a violent Disease and suddenly dye of whom we ought not to say that he died by the Wrath of God 2. When there is no Mercy discernable in the Cross but only what is evil 3. When one Evil makes way for another and none are sanctified 4.
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
and to throw my self at his feet whom I have provoked in the submissive terms of the poor Prodigal saying Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son And not because I have once wandred still to wander in a strange Countrey far from my proper home Our grief for sin is too great when it causes us totally to despair to give our selves over as hopeless and lost for ever This we never ought to do we weep too much when we cannot see the Goodness and the Mercy of God as well as his Justice and Severity When we think that it is good to him that he should oppress and crush the works of his own hands and when we judge him to be Tyrannical and Cruel as if he intended nothing but our Ruin and when we peremptorily say that he will not hear our Prayers nor shew us any Favour When we have no suitable thoughts of his Amiable Nature his Covenant and his Promise When by the Painfulness of the Rod we call in question all that he has ever done for us and when because he frowns we say he has thrown us off When because he delays his help we say that he will be gracious and favourable no more for ever When we charge him foolishly and either deny his Providence or blame his Conduct because he uses not so gentle a method towards us as we would have him to take or when from our distress we make desperate Conclusions of him or of our selves And most of all when seeing that others whom we reckon as great sinners as our selves to be in health and peace whilst we groan and languish we are apt to say Psal 73 11. We have cleansed our hearts in vain That it is a vain thing to be Religious to fear such a God who suffers his Servants to be so very much afflicted and with such sort of sorrows that are more spiritual and consequently more bitter than the rest of the world is acquainted withal 3. We are then too much troubled for our sins when that trouble does not only indispose us for duty for if it be attended with pain and trouble if will be apt so to do but when it â—â—â—kes us altogether to omit our duty that we owe to God when our sorrows damp our affections which are the wings of our souls to carry us up to God When it causes us to mind nothing else but what is sad and grievous When our sorrow swells to so great a height that it covers with its imperious Waves all the foundations and grounds of Peace and Comfort it was not so as some have observed with our Blessed Lord for when he was upon the Cross he was in extreme in a mighty pain and violent agonies and yet did not these take away from him his care for his Mother So the Good Thief in the midst of his pangs laboured to gain his fellow and to save his own soul and to glorify Christ These were indeed extraordinary instances for our sickness may be such that all that we can perform to God is a quiet submission to his will and a desire of the Prayers of others thus our forrows for sin are excessive when they make us to give over Prayer or Hearing or the like Duties when they unstring our Harps and dull our Traises and make us unfit for our Calling 4. When our sorrow puts us upon indirect means for relief when we put that trust in men that should be placed in God when we expect that Cure from them which he alone is able to give when we seek it in vain Company in Recreations or the things of this World but if our fense of God's displeasure be very great we soon know that all these things are of no value XIII Call to mind those experiences that you have heretofore had of the goodness of God remember the years of the right hand of the most High you are now fearing his Wrath But can you not remember the time when his Love was your dayly solace and delight You are now complaining that he does not hear your cry But how many Prayers has he sent back with a gracious answer How many times have you laid at his feet in humiliation and tears and his hand has wiped your tears away How many times when you have been fainting has his Word revived your poor troubled souls And tho' his Word be now bitter to your taste and fill you with Gall and Wormwood yet it is still able to revive you Those places of Scripture that heretofore revived you are still able to refresh you those breasts are still as full of consolation as they ever were but only you are for the present under a decay of spirits and have lost your appetite that you cannot draw that consolation thence as you used to do Do not forget the many Mercies of your Infancy your Childhood your Youth and your Riper Age how seasonable how unexpected how necessary have your Mercies been both for your bodies and your souls and tho' I know it is your abuse of them that grieves and troubles you yet remember that he that once forgave you can forgive you still and that he that did you once so much good is still able to do you good Judg. 13.23 If the Lord had meant to destroy us he would not have received a sacrifice at our hands nor have done all this for us Shall we distrust shall we forsake shall we limit a God that has been heretofore so very mericful and so gracious And tho it is very true that it is no comfort to a poor man to think that he was once rich or to a sick man to think that he was once in health for the bitterness of his present evils takes away the relish of his former comforts and when a Man has lost God in his terrible apprehensions it makes it to be more intollerable than if he had never enjoyed him yet the having once had Communion with him by his Grace and by his Spirit may give us some reason to hope that the root of the matter is in us and that God will cause it to bud and spring forth again tho' it now lye under water and be covered with many storms and tribulations And I may add also with many sins and corruptions with which we were not troubled before XIV Remember that God will not judge you according to what you are in such a woful distemper as that of Melancholly but it will go with you as you were in the time of your health This is highly necessary to be considered for many good people when they are under the disease of Melancholly which can no more be prevented than a Consumption or a Fever they are very apt to express themselves after this or the like manner I thought I had once been serious but now I see that all was a deceit I see that I heard and prayed and received
shone upon his head but tho we had destroyed our selves in God was our help He sent his own Son to dye for us to give a satisfaction to his Justice which would otherwise have slamed against us and though we are enemies yet he is willing to reconcile us by the death of his Son Rom. 5.10 It is by him that he will treat with us to him must we address our selves as being ordain'd of God to make our peace To his Righteousness must we look as being very sensible that our own at the best is miserably defective If our Persons and our Services be accepted it must be through his Beloved he is the Principal and the great Favourite of Heaven all the mercy that we need will be bestowed for his sake alone all the miseries that we deserve will he keep from us it pleases God to behold what Christ has done he will be pleased with us if we are in him It is the Blood of Jesus and the merit of his Death and our application of these by faith that will re-instate us in his Favour and 't is the power and the virtue of his Intercession that will preserve us in it Christ is the way and the truth and the life 't is he that will conduct and lead us to his Father and make him that was our Enemy because of our Sin to be our Friend a-again It is his Office as a Mediator and a Saviour to heal the Wounded to reduce the Wanderers to call home the banished to make the Lame to walk and the blind to see Isa 61.1 and our blessed Lord is willing to plead our Cause and to help our Wants for those that come unto him he will in no-wise cast out if you believe his Father shall be your Father and his God your God for God has resolved that all the communication of his Grace shall be made through his dearly beloved Son and if you do sincerely beg his Favour for Christ's sake you shall not be denied He that hath the Son hath life You shall indeed flourish when you are united to this great and glorious Head and the death that you found by the first shall be removed by the second Adam As in Adam all died even so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 1.22 The Office of our Redeemer in Heaven is still to be a Reconciler and not all the Angels or the Saints there can do for us what he does When you are complaining of the yet remaining defilement and power of Sin and saying with the great Apostle Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Then remember that there is help laid upon one that is mighty one that is compassionate and hath a tender sense of all your griefs and miseries and therefore when you are amazed with the view of your own guilt terrified with the Accusations of your own Consciences and perplext with the violent Assaults and Temptations of the Devil when you are afraid you shall be the Stubble to the devouring Wrath of God then lay hold of his strength Isa 27.5 i. e. on Christ who is the power of God and the wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 And it may be said of you as in Ephes 2.12 Though in time past ye were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World but now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ for he is our peace 5. That you may have an interest in the favour of God which is Life your natures must be renewed It is not enough that your Consciences are delivered from guilt and from an obnoxiousness to punishment but they must also be delivered from the dominion and the power of sin If your Lusts are unsubdued they will by their unquiet and disorderly motions create an Hell within and then you cannot expect an Heaven without if you relish only temporary carnal joys you must not expect to taste the Joy of God nor think that if you will wallow in the mire that he will place you on his Throne Tho' his Sun gives refreshment with his chearful beams to all the World to the bad as well as to the good yet the beams of his special favour will not shine upon a Dunghil nor visit those hearts which are full of all manner of pollution his pure and holy nature will not allow him to behold iniquity with approbation Think not to see the reviving smiles of his face so long as you turn your backs upon him so long as you love what he abhors so long as without any remorse or grief you scorn his Government and violate his Laws Till you are born again by the Spirit of God you are in a state of death and are unfit for the communications of the Divine favour You are in that condition no members of the Body of Christ for all that are joyned to that glorious Head have life and strength from him to mortify their Lusts What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness and what concord hath Christ with Belial 2 Cor. 6.14 15. There is no Communion between God and you till your natures your inclinations your principles your designs are all changed from what they once were The righteous Lord loveth righteousness Psal 11.7 Till you have his image and a resemblance of him wrought in you by the Holy Ghost you are not his favourites nor such in whom he can take a peculiar delight without holiness his presence will not seem amiable to you or at least without it you cannot see his face Isa 59.1 2. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you And thâ—refore t hey are compared to a thick Cloud they obstruct and dim the light that otherwise would shine upon your heads Therefore David prays Create in me a clean heart and then restore unto me the joy of thy salvation Psal 51.10 12. Whil'st sin is lodged and entertained in the soul it is like wind in the bowels of the Earth it will cause Convulsions and troublesome agitations there It was the sin of Adam that made so many frowns in the face of God that caused the first eruption of his Wrath that makes it so frequently to flame out with terror against the guilty Sons of Men. Till you are born again you will have an aversion to God And how can you expect that his favour should be given to you whilest you care not to think of him Till your darkness be removed and you be acquainted with him you cannot be at peace VI. That you may have the favour of God you must in conformity to the new Nature and those holy dispositions that you receive by his Grace yield him a sincere and a constant obedience all your lives His countenance
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
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
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
Oh that I were in that Land of eternal Light and Joy and in that agreeable Society of Holy Souls who have already shot the gulph and rest from all their labours for I am weary with beholding Vanity These and such like will be the motions of an holy Soul for its warfare with Sin the World and the Devil is so painful that if cannot but desire to be releas'd It s Ignorance is so great that it cannot but long to be overspread with pure and eternal Light The Captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed Isa 51.14 and that he should not die in the pit nor that his bread should fail But then this longing must be attended with patience for we may sin even in desiring Heaven when we desire it with too much precipitancy and haste and in this good men are many times very much to blame many times when a Person meets with some heavy sickness or some very troublesome affliction he is apt to say Oh that God would now take me to Heaven there is a great deal of self-love in this and our Nature when it finds it self opprest would fain be at ease but we must not forget that we must bear the Cross and suffer before it will be our time to reign We must hold on in our Race though the Weather be foul and stormy many thousand pains may be our Lot ere God will call us hence and the first thing that we are to desire is that we may have faith and submission wherewith to bear those Pains and to persevere till he be pleased to call us Some indeed he is pleased to dismiss from this Earth to his Heaven as on the sudden but if you consider you will find the greatest part of his Servants have long troubles manifold Agonies tedious Conflicts and heavy Pains before they come to that Glory and in this respect they find the Gate that leads to Life to be very strait and narrow The Land of Promise is indeed a pleasant Land it flows with Milk and Honey but there are many Gyants to conquer in our way thither your desires of Heaven cannot be truly regular unless you be content o glorify him by suffering as well as by the doing of his Will And even with patience there may be an earnest and affectionate desire to be with God and thus some of the Saints have breathed out their Prayers Oh time run fast and remove days and hours out of the way that I may enjoy for ever enjoy the beloved of my Soul Farewel all ye my Friends and Relations for I am going to better Friends Farewel all my temporal Possessions for I am now going to be possessed of an Inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fades not away Farewel eating and drinking and sleeping and all my pleasures and recreations for I am now going to the Supper of the Lamb and shall not need these weak supports of frail Nature any more And others have cried out Oh my God! let me not still be in darkness and provoke thee and hazard my Salvation and please the Devil and add sin to sin Oh why is my desire still unsatisfied When shall I have nothing more to wish for when will it once be that I shall be delivered Oh come Lord lest I be weary of my work and duty lest my Graces be like poor tired Soldiers that fall into confusions and so lose the day Happy is the man that loves thee above all happy is the man whose hope and trust is in Thee but most happy is he that is with Thee where I also long to be Thus I have finished the Application And I hope there are several of my Readers whose Consciences after such a tryal do salute them with happy tidings and say You are those that have Gods Favour And oh what happy People are all such happy shall they be in life happy in their death and happy for evermore Some will say Happy are the men that are rich and great that have thriving Trades numerous Attendants and swelling Titles that have plenty of Gold and Silver that need take no care how to live and are freed from all the pinching anxieties of a poor and a low Estate Psal 144.15 It may be said to every such person in the Language of the Angel Gabriel to the blessed Virgin Hail thou that art highly favoured the Lord is with thee Luke 1.28 and in v. 30. Fear not Mary for thou hast found favour with God And what indeed can they fear whose Friend he is that is so good and so powerful CHAP. VIII Of the several Privileges that belong to those who have Gods Favour Cons 1. WHen you have this Favour all your sins are pardoned Your God will not remember your Iniquities any more All the Vanities of your Childhood and Youth all your Omissions and your Commissions shall not rise against you to condemn you Tho you have often quenched the Holy Spirit and stiffed his Convictions yet all this and many thousands of other sins that made you dead in Law shall be blotted out all your sins of Ignorance and all those that have been done against Light and Love and Knowledge shall all be covered by this Grace of God 2. All your Prayers shall be heard Being pardoned and your guilt removed you will have access with boldness unto God who will give you either the very things you desire or those that are better of another kind Your Persons are acceptable and so will all you Duties be and therefore successful because Christ is your Intercessor who as he hath once purchased Life for you with his Blood will apply it to you for your further purification Heb. 9.11 14. Nay you will not only prevail for mercies for your selves hat being Favourites in the Court of Heaven you will be in a capacity to obtain many blessings for others too Matt. 18.19 If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven God as one says sometimes stands upon a number of Voices for the carrying of some publick Mercy because he delighteth in the harmony of many praying Souls and also loves to oblige and gratify many in the answer and return of the same Prayer And therefore it is our duty to beg the prayers of those that we think good People because of their interest in God Many seek the Rulers favour Prov 29.26 their wants and their ambition push them forward and make them very complaisant and respectful to such in whose power it is to do them considerable kindnesses and they make a peculiar address to such as are principal Favourites and it is reckoned as a main step to Promotion to have a Friend in Court it is to our great advantage to be remembred in the Prayers of those that share in God's Favour 3. When you are the Favourites of God he will accept your sincere services though they
against all sad and doleful stories hasten from the sight of all such dismal objects as would make them grave and solid they will not rustle their thoughts with anticipations of evil and future trouble they are now at ease and they hope they shall be so very long and this false expectation has no other cause than their unwillingness and aversion to think of a coming change and because they seel no pain sickness or inconvenience they will not spoil their Musick with groans and sighs they will eat drink and be merry and hang sorrow and cast care away but as all the mirth of Sailors cannot hinder the winds and the storms so this insensibleness and jollity does not keep the evil day further off but rather swells the Clouds and lays in matter for a more durable and intollerable sorrow they may in their Jovial humours and with their full Bowls drown their own understandings but they cannot by this means overwhelm their miseries which after the fumes of the grateful Wine are past will have a Resurrection they may say indeed as Isa 57.11 Come we will fill our selves and to morrow shall he as this day and much more abundant but perhaps that morrow they may never see or if they do it may bring along with it some great or unavoidable calamity We know David said in his Prosperity I shall never be moved and yet as soon as God hid his face he was troubled Psal 30.6 7. so unreasonable is it to conclude from our present delight that we shall never grieve We may as well argue because we are now in health we shall never be sick or because we are now alive we shall never die Such false Conclusions and such vain hopes do but encrease our after-troubles and make them more heavy as it is said of Babylon the Great Rev. 18.7 How much she hath glorified her self and lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her for she saith in her heart I sit a Queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow therefore shall her Plagues come in one day death and mourning and famine Our miseries are sure but our joys uncertain our pleasures endure but a moment but our sorrows last a long time our pleasures no sooner begin to live but they begin to die and when we would with art prolong their date their continuance occasions either torment or loathing Grief as one says Senault use of the Passions p. 475. is more familiar to man than pleasure for one vain contentment we meet with a thousand real sorrows these come uncalled and present themselves of their own proper motion they are linkt one to another but pleasures are sought for with pain and we are forced to pay more for them than they are worth Sorrows are sometimes entirely pure and touch us to the quick as they make us incapable of Consolation but pleasures are never without some mixture of sorrow they are always dipt in bitterness and we are much more sensible of pain than of pleasure for a flight disease troubleth all our most solid Contentments a Fever is able to make Conquerors forget their Victories and to blot out of their minds all the pomp of their Triumphs Tho in some cases we may make our sorrows greater in our imagination than they are in reality for we are more ingenious and more particular in the computation of our griefs than of our mercies And many a thorn that annoys us is of our own planting and for one Cross that God sends our uneasiness and impatience makes a thousand more We apprehend some things to be evil which are not truly so and sometimes we augment our real evils beyond their natural proportion and so add new weight to that burden which made us groan before yet for all that and abstracting from our Irregularities since the fall man is a very dolorous and mournful Creature and our being so should excite us to take heed that we do not wound our selves afresh when we are already wounded nor lay in matter of new griefs when our unavoidable ones may be great enough There are two ways by which we aggravate our own miseries 1. By putting an higher value upon things than they really deserve by loving them more than we ought and then the Separation that is made between them and us gives us a more weighty sorrow 2. By seeking out of our selves for many things to make us happy whereas we should labour that our souls be duly order'd and our desires kept within their just and lawful bounds Inf. IV. We have cause to admire the wisdom of the Divine Providence that seeing the life of man is so very miserable he has ordered it also to be very short Tho our days are evil yet they are but few And that as the day is for hard labour there is a succession of comfortable nights wherein we may go to rest We find it a long tedious while to be in sorrows for fifty or sixty years but how loud would our groans be were we condemned to this toyl and these weepings for many thousand years The greater our misery is as one says the less while it is like to last the sorrows of a man's spirit being like ponderous weights which by the greatness of their burthen make a swifter motion and descend into the Grave to rest and ease our wearied Limbs and to knock our fetters off that eat as to the very bones Thus I have shewed what sorrows are common to the sons and daughters of men I am in the next place to shew what peculiar occasions of weeping Christians have above other men CHAP. III. Of the peculiar Occasions of weeping that good Christians have more than other men 1. THE Christian weeps for his own sins He is convinced of his own folly and bewails it he has by the inlightning of the Spirit a more tender heart than others have a more distinct view of the odiousness and malignity of the poisonous nature and dangerous qualities of Sin and that which was pleasant in the commission he finds by dear experience to be bitas gall and Wormwood afterwards This weeping is not the effect of mere softness or weakness of temper or from a want of courage there is nothing more reasonable more just or honourable than to bewail our Offences that we are guilty of against the Law of God And to what purpose hath he given us Innocent Passions but that they should be moved when suitable Objects present themselves He says with David Psal 51.3 I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me and such a sight of an Object so disagrecable pierces and wounds his very Soul and makes it to dissolve in a genuine and kindly grief and trouble saying Oh! what have I done against my God and my Saviour and the Holy Spirit Oh! how basely have I forgot a gracious and a loving God a God that has remembred me all my days for good He has loved me
displeasure whilest his favour and his gracious eye makes others to go smiling thither Enoch and Elias had a pleasant Removal from the world very short and very glorious was their passage hence but the most part of men groan a long while before they are called away and then he does it to shew his own Power that when the wound appears to be desperate he can give a cure with a word When the night is fullest of horror he can bring the reviving day When the storms are highest he need but say to the waves to our doubts and our fears Be still and immediately there is a calm What is not a God and so great and so good a God able to do He that produced from a meer Chaos this beautiful and pleasant World need only say to us in the middle of our doleful darkness Let there be light and it shall be so Job 5.18 He maketh sore and bindeth up he woundeth and his hands make whole in acknowledgment of this Soveraign Ability it is that David prays Psal 51.8 Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice Why so had not Nathan told him That his sin was pardoned Yes but all the testimonies of men are nothing without the inward witness of the Holy Spirit God has committed to men the administration of his Word but reserves the Spirit to himself that Spirit which gives consolation to our hearts and peace to our Consciences When Mary and Martha were in sorrow for their Brother's death 't is said Joh. 11.19 Many of the Jews came from Jerusalem to comfort them but they received no comfort till Christ himself came thither CHAP. VI. Shewing whence it is that Melancholly and Troubled People love Solitariness and whence it is that serious Persons are not so light and frothy in their Conversations as others are With some other Inferences deducible from the foregoing Doctrine With some Advices to those that have never been deserted and to such as are complaining that they are so Inf. 1. HEnce you see the Reason why People in trouble love Solitariness They are full of Sorrow and Sorrow if it have taken deep root is naturally reserved and flies all Conversation Grief is a thing that is very silent and private Those People that are very Talkative and Clamorous in their Sorrows are never very sorrowful Some are apt to wonder why Melancholly People delight to be so much alone and I 'll tell them the reason of it 1. Because the disorder'd Humours of their Bodies alter their Temper their Humours and their Inclinations that they are no more the same that they use to be their very Distemper is averse to what is joyous and diverting and they that wonder at them may as wisely wonder why they will be diseased which they would not be if they knew how to help it but the Disease of Melancholly is so obstinate and so unknown to all but those that have it that nothing but the Power of God can totally overthrow it and I know no other cure for it 2. Another Reason why they chuse to be alone is Because People do not generally mind what they say nor believe them but rather deride them which they do not use so cruelly to do with those that are in other Distempers and no Man is to be blamed for avoiding Society when they do not afford the common Credit to his Words that is due to the rest of Men. But 3. Another and the principal Reason why People in Trouble and Sadness chuse to be alone is Because they generally apprehend themselves singled out to be the Marks of God's peculiar Displeasure and they are often by their sharp Afflictions a terror to themselves and a wonder to others It even breaks their hearts to see how low they are fallen how oppressed that were once as easy as pleasant as full of hope as others are Job 6.21 Ye see my casting down and are afraid Psalm 71.7 I am as a wonder unto many And it is usually unpleasant to others to be with them Psalm 88.18 Lover and friend hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into darkness And tho it was not so with the Friends of Job to see a Man whom they had once known Happy to be so Miserable one whom they had seen so very Prosperous to be so very Poor in such sorry forlorn Circumstances did greatly affect them he poor Man was changed they knew him not Job 2.12 13. And when they lift up their eyes afar off and knew him not they lift up their voice and wept and they rent every one his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights and none spake a word to him for they saw that his grief was very great As the Prophet represents one under spiritual and great Afflictions that he sitteth alone and keepeth silence Lam. 3.28 Inf. 2. Hence we see the Reason why the Servants of God have not such light and frothy spirits as others They do not indeed always mourn but even when they rejoice 't is with a serious and solid Joy Their own Sins and the fear they have of sinning and the concern they have for the Sins of others cause them to walk softly The many Miseries to which they are obnoxious and the many that they see the Church of God groaning under keep them from innumerable Follies from many Lightnesses and Vanities in Conversation which others do not scruple tho frequently when their Countenances are grave their Hearts are full of the most lively joys Inf. 3. What a mean sorry thing a Christian is many times in this World as to his outward appearance A Mourner never makes so great a shew as one in Triumph does His Graces and his Excellencies are many times like the Ground in Winter covered with Rain and Storm which make him not to be much regarded because Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief therefore the Jews saw no beauty or comeliness in him that they should desire him they hid their faces from him because he was stricken smitten of God and afflicted Isaiah 53.3 4. The life of all Believers is hid with God in Christ Col. 3.3 'T is maintained with suitable nourishment formed by the Gospel and preserved by the Spirit but because of innumerable Temptations and Weaknesses the Glory of their Grace is very much eclipsed 't is hidden under a thousand Crosses and Infirmities and does not yet appear in the clearest Light A Christian in this World is like a King that Travels Incognito in a strange Land he is coursly treated by Men that do not know the greatness of his Birth and Quality he Travels but in the habit of a Pilgrim and cloathed with Heaviness and hath Tears for his Meat and Drink Or he is as the Sun ascending to his Meridian but obscured from our sight with many thick and
left hand and from thence be commanded to depart and now he is come in a way of mercy and of love He has pleaded for me when I had nothing to say for my self and his Word has calmed the storms that made me so much afraid He cast an eye of Love upon me when I expected nothing but his frowns now can I go and pray in his Encouraging Name and now I have hope when I pray his Satisfaction and his Intercession are both the constant fountains of my joy 3. This joy that comes after a night of sad and mournful desertion it the work of the blessed Spirit who is stiled by way of Eminency the Comforter and Peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit he causes us to close with Christ and to embrace the Promises He assists our weakness and teaches us to pray He convinces us of sin and lays us low that he may raise us up again He humbles and purifies and fits our hearts for lasting and abiding joys this joy is not the product of a natural temper but a disposition that hath its Original from Heaven and leads us thither it is not the pleasant motion of our natural spirits to which it owes its birth but as our grief was in our souls so the joy is in the same as our Consciences were disquieted so it is in them that he works a stillness and repose 4. This Joy revives our Graces In this mournful Night we were quite blasted with the violence and fury of the storm We were like the Ground in Winter destitute and forlorn and no fruit appeared but the manifestation of God's favour is to us as the return of Spring Cant. 2.11 For lo the Winter is past the Rain is over and gone the flowers appear on the Earth the time of the singing of Birds is come and the voice of the Turtle is beard in our Land The Fig-tree putteth forth her green Figs and the Vines with the tender Grape give a good smell That solitary season is now gone wherein nothing but doubts and fears and despondence and accusations did overwhelm the soul the floods that kept it under are dried and there is now a chearful and a pleasant alteration the Clouds are vanisht and the Sky is bright and a new World and face of things does now appear His return to his Ancient Mercies is like Noah's entrance into the World after it had been cleansed and washed by the Deluge God's Favour makes our Tears to be as the gentle dew of Night which with the warining kindly beams of the Sun makes the Plants and Herbs the Gardens and the Flowers to look more fresh and green When God departs our weakness to what is good encreases we have no power left but the joy of the Lord is our strength Neh. 8.10 This is like the return of health and good digestion to one that has been long sick it causes a new ferment and motion in the blood and makes all his actions to be accompanied with more life and vigor men under strange fears and amazement are incapable of service and when we are deserted so are we When we apprehend our selves to be cast-aways we offer the bread of mourners if we offer at all but none of our Sacrifices are with joy and gladness of heart A man whose bones are broken cannot go about his work and when our spitits are wounded if we work at all we do but lamely set about it We may halt a little but we cannot run the way of God's Commands Our sorrows make us serious and thoughtful but 't is joy that makes us active 't is the oyl of gladness that causes our wheels to move and us to advance forward as in the Chariots of Aminadab One that is hungry or a thirst uses but feeble endeavours to what he does that is newly refresht 5. This joy that comes in the Mornings after a Night of weeping is very pleasant to the Soul as it it then delivered from the insultings and triumphs of the Devil In that doleful Night that evil spirit does continually terrifie and fright us but when the morning comes he that dreads the light flies away Then it is in some measure with us as it was with our Saviour in the Wilderness When the Devil left him Angels came and ministred unto him Tho there is between him and us a vast disparity he conquered and was no way worsted by it but we come bleeding from the field of Battel our souls are defiled with his Temptations and the hurts we receive in our Conflicts do now and then pain us and yield us remembrances of our sin by their pain and smart it may be to our dying day But however it is a joy to us to think that tho we were beset on every side yet we are escaped as a Bird out of the snare of the Fowler The snare is broken and we are escaped Psal 124.7 God has brought our souls out of the deep Dungeon and he that was our Gaoler had not power enough to keep us there tho the deliverance that we have had is so strange and so miraculous that our going out is like that so Peter Act. 12.9 He went out and wist not that it was true which was done by the Angel but thought he saw a Vision It was wonderful to Peter that had looked for a sudden Execution on the next day to come to his praying-friends in safety and so it is to us who thought our selves a while ago doom'd to die The Devil hath winnow'd us and Oh that we could say That our chaff is gone This Archer hath sorely shot at us but thanks be to God he hath not obtained his design which was our total ruin We have been in a very fiery furnace Oh that it were with us as with the three Children that came out and were not hurt at all We have been in a den of Lions in a howling Wilderness but we have not perisht there it is a pleasure to us that we have now something to answer the great accuser of the Brethren that now we can by faith in our great Captain ward off his blows and quench his fiery darts 6. This joy that comes in the morning after desertion is from the propriety that we have in God and in the Promises of the Gospel as David says Psal 42. ult He is the health of my countenance and my God 'T is pleasant to know that God is good but more pleasant to us when we taste his Goodness When we can say with the Blessed Virgin Luk. 1.46 47. My soul doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour for he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden 'T is pleasant to hear of Christ but more pleasant by far when we with old Simeon embrace him in our Arms and say with the Church I am my beloved's and he is mine Then the soul will be cheared with perpetual delight saying Having God I have