Lake of Fire O do not wound nor destroy nor torment your own Souls do not carry fuel to that Fire which will never be quenched do not run into the Furnace out of which there is no escape for the Lord's sake and for your own sake and for the sake of your friends that would fain see you to become Religious awake and call every one of you upon your God seek him while he may be found hear his voice while it is called to day lest the God that alone can help you laugh at your Calamity lest he that is now so merciful hereafter take pleasure in your Punishment if you will forget your danger and sleep on know when you are in Hell you will be then forced to open your eyes and they must never be closed again Oh what a dreadful and amazing light will you then see when you see the Great God to be your Enemy the Devil to be your Tormentor damned Souls to be your Companions and Everlasting Fire to be your own Portion God will not then repent of the evil he will not then send his Messengers with glad tidings any more What will you do in the day of the Lord Nahum 1.5 6. The mountains quake at him the hills melt and the earth is burnt at his presence yea the world and all that dwell therein who can stand before his indignation and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger his fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are thrown down by him Have we not some representation of the Terror of the great day in some greater Thunders that make us tremble that with their Noise and Lightning make the Inhabitants of this Earth to be astonisht The voice of the Lord is powerful and full of majesty the voice of the Lord rends the air and sends out flames of fire Psal 29.4 But what a more terrible season will that be when we shall hear the Voice of the last Trumpet saying Arise ye dead and come to judgment When the Elements shall melt with fervent heat when the Sun shall be turned into Darkness and the Moon into Blood When the Stars shall fall from Heaven and this admired Earth shall be full of Convulsions and Violent Agitations when the Seas shall roar and the Graves open and the Judge appear in the Clouds when you shall hear the Cracks and the Groans of the dissolving world where will you sinners hide your heads what will you then think of the Wrath of God in that great and that terrible day You will then wish that you had never been born Oh how happy would you then reckon your selves might you but go into the Grave again Oh how happy if you could but dye but it will flye from you this is that Hell where the wicked must live and ever live tho it be in misery Oh little do you think what you do when you sin you are like a man that should be drinking at the edge of a Furnace into which he were to be thrown when he had drank a few glasses off Like a Malefactor that is jolly and merry over-night and is to be executed the next day Then you shall see that it shall be well with the Righteous tho it go ill with you Judge of things now as they will appear to be at that day join your selves to that Society among which you would then be found Judge of Religion as it will then appear Here it seems through the many afflictions and sorrows that attend it not to be such a lovely thing but then it will appear in its true Lustre and its fullest Beauty Here you see many times a true Servant of God brought very low complaining of his Iniquities now you hear his Groans but a moment hence you shall hear his Praises and his Hallelujahs It is night with him now but a Moment hence you shall see him Triumph in Eternal day He is now in a strange land but shortly he will be with his God at rest in Heaven and happy is he that gets to such a Blessedness though he go out with a sad Heart and weeping Eyes and meet with broken Bones and many a trembling dispensation in his way thither What course will you take Which pattern will you chuse Will you serve God or your own Lusts Will you have your portion here or in the World to come Will you be content with the present Afflictions of Religion in hope of Eternal Joy Consider that they are not to be judged the most happy men who fare well for a moment but those that do so for ever If you serve your Sin you will have pleasure it may be for a while but Bitterness and Sorrows in the latter end your farewell will be very terrible Will you please your selves for a moment and venture an eternal Wrath or will you not rather yield your selves to a Gracious and a Loving God and then you shall sow in tears but you shall reap in joy you may feel his anger for a moment but he will entertain you in his own Kingdom for ever Inf. 7. We have no cause to be offended with the prosperity of the Wicked 'T is true the Righteous are now sowing in tears but they shall reap in joy In a little while it shall be the portion of the Ungodly to Mourn and to be Sorrowful Would you envy a Malefactor that is jovial and pleasant over night When you know he is to be led to Execution the next day His approaching Punishment might justly spoil the relish of his own dainties but however it gives the Spectators no occasion of grudging him his Drunken joys seeing they are the last that the poor man is ever like to have and a little space obscures all the gaity of his looks with an Everlasting cloud It is no just objection against the wisdom of the Divine Providence That the good are afflicted whilst the Rod of God is not upon the bad For he gives to the one the Blessings of the right hand the knowledge of Himself and their own Duty whilst to the other he only gives the Blessings of the left hand Riches and Honour and the like goods which being only outward and for this present World they are not of so great a value as those which are Spiritual and relate to a life to come We think it fares well with the Wicked because we do not for the present see them shed so many Tears nor complain after so doleful a manner as the good are often forced to do But we see not in what chains they are held nor with how many stinging thoughts their minds are harass'd all the while they forget God We see not the perplexities to which they are reduced by the contrary commands of divers Lusts It we consider that God is angry with them every day and that we know not but in a day or two they may be cut off and perish we shall have no cause to murmur at their
to get the Victory if Christ pray for us that our faith do not fail Luk. 22.31 VVhere can we go for shelter but unto God our Maker when this Lyon of the Forest does begin to roar how will he terrify and vex us till he that permits him for a while to trouble us be pleased to chain him up again 5. Gods Favour is Life even in Death it self He cures all the disorders of the Soul He weans it from the Body and makes the passage to another World sweet and easie He can take away the frightful ghastly aspect of Death and bestow upon it a pleasant and amiable look and hence it is that sick People are often heard to say Oh! If I had but the Favour and the Love of God I could he freely willing to dye even in this moment If I had but his Love I could bear all these pains and quietly submit though I have restless nights and weary days for then I should be sure of Eternal Rest It is our estrangedness from God that makes us live in bondage all our days and when our time to dye is come makes us so very loth to depart This sense of God's displeasure makes a Death-bed to be a Bed of sorrow and makes Death to be indeed the King of Terrors and who can but tremble when he finds himself leaving this World and knows not what will be his portion in the next That finds himself going to the Judgment-feat but knows not whether he shall be acquitted or condemned there how many times do the very thoughts of Death cut us in our Sickness to the very Soul because our spirits are clouded and our evidence for Salvation is departed even before we depart so that we stand trembling on the borders of Eternity and would fain stay on Earth though we cannot VVhat but the favour of God will help us When our heart and our flesh fails He will be the strength of our heart and our portion for ever Ps 73.26 VVhat but this will attend us through the shady Vale How can we part with our Friends if God be not our Friend How can we leave this Earthly Tabernacle if we have not an House not made with Hands How shall we look upon so vast a Change as that of Time into Eternity if we are not to change this Mortal for a better Life But one smile of the Face of God in that great and concluding-work will keep us that we shall not be afraid to dye one fore-taste of Heaven will make us with undaunted hearts to bid this sinful VVorld adieu we shall then like Moses undress our selves and dye we shall with the same chearfulness go down to the Grave which Jacob went with into Egypt because our Mediator and our elder Brother lives and has made good provision for us VVe shall not be amazed to lie down in the dust when once we have the hope of a blessed and a glorious Resurrection and the day of our death will be a comfortable day if our blessed Lord be then pleased to tell us that on the same day we shall be with him in Paradise CHAP. II. Of Heaven and Hell and of that spiritual death which hath seized the greatest part 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 who are without Gods favour And whence it is that some grow in Grace more than others and are more earnest for a share in the Love of God WHat a blessed and glorious place is Heaven Inf. 1. that is full of God's favour The City bad no need of the sun neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Rev. 21.23 Rev. 22.2 3 4 5. It is the Land of the Living and 't is no wonder that death shall never enter thither here indeed he is a God that hides himself he is hid under the veil of the Creatures and under abundance of mysterious Providences for tho' his Throne be established in Righteousness yet Clouds and Darkness are round about it Psal 97.7 Beams of his Glory do every where break forth through every Creature Providence Law and Ordinance of his yet much of his Glory that shines in the Creation is hid by a train of second Causes through which few look to the first his work in the World is carried on in a mystery his Interest lives but is deprest they who are devoted to him are supported indeed by his invisible hand but are in the mean time low for the most part and afflicted But in that Eternal state Mr. How of delighting in God p. 353. the Veil shall be rent and he will in a brighter manner shew himself his Glory will shine out with direct and pleasant Beams to all the beholding and admiring eyes he will there give forth the full and satisfying Communications of his Love that will chear and satisfy and refresh a vast multitude of grateful and adoring spirits Here the Souls of good Men are deprest by the misrepresentations of Satan and by the frequent jealousies and suspitions of their own guilty souls but there they shall see him as he is and which will encrease their joy see him to be their own God for ever No storms shall there molest their Peace nothing shall interrupt their Eternal Calm Not a vain tumultuous repining or uneasie thought shall assault their peaceful and quiet hearts for ever No more shall they cry out Is his Mercy clean gone Has he forgotten to be gracious for they shall be with him in his own presence Here his Family is composed of several distressed mourning Children and when some praise him their praises are disturb'd by the groans of others or their own sins but there they shall all be clothed with praise and none shall be sick or dye If we did but know that there were a place in the World where the people never dye the love that all have of Life would put them upon many inquiries how they might get thither This Countrey is Heaven thence death and fear and consternation is banished for ever and thither should we lift up our eyes thither should we direct our hearts in Heaven the favour of God shines with an unclouded brightness they that are Inhabitants of that holy place are employed in an honourable attendance on their mighty King they need not they desire not any of those enjoyments which are here below no more than favourites of their Prince desire a meaner station or a poor Cottage or some obscure and forlorn retreat And alas what are all our pleasures and our most splendid entertainments to that Bread and to those spiritual and intellectual Joys which Angels and glorified souls feed on The first hour the first day of joy there is better than an Age of joys here below if one day spent in his Courts in his Love and Praises here
Edinburgh was Twenty years in terrors of Conscience and yet delivered afterwards You may also direct them to the Lives of Mrs. Brettergh Mrs. Drake Mr. Peacock and Mrs. Wight where they will see a very chearful day returning after a black and stormy night and that the Issue from their Afflictions was more glorious than their Conflict was troublesom They went forth weeping they sowed in Tears but they reaped an Harvest of wonderful Joys afterwards You have in the Book of Martyrs written by Mr. Fox an instance of Mr. Glover who was worn and consumed with inward trouble for the space of Five years that he neither had any comfort in his Meat nor any quietness of Sleep nor any pleasure of Life he was so perplexed as if he had been in the deepest Pit of Hell yet at last this good Servant of God after so sharp temptations and the strong buffetings of Satan was freed from all his trouble and was thereby framed to great Mortification and was like one already placed in Heaven and led a Life altogether Celestial abhorring in his mind all prophane things and you have a remarkable instance of mighty joy in Mr. Holland a Minister who having the day before he died meditated upon the 8th of the Romans he cried on a sudden Stay your Reading What brightness is it that I see They told him it was the Sun-shine Nay saith he my Saviour's shine Now farewell World and welcome Heaven the day-star from an high hath visited my heart O speak it when I am gone and let it be Preached at my Funeral God dealeth familiarly with Man I feel his Mercy I see his Majesty whether in the Body or out of the Body God he knoweth but I see things unutterable And in the Morning following he shut up his blessed Life with these blessed words O! what an happy change shall I make from Night to Day from Darkness to Light from Death to Life from Sorrow to Solace from a factious World to an Heavenly Being O! my dear Friends it pitieth me to leave you behind yet remember what I now feel I hope you shall find ere you dye That God doth and will deal familiarly with Men. And now thou fiery Chariot that came down to fetch up Eliah carry me to my happy hold and all the blessed Angels who attended the soul of Lazarus to bring it up to Heaven bear me O bear me into the bosome of my best Beloved Amen Amen Come Lord Jesus come quickly And so he fell asleep See this and several other instances in Mr. Robert Bolton's Instructions for afflicted Consciences p. 87. and 235 c. Eleventhly The next kindness you are to shew to your Melancholly Friends is heartily to pray for them Let your eyes weep for them in secret and there let your souls melt in fervent holy Prayers they are not able in a composed or a lively manner to recommend their own Case to God you may use many arguments in your Prayers their forlorn state and the greatness of their miseries may be a very powerful motive to your Supplications You know that none but God himself can help them For as Mr. Greenham says If our assistance were as an Host of Armed Soldiers if our Friends were the Princes and Governors of the Earth if our Possessions were as large as between the East and the West if our Meat were as Mannah from Heaven if our Apparel were as costly as the Ephod of Aaron if every day were as glorious as the day of Christ's Resurrection yet if our Minds are appalled with the Judgments of God all these things would not yield us any help or consolation * See Mr. Greenham's Comfort for an Afflicted Conscience p. â—27 And you must wrestle with him on their behalf you may plead with him That his Power and Goodness will be more illustrious if he save those whom none but he himself can save and that his Grace will be more remarkable if he please to create Peace for those troubled Souls in which none but he can make a Calm and you know not but that his Light on your request may begin to shine on those who have bewailed his absence with many dreadful groans And tho your eyes be even weary with looking upwards yet continue still to wait and pray for it shall not be in vain Thus you will do them a great kindness and perform your own Duty tho perhaps they may be ready to say to you as Mr. Peacock to his Friends Take not the Name of God in vain by praying for a Reprobate And as Mr. Dod said to him when he said he could not pray Tho saith he most sicknesses hinder Prayer and therefore the Apostle James says If any Man be sick let him send for the Elders c. Yet if God stir up your Friends to pray for you he will stir up himself to hear their Prayers And do you consider that nothing but Prayer can do them good It is an obstinate disease that nothing else will overcome for it is a very slight Melancholly and which is not deeply rooted that can be drowned in Wine or chased away with sociable divertisements Some indeed tell us When they find themselves troubled their way is to bid their thoughts Battel and to oppose Thoughts against Thoughts and with the dint of Reason to subdue this peevish Humour But such must give me leave to say That they are not under the disease of Melancholly for that will neither hear Faith nor Reason till God himself by his Almighty Power work Salvation for us XII Not only pray for them but get other serious Christians to pray for them also When many good people join their requests together the cry is more acceptable and prevalent When those in the Acts joined to remember Peter in his Chains he was after that very soon delivered and in the very time of their Prayers All believers have through Jesus Christ a great interest in Heaven and the Father is willing to grant what they beg in the Name of his dear Son I my self have been greatly helped by the prayers of others and I heartily thank all those that kept any particular days wherein more solemnly to remember my distressed condition blessed be God that has not cast off their prayer nor turned away his mercy from me Every day gives us several experiences of many that have been rescued from their diseases their temptations and their fears by the Prayers of others And I might also add you have very great cause to pray for your selves that God may give you strength to bear so heavy a Cross as you are afflicted with in the afflictions of your friends Their doleful complaints their repeated groans and their long and sore trials are enough to sink you too if God do not give you wonderful support You have need to beg strong faith and great patience that you may not be unhinged with their passionate or hasty speeches XIII Put your poor
say to him because we are the work of his own hands Our hearts in sore distresses are apt to say Why are we so much and so long afflicted Why are we compassed with such terrible Calamities when others are at ease that to appearance have sinned as much as we But these first risings of Murmuring and Disquiet are to be resisted by the considerations of the Majesty and the Greatness of God who may put his Creatures to what use he pleases and so as may tho with their own smart promote the good of others and their own final good Tho Job as Mr. Charnock observes Discourse on the Attributes pag. 781. were a pattern of Patience yet he had deep Tinctures of Impatience he often complains of God's usage of him as too hard and stands much upon his own Integrity but when God comes in the latter Chapters of that Book to justifie his carriage towards him he chargeth him not as a Criminal but considers him only as his Vassal he might have found flaw enough in Job's carriage and corruption enough in Job's Nature to have cleared the Equity of his Proceedings as a Judg but he useth no other medium to convince him but the Greatness of his Majesty the Unlimitedness of his Soveraignty which so appales the good man that he puts his finger on his mouth and stands mute with a self-abhorrency before him as a Sovereign rather than a Judge His Wisdom also that makes the Night to precede the Day and Storms to clear the Air and make way for a fairer Season ought to silence and pacifie our Souls Isa 30.18 And therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you and therefore will he be exalted that he may have mercy upon you for the Lord is a God of judgment blessed are all they that wait for him He knows the fittest times and seasons wherein to heal our Diseases to remove our Fears and to do us good Cons III. How great the Mercies are that we are to wait for 't is for Heaven and Glory and we have his Promise That our Faith and our Patience shall not be in vain Isa 35.3 4 5 6 7. And after all the dangers the snares and hindrances and temptations of this world to come to Salvation at the last is so great a Mercy that it is surely worth staying for Tho we labour Six days yet the rest of the Sabbath does refresh our Spirits and so will after the sufferings of this mortal Life that Eternal Sabbath that is to be kept above with God give us great Refreshment our time on earth is a season wherein by several Trials and Afflictions to prepare us for that Happiness and Glory As the Night does affright us the Morning will surely bring us Joy It is but a little while and our Lord will come and save us Let us not surrender our selves to our Spiritual Enemies tho we are straitly press'd for our Saviour is marching to our Relief Jam. 5.7 Behold the Husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the early and the latter Rain Be ye also patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh The Husbandman gives not his Grain for lost tho it be covered with Snow and Storm he expects to see it rise with the returning Spring so neither should we despair of finding Comfort tho the Prayers that we have made bring us no present satisfaction You know David had the promise of a Kingdom but what strange Difficulties did he meet withal And what a long time was it before he came to sit upon a Peaceful Throne We must have Conflicts before we get the Victory we must run our Race and strive hard ere we get the Reward but when it shall once be bestowed upon us it will abundantly recompence us for all our Tears and all our Heaviness we are to take up our Cross daily every day on earth will afford us cause of Patience we are to watch for all our time is but as a moment to Eternity Let not our Lord that will bless us with a long and unspeakable Felicity have cause to say to us as he did to his sorrowful Disciples Could ye not watch with me one hour Mat. 26.40 He looks on knows our weakness and will give us help he could immediately solace and refresh and save us if he would but seeing that he is not pleased so to do let us humbly be silent and acquiesce in the Wisdom of his Appointment and Decree for tho he delay he is not unmindful of our sorrows and in the very Minute that is most for his Glory and for our Good he will come and save us Isa 64.4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear neither hath the eye seen O God besides thee what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him V. Entertain a secret hope that it will not always be thus sad and dismal with you Tho you have made several Prayers that have not yet received a Gracious Answer of Peace yet pray still and be not discouraged but like blind Bartimaeus cry the more earnestly You know that the Woman of Canaan persevered in her attendance on our Lord tho the words he spake seemed to have in them a great deal of sharpness and severity yet she was resolved not to leave him nor be denied and at the last our Saviour commended highly that Faith of which he seem'd to take no notice before It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait to see the salvation of God Lam. 3 27. The reason whereof is alledged v. 31 32. For the Lord will not cast off for ever but tho he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies Tho every thing that you look upon within your own hearts terrifie and perplex your thoughts yet the vastness of that Mercy that is in God and which through his Son he is willing to communicate to you may afford you support and relief the very possibility of help tho never so remote may a little quiet and calm your souls for tho you see nothing for the present but Frowns and Anger in the Face of God yet you cannot you ought not to say that it will never shine again tho his strokes are increased and every day more painful than they were the day before yet you must not then conclude That he who chastens for your profit will not lay aside the Rod Tho you are sinking with your fears and you have no power left yet lay hold on the strength of God he will not strike off your trembling hand but encourage your dependance and your trust in him you are not everlastingly perisht you have not yet received your final doom it is possible that you may escape There is great comfort in a May be I shall be saved even tho by fire
were safe and well That sit down to eat and to drink and rise up to play and in the midst of those diversions Death seizes on their Bodies and when their Bodies dye their Souls dye and are past our help Oh! my Friends if you have any Life any Compassion put on the bowels of Christ and take up a lamentation for the dead Inf. IV. Why good Christians are so willing to depart from this World 'T is because the favour of God is their Life and when they are dead they live again because they cannot see God and live they are content to dye that they may enjoy the blessed sight They remember very well that they are strangers and pilgrims on earth that Affiction is as proper to this World as Heat in Summer and Storms and Snow in Winter they know how course soever their fare be how harsh soever the usage they meet withal that they are travelling to their dearest Countrey and every one of those Holy Pilgrims in the way to Sion is continually crying out as one says after this or the like manner As for thee Scituation of Paradise p. 95. O City of God how great and how transcendent is thy beauty Nothing but thee do I desire I think of nothing but thee I pant I thirst I long for thy felicity How do I long for thee thou sure reversion of never-fading pleasures O! Paradise thou art the recompence of my Travels and the sole aim of all my Hopes How fain would I leave these habitations of Clay to dwell in thy eternal and delightful Mansions What would I not give to enjoy the liberty of thy Citizens O! Jerusalem Jerusalem when shall I leave this ruinous and shaken House O that I had the Wings of a Dove for then would I fly away and be at rest O! when when shall I arrive there How long will it be ere I enter the Court of Heaven Oh! how have many on whom the face of God hath comfortably shined long'd to depart and to be with him They bear all disappointments and vexations in the hope of this and pain and sickness are welcome because they are as the wheels of their Chariots and drive them nearer to their home Such as these are like a Ship well fraighted that is ready to Sail and stays only till a favourable Wind present it self They dye not by surprise for these happy Travellers to Glory are always on the road that leads to the blessed place above Death is not frightful to them because they have often meditated what it is to dye and what is required for so vast a change There are indeed a great many formidable things in Death the separation of the Soul the many foregoing pains and an innumerable Army of Sorrows and Griefs that march before the King of Terrors all which by Faith these holy persons overcome they know that Christ hath taken from Death all its poysonous and hurtful qualities Their distance from God is the trouble of all good people and when he shews himself they rejoyce as when he hides himself they mourn And hence many a Religious Person when he came to dye has been heard to say I would not now for all the World be without an Interest in Christ I always found him to be a good Master and I still find him to be so he has taken away the sting of death and I am willing to go unto the House prepared for all living for my Lord hath been there before and has perfumed and sanctified the Grave Thou lookest O Grave with a dreadful aspect to Flesh and Blood but not so to Faith and I bid thee welcome as the way to Glory I commit my Body to thee to keep it safe till the Resurrection when my Soul that I now commit into the hands of my Saviour shall come and fetch it back again With the sense of this favour of God did the Martyrs so chearfully persevere and look upon their dying day as the day of their Coronation this Favour made them to scorn the threats and the frowns of Tyrants and all their rage and fury by this they went to the fiery furnace as to a bed of Roses because they knew God would be with them there In the hope of his acceptance old and young grave Matrons and tender Virgins have embraced the Stakes and kist the Flames and freely dyed and have rejoiced and look'd with an unmoved countenance on all the preparations of death whil'st those that were the spectators of their patience could not look upom them without flowing eyes To whom they have said Death would be frighful if we looked no further but it comforts us when we see the Crowns the Hallelujahs and the Glories that wait for us on the further side This will deliver us from an evil World from our corrupt hearts and from all those sins which we have long groaned under this will bring us to him whom all our days we have long'd to see Our Friends bewail us here but Angels are waiting for our Souls and will be glad to convey them to their Lord Christ and ours and conformably to this did those Forty Martyrs whom Basil and so many of the Fathers celebrate encourage one another when neither Promises nor Threats would prevail with them to forsake their God they were condemned to be exposed on Ice to be kill'd with Cold when they beheld the place casting away their Garments they ran to it with delight not as if they had been going to Death but to gather the spoils of Victory VVith our Garments said they we shall put off our old man our Sin and all the corruptions of our Nature VVhat great thing is it if the servant suffer that which his Lord endured before VVe were the cause that he was disrobed and afflicted the cold said these happy Souls is troublesome but Paradise is sweet This Ice afflicts us but the Rest there will delight us Let us endure this cold a litte while longer and the warmth of Abraham's Bosom will refresh us for ever VVe shall exchange this bitter and tempestuous Night for an Eternal Day Let us turn our backs upon the world and seeing we are once to dye Let us now Dye that we may Live And O Lord let us be acceptable to thee when we are offered to thee by this painful Death Thus they endured in the cold night rejoycing in the hope of Glory VVhat wonders of courage and of zeal have been produced by the sense of the Favour and the Love of God! Inf. 5. How inexcusable are they that refuse this Favour of God in which alone is Life Who would chuse to be a Beggar when he might be the King's Favourite Who would chuse to embrace a Dunghill when he might be treated with Plenty and all suitable accommodations Who would chuse to be Sick or Blind when he might receive his Sight And yet this is the sad case of Sinners God would be their friend and they
and down in a thick and foggy night and which lead the deceived Traveller into some Pit or Gulf but the Joys of God are like the brightness of a Summers day their clearness their comfortableness and their continuance render them worthy of our highest admiration The smiles of the World many times cover a designed mischief but the smiles of God are to make us happy Whether then shall we most prize the Fountain or the polluted Streams the rich Ocean or the smaller Brooks Why should we love the Creatures when we have a God to love Why should we doat upon a Bubble that every little Storm blows away and not embrace that Salvation that is offered and that is both suitable to our faculties and not liable to perish With Angels and with glorified Saints let us make God our all our portion and our hearts-desire for our great Creator is much more amiable than his own handy-work Let us leave the Men that know not God to fall down before their Idols of Clay and Dirt but let us with the highest reverence with the most cordial submission adore him from whose Favour we have life Let us leave them to dig in the Bowels of this Earth for a sordid happiness but let us arise and go hence Let us go and seek after God Let us go and seek till we find him and when we have found him let nothing in this World no pleasure no pain no promises no threats nor life nor death make us part with our dear God again Let us never cease to sigh and to long for him Let us never be weary of his work nor ever think that we call do too much for so good a Master Let us feast our selves with the chearful expectation of his Eternal Love and so take up the good resolution of the Church Cant. 4.6 Vntil the day breaks and the shadows flee away I will get me to the mountain of Myrrh and to the hill of Frankincense 6. That you may with more care seek and endeavour to obtain the Favour of God improve your experiences to this purpose Have you not found what a pleasant thing it is to be near to him to have access to his Throne and to see his Face And on the contrary Have you not known what a dismal and uncomfortable state it is to be without him And there are two sorts of Experiences that may be very seviceable to you in this great affair 1. Those Experiences that you have of all other things in common with the rest of Men Have you not found that the Promises and Friendships of this World have been very changeable Have you not embraced many a time a Cloud when you have promised your selves a real and a solid happiness Has the World given you that pleasant entertainment that cordial satisfaction that you proposed to your selves when you first let your minds run upon it Have you not a Thousand times called it a very vain World Have you not a Thousand times found it to be so Have you not prick'd your hands and vex'd your souls when you thought to have gathered the pleasant flower that you doated on Have you not seen that the most beautiful Rose is attended with a neighbouring Thorn Has it smelt so sweet and lasted so long as you once thought it would Has not all your Wine had some Wormwood and Gall mingled with it Has not every Comfort had a mixture of a Cross and where you hoped for the greatest pleasures have you not met with a sad allay of grief Have you not been eager and importunate and restless for this or that creature-good and when you have obtained it has it been so suitable so delightful so every way amiable as at a distance it did seem to be He must be a young Man indeed that hath not found this World to be a cheat and he must be a Fool that when he has been once cheated will suffer himself to be again impos'd upon A few years experience will make us all to say with the Wise Man That all is vanity and vexation of spirit and if we hope to extract more from it than so great an Observer of Nature as he did we shall be miserably deceived In our first and rash desires we flatter our selves with something here on Earth that is great and plausible and charming but in our more sedate and second thoughts we find that all that is under the Sun is but a shew and a meer appearance And when we find it to be so as a great many have already and all shall in a little time it becomes us to apply our selves to something that is more durable and satisfying and that is only the Favour and the Love of God 2. Improve not only your common but your Spiritual Experiences to this end and purpose I suppose there are a great many people here that have been under distress of soul and that in such distress have been brought very low Now What was it I pray you that gave you relief in so sad a Case Was it that you had many Friends and great Estates and a flourishing Trade and abundance of outward Accommodations I am sure you will answer No no none of these things gave us the least help Methinks I hear you saying We tried several methods for a Cure we tried several diversions and pleasures the Conversations of our Friends and whatever innocent Recreation it was that we thought might give us ease we heard Sermons we read good Books we enquired of our Ministers but we found them all to be Physicians of no value they did not open our Eyes nor heal our Wounds nor answer our Doubts nor refresh our tired and weary Souls till God himself was pleased to do it Nothing in all the World did avail us nor could all the means we used pull out the Sting that the sense of our guilt and condemnation pierced us with Abanah and Pharphar all the Rivers of Damascus and all the streams of sensual delights were not able to mitigate or quench our thirst All was desolation and terror and amazement till his Face was pleased to shine through the threatning cloud We lived in darkness and in the deepest sorrows till he became our light and joy we were sinking till he held us up and dying till he was pleased to revive us All the delight and mirth that ever the World gave us was but as a flash of Lightning to that clear and serene day that his Grace created in our hearts his Love did indeed mitigate our pains and remove our sores and one beam from him was as the dawn of Heaven He has fed us like John the Baptist with Honey in the Desert his Loving-kindness did indeed quench our thirst This I know is the sense of your Souls that have tasted how good the Lord is and having had so pleasant a relish of his Mercy I beseech you let not the remembrance of it wear away Oh! remember with delight
the transports the sweetness and the satisfaction that you have found in God the settlement and the quiet that you have had when you have cast your Anchor on the Rock of Ages what views you have then had of the New Jerusalem and what a pleasant prospect you saw when you were upon the Mount Oh! remember how often you have fallen and his kind hand has raised you up how often you have been at the very Gates of the Grave and he has been your Life how often his Bowels have melted over you when you were Rebellious how often he has embraced you when you were Prodigals how often he has forgiven you and bid you be of good comfort when you did condemn your selves You have found all the Creatures as the drop of the Bucket and how unable so small a drop was to gratify your earnest longings your pantings and desires and that after many a weary step you found no rest till he manifested himself and gave you that composure and stillness which in vain you sought from lower things Have you not found more solace in an hours converse with God in Prayers and Meditation than in many days discourses with the best of Men This World I dare say you have found to be worse and worse the more you have tried it but the clearer views you have had of God have shewed you something in him still more and more excellent How often have you come to hear his Word with entangled perplexed thoughts and he has sent you away refreshed and satisfied How often have you with sad hearts and mournful looks kneeled down in your Closets and have risen again after having had communion with him with great calmness and serenity So that you have cried out Oh! that I had known him sooner and loved him with my first affections for he very well deserves all my faculties and all the powers of my soul Remember the large experiences you have had of the goodness of God! With what kindness did he draw you at the first with what gracious Promises did he cherish your languishing and your feeble hopes How seasonably did he awaken you from the sleep of death with his threats and calls and seasonable chastisements How has he made your broken bones to rejoice How often has he enlarged your hearts in Duty and you have felt so much of his Power and Presence and in so comfortable and so sweet a manner as if you had not only heard of him by the hearing of the ear but seen him also with the seeing of the eye How often has he renewed his Mercy when you thought he would never be favourable any more And how often when your unbelief has made you say that he was departed has he return'd again How often has he listned to your doleful cries and given you many a proof of his love in the gracious answer of your Prayers How many times has your heart and flesh failed and he hath given you support How many times have you been sorely tempted and he has overthrown the Tempter How many Storms have put you into consternation and he has appeared to your help and said It is I be not afraid He has put you it may be into the Fiery Furnace but he has been with you there and made even the severest Tryals to purge away your dross He has corrected you with a very tender and a skilful hand and has ordered with a most exact Wisdom all your troubles both as to the nature of them and as to their duration they have not been too heavy nor have they stayed too long Psal 119.75 I speak as to wise men judge you what I say These Experiencies well remembred will be a means to preserve you from losing the favour of God which is your Life As 't is useful for your health to remember what hurt you and what did you good heretofore so these spiritual Experiences will be very beneficial For may you not say with David Ps 119.96 I have seen an end of all perfections but thy commandment is exceeding broad CHAP. V. Of Assurance As also of the False Grounds upon which many are apt to conclude that they are Gods Favourites when they are not so 7. ENdeavour to be assured that you enjoy Gods Favour that is your Life Not only to believe that it is so but to feel this animating your Faculties and spreading it self through every part that you may not only have his Countenance but the Light of it and that you may not walk in darkness without the pleasant beholding of this Glorious and Reviving Sun His Favour towards you tho' it be undiscerned will make you blessed but nothing but the sense of it will cause you to rejoice Tho' you be safe yet it is very desireable to know that you are so not only to be going towards Heaven but to see the Crown of Glory shining before your Eyes as you go along It is very terrible tho God be your Father if you cannot think of him but as of a Judge Fears and Doubts are disquieting and uneasie things the restlesness and the torment that they give you should excite you to try all means whereby they may be removed It is much better to have a vigorous and a stirring Life than the sickly feeble motions of it that are scarcely discerned As in Apoplexies and other Diseases where the soul is retired inward and the spirits have so cold a motion that they scarcely make the Pulse to beat What peace can you have without an evidence of your Interest in God What comfort from his Promises if you know not whether they belong to you or not Will it enrich you to see large Treasures if you have no share therein What tho' there are abundance of Fountains of Consolation if you are like to perish and to die with thirst You must endeavour to have your hops as an Anchor that is both sure and stedfast Heb. 6.19 And you have encouragements given you for an hope so sure And as one says Hope were but a poor Anchor if it should leave the soul to the courtesy of a Wave to the clemency of a Rock to the disposing of a Storm Hope were but a weak Anchor if it should let the soul be lost with uncertainties or leave it in danger of Shipwrack Be not satisfied that you think that God's Favour is your Life till you can say with David He is the health of my countenance and my God Psal 43.5 and these two met together will produce a very solid and a comfortable joy when you can say with the Rapture of Thomas My Lord and my God! or with the Church I am my beloveds and he is mine Cant. 6.3 Use all the Ordinances the Word and the Sacraments to this purpose that you may find him whom your Soul loves Cant. 3.3 4. Oh what will be your pleasure when you see the great God of Heaven to be your own God! to see that Saviour of
close with Death keep your mind full of these pleasant Ideas endeavour to get a greatness of soul that may not cease aspiring after these glorious Privileges and look with contempt upon all other Grandeur and Magnificence Having seen how honourable it is to be favoured by the Lord of Hosts Let us all resolve that we will never admire this vain World any more for we have now discerned a better World The End of the Second Part. A DISCOURSE Concerning TROUBLE of MIND AND THE DISEASE of MELANCHOLY PART III. PSAL. XXX 5. Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning CHAP. I. Of the many miseries of this mortal Life that are the usual occasions of sorrow to the Sons of Men with respect both to their bodies and souls 1. THE Life of Man is full of sorrow which yet is not so to be understood as that it is in every part full of darkness and calamity We have indeed stormy days but then we have fair weather too we have not only the sharpness of the Winter that pierces us with its Cold and Frosts and Snow but we have the mild and the favourable Summer afterwards that causes all the whole frame of Nature to rejoice and brings to us many grateful pleasant things that gives us occasion to praise the Wisdom of our Maker that has made a World so beautiful wherein we are to dwell That has provided for us all innumerable Comforts not only such as are absolutely necessary to maintain our Life but such as may give us delight and recreate our sense We can no way turn our Eyes but they behold wonders of his goodness his Sun his Moon in his Stars whose influences are for our benefit as well as for his Glory give us daily cause to say with David Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him He does not willingly grieve the Children of Men he does not make us always to weep but affords us frequent occasions of rejoicing whereas all our time might be as one Rainy day from the rising of our Sun to its going down but his Providence does permit us however to be laden with many Miseries before we come to another World And let us take a view of them for it will be useful to subdue our Pride to keep us from Vain-glory to make us to remember that we are not at Home that here is not our Rest and that we ought earnestly to desire a better State 1. Let us consider Man in his first arrival in the World or in his Infant-state And there we discern this same Creature that in his after years makes so great a noise and bustle in the VVorld to be a poor helpless thing that is no way able to cherish the newly begun Life nor to keep the Candle that is lighted from expiring the same minute wherein it began to shine Man comes crying into the VVorld an action very suitable to him at the entrance into a VVorld whose pleasures are floating and transcient but whose griefs are very sure Other Creatures are endued with instincts and inclinations for their own preservation and know in some measure as soon as they begin to live how to maintain their own Life but Man of all others is most destitute and helpless in this respect he is so tender and so frail that the least cold or dangers do more easily affect him Tho God has put that great love into Parents that they do as well as they can support and comfort and help their Children and with his blessing and their own great care and labour they make a shift to rear these little Plants But then there are abundance of diseases that begin to set upon the new-born Creatures Convulsions and other pains which greatly torment and vex them but which they are not able to express and which we do not know But we are sure they begin betimes to weep and to be sorrowful and their pains and sorrows make their Parents also to be afflicted and to weep with them when they see their miseries indeed but cannot help them This soft and tender Age is easily troubled and disquieted every little thing troubles and molests them so that the first hour of the night in which we travel when we begin to live is an hour of sorrow 2. When we are got over the weakness of our Infant-state and begin to have more strength and Reason dawns a little and yields us a little light to guide our selves That Light is mingled with darkness our small skill hath abundance of imprudence and we run into a thousand dangers that we do not see and those dangers make us to weep and to be sorrowful our careless youth is full of miseries and the blooming Rose has many Thorns about it When our Reason begins to display it self with our increasing-years then the several tasks that are set us the several things we are obliged to learn in order to a good and well-improved Education bring forth grief and pain our unwillingness to Labour and the Corrections that we meet with if we do it not do both afflict us our Ignorance is our misery and the difficulties that are planted about the Tree of Knowledg do fright and vex us Many of our early days are spent in digging for this hidden treasure and which we cannot find but with a vast toil and sweating for it and which when we have found does not satisfy It 's true indeed our first youth has to sweeten it many pleasures many recreations and diversions and we are then void of the many Cares of Life that afterwards do pierce our hearts but even then we are so confident and so foolish so apt to trust our own understandings and so backward to receive the advice of others who are more experienced that we do often wound our selves and sow those seeds of sorrow that yield us an uncomfortable Harvest many years afterwards And when in our freer time we come to reflect upon what we have done that reflection makes us weep to think that we have done so little for God or for our own Souls and that we lost so great a part of our Age in Trifles and Vanities For we can then say by sad experience Childhood and youth are vanity Eccles 11.10 The Joys that we then were pleased with are past and gone but the Wounds that we then received do many times smart and bleed afresh 3. When we have got the yoak of out Masters and Instructors off our necks and begin to manage and guide our selves and our Actions then we have many sorrows still And that 1. With reference to the Common Affairs of Life 2. With respect to knowledg and understanding 1. With reference to the Common Affairs of Life They are usually very many they bring along with them a huge Train of Cares of grave anxieties and sollicitude if Men have no imployment or business they grieve for the want
cannot remedy and which to behold is very sad and by knowing a great deal is liable to abundance of contradiction and opposition from the more peevish and self-willed and ignorant part of mankind that are vex'd because he will not think and say as they do and they are very prone to censure and condemn the things they do not understand for it is most easie so to do whereas to pierce into the Reasons of things requires a mighty labour and a succession of deliberate and serious thoughts to which the nature of Man is averse And lazily and hastily to judge requires no trouble and were it not that it is a man's duty to know and that his soul if it have any thing of greatness and amplitude in its faculties cannot be satisfied without it it were a much safer and quiet course to be ignorant Study and painful enquiries after knowledg do oftentimes exhaust and break our spirits and prejudice our health and brings upon us those Diseases to which the careless and thinking seldom are obnoxious Eccles 1.13 14 15. I have seen all the works that are done under the Sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit that which is crooked cannot be made straight and that which is wanting cannot be numbred CHAP. II. Shewing that the fall of Adam was the cause of all our miseries and in how excellent a condition the blessed Angels are and the folly of such as expect to meet with nothing in the world but what is easie and pleasant Inf. 1. SEeing the life of man is a state of weeping what sin there must needs be in the fall of Adam that has provoked God so much as to send so many miseries upon his own Creatures Had mot he fallen we had always rejoyced and never mourned we had always sung the praises of God with delight and never have hang'd our harps upon the willows We should have always lived upon the food of Angels pure and Coelestial joys and not have had that bread of sorrows which we now have to feed upon We may justly cry out O Adam what was it that you did when you rafted the forbidden fruit Why did you ruin your self and us your helpless posterity in one day and by one Act you turned the pleasant world into a place of wo and made your self and us of free men to become prisoners of this Earth It was a sad day indeed that opened a Sluce to that vast Inundation of miseries that have from that time overwhelmed the lower world thence came storms and tempests wars and desolations and all the burdens under which we groan and which we cannot escape 'T is to this Spring that we may trace all our troubles Oh how happily how pleasantly might we have lived had we not Apostatiz'd And now we can only say Wo unto us for we have sinned and when any Plagues molest us can only say this is the fruit of our own choice this is the product of our own Iniquity Tho thanks be to God through the blood of Jesus Christ we have a way to escape at length from all those Plagues and Sins Inf. 2. Seeing this life is full of weeping how much more happy are the blessed Angels than we At the view of the Harmony and order of the Worlds Creation those Sons of the morning sang together it pleased them to see their Creator's glory so appear and they still continue to sing and praise him not a sad look has from that time to this clouded their faces not a troubled thought has possest their minds those holy Spirits are always joyful serene and undistutb'd they are not linkt to such bodies as we are and consequently not liable to so many thousand miseries A soul in flesh is forced to sympathize with its neighbour and companion the body and is altered or changed as to its joys and griefs according to the several objects that are suitable or disagreeable to that and yet our imbodied condition gives us some privileges of which the Angels being Spirits are not capable for by this means we can glorifie God by sufffering for him and by our patience in our several trials convert many to the faith of Christ which their Spiritual nature gives them no opportunity to do As long as we are united to the body so long must we expect to be afflicted and when this union is happily dissolved then does the time of our freedom and our pleasure come In the Resurrection we shall be as the Angels of God we shall not be busied in those perplexing and intricate affairs that now molest us We shall be like to them in vigor and activity and joy We shall have bodies indeed even then but such as will be spiritualized such as will not be capable of mourning and lamentation nor by their heaviness their pains and indispositions be any more an hindrance to the nimbler operations of our Souls and it should comfort us to think that one day we shall have such excellent Companions so knowing and so kind and loving as Angels are and that then we shall rejoice as well as they and with our common praise give our Great Creator an Eternal Hymn of Thanks Inf. 3. They have a wrong notion of the life of man that expect to find nothing in it but what is pleasant And who because now their mountain stands strong say with David That they shall never be moved Psal 30.6 7. How clearly soever their Sun now shines yet sooner or later storms and darkness will overtake them The day is coming that will cast a vail upon all their smiling glory and turn their laughter into mourning and lamentation For man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards Job 5.7 This world is as an Hospital or Lazaretto full of various miseries and calamities and therefore those that promise nothing to themselves but diversion and mirth and soft and easie pleasures labour under manifold mistakes which arise from these two Causes 1. VVant of Experience and Consideration Hence it is that young people and such as have lived but a little while are mightily taken with the sweetness and delight of life whereas those that have tried it some years longer find several crosses and disappointments and vexations in it and tho the morning of their day was clear yet they see many thick Clouds gather as the shadows of the Evening are drawing on It is nothing else but gross ignorance that occasions the loud and mad Triumphs of so great a part of the world for if they did but a little survey the condition of their suffering-neighbours and the weakness of their own bodies the uncertainty of their hopes and the vanity of their desires they would sit down and bewail their miseries and they would find their biggest joys to be confin'd with grief Or 2. It arises from this That they resolve not to disturb their present ease and pleasure with any mâ—urnful meditations They 'l shut their ears
enough Enter into thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee When it can reflect and think of him as its own portion then the sorrows and darkness of the Night are gone for it has God that is all light and with him is no darkness at all and to see the light and to possess it is the same thing There is as one observes a reflected and a direct Light I see Palaces and Mountains and Towns and Fields and Trees with a reflected Light and hence it is that I see them without possessing them but I see the light of the Sun and of the Stars by direct rays and in seeing them I possess for to rejoice in the light of the Sun and to possess it is the same thing We now see God indeed by a reflected light which comes to us from the Creatures and hence it is that all those that see him do not possess him but in Heaven God will be seen without Vails and Reflexions His light will be a direct light which will fill us throughout it was a comfort to the Patriarchs and holy men of old to have the hope of Christ's appearance they saw his day afar off and they rejoyced but how much more is it to that soul that has actually seen him come and not only spreading his beams to remove the general darkness of the world but shining with a peculiar light and heat into its self It is peculiarity that endears the most of things to us our own Friends our own Relations our own Joys are the most pleasant It is not from Christ's being singly considered as a Mediator that we derive this comfort but from the reflexion that we are able to make of our happiness in him it is that which creates the sweetest motions in our hearts Before this propriety there may be a calmness of spirit and lesser degrees of Complacency expressing themselves in love and hope and desire but 't is the actual possession of a good as our own that is the Parent of a real joy the Christian may find some comfort in beholding the Incarnation the Sufferings and the Promise of his second Coming but when the soul can say He died and rose again for me this touches it with a very lively satisfaction and makes it say as in Hab. 3.17 CHAP. VIII Of the further Properties of the Joy that comes to a Soul after long desertion 'T is Irresistible tho usually Gradual it revives the body and the natural spirits It fills the late mourner with the hope of Glory and causes him to express his delight to others From all which we may justly admire the Wisdom of the Divine Providence 7. THis Joy is Irresistible As all the darkness of the Night cannot hinder the approach of the welcome day so neither can all our doubts nor our fears nor all the horrors of the Night hinder the beams of God's favour when he is pleased to shine upon us Job 34.29 When he giveth quietness who then can make trouble Notwithstanding all the directions and the helps that our Ministers or our friends give us in our trouble we refuse to be comforted but when he speaks the word we must obey He creates the fruit of the lips peace peace and we can no more resist his Almighty power than the first Chaos could withstand his Command when in the Language of a God he spoke and said Let there be Light Our escape from our Spiritual troubles bears some proportion with the Resurrection of our Lord from the Dead as that was owing not to a power ordinary or created so neither is ours but to a power that is Coelestial and Divine It was not as * Claude Traite de Jesus Christ Liv. v. 12. one observes the effect of the Power of God in the ways of nature such as is the Rising of the Sun the Return of Seasons the Fruitfulness of the Earth but the effect of a power altogether Infinite and Supernatural it is not according to the usual Laws of Nature or the course of Ordinary Providence 8. This Joy is usually Gradual and not all at once I say usually for sometimes persons in great distress and agonies of soul have been suddenly relieved in their darkest Night and in the deepest Dungeon a great Light has shined upon them so that those that have one hour cried out they were damned and lost have the next triumphed in the hope of glory and from the fear of Hell have come to a glorious view of Heaven to their own exceeding comfort and the comfort of all that heard them But tho God may do what he pleases this is not his ordinary way as the Night comes and the Sun goes down by degrees so does the morning come and the Sun arise by the same degrees as it rarely happens that any fall into great distress of Conscience on a sudden some lesser afflictions make way for greater strokes so seldom are any comforted immediately but their comfort comes like the break of day there are some faint streaks of light some little supports and quiet hopes before the Sun arise And God in this accommodates himself to the weakness of our nature for a sudden passage from a great Affliction to a great Joy is a thing which our tender nature is hardly capable to bear and usually the Consciences of those that have been very long terrified and afflicted begin to be calm as the humours of the body that have been disordered return to their Ancient course for so long as the Spirits and the Blood are disordered so long the Soul will unavoidably be in some unpleasant agitation 9. This joy has a pleasant influence on the Body and revives that with the reviving mind they fall sick and droop and they recover and rejoyce together When God is our God it causes health in our Countenances as well as pleasure in our Hearts and though I know that abundance of poor people that have been long amazed with the fear of God's Wrath have very feeble sickly Bodies to the day of death yet this calmness and peace of mind does greatly mitigate their pains and pour Honey and Sweetness into the most bitter Cup For what is it that makes affliction in trouble of mind to be so intollerable but that the afflicted person looks upon it as the beginning of sorrows as a few drops before a more dreadful storm and as the introduction to hell and woe But when the sting of guilt is removed and sin is pardoned the yoak sits very easie on their shoulders that used to gall them before Prov. 15.13 A merry bea rt maketh a chearful countenance Joy as well as grief cannot be dissembled if it be real and very strong Joy in the Heart is like the Rain at the Root of the Grass it will after being moistned to the bottom appear much more green and flourishing Prov. 17.22 A merry heart doth good like a medicine Even that chearfulness which arises
it shall be light in a season when it was not to be expected In all his works of Nature and of Grace he makes things that having a seeming contrariety to what he designs to further his design Thus some observe the Earth hangs upon nothing in the midst of the fluid Air though it be the most heavy of all the Elements he renders it fruitful for the Production of all necessary things though it be of it self cold and dry and so the Sea which by its scituation is above the Earth and does seem to threaten it with new deluges yet is kept in its own Channels for after it has been raised even to the Clouds in threatning Waves its fury dies again into a Calm and observes the bounds that God has set it Thus our Lord Jesus also works By being Tempted he Conquer'd the Tempter and by Dying he subdued Death and so at the sending of the Spirit first the House shook and trembled and then it was filled with the Glory of the Lord First deep Sorrows and then as mighty Joys First John Rev. 14.2 heard a voice as the voice of many waters and as the voice of a great thunder and then the voice of harpers harping with their harps and that sang a new song before the throne A due consideration of the Providences of God will keep us from the absurd Opinion of the Heathens That the Deity envied the felicity of Men and that he who was most prosperous was near to a sudden overthrow And even the Learned Men among them were so apprehensive of it that they durst not acknowledg their own tho but ordinary welfare without an excuse See instances of this in Dr. Casaubon's Original Cause of Temporal Evils Upon this account Augustus in whose days the Saviour of the World was born once in the year turned Beggar and received Alms of such of the Common people as would give him He mistrusted his own felicity and dreaded that so frightful in those days Invidiam Numinis The Heathens had but parcels of the Scripture and those too by Tradition much adulterated no wonder if they made a contrary use of it and by sad experience finding the effects of Adam's Fall and God's Curse and not well informed of all particulars the Devil also being busie with them as he was with Eve to promote a misapprehension of God as if he were envious * See Dr. Casaubon p. 27. whereas upon due consideration what in the Judgment of blind and corrupt nature seemed envy and malignity will appear Mercy being used by God as a profitable Medicine or Antidote against the greatest and most dangerous infection of the Soul for crosses and afflictions in this World are not effects of envy in the supreme dispenser of all things but Arguments of his Goodness and Providence All things shall work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8.28 Sickness and Health Poverty and Riches Anguish and Fear and Horror shall contribute to their Salvation and in the most fiery Furnaces and the most painful Troubles they shall find the refreshments of his Grace His Providences work together they are in Concert and are not to be taken apart like Composition of divers Ingredients for there are some that if taken alone might kill the patient but when they are joyned with others which by their contrary qualities temper their excess they do marvellous things being counterpoized †Fragmens de Morus p. 62. God many times lets our darkness stay long that we may know what a pleasant thing it is to see the light CHAP. IX Of the different ends that God hath in the Afflictions of the Good and the Wicked and what Reason we have to be reconciled to his Providence And that we must be satisfied that God carries us to Heaven in his own Way and Method Inf. 2. THis shews us the different ends that God has in the afflictions of the Good and of the Wicked To the one they are Medicinal to the other Penal to the one in Love to the other in Wrath to the one the shadows of an Eternal night and to the other the forerunners of the morning Often his people are thrown down by their Fears by Satan and the World but as often may they say Rejoyce not against me O my enemy c. They may be dejected but they may say with David O my soul hope still on God c. Afflictions as one says are common to the good and bad as the entrance into the bottom of the Sea was to the Israelites and to the Egyptians but the Israelites conducted by a Cloud and a Pillar of Fire were inlightned and assured and passed in safety and came out praising God but to the Egyptians this Cloud that separated them was full of darkness and they were drowned in the Waves whilest the others stood upon the dry Land so God comforts his people by the light of his Word and the support of hope from his holy Promises whereas the wicked are finally swallowed up of sadness and despair The Righteous fall and they rise again but the feet of the Wicked stumble on the dark Mountains and never rise again Tho indeed as the same person observes * Fautheur Sermons first part p. 132. Even as the Chaldeans formerly measured their natural day differently from the Israelites they put the day first and the night after but the Israelites on the contrary according to the order that was observed in the Creation for in the beginning darkness was upon the face of the deep and of every one of the six days it is said The evening and the morning made the first day So the times of the World and of the Church are differently disposed for the World begins hers by the day of temporal prosperity and finishes it by a night of darkness and anguish that is Eternal but the Church on the contrary begins hers by the night of Adversity which she suffers for a while and ends them by a day of Consolation which she shall have for ever The Prophet in this Psalm begins with the Anger of God but ends with his Favour as of old when they entred into the Tabernacle they did at first see unpleasant things as the Knives of the Sacrificers the Blood of Victims the Fire that burn'd upon the Altar which consumed the Offerings but when they passed a little further there was the Holy Place the Candlestick of Gold the Shew-bread bread and the Altar of Gold on which they offered Perfumes and in fine there was the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy-Seat and the Cherubims which was called the Face of God * Mussard Sermons sur divers Texes p. 30. Inf. 3. This may then reconcile you to his Providence The night of trouble makes you not to see the Beauty of the Church but tho she is black she is comely still he that makes his Sun to shine upon the unthankful and the
sacrifices of joy I will sing yea I will sing praises unto the Lord. Did we ever hope to see the Light of God again Did we ever hope to think of Heaven as our own portion and of Christ as our own Saviour Did we ever hope that we should be thus at ease and thus joyful as we now are God is our helper God is our refuge and our strong hold and blessed be the name of the Lord. 5. Let us call upon our Brethren and our Friends to help us to praise the Lord Psal 145.2 3 8 9 14. as to my self I make these requests Bless the Lord O house of Aaron and Levi Bless him ye Ministers of the Gospel that prayed for me in my trouble and have had your prayers granted Bless the Lord O House of Israel and all ye people every-where that sympathized and also kindly remembred me in my desolate condition Bless him ye Old men that you have got so far towards the haven without being thrown into the waves and so much endangered by the Rocks as I have been Bless him that you have not met with such violent tentations and great sorrows as I have met withal though I set out long after you Bless the Lord ye Young men that you have not been weakned in the way with sore affliction and with the terrors of the Lord which I long groaned under Bless him every one both small and great against whom he does not proceed in such smart and severe Providences and in such long and sharp Afflictions Bless him that you see before your eyes and to help your faith a person lately brought from the borders of the Grave and Hell one for whom you were concerned and for whom you prayed and one that still needs and beg your prayers that he may never come to such a sad and doleful night again It is a common Custom to congratulate our Friends recovery from sickness or when they return from some Foreign Land but nothing does more deserve our common thanks than when a Person is come from under the sense of God's displeasure to a sense of his favour and love again Thus it was with Job ch 42.11 Then came there to him all his brethren and all his sisters and all they that had been of his acquaintance before and did eat bread with him in his house and they bemoaned him and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him And with a design of exciting others to praise God with him is that Psal 66.16 Come and hear all ye that fear God and I will declare what he hath done for my soul Or as the Father of the Prodigal to his obedient Son that repined at the kind usage that he gave to him that was less dutiful upon his returning home Luke 15.32 It was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this thy brother was dead and is alive again and was lost and is found It is the design of God that the great and eminent Deliverances which he gives to some of his Servants should be taken notice of by all the rest that as they usually bring along with them a common Benefit so he should have a common return of praise Ps 66.8 O bless our God ye people and make the voice of his praise to be heard which holdeth our soul in life and suffereth not our feet to be moved And the joining with others that have been in great distress and are escaped is to answer the Obligation we are under to that Precept To rejoice with them that do rejoice And an encouragement to those who are yet in trouble Ps 130.7 Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him there is plenteous redemption And to those that yet are at ease we may say as Paul to Foelix that we wish they were such as we in some respects that is excepting our bonds our anguish and tribulation that they also had such experiences of the goodness and the mercy of God 6. Let us always wait and hope for that eternal Felicity which will at length dawn upon all his people in the great morning of the Resurrection and at their entrance into Heaven there will be joy indeed There is no night there 't is a place that is continually blest with a bright and shining day It is true as one says that as in nature the nights are not equal those of the Winter are much longer than those of the Summer but how long soever they be they are always followed with the light of day so whatsoever diversity there is among the Afflictions of the faithful to one they are much longer than to another yet they shall have an end as Jacob wrastled all night but in the morning got the victory I confess that Sinners in this World have their pleasures but so beset with thorns so attended with fears and pains so short and so vanishing that they deserve not the name But in Heaven the Sun that rises in the morning of our new Glory will never set again those pleasures are not like those of Sin for a season but for evermore There our now imperfect Joy will be compleat and full It will be satisfying and eternal too We shall feel the love of God in so sweet and transporting a manner that we shall never doubt whether he loves us or not We shall always behold our Father's face he will look on us with delight and we shall look on him with praise and joy This world because of its lowness is subject to Inundations and Miseries and innumerable Vicissitudes of Pain and Grief but that high and glorious World is the place of Triumph and of Victory then we shall see our Sin that made us weep to be it self totally defeated then we shall see that Devil that tempted us to be trod under our feet and never to be able to tempt us any more Let us often remember that saying of our Lord John 16.21 22. A woman when she is in travel hath sorrow because her hour is come but as soon as she is delivered of the Child she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world And ye now therefore have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce and your joy shall no man take from you Oh! what a glorious morning will that be that shall have no cloud to obscure its light and never be followed with a sad or gloomy night As our sufferings here did abound our Consolations then will much more abound We shall forget all our Labour and all our trouble when we see to what a glorious Kingdom we are born tho it was by pangs and torment our joy ' will be like the joy of Harvest of an Harvest that will requite us well for all our care and toil Our hopes here are like the first streaks of light in the Sky that shew the coming of the day but our possession of blessedness will be as the Sun in the fulness of his Glory That delight will indeed be the Sabbath of our thoughts and the sweet and perpetual calmness of our minds that will never be in horror and anguish any more Precious and admirable are those Tears that end so well and which prepare us for so good a state who would not chuse thus to weep that he may rejoyce for ever Lift up your eyes to the Jerusalem above the City of the Living God ye Mourners and Prisoners of hope for it is the City of Peace Rev. 21.3 4. Behold the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his People and God himself shall be with them and be their God and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away THE END
it self David was a man often exercised with sickness and the rage of enemies and in all the instances almost that we meet with in the Psalms we may obobserve * Dr. Gilpin's Treatise of Temptat Part 2. p. 296. that the outward occasions of trouble brought him under an apprehension of the wrath of God for his sin Psal 6.1 2. and the reason given ver 5 6. all his griefs running into to this more terrble thought That God was his enemy as little Brooks lose themselves in a great River and change their name and nature it most frequently happens that when our pain is long and sharp and helpless and unavoidable we begin to question the sincerity of our estate towards God tho at its first assault we had few doubts or fears about it Long weakne s of body makes the soul more susceptible of trouble and uneasie thoughts I would have more largely insisted on the troubles of a deserted soul but that I find them so excellently described by Dr. Gilpin in the second part of his Learned and Experimental Treatise of Satan's Temptations and to that I must refer my Reader as not knowing any other Book that does with so much exactness and truth set forth these inward and Spiritual afflictions I now proceed to enquire why God suffers such a night so tempestuous and so frightful to come upon his servants 1. That they may be conformable to Christ As they are tempted and distress'd so was he as it is with their souls a season of darkness so was it also with his holy soul that was full of amazement under a sense of God's wrath tho he never despaired indeed as many of his servants are apt to do under the violence of sorrow Isa 53.3 He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief When he was so sadned for our sakes 't is reasonable to think that we should sometimes taste of the bitter cup and not always rejoyce and be at ease If God spared not his only Son why should we expect to feel nothing thing but what is very mild and gentle And our Lord has told us The world shall rejoyce but you shall be sorrowful Joh. 16. from v. 20. to v. 22. The sufferings of Christ were to give a satisfaction to the Divine Justice ours are not to be lookt upon with such an eye by these terrors and desertions we learn to value and esteem the love of Christ who was pleased to redeem us when it cost him so very dear and who was pleased not to decline the field of Battel tho it was not to be managed without vast labour and a mighty pain And says the Apostle Rejoyce in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings 1 Pet. 4.13 Secondly Another reason may be Because our fall and our ruin came by pleasure A delight it was tho a very short one that made our forefather Adam Apostatize and it is equitable that we should be cured by something contrary to that which occasioned our disease seeing our joys are dangerous he makes our grief and sorrows to be healthful and Medicinal Thirdly 'T is a very proper season wherein to be sorrowful Among all the other excellent appointments of Providence this is one That there should be a time to weep Eccles 3.4 There is in this weeping-night nothing strange or uncouth all our fathers have in some respect passed under a Cloud and a Cloud that has dissolved in rain and which has given to the good Pilgrims much trouble as they went along 1 Pet. 2.6 Now for a season ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations 'T is no more strange to see mourning in the Church on Earth than to see storms or snow in Winter every thing is beautiful in its season and so this affliction is The night is useful to the world tho not so pleasant as the day our sickly state will not admit us to have nothing but what is grateful to our pallats the wise God therefore many times instead of very pleasant things confers the best upon us we must allow the Great Master of the Family to maintain its order prosperity and welfare by his own methods to chastise us when and how and as long as he pleaseth for his strokes tho very smart yet are still very just and it is in order to some better thing that he designs for us that at the present we are made to grieve for grief as one observes * Dr. Harris's Serm. p. 277. is an imperfect passion not made for it self but for some higher use as also all the rest of the declining affections are as Hatred for Love Fear for Confidence and the like and so Sorrow for Joy unto which it is subservient as launcing and searing are not for themselves but for ease and remedy and a bitter potion is not for sickness which it may cause for a time but for health so Sorrow is made for Joy and Joy is the end of Sorrow and God we may be sure will have his end IV. To shew his own Soveraignty both in afflicting and comforting He causes such a Prince as Job to sit upon a Dunghill in anguish and trouble whilest another sits in unclouded Glory on the Throne He pulls down one and sets up another and does whatsoever he will in Heaven or Earth 't is the withdrawing of his Spirit that is an occasion of mourning to the soul and he variously acts upon it for tho he deny not what is absolutely necessary to the being of the Christian yet he many times does not vouchsafe to give what would make it very comfortable he upon wise Reasons does many times suffer the hearts of his people to be overwhelmed with sorrow when he could make them brim-full of joy as in nature he lets the Earth gape for thirst when he could immediately refresh it with seasonable showers Who in all this mysterious variety of his Administrations can say unto him What dost thou Some Countries are desert barren and forsaken burnt up with scorching heat and fill'd with Beasts of Prey and others are inhabited and fruitful and greatly blessed and he sees fit to have the parts of his Dominions thus qualified Some does he draw with the sweet savour of his Ointments they perceive nothing but what is grateful and refreshing but others he sorely terrifies with the greatness of his Power his Holiness and Majesty and they never eat nor live with pleasure The Captain of our Salvation causes some of his Soldiers to meet with much more formidable dangers than others do they have more sweat and fatigue and toil and painful duty tho he will be sure himself to help them when they are ready to give way the manner of his dispensations to his servants is various both in life and at death Some are chastned all the day long and with sore pain upon their beds too whilest others have no pain at all some go drooping to the Grave bowed down with his
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