mercies to accept the thanksgiving of every particular person in this Congregation for all thy favours and merciful deliverances vouchsafed them through the course of their whole lives and more especially be graciously pleased to accept the thanks of that thy servant who being by thy gracious providence recover'd of a grievous and dangerous sickness this day in thy house presents his offering of praise Grant that both he and all of us may have that his sickness and all our afflictions so sanctified and this his recovery and all our deliverances so improv'd to him and to us that we may ill be fully assur'd that out of love to our souls thou hast deliver'd them from the pit of corruption and that thou hast cast all our sins behind thy back Thus shall our meditation of thee be sweet we will be glad in the Lord and rejoyce in thy salvation who forgivest all our iniquities and healest all our diseases and redeemest our life from destruction Who hidest not thy face from us in the day of trouble but regardest the prayer of the destitute who lookest down from the height of thy sanctuary to hear the groaning of those that are confin'd and to deliver them that are appointed unto death To declare the name of the Lord in his temple and his praise in the great assembly when the people are gather'd together to serve the Lord. Let us give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name Let us bring our offerings and come into his courts Let us sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoycing The Lord hath chasten'd us sore but he hath not given us over unto death We shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Thou art our God and we will praise thee thou art our God and we will exalt thee Let us give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever The voice of rejoycing and salvasion is in the tabernacles of the righteous The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him in those that hope in his mercy O Lord our hope is in thee Let us never be confounded Amen Glory be to thee O God FINIS ERRATA PAge 4. line 4. read understand p. 9 l. 24 r. our carnal p. 17. l. 19. r. a little p. 18. l. 9 r. sore p 21. l. 27. sor disposition r. dispensation p. 25. l. 6. r. of our head l. 11. f. this r. his l. 19. before His meaning put in line 24 25 26 27. witness Sabbath-rest p. 26. l. 21. r. all things p. 29. l. 6. for care r. tare * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uti Graecè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicere cogitare prout è contra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meditari primùm dein eloqui * Prov. 18. 4. * Ps. 69. 21. * S. Matth. 27. 34. V. 3. * See 2. Chron. 29. 1. Obs. Obs. * 2 Chron. 32. 26. 't is call'd The pride of his heart S. John 16. 21. Obs. * Job 1. 9. * So himsèlâ— complains Job 7. 5. My flesh is cloathed with worms and clods of dust my skin is broken and become loathsome Obs. The pious man serves God for God's sake Obs. * Job 3. 25. * Isa. 57. 20 Obs. Obs. Obs. * Psal. 8. 4. * Deut. 25. 4. * 1 Cor. 9. 9. * Deut. 5 14. * Psal. 8. 7. Obs. * 3 John v. 2. Obs. * Ps. 39. 5. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad f 〈…〉 mam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ap J 〈…〉 38. 11. 12 veterament 〈…〉 Ang. old caâ—â— cloats and rotten rags Obs. * S. Luke 6. 38. S. Mark 2. 9. Obs. Obs. * Prov. 28. 1 Obs. Obs. * Rom. 11. 36. * 2 Kings 5. 13. Obs. * Psal. 71. 6. * Ver. 9. Obs. Eccl. 12. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Obs. * Ver. 8. Obs.
Grace to his Glory Should God require any greater matter of us as Naaman's servants tell him when we lie on the bed of sickness when we are incompass'd with distresses would not we have done it and when for our deliverance all that he looks for at our hands is praise only he must be of an extraordinary disingenuous impiety that should refuse to testifie his thanks in so cheap a Sacrifice This civility we deny not to men 't is a Physician 's reputation when his patient recovers and we usually besides his Salary allow him our good word Let not us grudge God the honour of a poor acknowledgement Again praising and celebrating God and hoping for his truth his mercy say the LXX his Salvation the Chaldee Paraphrast are here made Synonyma's to mean the same thing If so then a generous trust in God's mercy is the right celebration of it To trust in God is to praise him I have been afflicted God has deliver'd me I praise him for it how by trusting that he will still deliver me I have been exercised with grievous sickness God has visited me with his loving kindeness I come to return him due praise for his goodness how by entertaining and professing a just confidence in God that he will never fail me never leave me destitute And this as 't is a comfortable so 't is a rational and a natural duty We ordinarily do it to men when we have had tryals of their fidelity in matters of any moment we stick not to trust them farther and by so doing recommend their honest just dealing to the world Shall we not much more do so to God whose mercy and faithfulness we have so often experimented when no one could help us out but He He that distrusts God scandalizes his goodness and calls his truth in question David is not asham'd to make one of the first and earliest acts of God's common providence towards him when he was an infant an argument of his trusting God his whole life after Thou art he that tookest me out of my Mothers Bowels What then my praise shall be alwayes of thee A little after upon the strength of this confidence he prayes Cast me not off in the time of old age forsake me not when my strength faileth Further in that the Grave cannot praise God nor they that go down into the pit hope for his truth it appears that Death is a silent and a hopeless state The Grave indeed opens a wide mouth but 't is to swallow the man not to praise God with And how can Divine Praises be celebrated by death which puts all the Organs and Instruments of Speech out of tune when as the Preacher phrases it all the daughters of musick are brought low and then for those that go down into the pit they together with their lives quit their hopes and are lodg'd now in a remediless condition No hope to be met with at the bottom of that pit because the pit it self is bottomless for so the Septuagint have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those that are in hell they that are in Gehenna says the Arabick and by the Targum the pit is interpreted the lake of perdition Hope is a vertue peculiar to life and when the man dies hope fetches its last gasp and dyes with him After death there 's no recovery Faith and repentance can now no longer exercise any vital acts If thou dye in thy sins thou will lie and rot in thy sins and rise again in thy sins No imbalming can preserve thy soul or take from thee the stench of thy sins in that pit of corruption Death concludes thee to an unalterable condition Here thou mayest manage thy resolutions and shape thy course to please thy self and if thou wilt to please thy God if thou wilt let his grace pilot thy vessel but when thou art once put into harbour the ship then is laid up and there 's no mending the miscarriages of thy past voyage Be sure then to live godly if thou wouldst dye comfortably and then thy grave will prove a bed of spices and thy dust be preserv'd as the Phoenixâ—ashes in hopes of a joyful resurrection To draw to a conclusion a 4th Note may be this that Life it self is a blessing to be spent in the giver's praise From these words The living the living he shall praise thee The word is twice repeated to shew we should do it with chearfulness with a life and with constancy through our whole life If we had a hundred lives they would be all well spent in God's service It will be the business and imploy of our eternity to praise him and we must aforehand acquaint our selves with it and so practice this lesson here that we may be found worthy to wait upon the Lamb and sing Hallelujahs in heaven But then if we would praise God to the life we must live to his praise by doing things praise-worthy Further consider what this life of ours is 't is but a breath We must begin this task then out of hand presently There 's nothing of our life ours but the present the Nunc instans this very instant of time For all that 's past of our lives was indeed ours once but now is not nor can we recal what 's gone for improvement or amendment and what is to come is not ours yet and we know not whether it will be in our power or no and therefore the great duty interest of life is the right husbanding of our present time Upon this moment hangs our eternity and this infinite advantage our short-liv'd service has that he that lives to God's glory here shall hereafter be made partaker of it Thus have I as well as I could gather'd a posie of Observations as they grew in this fragrant piece of Scripture and if some Rue and Wormwood be found amongst the sweeter herbs their wholesomeness will make amends for their bitterness Myrrh and Aloes as they are bitter drugs so they are rich perfumes in either notion great preservatives they are against corruption The Psalmist tells us Psal. XLV that All the Churches garments smell of them 'T is not amiss if we have pounded and mix'd somewhat of them with the Frankincense of this days Thanksgiving Which brings us to the close of all the Exemplification as I do this day And that will yield us a considerable remark to make an end with that signal mercies require solemn thanksgiving So Hezekiah is eager to go up to the house of the Lord and closes this Ode of his with a resolution there to sing his songs all the days of his life And this on purpose to draw in others by his example to partake in the duty Thus David after such a deliverance Psal. XXXIV invites others O magnifie the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together In the 6th verse as it were pointing to himself This poor man cried and
whose very name is luscious in the mouth and speaks sweetness We say Variety is delightful and 't is the condition of the sublunary world to be whirl'd about in perpetual vicifsitudes to be as mutable and full of changes as the Moon it self who has the Dominion over it And I confess that the day-break brings comfortable tidings after telling the Clocks of a tedious and restless night the verdant Spring is welcome that has been usher'd in by a hard Winter and the Sun-shine shews pleasant which follows a bitter storm But on the contrary which was Hezekiah's case here out of a prosperous state to be tumbled into adversity to have new troubles tread upon the heels of our peace out of health to be thrown upon a bed of bitter sickness this is a sad change and must needs go to the heart of the stoutest and wisest when the remembrance of their former good estate serves only to aggravate their present ills Yet so it seems good to the all wise God to exercise his Children to try their sincerity to the utmost whether they have any by-ends in their service whether their piety be real or only a pretense whether when their conditions are alter'd their resolutions will not change too and when a storm comes take to the hedge and keep a dangerous persecuted profession company no longer whether they will go along with their Religion when it goes as Christ did to be crucified or with the Disciples desert him and leave him to himself This was Satan's argument Doth Job serve God for nought and therefore strips him to the very skin and makes that very skin uneasie too by cloathing it all over with blisters and sores that by that time Job had done scraping with his pot-sheard he had no skin at all left to cover him but was fain to get him a new covering out of the ashes he roll'd himself in Yet Job when he had lost all would not let go his integrity but prov'd in despight of the Devil's suggestions that he serv'd God for God's sake and could fairly trust him for his reward in the next world Wherefore 't is a brave challenge of that Heroick Apostle Rom. VIII 35. Who sayes he shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or nakedness or peril or sword as if he had said Let me see that Man or Devil or Thing in the world that can drive me from my just confidences and blessed assurances of God's love And for death he makes nothing of it vouchsafes it not the mention but in a parenthesis in the next verse looks upon it as a meer scare-crow a thing he has been used to and now fears it not but gets him upon a place of Scripture and defies it As it is written sayes he For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter And then in the two last verses of that Chapter 't is as bravely by him resolv'd upon the question I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come Nor heighth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So then for peace let bitterness come nay let great bitterness come yet such a resolution will weather the point of the worst change But yet to aggravate this change there is another consideration still behinde that 't was by way of surprize it came strangely and unexpectedly Behold for peace I had great bitterness When Scripture bids us behold 't is worth our while to stand and look about and this word gives us this lesson that A Christian must stand upon his guard prepare for changes and be provided in omnem eventum for what ever may happen In this posture Job stood which made him bear the brunt and receive the shock the better The thing which I fear'd sayes he is come upon me But it should seem Hezekiah did not make that preparation entertain'd no such jealousies We read in the Chapter before that the Angel had discomfited the Assyrian Host and that Sennacherib himself the Monarch was assassin'd by his Sons which quit the King of Judah utterly of all apprehensions he is wrapt up in security yet see he is no sooner rid of this fear but another arrest is serv'd upon him In those dayes sayes the first verse of this Chapter was Hezekiah sick unto death There surprizes him a bile worse then Rabshakeh sticks close to him and sends him once more to his prayers So apt are good men upon little respite to forget themselves Judgement comes like a thief in the night and steals upon us it concerns us therefore to watch and to set a good centry that we may not be caught unawares But alas how do we generally sleep over our great concerns and never heed evils till they befal us which are with far more difficulty cured then they might have been prevented Nothing can be more dreadful then when judgements give us a camisade set upon us in the dead of our security beat up our quarters and catch us unprovided And still this affliction has a higher step taking it in the spiritual sense for the disquiet of minde and trouble of Conscience arising possibly from the sense of sin or from the distrust of God's favour in this his sickness to which the deliverance with its improvement hath reference Hezekiah's minde as well as body was fore and the Bile was not so much it should seem in his side as 't was in 's very heart He had stitches and pains of Conscience and his inner man was more afflicted then the outward and his spirit labour'd under no less distempers then his flesh did And this is sure a very afflictive condition when not only the Cisterns of earthly comfort are filled with waters of Marah but even the spring of consolations from within I mean a good conscience runs in troubled streams of Meribah when a godly man's thoughts work and boyl and as the wicked man is compar'd by the Prophet he becomes like the troubled Sea which casts up mire and dirt And yet thus God deals sometime with his own to take their peace from them to leave them as it were in a state of desertion to themselves that so they may put a higher estimate upon his favour and walk humbly and carefully in the sense of it A troubled conscience then is not alwayes an evil conscience The best of Saints are sometimes put upon these conflicts to struggle under the burden of their sins and the apprehension of wrath due to them when God loosens and slacks their confidences blots and obscures their evidences staggers their assurances fills them full of doubts and perplexities and jealousies of their own estate and so pursues them with legal terrors that he drives them to fly before