God seems not to be a duty of this season I confess this is a high and hard duty Every smatterer in Religion will cry out in his affliction Thou art just and righteous O Lord But Thou art good and mercisul Blessed be the name of the Lord is the voice of a Job only Job 1. 21. But it is a duty though a hard one and affording much pleasure and contentment to them that are exercised therein That the kindness and benignity of God doth not fail that his Love is not broken off from his people no nor suspended neither when he afflicts them most is most certain For though he worketh changes in and upon us yet himself is eternally and unchangeably the same Jer. 1. 17. And though some of his dealings towards his people seem to be rough and severe yet if we judge rightly of them they are all Mercy and Truth towards them that keep his Covenant Psal 25. 10. And that the people of God ought to converse with this Divine Love and Mercy even in their greatest afflictions is as clear To this purpose I might alledge the forequoted example of holy Job and might enforce this Doctrine from the Apostles words Phil. 4. 4. and Jam. 1. 2. Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations and from many good Reasons too if it were needful I know indeed that it is a hard thing to keep up a right frame towards and converse rightly with the Righteousness and Goodness of God at the same time the one frame is ready to justle out the other Sorrow is apt to contract the heart and destroy the large and chearful temper of it And joy doth dilate and enlarge it and is ready to make it forget its grief But though it be hard yet it is possible These two may well consist in the same soul according to that in Psal 2. 11. Rejoyce with trembling But how must we converse with the Love and Mercy of God in the time of afflâ—ctâ—ons I have partly prevented my self in this already but I shall speak a little more distinctly of it We do not then converse with the Goodness and Mercy of God when we barely think of it or acknowledge it But 1. When we believe and apply it and take to our selves the comforts of it When we look through the clouds that are round about us and quite cover us and by the eye of faith behold the Fountain and Father of Light when we can look beyond the frowns that are â—n his face and the Rod that is in hâ—s hand and see the good will that dwells in the heart of God towards us More especiaâ—ly 2. When we do not only see and belâ—eve it but also draw vircue and influences down from it into our souâ—s to establish settle and saâ—isfie them Not so much when we see it as when we taste it when we feel tâ—e Sun of Righteousness warm us though it do not dazle us and though we cannot perceive it to shine upon us yet we find it to shine in us We do then converse with the Love and Mercy of God in an afflicted state when the same doth bear us up not only from utter sicking but even from inordinate sorrowing when we draw a virtue from it inâ—o our souls to sustain them yea and to cherish them too Thus Job comforts himself in his living Redeemer Job 19. 25 and the Psalmist in the Mercy of God even when he was ready to slip Psal 94. 18. 19. In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul In a word we converse with Dâ—vine Goodness when we are really warmed with it and with Almighty Love when we rejoyce in it and can with holy venturousness and humble confidence throw our selves into the very bosome of it when we receive impressions of it from the Spirit of God and are thereby molded into a temper fuitable to it and becoming it For then indeed do we most happily converse with the Love and Goodness of God when we for our part do live upon it when we being assured of an interest in a loving and good God do render up our selves also unto him in the most beautiful and becoming affections of Love Joy Confidence and holy Delight This is an excellent frame and sure I am it is much for our interest thus to converse with God in the time of our afflictions It is a high way of glorifying God and bringing much credit to Religion And indeed he that keeps up this frame can be afflicted but in part he scapes the greater half of the evil For though it be never so stormy a time without him a storm upon his house upon his goods upon his relations yea upon his own body yet it is a calm day within in the soul there is peace and tranquillity Lastly and indeed everlastingly too we are to converse with the Infinite self-sufficient Fulness of God in a day of the greatest extremity that is as if I should say not with any one single Attribute but with the very godhead of God the immense perfection of God the Allness of the Deity Oh how seasonably doth this blessed object present its self to the soul in a time of afflictions losses mortalities persecutions when we are most emptied of creature-enjoyments and the emptiness of them doth most appear for upon these two doth our conversing with God much depend I need not tell you how apt we are to live beside God when we have our fill of creature-delights whilst we can entertain our hearts with a created sweetness we soolishly forget and neglect the supreme good And so fond and unreasonable is this affection that no warnings no precepts will serve the turn God is forced to break that off from us from which we would not be broken Sure I am the blessed and bountiful God envyes not his servants any of their creature-comforts or delights but he loves them as I said before with a strong and powerful love and will not suffer them to live so much to their losses as they do when they spend noble affections upon transitory things in the everlasting enjoyment of which they could never be happy Now afflictions are a negative if we speak properly even as sin is and whenever we are afflâ—cted in any kind we are empâ—ied os some created good as poverty is nothing but the absence of riches sickness the want of ease of order of health in the constiâ—uâ—ion restraint is the loss of liberty c. So then it appears that in a time of affliction God is emptying of câ—eature enjoyment for indeed afflâ—ction it self is little or nothing else but such an emptying or deprivation And that then the emptiness of the creature doth most appear I suppose all will grant The sick person looks upon his decayed strength and withering members and is feelingly convinc't of the truth of the Scripture All flâ—sh is grass Another casts about hâ—s eyes with Sampson and sees heaps
self-judging renewing of repentance c. 2. Towards men meekness compassion instructing warning comforting c. 3. Towards God as we shall see anon An afflicted condition doth call for some more especial tempers and behaviours towards our selves and others But these I am not to speak unto from this Text. It is the souls meeting God behaviour towards him conversing with him that my Text leads me to treat of and I shall not vary from it In handling of which Position I shall take this Method 1. Premise some things needful to be known concerning the souls conversing with God For I shall retain the word conversing throughout my discourse as being a single yet a large and significant word 2. Shew what it is for a soul to converse with God and how it comes to converse with him 3. Prove the doctrine That it is our duty to converse with God in the way of his judgments 4. Shew particularly how we are to converse with God in the time of afflictions 5. Apply it 1. I shall premise some things needful to be known that tend to clear up my way to the following discourse 1. I premise That it is the great duty of man to converse with God I have read that it was a common precept that the Jewish Doctors were wont to give to the people that they should single out some one Commandment and exercise themselves very diligently in the observation of it that therein they might make God their friend and make him a kind of amends for the breach of many others I doubt it is a Rule that too many Professors live by who not having the genuine and generous spirit of true Religion do parcel out their obedience into some little shreds of homage and devotion and instead of consecrating their whole lives to God do content themselves with some circumstantial and light obedience and think themselves people of great attainments if they do but severely tye up themselves to hearing twice a week and prayer twice a day and a few other acts of more solemn Worship Certainly this is a penurious and needy spirit much unlike the generous ample and free-born spirit of true Religion The duty the whole duty the constant duty of man is to converse with God commended in Enoch by the name of walking with God Gen. 5. 22. Where you may observe of him that he did not only set out fairly with God or take a turn or two with him but he walked with him three hundred years together The same God calls for from Abraham under the same name Gen. 17. 1. Walk before me and be perfect But it is not only the command of God that makes this a duty If there had been no express commandment concerning it yet were it the duty of every man necessarily flowing from his relation of a reasonable creature As man is a creature so he must needs live upon God and as a reasonable creature so he ought to live with him and unto him Therefore hath God given unto man a noble rational soul not only that he might talk and work manage the creatures and converse with the world but that he might converse with the God of the world that Infinite blessed and glorious Being This is the very end of mans Creation as man as a reasonable creature This was the end of his being created in the Image of God and when he was fallen from this Image this was the end of his Redemption by Christ Jesus that Heaven and Earth might be reconciled and those that were far off might be brought â—igh sin is a sinking of the soul down to self and the creature And redemption from sin is nothing else but a recovery of the soul into a state of favour and fellowship with God So that whatever is expressed by Faith and Repentance is contained in this one word Converse with God It is the great the necessary and as I may say the natural duty of the Reasonable Soul 2. It is the highest priviledge of man The Prerogative of man above the beasts is his Reason and the Glory of reason is that it is capable of knowing loving enjoying and conversing with the Supreme and Infinite Good The priviledge of Reason is not as too many think that it is capable of understanding Arts and Sciences that it is capable of climbing up into the nature and course of the Heavens and diving into the secret depths of the Earth and Sea and the creatures therein contained but in conversing with the Infinite and Glorious God How miserably do vulgar souls abuse this noble faculty who exercise it only in discoursing numbring and ordering the poor conâ—â—â—â— cernments of the world and the body Yea certainly those wise men those Scribes those Disputers of this world as the Apostle calls them who cry up this faculty and glory so much in it and yet do not exercise it about that high and eternal Being do not converse with God in pure affections and God like dispositions and conversations but expend those vast treasures of reason upon secrets in Nature secrets in Art secrets in State or any other created Being do enthrall their own souls which they say are so free-born and captivate and confine that noble principle which they themselves do so much magnifie For sin is certainly the great and only shame and reproach of an immortal soul And indeed these men though they put their souls to somewhat a more noble drudgery yet are really no more happy than the vulgar sort who spend the strength of their souls about eating and drinking plowing or sowing or keeping of Cattel What difference I pray you in point of true happiness is there between Boys playing with Pins and Points and old mens hugging of Baggs and Lands The noblest Sciences the greatest Commands the most enriching Traffiques are as very toys in comparison of true happiness as the poor dunghil-possessions of vulgar men And the wise the rich the learned the honourable of the world that take up with an employment in this world and with a happiness in themselves or in any creature do as much disgrace their own souls and as truly live below their own faculties as he doth that knows no higher good than food and rayment no higher employment than to toil all his dayes in a ditch For indeed as to all things but conversing with God man seems to be but equal perhaps inferiour to the beasts that perish Doth man eat drink sleep work so do they Doth man find any sensual pleasure which the beasts do not sensate as well as he Nay the Gormandâ—zâ—ng Emperour envyed the Cranes long neck and others have envyed the more able and permanent lusts of the brute beasts because themselves have been inferiour to them therein and have enjoyed less sensual pleasure than they If any glory in their knowledge of natural and political things I could instance in the strong memory great sagâ—city quick fancy wonderful perceptions of many beasts and their
But I will not enveigle my self in any controversie Methinks the sad consideration layd before your eyes whilst we are in the body we are absent distant from the Lord should wring out an O wretched man that I am c. or an I desire to be dssiolved or if not words yet at least a groan after immortality with our Apostle here We groan within our selves that mortality may be swallowed up of life But can a soul possibly long for the destruction of the body Philosophy indeed tells us that it cannot Be it so yet I 'm sure Divinity teaches that a soul may long after the redemption of the body the redemption of it from this kind of aâ—iâ—al corruptible ensnaring condition that it is now in Rom. 8. 23. We groan within our selves waiting for the redemption of our body If we cannot wish to be unclothed yet we may long to be clothed upon vers 4. of this chapter At least methinks the Heathen should not out-do us who could say Morinolo sed me mortuum esse nihil curo But will all cry Oh if we were sure of interest in it of pardon of sin of truth of grace of eternal life then we could freely leave all Answ 1. That is you would live to be more holy before you dye you are not yet holy enough No nor never shall be till you dye If you long after holiness long to be with God then for that is a state of perfect holiness To desire to live upon pretence of being more holy is a meer fallacy a contradiction But it may be this is not the meaning of the Objection Theresore 2. A not having of what we would have is not an excuse for not doing what we should do It is our duty to rejoyce in the Lord Phil. 4. 4. which our not having of assurance doth not exempt us from though if we have assurance we might indeed rejoyce the more But to take off this plea at once 3. Our earnest longings after a full and perfect enjoyment of God and so our breathings after an immortal state doth not depend upon our assurance but indeed assurance rather depends upon that I doubt we are commonly mistaken in the nature of assurance and it may be are in a wrong manner curious about the signs of Christs appearing in our souls For certainly a well grounded assurance of the love of God doth most discover and unfold it self in the growth of true godliness in the soul Now the love of God and an earnest desire to be like unto him and to be with him is the better half of all religion Mat. 22. 37 38. so that it rather seems that assurance springs up from this frame of soul than that this arises out of assurance If assurance be the thing that you desire get your souls joyned to God in a union of affections will and ends and then labour and long to be closer to him liker to him perfectly holy and happy in him and be ye assured that Christ is in you of a truth For these mighty works which he hath wrought these divine breathings these holy pantings after him do bear witness of him 4. Whether ever you come to that feeling knowledge that powerful sense of your state or no which you call assurance yet know that it is your duty to long after immortality We are wont to call assurance the priviledge of some few but the Scripture makes this temper that I am speaking of the duty of all Believers which I do the rather name because I find few Professors of this temper and indeed but few that are willing to believe that they ought to be Our Saviour calls all Believers to as much in effect as I do Luk. 21. 28. Look up and lift up your heads for the day of your redemption draweth nigh whereby is not meant a bare posture and speculation but joy and longing are required by that phrase say the Dutch Annotat. See also Rev. 22. 17. Consider further which methinks should strike cold to the hearts of cold-hearted Professors that this very temper is made one of the greatest characters of true and sincere Saints I do not know of any one oftner named See Rom. 8. 23. We groan within our selves waiting for the redemption of our body 2 Tim. 4. 8. The Lord shall give the Crown to them that love his appearing Tit. 2. 13. We should live godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 3. 12. What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hastening to the coming of the day of God! Jude 21. Keep your selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Do all these plain and pathetical Scriptures stand for cyphers in your eye Methinks they should not But not to stand upon the proof of it to be a duty it matters not whether there be an express command for it or no This that I am speaking of is not so much the duty of godly persons as the very nature genius and spirit indeed of godliness iâ— self Methinks a godly soul that is truly toucht with divine goodness influenc't by it and imprest with it as the Needle is with the Loadstone must needs strive powerfully within it self to be in conjunction with it A holy soul that after all its wearisome defeats and shameful disappointments in the creature finds its self perfectly matcht with this infinite full and perfect object must certainly and necessarily be carryed without any other argument with fervent longings after union to it and communion with it The Spouse might say concerning Christ as he concerning her Cant. 6. 12. Or ever I was aware my soul made me like the chariots of Aminadab And every godly soul may in some degree say with that Spouse Cant. 5. 4 5. My Beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door and my bowels were moved for him I rose up c. Tell me friends How can Divine Grace that Well of living water in the soul chuse but spring up into eternal life John 4 14. I doubt not to affirm that that which is of God in the soul must needs carry the soul after God as it belongs to Heaven so it will belonging towards Heaven That which is of a divine original must needs have a divine tendency that which is of divine extraction will have in it a divine attraction and persue a divine perfection Col. 3. 1. That divine life and spirit that runs thorow godly souls doth awaken and exalt in some measure all the powers of them into an active and chearful sympathy with that absolute good that renders them compleatly blessed Holiness and purity of heart will be attracting God more and more to it self and the more pure our souls are and the more separate from earthly things the more earnestly will they
more refined corruption is harder to be discovered and men are loath to be convinced of the evil of it Now this particular distinct loving of life not as in God but in it self as a creature-good is clearly condemned in that first and great Commandment Matth. 22. vers 37. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind q. d. God the Supreme Infinite Perfect Original Essential Self-sufficient Good is to be loved in the highest and purest and strongest manner that the heart of man is capable to love and all other things only in him and under him and as being of him and for his sake Let it be allowed that life is good yet it must be added that it is but a created-good let it be allowed that life is comfortable yet it must be acknowledged that mans chiefest comfort and happiness doth not stand in this animal life So then life it self is to be loved in God who is the fountain and spring of life it is to be loved in the quality of a created good and no otherwise Now created goods are to be loved only in the Creator as coming from him as partaking of him as leading to him Argue the case a little thus The soul of man is allowed to love its body with which the great God hath matcht it and to love union with this body which union we call life But this body being a creature and a creature much inferiour to it self and much more ignoble than it self cannot in reason be judged to be the fit and adequate object of its strongest and best affections That must needs be something more excellent than it self and that cannot be any thing in this world for this world hath nothing so noble so excellent in it as the soul of man it must indeed be the Creator himself Well seeing God is the supreme self-sufficient perfect Good he is to be loved with all the streâ—gth and powers of the soul singly and entirely And the will of God being God himself is not only to be submitted to or rested in but to be chosen and loved above all created things yea even above life it self the best of creatures So then if it be the will of God to call for our lives we ought readily to give them up because we ought to love the will of God much more than our lives I pray you drink in that notion viz. that the will of God being pure holy perfect should not only be submitted to or rested in but even loved and chosen above all creatures Now the will of God is not that only whereby he teacheth men and prescribes Laws to them but that whereby he rules and governs the world and disposes of men in any condition of life or takes away their lives from them The eternal fountain of goodness can send forth nothing but what is perfectly good and that which is perfectly good ought to be loved with an universal pure and as far as possible perfect love This you will say perhaps is a high and a hard saying But let it not seem impossible for a man to love his own life only in God and in subordination to him for this God requires and he requires not things â—mpossible Luke 14 26. If any man come after me and hate not his own life he cannot be my Disciple i. e. not simply hate â—t but in comparison of me and my will It is not then impossible nay you see it is a necessary duty without which we cannot be Christs Disciples The Saints of old found it possible Holy Paul gives this answer readily Act. 21. 13. I am ready to dye at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus and Act. 20. 24. I count not my life dear unto me so that I might finish my course with joy It is witnessed of the whole Army of the Saints in Rev. 12. 11. That they loved not their lives unto the death i. e. they did not value them in respect of God and his truth Neither let any one flatter himself and say Yea if I were called to dye for God I would rather do it than deny him For the will of God is as much to be eyed in his sending for us by a natural death as by martyrdom and a not giving up our lives to him at any time is as truly to deny him and his will as not to give them up at the stake when we are called to it Besides how shall we imagine that he that is unwilling to dye in his bed should be willing to dye at a stake Now this duty of being mortified to the love of this animal life being so difficult yet so necessary and so noble how doth it become every Saint to study to attain to this perfection which that we may let us press upon our selves this Consideration this Doctrine That the glorified Saints shall live as the Angels of God in Heaven We know that if this body were broken down this low life cut off we should live like Angels not being beholden any more to poor creatures for help or comfort but should be filled with the fulness of God filled with his Image and Glory and live upon him entirely for evermore Yea I may add that this very living above our own lives meerly at the will of God is a participation of the Angelical Life even in this world Therefore labour to be mortified to that love of this life which is here upon earth yea be weary of it yea almost ashamed of it 4. Shall we thus live the lives of the Angels subsisting in God feasting upon him filled with him to all eternity This may moderate our sorrow which we conceive for the loss of any created good houses lands husband wife children c. yet a little while and we shall not miss them shall not need them shall not desire them any more The blessed Angels live a glorious life and they have none of these but are perfectly satisfied in the enjoyment of God alone They have no wives nor children yet they want none And yet a little while and we shall have none neither neither shall we want them having all things in the God of all things They neither marry nor are given in marriage but are in conjunction with the Father with love and goodness and truth it self and so they have no want of any thing If you have no Candles left in the house yet it is towards day-break and the Sun will rise upon you and you shall need none and yet have light enough too In a word learn to live beside them whilst you have them and you will be the better able to live without them when they are removed 5. I come now to the fifth and last Use that I shall make of this Doctrine and oh that you and I may make this happy use of it Shall the Saints be as the Angels of God in their way of living in living
a particular pinching love Oh take heed of this creature-love of valuing any created thing any otherwise than in God any otherwise than as being from God partaking of him and leading to him 3. Live not upon Ordinances These are Gods institutions love them cleave to them attend upon them let no temptation cause you to leave them but live not upon them place not your Religion place not your hope your happiness in them but love them only in God attend upon them yet not so much upon them as upon God in them lie by the Pool but wait for the Angel love not no not a divine ordinance for its own sake Why who doth so Alas who almost doth not 1. Thus did they in Ezek. 33. 32. who delighted in the Prophets eloquence and in the Rhetorick of his Sermons as much as in a well tuned voice and harmonious musick and so do thousands in England who read the Bible for the style or the stories sake and love to sit under learned and elegant discourses more for accomplishment than for conversion And swarms of Priests who preach themselves more than Christ Jesus even in his own ordinances as a proud Boy rides a horse into the Market to set forth himself more than his Masters goods 2. But there are many not so gross as these who do yet use ordinances in a way very gross and unspiritual placing their devotion in them and sinking their Religion into a settled course of hearing or praying who will wait upon God as they call it at some set and solemn times New Moons and Sabbaths it may be evening and morning but Religion must not be too busie with them nor intermeddle in their ordinary affairs or worldly employments it hath no place there they do not count it a garment for every dayes wear 3. And not only these but even almost all men are too apt to seek rest in duties and ordinances or at least to be pretty well satisfied with the work done whether they have conversed with God there or no Oh if you love your souls seek you happiness higher conversing with divine ordinances I confess is honourable and amiable but it is too low a life for an immortal soul Affirmatively Let nothing satisfie you but God himself take up with no pleasure no treasure no portion no paradise nay no Heaven no happiness below the infinite supreme and self-sufficient good Let your eye be upon him and his all-filling sulness let your desire be unto him and to the remembrance of his name follow hard after to know the Lord and to enjoy the Father through his Son Jesus Christ let your fellowship be with the Father and with the Son by the spirit 1 Joh. 1. 3. O love the Lord all ye his Saints Psal 31. 23. yea love him with all your soul and all your strength Mat. 22. 37. yea and keep your selves alwayes in the love of God Jude 21. persevere and increase in the love of God Keep your selves in the love of God Oh sweet duty Oh amiable pleasant task Oh sweet and gratesul command Away ye crowd of creatures I must keep my heart for my God Away ye gawdy suitors away ye glittering toyes there is no room for you My whole soul if its capacity were ten thousand times larger than it is were too scant to entertain the supreme good to let in infinite goodhess and fulness Oh charge it upon your selves with the greatest vehemence love the Lord O my soul keep thy self in the love of God let the love of God constrain you and keep your selves under the most powerful constraints of it In a word live upon God as upon uncreated life it self drink at the fountain seed upon infinite fulness depend upon Almighty Power refer your selves to unsearchable wisdom and unbounded love see nothing but God in the creature taste nothing but God in the world delight your selves in him long for communion with him and communications from him to receive of his fulness grace for grace Then do we live most like Angels when we live most purely in God and find all the powers of our souls spending themselves upon him and our selves our life and all the comforts of it flowing from him and again swallowed up in him But because we are yet in the body I shall explain it in these following particulars 1. Converse with God in all your Selfexcellencies I bade you before not converse with these now I say converse with God in these Thus do the Angels they know nothing that they have of their own they enjoy nothing distinct from God They are excellent creaturs excellent in knowledge power holiness c. yet they enjoy all their excellencies in God and ascribe them all to him Rev. 7. 12. And so let us labour to do 1. View your selves not in your own particular Beings but in the Essence of God look upon your selves as being and subsisting in the midst of an Infinite Essence in which the whole Creation is as it were wrapt up and doth subsist 2. And what ever excellency you find in your souls or bodyes look not upon it as your own maintain not a Meum and Tuum a distinction of interests beâ—ween God and your selves but look upon all as Gods and enjoy it in him 3. When you find your selves tempted to cast a fond and unchaste look upon the beauty strength activity or temper of your own bodyes upon the ingenuity wisdom constancy courage composedness of your own souls take heed of settling into a selfish admiration of any of them but enjoy them in God and say This O my body this O my soul is no other than the portraicture of the Blessed God these created excellencies are broken beams of the infinite unspotted uncreated perfections Jer. 9. 23 24. Having once attained to this we shall no longer covet to be admired desire to be commended fret at being undervalued I mean not in a selfish manner but rather break out in a spiritual passion with the psalmist Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works in the children of men Psal 107. 8. 3. Nay let me add when you find your selves ready to put your own stamp upon Gods best coin to look upon supernatural gifts and graces with a sinful selfish admiration remember that you have them only in Christ Jesus and enjoy them in your head labour to enjoy grace it self only in Christ as the Apostle Gal. 2. 20. I yet not I but Christ in me I laboured yet not I but the grace of God 1 Cor. 15. 10. So ought we to glory I believe I love I am patient penitent humble yet not I but the grace of God that is with me Christ Jesus that dwelleth in me And indeed a godly man who thus lives at the very height of his own Being yea and above it too knows best how to reverence himself yea and to love himself too and yet without any self-love For he
that the will is prepared to close readily with such Methods as God shall please to use to accomplish his own ends then do we properly and feelingâ—y converse with God under the notion of the All-wise God But this of Self-resignation I spoke something to under the first head and much of that which is spoken there may be indifferently applyed hither Therefore 7. Converse with the unbounded Goodness Love and Mercy of God God is infinitely and unchangeably loving and merciful to his people he is good saith the Psalmist and he is Love saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 8. Those dreadful and terrifying apprehensions which men have of the blessed and good God as if he were some austere and surly Majesty given to passion and revenge are apt to destroy that chearful and ingenuous converse with him which the creature should maintain with its Creator at all times But then are we most prone to entertain those apprehensions and to harbour such unseemly notions of him when he appears in the way of his judgments when we take a view of him in the ruines of our comforts the blood of our friends the spoyl of our goods and in the distresses of our lives We are apt to frame notions of God according to what we find in our own disposition to fancy a God like unto our selves and therefore we cannot eye an afflicting God but we presently conclude an angry God as though the Eternal and Pure Being were subject to passions and changes as we are These apprehensions being once drunk into the soul it becomes unhinged presently and almost afraid to behold the face of love it self but flyes and hides it self as Adam in the Garden or if the soul do converse with God at all it is as a City that is besieged converses with the enemy without viz. sending out to seek peace and to obtain a cessation of Arms. And so a soul may bestow much upon God surrender up the Castle give him all that he hath almost not for any love that he bears to him but as Joash gave Hazael a present of gold and precious things to hire him to depart from him 2 King 12. 18. Oh then they will on and do any thing yea circumcise their lives as Zipporah circumcised her Son Exod. 4 25. to escape the hands of an angry God Every one will converse with God as an enemy in time of extremity hang out a flag sor peace send presents pay a homage send Embassadors to entreat his face But few know how to converse with the Goodness and Mercy of God with him as their dear and only friend in a time of afflâ—ctâ—on freely and chearfully Now there seems to be a double account to be given of mens not conversing with the Goodness and Mercy of God in the time of afflictions 1. Many cannot believe the Mercy and Kindness of God when he is in the way of his Judgments If it be so why am I thus cryes the poor soul strugling under its burden and travelling in pangs to be delivered of its griefs Thus unbelievingly argues Gideon who was otherwise famous for saith in the time of his bitter bondage under the Midianites Judg. 6. 13. when an Angel from Heaven was sent to assure him of the good will of God towards him he could not entertain the news nor believe the report because of the anguish of his soul but cryes out Oh my Lord if the Lord be with us why is all this evil befallen us No the Lord hath forsâ—ken us for he hath delivered us into the hands of the Midianites The sad soul is ready to cry concerning Christs gracious presence as the two Sisters concerning his personal presence John 11. 21 32. Lord if thou hadst been here my Brother had not dyed Lord if thou hadst been here if thou hadst loved me if thou hadst had any delight in me my Brother had not dyed my Husband my Wife my Children had not dyed I had not been thus plagued afflicted wounded tormented as I am Hence we have those many complaints of the afflicted soul up and down the Psalms Hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious Is his Mercy clean gone Hath he shut up his tender Mercies in anger and many such like The smart of our senses is apt to pervert the judgment of our minds and the sense of bodily evils is ready to destroy all sense of the Infinite and Unchangeable Goodness and Love of God Now this great evil seems to arise from these two causes viz. our measuring of God and his Divine Dispositions by our selves and humane passions and affections as I hinted before And our measuring the Love of God too much by the proportion that he gives us of worldly prosperity Woe to him in a day of distress that was wont to judge of Divine Love by the things that are before him as Solomon calls the things of this world Eccles 9 1. This I say is the temper the infirmity of many in the time of afflictions though indeed there be no reason for it For why should we conclude harshly concerning Job upon the dunghill any more than we would conclude charitably concerning Ahab on the Throne Besides the Scripture teacheâ—h expresly that the Love of God doth stand with correction Psal 89. 33. I will visit his iniquity but my loving kindness wâ—ll I not take from him Nay it seems as if it could not well stand without it Heb. 12. 6. Whom the Lord loveth be chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth 2. Others do indeed believe the Goodness and Mercy of God to them in a time of affliction but either they cannot or dare not or will not converse with it nor take comfort in it They remember God with the Psalmist Psal 77. 3. i. e. the Goodness Bounty Mercy of God saith Mollevus and yet at the same time are troubled their hearts are unquiet fluctuating tumultuous within them The soul is so imprest with the sense of sin which it hath contracted from the consideration of its sufferings that it dare not presume to meddle with Mercy but though this Mercy of God be its own yet is ready to think that it is a duty to forsake its own Mercies as though it heard God chiding it in the words of Jehu to Jorams scout 2 King 9. 18. What hast thou to do with peace What hast thou to do with Mercy turn ye behind me An afflicted soul hath much adoe to believe it to be a duty to converse with the Goodness and Love of God in a time of affliction It easily agrees to converse with the Justice Holiness and Power of God indeed but thinks it very improper and unseasonable if not unsafe to converse with his Mercy It is ready to cry with Solomon presently In the day of prosperity rejoyce but in the day of adversity consider or with the Apostle If any be afflicted let him pray if he be merry let him sing Psalms Conversing with the Goodness of