Grace as a Preparation for more of his Glory 2 Cor. 4.8 to the end Upon this Providence of God our Psalmist had a special eye throughout the Psalm Whatever he desires and prays for whatever he believes and hopes for whatever he acknowledges and praises God for whatever he bemoans and afflicts his Soul for whatever he experiences and feels was some Act Effect or Permission of Providence That God in the course of his Providence would annimadvert upon the insolent Barbarities of his and the Churches Enemies is the Expostulatory Petition of Vers 1 2 3 4. What was the Permission of Providence Is the condolement and moan of Vers 5.6 The singular concern of Providence is the Doctrine of Vers 8 9 10. as the happy Fruits of the very Severities thereof the Triumph of Vers 12 13 and the returns of its favourable Aspect the belief of Vers 14 15 the notable needful suitable and feasonable Interposals thereof the experience of Vers 17 18 22 and the turning of this great Wheel upon the Adversaries to their confusion the Prophetick hope of Vers 23. All jointly together the comfort of the Text which in the Multitude of his perplexed Thoughts did look with such an amiable regard upon his Soul So that although the Fundamental Ground and Matter of his Satisfaction was the Nature of God in all its plenitude of Perfection yet the more immediate Spring thereof was the Egress or Issuings out of those Attributes in all these Varieties of Providence And the truth is although what God is in himself be eminently and vertually all Comfort in the utmost degree of Excellency yet should he confine his infinitely delectable Glories to himself only and never ray out and communicate of his Beauty Grace and Life to his Creatures they would be utterly at a loss for Happiness 'T is therefore not only the Nature of this Supreme Goodness as it transcends all in Perfection But also 't is its practice and delight and highest end the very thing that is called God's Glory which he has a prime respect to in all his Actings For then have his Creatures the highest Motives to Honour him when they taste most liberally of his bounty in the noblest Instances and he glorifies himself in the Estimate of the World when he is most beneficial as the Sun is most glorious when diffusing without any Interception his benign rayes and influences All which Glories vanish as to us in a total Eclipse or his descent under the Horizon Hence then does our Joy and Peace and Solace actually germinate and grow even from the glory of Divine Perfection branching out it self in infinite methods of Providence wherein he dispenses to us of his own fulness according to our various Exigences and Appetites The out goings of his Wisdom Goodness Justice Fidelity and Power in sweet and suitable Blessings and Supports that in every Condition we can behold something of God of greater value and consideration than either our Mercies or Crosses This is a potent Cordial to our Disconsolate Hearts and replenishes them with wonderful Contentation If these Divine Glories compass us about care for us keep us we are comforted on every side Psal 71.21 Yea though we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death if God be thus with us in his providential Efficiency for our good his Rod and Staff will comfort us Psal 23.4 Rod and Staff Pastoral not Judicial or Corrective as some understand it But Providence being vertually included in those Attributes whereof it is an effect and issue in discoursing of them I was unavoidably led into some consideration of it also 2. The Privileges which administer Consolation in the greatest hurry and perturbation of Thoughts are many Two whereof only are insinuated in this Psalm yet such as suppose more They are 1. Sanctification 2. Propriety in God and assurance of it 1. Sanctification by the Word and Spirit of God is an excellent ground of Consolation 'T is indeed the first Foundation Stone laid in the Fabrick In vertue of this we receive Comfort from other things Tell any disquieted Heart of the inexhaustible Treasures of everlasting Joys and Refreshments in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost That Multitudes have enjoyed on Earth and in the Eternal Fruition whereof the Blessed Saints and Angels ever triumph in Heaven which the bounty and goodness of God exhibits and offers to all Tell it of the free and gracious Promises and Covenant of God that tenders the sweetest and strongest Consolation Exhort with the most charming Rhetorick and ravishing Suada to embrace these so rich so profitable so necessary Provisions of abounding Love Alas it cannot it dare not Why Because 't is Presumption 't is Stealth Robbery Sacrilege to snatch away any thing to arrest these Divine and Holy things without Right But have you not Right No How do you prove that 'T is plain All Right is founded in Sanctification I am not Sanctified I lie in my Sins dead and buried in Guilt and Wrath unregenerate out of Covenant as not having submitted to its Conditions in Repentance Faith and New Obedience Therefore the Comforts of the Covenant and of the Promises its Branches do not at all appertain to me This Argument cannot be gain-said if it assume right 'T is undoubtedly true That none have Right to the Mercies of the Covenant who do not submit to its terms and that very yielding unfeignedly to the terms is an act of Sanctification which necessarily supposes the Communication of a Principle because none can act grace sincerely except from an inward Life of Grace it being essential to the sincerity of an Act that it proceed from a gracious Disposition from a renewed sanctified Heart Ezek. 36.26 27 31 32. and Ch. 20.43 44. and Ch. 11.19 Jer. 32.38 39 40. and 31.31 32 33 34. and 24.7 Deut. 30.6 Acts 5.31 and 3 26. Phil. 1.29 Eph. 2.8 9 10. For none but acts of Life as contradistinct to Dead Works entitle to the Promises God gives a Heart of Flesh a new Heart and Writes his Law therein infuses his Fear and Love thereinto gives Repentance through the Exaltation of Jesus Christ to whose benignity we owe the Donation of Faith also and are altogether his Workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good Works that we may walk therein evermore Admit that these Promises and Asseverations were designed primarily for Israel according to the Flesh Yet can it not be denied that they delineate and describe the manner and method of God's Proceedings with his Israel according to the Spirit For he no where declares his intent to alter that oeconomy of Grace in the substance thereof which was established by the Covenant of Grace to reduce lost Man to the obedience of the Just though the Circumstances and Ceremonials vary Now if acceptable that is sincere Acts may issue from any Man without or antecedently to all holy Qualifications or Habits as they are usually called ' t were a supervacaneous
Paradise who by thine experimental knowledge of this evil of suffering will create in thee a saving knowledge of good and through these Fruits of the Tree of the Cross lead thee to the Tree of Life CHAP. IX The Subject of Comfort Eyes God in all things 7. THis Man of God enjoy'd and liv'd under much experience of divine Goodness and gracious Providence Under all that happen'd he ey'd and own'd the Hand of God 1. In Affliction Ver. 17. Vnless the Lord had been my help my Soul had almost dwelt in silence Ver. 22. The Lord is my defence and my God is the Rock of my Refuge 2. In Temptation When I said my foot slippeth thy Mercy O Lord held me up ver 18. 3. In both ver 19. the Text In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my Soul A Man of common Principles would have look'd no farther than second Causes and the activity of Instruments and Means in his deliverance from Death ver 17. Than his own Prudence Caution Foresight Care and Endeavour in preservation from falling v. 18. Than his own reasonings and wise conduct of his Affections in the calm and serenity of his Mind v. 19. But this Holy Soul ascribes all to Divine Goodness And indeed to such a Man nothing is accidental he is never at a loss for the cause of any occurrent when he has not the least prospect of the agency of any thing on Earth he can find out a supreme mover in Heaven to whom nothing falls out by chance without either the foresight of his Intelligence or the conduct of his Wisdom or the determination of his Will or the interposal of his Power or the liberty of his Permission which though no cause at all properly but only that called sine quâ non which is but Fatua yet is governed by his Providence and all the possibilities thereof visible to his Prescience God is more concern'd in the World than the Artificer in a Clock who when 't is set together set up and agoing forsakes it He is sure little conversant in Scripture that imagines the Deity only a general cause who having constituted things with such and such particular Natures Propensions Biasses leaves them to run out their course without further Concurrence and Solicitude than to preserve them in the being constitution and activity he first gave them There 's nothing so mean so fortuitous but the Scripture intitles God to it either in way of Efficiency Direction Ordination or Permission If it be Good Natural or Moral he is the doer so if evil Natural if evil Moral though he abhor it cannot effect it or concur to it as such yet can he does he direct and order it to such ends as are consistent with his Wisdom Justice Holiness and Goodness which he well foreknows how to do therefore hinders not its existence as he easily could do without any violence to Nature blemish to his Government or infringement of the Liberty of his Creatures For to me 't is no little Mystery that although God be able to form a Rational Nature with liberty of Will and Prudence so to manage it that it shall at no time be compell'd to offer violence to its own freedom but in every act proceed with an even gentle sweet Spontaneity according to the dictates of its own finite Understanding yet that the infinite Intelligence and Prudence of the Divine Nature must be thought unable and insufficient by the reasonable Understanding and Will to elicite manage and guide these very humane Actions so as to preserve the same Liberty inviolable Let something be allow'd to Infiniteness sure it can do whatever Finiteness can if it be not to its disparagement If I can bring about my own resolute and fixed Purposes without prejudice to my own or others Liberty sure boundless Wisdom and Power can tell how to bring about its determinations by the liberty of the Creature A Reverend Judicious Divine my Relation told me that for experiment sake to try the power of an over-mastering Imagination he had oft requested such things of some Persons in whom he had no Interest at all which he knew they had an aversation to using no Reasons Arguments Motives Importunities at all further than the bare proposal only engaging himself strongly to fansie that he should obtain his desire and he seldom fail'd to prevail I never had the curiosity to make a tryal but am apt to think there may be something in 't upon consideration of the strange effects of the Mothers imagination upon her enwombed Infant as to both Impressions on its Body and Antipathies in its Mind the transpiring animal Spirits modify'd and mov'd strongly by a material Faculty may intermingle with those of a differing Body and over-rule their weaker Modifications and Motions and thereby the material Faculty that acted them as in Sympathetick Cures and the votatil Particles of Vitriol c. Crude or calcin'd do mix with the extravasated vital Spirits and return with them to their Fountain I confess these act only as Physical Causes and cannot vary in their effects of themselves though other external Causes may thwart them And what if a Man allow some such like thing to Spiritual Natures By what impressions they can communicate their Minds to one another by what impulses they bow one anothers Wills we know not but only the Effects God never fails to obtain the free voluntary Obedience of Angels And the more determin'd their Wills are the more free The Devil acts with less Liberty than a Glorified Saint and a Holy Angel with more than a self-determining Man who has both liberty of Contrariety and Contradiction can do both Good and Evil Act and not Act. Well if my Imagination further if my short defective Understanding can the one make such impresses the other produce such weighty momentous Reasons as shall sway my own and others Wills to an inhesitant and free compliance shall I not give that deference to the unfathomable Intellect and Reason of God as to suppose it endued with Ability to suggest such things as shall bow mine own or others Wills to a ready spontaneous ingenuous Concurrence than any thing can that is deduced merely out of the promptuary of mine own Mind I find my freedom in acting is gradually more or less intense according to the satisfaction of my Reason And if the Reason of God which is boundless cannot induce a more ample satisfaction than the Reason of a Creature which is but lame and imperfect and if he cannot with as much Facility without all impeach to our Liberty lead our Minds to the Contemplation thereof as in the use of the empire our selves have over them we can do if he cannot also more throughly excite acuminate quicken and enlarge our considering Powers freely to engage I have done 'T is not strange therefore that the Scripture ascribes all to God as the Origin of every individual Motion I find holy Men in
its Speculations infinitely weakned and debased The Will possesses a kind of Empire over the Mind to excite divert direct or determine Thoughts and vary all their Circumstances by proposal of Objects c. and sometimes to give a Supersedeas to some kind of Thoughts though not all but oft it raises up such Spirits as it cannot conjure down and very seldom has Dominion over the Matter or Subject of our Thoughts to biass the Mind into such Conceptions of Things as it pleases difform and dissonant from the Nature of the Things themselves except where there is a more than ordinary Debauch upon both Mind and Will For the Reason of the Subject must necessarily accord with the Reason of the Object if there be any Truth in our Conceptions Thoughts disagreeing from Things are Errours and Delusions The Remainders therefore of Corruption in the Will after its Renewal by Grace together with a subtile Tempter and sometimes the Holy Spirit of God himself as under Convictions of Sin do excite such Cogitations as are too hard for us and bear down all the Supports of Nature raising such Tumults and turbulent Affections that our Spirits are ready to succumb and sink under them into the most pensive Dumpishness Dolour Despair Horror and Confusion He is a Stranger to Himself the World the Scriptures Christianity the Church and particular Souls that know not this If any will not yet believe it I remit him to Bedlam where his Sense will convince him what doleful Tragedies of this nature have been and are acted by Amorous Envious Studious Dolorous and Religious Melancholy to omit other kinds And what Man is there that with any Sense and Seriousness reflects upon his own particular Sins against the Holy Majesty of Heaven in their odious Aggravations together with the declared Displeasure and Indignation the menaced Wrath and Curse of Almighty Vengeance against them and his Person for their sake but will sometimes find so great and oppressive Perturbations in his Mind and Conscience as to be utterly at a Non-plus and scarce able to secure himself from Despondency Who is there that in some either common or uncommon Calamity or imminent Danger thereof does not sometimes find the Passions excited by his Thoughts to be an Over-match for his Reason Who but a senseless stupid Log does not a little sometimes pass the bounds of Decorum in the Internal Workings of Sorrow upon the I oss or Death natural but especially suddain and violent of or any considerable Crosses in and by dearest and nearest Relations and yet more especially when their immortal Souls are apparently hazzarded if not finally lost and sunk into Eternal Damnation Now no inward Affections are Self-movers they neither do nor can act but upon the apprehension of Sence or Motion of Thoughts or Influence of some exterior very powerful Agent that can make immediate Impressions upon the Blood and Spirits as neither are our Thoughts no nor can be any Molestation or Affliction but only as irritating our Passions And I would gladly see the Man who by Rational or Religious Considerations has reduc'd his Thoughts and Passions to that equable Temperament and Balance that they neither are nor can be induc'd or impell'd won or wrested into any Irregularity or Excess by the single or united Powers of Earth Hell and Heaven which last never depraves them though it oft punishes us by them Surely Job was a very good Man yet the Extremity of his Afflictions provoked him to talk and therefore think extravagantly And if God Almighty cast away the Reins out of his hands and let loose a Man's Thoughts upon him and who is there that gives him not a world of Provocation I know not whither even the most mere Man's Thoughts may not hurry him on this side Hell If any desire a full Conviction what a wicked Man's Thoughts can do let them a little survey those dismal Regions of Everlasting Horror not in Person as the poor Prisoner in Alex. ab Alexandro Genial Dier L. 6. C. 21. but in Thought and Meditation and I hope it will do him this Good viz. engage him to implore Omnipotent Grace to Restrain and Govern his Thoughts that they may not be an Introduction and Earnest of those easeless endless remediless Woes and if his Thoughts thereof will permit him to sleep or rest before he hath done this he thinks to little purpose Lastly Behold the infinite Condescension and Care of Heaven towards impotent degenerous Man in the Provision made not only for his Necessity but Consolation Rather than our Thoughts should be too many and so an Over-match for us the Divine Goodness will interpose and relieve us and has exhibited such a full Treasury of Comforts that no Distress can befal us so uncouth so uncommon so inextricable as to be out of the reach and road of the Relief therein tendered us That so inconsiderable a Piece as a Sinner a Pourtraicture of Hell limn'd after the Image of Satan the Father of all Wickedness an Enemy thro natural depravement to God and Goodness should engage the Solicitude and Providence of Heaven in such admirable instances to retrieve its lost Happiness and recover it out of the Sink and Abyss of Filth and Wretchedness that it may be set aloft in the Galleries of Glory and be beautified in rather than beautifie the Presence-Chamber of the King of Kings This this is a wonder beyond the Dimension of all other Miracles to be ascrib'd to the Benignity and Efficiency of nothing Inferiour to Infiniteness Men may flatter themselves in their sweet Harangues concerning the Celsitude Dignity and Nobleness of Humane Nature let it in its positive State as the effect of a most excellent Cause be advanc'd and admir'd as much as it can by Words or Thoughts yet what is it comparatively to God What is it under the debasements of Sin Which is infinitely more odious to God than any thing short of Himself can be pleasing so that nothing less than Divinity could give Satisfaction for the Wrong it did to the Supreme Majesty of Heaven not all the natural Excellencies of the whole Creation not all the Moral Perfections and Performances of Men and Angels and what Account is to be made of a drop of Honey intermingled with an Ocean of Gall The ever Adoreable Son of God who was much more a Man in respect of all eximious humane Endowments than ever any born of Woman besides his Sinlessness yet in the Person of David saith of himself Psal 22.6.4 I am a Worm and no Man if that be not to be understood estimatively that he was no better in the account of his Reproachers that shaked the Head at him saying be trusted in the Lord c. compare this with Matth. 27.39.43 See also Psal 8.4 5 6. Heb. 2.6 c. In Job 25.6 Man is considered with respect to that which does most of all ennoble viz. Goodness and Righteousness Yet because 't is allay'd with the
but only by converting Grace God alone enjoys himself in perfect Rest nor can any thing partake of this Moral Rest further than 't is happy in a Participation of the nature of God Whatever is in God is necessarily in him and the Combination of all his Excellencies is as necessary as their Existence 't is impossible that any one should be without all the rest and the rest without any one Indeed they are all but one Essence and that one Nature is all undividedly They are also inseparable in all their Emanations and Outgoings to his Servants If any be communicated to Man all other that are communicable accompany it Wherever then the Divine Life in Holiness diffuses it self 't is seconded with its Individual Companion Happiness If a Man have no feeling of this 't is because be hath none of the other See to it then Oh my Soul that thou be formed after the Similitude of God as ever thou hopest for Satisfaction in and from him Conformity to the Divine Will in its Precepts is indispensibly required in order to inheriting the Promises God himself neither will nor can comfort thee if Ungodlike but only by first making thee Godlike till thou communicate in his Sanctity thou canst not communicate in his Love 't is impossible to be happy in his Peace when thou art miserable in his Enmity or rationally to conclude that he loves thee when thou knowest he hates thy Lusts which yet are unseparated from thee and therefore hast all the reason in the World to believe that for their sake he hates thy Person 't is not possible to know that he respects thee when thou knowest that thou hatest Him To thy Work then or take thy doom converted thou must be or comforted thou canst not be Oh! as thou iovest thy Life thy Peace and an everlasting state of Glory and Felicity in Heaven retire into thy self Survey all thy inward Recesses dive into the bottom of that Sea of filthiness in which thou art naturally drenched and at the point of Drowning and which casts up all that abominable Mire and Filth and Poison that renders thee infinitely hateful to God and rages as a secret Plague and Pestilence in thy Heart and Bowels to gripe and gnaw thee to Death everlasting Oh behold how nasty odious detestable execrable it has made thee the very scum and offscouring of the Creation fit for nothing but the Dunghil and Dungeon of everlasting darkness to be consumed in the ever-burning unquenchable Tophet of Divine Indignation Oh look into that foul loathsome Sty of ordure and rottenness thy wicked Heart what Toads what Vipers are thence crawling out continually by Legions Sins of Complexion Age Calling Customary Beloved Master Sins thy own thy other Mens appropriated by thy Consent Counsel Connivence if not Compulsion Oh how numerous Oh how hainous How soon did'st thou begin like a bloody Butcher thus mortally to Wound thy self How long hast thou continued with a never ceasing frenzy and fury to gore and torture thy self in every Limb every Faculty every Place Time Company as if thou couldest never be barbarously enough truculent in thine own Execution except thou couldest create a raging Hell in every distinct atom of Body and Soul and by infinite Tormentors Devils rack and rend and tear thy self with the most intensive Cruciations O what a World of Light of Love of Means of Calls of Motions of Motives of Blessings of Prayers of Vows Promises Covenant Engagements Resolutions Professions Convictions Corrections c. hast thou with a shameless sauciness dared to tread in the Dirt and hast broke through all the Rampires that Conscience Education Awe Providence Law Divine Humane and their severest Sanctions have set up against thee that in a desperate madness of fool-hardy impudence thou mightest spew thy stinking Vomits in the very face of boundless Goodness and Righteousness Oh the beastlyness of thy Fleshly Lusts Oh the heathenishness of thy Worldly Lusts Oh the devilishness of thy Spiritual Wickedness Could'st thou but command a view of them in their malignant venomous hellish Nature all those Infernal Fiends that inhabit the black Recesses of everlasting Darkness all the dismal Plagues and Horrors of that doleful Region of Fire and Brimstone could not make or present a Spectacle of greater Formidableness and Deformity Yet all this is intimately within thee cleaving as close to thee as thy very Nature as inseparable as thy desire of it and delight in it can possibly make it a sight that would make thee quiver be sick and swoon and die should the Lord fully open thine Eyes Oh wretched Soul who shall deliver thee who shall relieve thee Thou art as black as Hell as foul a sink of Contagious Filth and Putrefaction as infects the World the chief of Sinners not knowing so much of aggravation in the sin of Devils themselves as thou do'st of thine own yet do'st not know the one half Oh accursed of God by Nature and Practice What wilt thou do What! wilt thou plead with thy Maker Where do'st thou think to appear What Mountains and Rocks wilt thou call to cover thee from the face of him that sits upon the Throne and from the Wrath of the Lamb How wilt thou stand at that dreadful Tribunal How darest thou look at God or into thy self where thou wilt find Creatures of thine own Sins I mean of a more prodigious frightful hue than Beelzebub himself Oh look upon them and tremble look till thy Heart ake and break and sink and sweat in an agony of Blood and Woe look and be in Pangs like those of a Woman in Travail look till the Sluces break open till thou canst pour out thy strength in a flood of godly Sorrow Ah wretch What hast thou done Whom hast thou Wronged Dishonoured Crucified Murthered First by thy ungodliness and worldly Lusts next afresh by thy Impenitence Unbelief and neglect of the healing Balsam which he tenders in his own Blood Ah Beast Bedlam Blood-sucker Murtherer Hast thou bathed thine Hands in thine own and the Heart-blood of God And does it not cut thee to the Heart Art thou still offering the most vile horrid cruel Affronts Indignities Injuries to the Eternal Father of Heaven the Blessed Jesus his only begotten dearly beloved Son to the Holy Spirit of Promise and yet rock and adamant untouched undissolved unaffected Oh Savage Monster Oh barbarous Homicide Deicide again to rake in the Heart and tear the Flesh and bore the Hands and Feet and spit in the Face of infinite Love that bleeds over thee in thy Blood and melts into the tenderest Commiserations when thou art drowning thy self in the deepest pit of Perdition Did he suffer such dolorous Torturings in his Body but an infinitely more intolerable Hell in his Soul for thy sake to quicken thee even when thou art killing him anew by thy Sin And does he with such yerning Bowels of compassion strive with thee if it be possible to exalt and
Minds and sue for that Mercy for our selves which once we would not receive or so much as desire as an answer to the Petitions of our Mediator Be not a Stranger to thine own Heart yet do not think to dig thy Peace out of thine own Bowels If it be a comforting reviving thing to find in thy self the truth of Grace yet that refreshing vertue of Grace it self is from God Whence we find some that although they be tolerably satisfied of their soundness yet through Ignorance or Inadvertency or Melancholy or Temptation c. cannot settle in a calm and quiet composure of Mind For as I said the Assurance of the truth of a Man's Grace is only comforting as it is the ground of his Assurance of the Love of God of which if a Man be not satisfied i. e. that true Grace is an infallible evidence that God does embrace him with his special Love and is at peace with him through Christ his Conscience will not be at rest for it cannot rest in discord with God whose Deputy 't is in Man Now some are so weak as not to understand this others so opprest with dumpishness of Spirit as not to heed it others so deluded by Satan as not to believe it which mists if not dispell'd damp the comfort of Grace Look therefore to the Sun of Righteousness to clear up thy Comforts by expeling this Darkness Seek abroad for Peace The Bee finds not her Honey at home without the labour of her Wings Let thy Supplications then O my Soul be continually winging thy Affections towards Heaven that they may there suck and be satisfied Isa 66. with the full Brests of Divine Consolation milk out and be delighted with the abundance of its Glory The Celestial Canaan is the Land that flows with the Milk and Honey of Divine and Spiritual Joy into which as at first thou passest over the Jordan of Repentance not upon dry ground but wafted by the breath of Prayer So must thou take possession of it in Armour fighting the good Fight of Faith with Heart and Hands like Moses lift up in earnest Supplications Exod. 17.11 Isa 61.1 3. The Spirit of God is upon Christ because the Lord hath anointed him To appoint to them that mourn in Sion to give them Beauty for Ashes the Oyl of Joy for Mourning c. If it be his Gift to him must we address for it The Tree from whence this Oyl of Gladness flows is planted in the Paradise of God descend to thee it shall not unless thou ascend to it and be ingrafted in the same Stock Oh transplant thy self from Earth to Heaven and take root at the Throne of Grace fix thy self and grow at the Footstool of Mercy by Frayer if as a Tree of Righteousness thou wouldst draw in be nourish'd and refresh'd by those consolatory dews of Divine Love which are the spring of that River of the Waters of Life which makes glad the City of God Be more above with the Father of Meries and God of all Comfort in these Devout and Ardent Suspirations than below glued to the Earth by Carnal Affections if thou desirest to be a Barnabas may I thus transfer it from its active to a passive Sense a Son an Heir an Inheritor of Celestial Consolations If thou canst but pray indeed thou art secure the furious Waves of these two meeting Seas Sin and Suffering may wrack thee but cannot swallow thee up Sink perhaps thou maist but Drown thou canst not the gentle Gales of the Spirit in this duty will most safely transport thee to the Haven of Everlasting Joy and Peace even in the ruin of all thy Fortunes Thy Miseries thy Corruptions shall perish thou thy self shalt not so true is that Saying of a Reverend Bishop Fashionable Suppliants may talk to God Bp. Hall but be confident he that can truly pray can never be miserable Of our selves we lie open to all Evils our rescue is from above and what intercourse have we with Heaven but by our Prayers This is his Catholicon Seneca advises his Lucilius to superadd new to his old Prayers to ask a good Soul good Health of Mind Epist 10 Quidni t◠ista vota saepe facias audacter Deum roga then of Body Why dost not oft renew these Requests Beg of God boldly So live with Men as if God saw so speak to God as if Men heard A good Precept to which adjoyn the like from the wisest of Men Eccles 5.1 2. Keep thy Foot when thou goest into the House of God c. Be not rash with thy Mouth and let not thine Heart be hasty to utter any thing before God For God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy Words be few 'T is not much speaking but hearty that God regards not the Tongue of Men and Angels but Truth in the inward Parts Broken Expressions from a broken Heart are as sweet Eloquence in the esteem of God as the best in Tully or Demosthenes Oh then pour out thy Prayers as a Flood Isa 26.16 If thou desirest they should return in a Tyde of Peace They can never reach Heaven if they have not a spring of Grace within they will never be received there if not the warm Exhalations Transpirations of a melting contrite Heart drawn out and drawn up by the dissolving attractive Rayes of the Son of Righteousness If the Divine Spirit infuse this Breath into thee it will follow him to Heaven and through his Influence who is the Comforter possess thee of the fulness of the Comforts of Elshaddai God all-sufficient If as a cloven Tongue of Fire the Holy Ghost descend and sit upon thee and give thee utterance Acts 2.3 4. not merely in conference with Men but secret speech Isa 26.16 with God If he envigorate and heat thy Graces and Affections that the Fire burn within Psal 39.3 and give speech to thy Tongue If he cast the pure Incense of Spiritual Devotion upon that flaming Altar thy fervent zealous Heart that may ascend in a sweet smelling Cloud to the Throne of God If Lastly this Fire from Heaven fall upon thy Sacrifice as a testimony or the audience of thy Prayers then wilt thou shout for Joy Levit 9. ult and triumph in his Salvation If thou would'st entertain any grounded hopes that the Lord will speak comfortably to thy Heart oh do thy utmost by Premeditation by Reading by Ejaculation c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to blow up into a living Fire those Divine Sparks of the Grace of Prayer which the Spirit doth cast within thee as a preparation for thy solemn Exercise in the duty of Prayer it self and let thy Supplications be rather the inward workings of thy Heart in aversation from Sin and panting after God by godly Sorrow Repentance Desire Faith Love Resignation c. than the labour of thy Lips and a bodily Exercise or the Work of an enlarged invention and fancy or strong Head and
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR Divine Comforts Antidoting Inward Perplexities OF MIND IN A DISCOURSE UPON PSAI. xciv Ver. 19. By T. Sharp M. A. late Minister of the Gospel at Leeds With some short Remarks upon the Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Marc. Antonin l. 4. §. 49. LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside And John Whitworth Bookseller in Leeds 1700. THE PREFACE Rendering an Account of this Publication COmfort is a thing so pleasing so amiable so tempting that it invites every ones Embraces and oft is liable to the Confident and Impudent Arrests and Rapes of Presumptious and Wanton Hearts which in a Licentious Age do not entertain so much Solicitude to be Good as Quiet Degenerate Nature is loth to divest it self of its evil Dispositions as those Satisfactions which are agreeable to its predominate Qualities and Constitution because this imports no less than its own Dissolution and Ruin as far as Corrupt and in this Gulf the Generality Perish it being like the Dead Sea smooth though muddy But when a daring Light boldly rushes into the Conscience and as our Redeemer once in Jerusalem overturns the Tables and with Whips and Scorpions drives out the old Buyers and Sellers the Corruptions that converted the Temple of God Mans Heart into a Den of Thieves and Murderers and thus imbitters all his delicious Lusts disgraces and destroys his false and delusory Carnal Joys which must certainly be done either on Earth or in Hell then does he feel a necessity laid upon him to enquire after another Balsom to heal his broken Heart and Hopes than that which grows in his own Garden and for a secure Relief is constrain'd to make towards Heaven Yet his pursuits admit of great varieties according to the Vigour and Power of that Light which arraigns him and the Conduct of those different Guides he relies upon one of the first Effects of these Convictions being Self-diffidence Some therefore into whose Souls the Dart is not struck home and deep enough yet feel some Pain and Smart and are diseased with and impatient of it must and will have Ease making that their principal Care and End without any due Endeavours to proceed in a regular Method to gain it Therefore Ignorance and Appetite being their Leaders they in this dark Night soon get to Bed and dream themselves into a pretty Paradise These possess Peace without its Harbinger true Penitence and therefore must be more sadly dispossess'd of it than they sweetly enjoy it Impostorous Pleasures never being Permanent Others with more Art but as little Strength make toward the same Port by another Wind frighted into something like Repentance and Faith and other Parts of Religion by the Terrors of the Almighty as knowing these the only Line and Course to bring them to the Haven of Rest Yet will not lay on Sail enough nor exactly direct upon the right Point but having a slothful Heart and Hand and a sinister Aim they Anchor upon the Quick-sands of their own fleeting fading Formalities and Mockshews of Religiousness as a sufficient Ground and Bottom to stay and settle their Peace upon yet at length under fair Hopes and in a Serene Calm sink and are swallowed up of Everlasting Woes The Design of this Discourse is to prevail with these and all by the noble Magnetism of a thing so desirable-and delightful as true and solid Consolation to engage in real Goodness which is the only way thereto it being as impossible for Wickedness and sound content of Mind to cohabit as for Light and Darkness before this therefore would I lay the greatest Discouragements as there is just reason whilst I attempt to promote the other which is mainly in my Eye throughout A small Canton of this Tract was upon promise to be Transcribed at the request of a Person grievously afflicted with horrid Injections I call them rather than Spontaneous Cogitations relating to God and Providence which whilst in Hand my Family was diminish'd by the Death of a Lovely Child this enlarged my Meditations Concurrent with these was a Report that if I continued in an obstinate refusal as I long had done to appear in Print some Sermons taken from me in Short-hand would unknown to me croud into the World wherein perhaps we both might suffer To prevent this I undertook to stop a Gap with this little Piece and commit it to the publick Censure and Conscience Only two parcels of it were delivered to an Auditory in the rest I took the liberty of a Writer rather than a Preacher If any thing here seem above the Capacity of the Vulgar yet the greatest part is not I endeavoured to suit those for whose sake 't was Publish'd so that it might not altogether nauseate the Learned and Ingenious of my Hearers and Readers by an insipid flatness of Stile or emptiness of Matter nor soar aloft out of the reach of the Vnlearned and Plain I would speak Things Id agendum ut non verbis serviamus sed sensibus Senec. Ep. 9. not mere Words and Wind and with solidity of Sence Profit rather than please with variety of Phrases If I miss of my aim 't is not the fault of my Subject but Intellect which in the greatest depths of matter I always find extreme shallow of Apprehension skinning over things rather than diving into them And this is that piece of pride that hath hitherto upheld my Aversation to the Press in a fear to betray my Weakness But then again I am too proud willingly to be deem'd and doom'd for a Fool in that of Seneca Epist 9. Nisi sapient sua non placent Omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui Vain Man would be wise and now am I tempted to another and no diminutive act of Arrogance viz. In lawful indeavours for Publick Good to act resolutely and contemn the World A bad Proficient I acknowledge my self in this Philosophy or love of Wisdom yet would aspire after thus much of it To submit my Follies to the Correction of the Wise but to let the Captious know that I read in Arrianus lib. 4. cap. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some short REMARKS upon the Author MR. Thomas Sharp was Born in Little Horton near Bradford in Yorkshire of Religious Parents who seeing his Promptness and Industry for attaining Humane Learning and hopefulness for Religion dedicated him to God in the Work of the Ministry though he was their eldest Son and likely to enjoy a considerable Estate Having made good Proficiency in Country Schools he was sent up to Cambridge about the Year 1649. or 1650. admitted in Clare-Hall under the tuition of the famous Mr. David Clarkson his Mother's Brother who when he left the University committed him to the care of Mr. John Tillotson that great Man afterwards Arch-bishop of Canterbury where he was very Studious and became an excellent Scholar having a capacious Soul of admirable Natural Parts
Land of Light that New Jerusalem It cannot be expected that a Compleat Draught of this worthy Man's Life should be drawn by any Pencil but his own May these hints of so rare a Patern of Piety have influence upon his surviving Relations and Hearers to transform them into the same Image that this Legacy of so Rational a Discourse may have a perswasive Power to attract Souls to a Capacity for Divine Consolations and such a real Example have a compulsive Power to draw many to follow this Heroe and others into Eternal Mansions if both do not effect these Ends the Spectator and Reader have more to Answer for ERRATA PAge 2. line 24. read near Series l. 32. r a Prolepsis p. 3. l. 1. r. our collapsed p. 4. l. 14. blot out in p. 5. l. 28. r. interline p. 6. l. 24. r. my Troublers p. 8. l. 33. r. Trmenters p. 21. l. 11. r. the Pharisees p. 38. l. 17. r. this Notion p. 40. l. 15. r. together with it p. 63. l. 10. r. anothers l. 32. r. mediately p. 73. l. 21. r. born and live and act p. 8â— l. 10. f. â—ar r. care p. 83. l. 29. r. the Minisery p. 87. l. 26. r. intension p. 1â—â— l. 34. r. good life p. 123. l. 3. r. undâ—vercibly p. 124. l. 6. the Parenthesis ends with â—eâ— p. 125. l. 30. r. Image p. 136. l. 30. r. a more ready p. 142. l. 16. r of God p. 143. l. 13. blot out the second and. l. 21. f. the r. this p. 144. l. 13. r. express p. 158. l. 25. r. his p. 160 l. 1. r. own p. 162. l. 26. r. unsuppâ—rtable p. 165. l. 2. r. and Pâ—tency l. 33. r. own p. 186. l. 3. r. whatever p. 198. l. 21. r. enjoy'd p. 205. l. 21. blot out uâ— p. 208. l 33. r. mere p. 214 l. 33. r. le p 215. l. 24. r. Though l. 32. r. summ p. 2â—7 l. 16. r. heâ—ghtned or transferr'd p. 237. l. 9. r. these p. 240. l. 5. r. combines p. 242. l. 22. r. in Wisdom p. 245. l. 2. r. and in all l. 25. blot out in p. 248. l. 7. r. true Comforts p. 250. l. 14. r. 9. p. 258. l. 28 r. might hence derive p. 260. l. 26. r. in nocency l. 35â—36 â— make a comma before from and after which p 280 l. 36. insert an Interpreter and r. shew me p. 285. l. 13. blot out 30. p. 303â— l. 20. blot out 4. p. 307. l 17. r. store l. 31. r. â—hat Persâ—â— p. 31â— l. 23. r. 〈◊〉 l. 36. blot out that p. 361. l. 4. r. they THE Nature Origin Subject-Matter Character Method and Means of COMFORT CHAP. I. The Introduction with the Explication of the Words and their Sense Critical and Moral PSAL. XCIV 19. In the Multitude of my Thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my Soul LORD I am Hell but thou art Heaven Bp Hooper was the pathetick Exclamation of the Spirit of Martyrdom in a devout Soul Here you have a prospect of both Tormenting Thoughts are the veriest Fiends nothing can make us miserable without them nor in the enjoyment of the sweet Delectation of those divine desirable Joys which are most suitable and proper to rational Nature and the appetite of an immortal Spirit The former are our natural Inheritance these the free Donations of infinite Goodness or the unmerited communications of Fidelity and Righteousness 1 Job 1.9 By our Apostacy from God we rendered our selves insufficient to attain that Felicity which our innocent Estate did entitle us unto and possess no sufficiency to any thing but the making our selves the most wretched of the whole Creation and are relievable by nothing but the All-sufficiency of Heaven The inanimate Creatures may indeed be dispossest of their Heaven viz. their Centre and Rest but the Evil thereof they can neither fear nor feel Vegetables may live in a Hell through the burning Fever of a Summer's drought but cannot smart and be in pain Sensitive Natures may be farther divested of their Happiness be driven out of their Paradise in Gilead and Bashan and be yet more miserable under the Servitude of that torturing Devil the Lust of degenerate man but a final period is put to all their Infelicities by that which if infinite Grace prevent not will be only the beginning of our remediless Woe at the worst they can but die and 't is without the sting of a cruciating Fear that a Life without end after Death will introduce a Series of never-ending Plagues But Immortality the highest Prerogative of humane Nature is through Sin become its most dismal cause of horrour and in being better than the rest of the inferiour Creation we through our own default are only render'd capable of being worse both in another and even in this present life as far as our dreadful Expectations become prolepsis or pre-occupation of those Sufferings which are no less durable than intolerable Neither can we be eas'd by the hopes that the least part or degree hereof is avoidable through the efficacy of our home-bred endowments or any thing we can scrape out of the rubbish of collapsed Natures since by experience we find that our greatest preventive care is not able totally to exclude and keep down those prepossessing horrible anticipations nor the Furniture we are enrich'd with of power to support and ease our minds under much less to antidote those real Plagues which actually infest and sink us towards a State much more insupportable our hope and help must needs therefore perish from within our relief is wholly from without yet not from Earth but Heaven There 's no Malady so perplexing so dangerous but there 's a sufficient and suitable Remedy in God In Bedlam I have seen a Man under the Severity of that most rigid and most uncomfortable Confinement so not only unconcern'd but triumphant as to bear up himself in the Port and Majesty of a King and in his imaginary height and glory with a disdainful stateliness converse with those little shreds of Mortality who were blest as he thought in the Honour of his Empire and Government and sometimes with a stately humbleness invite them to glory in his Condescensions with such a creative power is Fancy endow'd that it can produce almost any thing out of nothing dwindle substantial Woes into Shadows convert a Hell into an Elysium Of such Madmen the World is full We as the Prisoners of Justice carry our Chains about with us and they sit and sink into our Flesh yea our very bones yet as if we possest an unconfinable liberty we jovially dance about and solace our selves with this lamentable dream till our real Miseries confute our false Imaginations For a Man's state may be miserable yet the Man so rationally stoically or brutishly mad as not to be miserable That is since nothing can make a Man unhappy but by the mediation of something within him his Fancy his Folly his Fears his Feeling his Reasonable
than to have thus abused thy Being in precipitating thy self into so formidable an Abyss of woe Wilt thou then Oh my Soul live the life of the Just by Faith that thou mast not always be dying this accursed death of Hypocrites and Unbelievers and be yet more grievously rack'd with dismal expectations of infinitely worse to come Shall invisible and eternal things over-rule thee as having a present sensation or feeling of their reality Canst thou now and then take a turn in the superiour World as one come to Mount Sion and unto the City of the Living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of Just Men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the Blood of Sprinkling which speaketh better things than that of Abel Heb. 12.22 23 24 What report canst thou give concerning the promised Land of Everlasting Light and Love and Life Hast thou ever been upon the Mount to take a prospect of it What remarkable thing therein has invited thy serious Meditations to take a more strict and narrow view and make it thy perpetual repast and delight Hast thou walked through the breadth and the length thereof in a diligent search and survey to behold the Beauty the Sweetness the Perfection the Glory of the Inhabitants the Employments the Fruits the Enjoyments the Entertainments the Joys and Consolations to be possest there in an unconceivably rich degree of satisfactoriness where there 's an everlasting Spring and an everlasting Harvest of unutterable Pleasure and Contentation Dost thou even now enter upon thy lot and rest there Heb. 4.3 and live upon the riches of that Inheritance making a spiritual livelyhood for thy self out of the abundance and store of Heaven Where are thy Treasures thy Jewels and pleasant things thy most amiable and delectable Companions Seeing him who is invisible Heb. 11.27 Canst thou endure and bear up under the Rage and Violence of a turbulent ill-condition'd World the Reproaches and Scorns of Men the Fury of Devils the Pangs of Affliction and in a calm of sweet composure and rest anchor thy self on the Rock of Ages as thy best security and singular satisfaction Really Faith is all things 't is Wealth in Poverty Health in Sickness a good Report or Name under Defamations Heb. 11.2 Pleasure in Pain Rest in Labour Life in Death a Heaven of Peace and Joy in a Hell of Misery and Torment If thou canst not bless thy self with the solace of a Friend on Earth Faith will acquaint thee with and endear thee to Multitudes in Heaven Although thy Circumstances be as deplorable as thy Redeemers worse than the Birds and Foxes yet thy Faith has for thee a House not made with Hands Eternal Is thy own Country or City too hot for thee this Grace finds for thee a better Country a City that hath Foundations whose Builder and Maker is God Heb. 11.16 By it commit the keeping of thy Soul in well doing to thy Faithful Creator Espouse the ever blessed Jesus embrace the Precepts kiss the Promises Heb. 11.13 and then all 's thine own from the clod under thy Feet to the height and crown of Heavenly Glory For Faith to be a Menaicant is impossible It has all and abounds and is full if it be a full unfeigned Faith A Believer is never in want if he want not Faith the due degree and measure of Faith And the measure effectual and acceptable is not high 't is the Truth rather than Strength A Grain will remove Mountains Mat. 17.20 Make Trees to grow in the midst of the Sea Luke 17.6 Divide the Waters and convert Seas and Rivers into dry Land Heb. 11.20 and make even a Nebuchadnezzar's Hell-hot Furnace of Fire so forget its Property as not to be able to singe a hair Dan. 3.27 compar'd with Heb. 11.33 34. Every thing must be a Rebel against its own Nature and bow to the Omnipotency of Faith that is to the Almightiness of that infinite Nature which is engag'd to and by Faith Oh then my Soul where is thy Faith What is thy Faith CHAP. V. A Fourth Property of the Subject of Comfort Inoffensive Conscience 4. THis Sacred Writer was one that took singular care not to live under the reproach of his own Conscience That herein did exercise himself always to have a Conscience void of Offence towards God and toward Man Act. 24.16 1. What apprehensions he entertain'd of that which is displeasing to God we may judge 1. By his applications to and pleadings with God for Vengeance upon the workers of Iniquity Ver. 1 2 3 4. 2. By his deep sense of the Omnipresence and Omniscience of God which he vehemently urges as a pressing Argument to restrain and awe Men from Sinning ver 8 9 10 11. 3. By his esteeming it a part of Blessedness to learn Righteousness under Divine Chastisements ver 12. 4. By his enmity against Wicked Men which he was so wise and good as not to direct against their Persons as such but only as infected with odious Crimes ver 16. and the whole current of the Psalm 5. By his accounting and acknowledging it a special Mercy to be upheld by God when ready to slip ver 18. which I unnderstand of sliding into Sin * which is argued and proved c. 11. 6. By his deprecating the fellowship of a Throne of Iniquity with God ver 20. The Question there Shall the Throne c. is to be resolv'd into a Negative Proposition It cannot shall not Why What because a Throne No assuredly 't is then the Iniquity that dethrones and hurles it down from Communion with Heaven into Confusion with Hell And ver 23. exposes to a certain and remediless cutting off and ruin This was the Holy Authors sense of Sin in others and can any Man do thus that makes no conscience of dishonouring God by Omissions or Commissions Would a Man of his Condition Understanding and excellent Qualifications prosecute other Mens Crimes with such a height and heat of Enmity and yet be at peace with and palliate his own Arraign Treason in others and allow it in himself Enhaunce Publick Wickedness and hug Personal The aggravations whereof he was more privy to than of any Man 's beside and knew that the Treacheries of a Friend are worse resented than the Violences of an Enemy 'T is his own reasoning Psalm 55.12 13. Would he not with an implacable Vengeance pursue and exterminate every Sin in himself that his own Soul might not become the Butt and Mark for that all-intelligent Vengeance of Heaven which he truly thought did look with such a formidable aspect upon others And if so he must maintain a perpetual jealousie of and watchfulness over both Heart and Ways and make Repentance a daily business prosecuting his Corruptions to the very Death in
would Duel it to Death For whilst I am not affraid of and restrain'd from Sin by the Sanctions of the Law I send a Defiance to the Justice of God and set my self above it trample it under my Feet with drawn Sword drive it before me gasht with innumerable Wounds make a Dish-clout of it For did I believe that there were any such thing indeed as Omnipotent Righteousness to vindicate to the utmost all violations of the Law 't would effectually curb and quell the licentiousness of my Spirit and Actions but whilst it does nothing with me I make nothing of it By not standing in awe of it any more than if it were not in effect I do my utmost endeavour that it be not I take away its being as to my self and as far as in me lies to all the World by making a slight of it How these Attributes Holiness and Justice are the Noblest Life of God his richest Glory which whilst I I rob him of I labour to destroy him Lastly Sin is a Contradiction or Contrafaction rather to Gods Government an opposition to and counteracting his Regality Dominion and Rule over the Rational World Treason Rebellion against the Soveraign Majesty of Heaven Yea any the least Sin is no less One would think that a partly enforced transgressing a Law of God in mere indifferent matter when done with a good intention for a good end were the least of all Sins And such was Saul's sparing the best of the Amalekites Cattle for Sacrifices to God 1 Sam. 15. Saul was but newly settled in his Kingdom and some grumbled at his Government 1 Sam. 10.27 and 11 12. In this not throughly composed state of affairs God commands him to destroy utterly the Sinners the Amalekites and all they had chap. 15.3 But he for fear of the Peopel ver 24. i. e. least they should be discontented with him and upon his not hearkning to them ver 24. obeying their Voice be alienated from him and his Government as a Man of a stubborn inflexible Spirit and uncounsellable spared the best of the Cattle for Sacrifices to God ver 15. A good and laudable end had it otherwise been duly circumstantiated Yet this God calls Rebellion ver 23. and equalls it with the most horrid Crimes Witchcraft and Idolatry and punishes it with the utter rejection of Saul and his House from the Kingdom 1 Sam. 20.17 18. Now Rebellion is Treason to our power destroying the Soveraignty of God therefore his Being and Life But an attempt against the Life of God is an Evil astonishingly great and hainous For 1. 'T is in effect a hurling the whole Creation into Ruin and Confusion because it cannot possibly subsist a Moment without him But 2. And especially 't is a vertual annihilation of God himself i. e. of Infinite Perfection and to design nay to effect the destruction of all Created Nature is nothing in comparison of acting toward the destruction of the Diety For to him the whole World is as nothing all Nations but as the drop of a Bucket and the light small dust of the Balance Isa 40.15 The World being but finite to Murther and Ruin all of it intirely Angels Men Brutes Inanimates would but be a finite Evil. But God being an Infinite Nature a vertual destroying him must needs be an Evil vertually infinite and 't is but Justice to proportion Punishments to Crimes especially where the only saving Remedy of infinite value is contemned which is another act of God-slaughter or Murther The Holy Ghost therefore calls it a Crucifying afresh the Son of God and putting him to open shame Heb. 6.6 And which comprehends yet more Indignity a treading under Foot the Son of God and accounting the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he or rather it viz. the Covenant was Sanctified See Heb. 9.18 19 20 22 23. a common translated unholy thing and doing despite to the Spirit of Grace Heb. 10.29 Wilt thou not then Oh my Soul dislike disavow relinquish detest and abhor this greatest of Evils for God's sake whom it so highly affronts and offends Shall any of this abominable cursed thing cleave unto thee And wilt thou in Affection adhere to it Oh let the honourable Respect and Veneration thou bearest to that ever adorable infinite Nature which thou unconceivably wrongest by every Sin prevail with and overcome thee to a willingness to debase and loath thy self for that Evil that only Evil Ezek. 7.5 Evil beyond all superlative even to an Hyperbole Rom. 7 13. How canst thou do less than prosecute with an indignant and implacable Malice those base sensual desires which have glu'd thee to the present dreggy dirty Dunghil Contentments of a vain ensnaring turbulent vexatious defiling World and diverted to a sordid wallowing in the nasty puddle and sink of all Moral Pollutions those noble Faculties which were formed by God to ascend above all Visibles and ravish themselves with the view and fruition of his own incomprehensible Glories Oh Folly and Frenzy not to be parallel'd or equal'd by all the Bedlams upon Earth to prefer the Devil and Hell before God and Heaven Thou art destitute of all Sense Reason and Shame if it do not cut thee to the Heart bleed out at thy Eyes blush in thy Face and groan in thy Conscience Wilt thou then Oh my Soul in sincerity love thy Maker who is infinitely worthy to beloved Wilt thou from that Principle engage thy self to the utmost against every thing which he hates Shall he to whom thou owest thy Being Beauty Hopes and Happyness have that interest in thee as to over-rule all thy inward-Motions and byas them into a course perfectly contrary to that wherein they naturally run and convert all thy Powers into Irascibles or passionate yet rational Combatants against those implacable Adversaries of the Divine and Humane Nature which turn the World upside down and will ere long bury it in Ashes and Ruins Oh my Soul What is there in thy Lusts thut thou canst Love What in thy Sin that merits not a Vatinian hate Is it not all Filth Poyson Curse Hell What in a thing of so pestilent a Nature can bewitch thee to dote upon it Why must that which is worse than all the Devils in the Regions of Infernal Darkness be advanced above thy Self Vertue Peace Comfort Christ and Celestial Glory Are thy reasonable Powers so abominably seduc'd and abus'd by false and fallacious Shadows and Phantasms as to represent that in the dress of Heaven which is the very deformity foam and venom of those dark Mansions of Horrour Would any Man in his Wits ever chuse and embrace those poysonful Toads and Vipers to lie next his Heart and be warm in his very inmost Affections which to his in tolerable anguish and woe will be gnawing out his very Bowels for ever and not intermit those torturings for a moment but augment them gradually to the uttermost But alas this is only an Evil to thy self a poor mean
Holy Penman would not have born up himself in Conscience of Innocence with respect either to God or Man had he harboured any designs to usurp the proper Honour of the God of Revenges in seeking by Violence to right himself against that Throne of Iniquity which even by a Law endeavoured to do him manifest wrong So Sacred is the Majesty of a Prince that a good Conscience cannot be maintain'd in affronting it though it act Unrighteously much less when it acts righteously under an absolute and unlimited Monarchy There 's no relief on Earth against a Throne though of Iniquity From its unjust Judgment we have with the Psalmist liberty of Appeal to Heaven but to attempt otherways is a manifest violation of the Rights both of God and Man Of God by invading his Property Of the King for who made thee his Judge and set thee above him Let the Supreme Monarch that rules be what he will Just or Unjust Jew or Heathen or Turk or Papist or Protestant true Worshiper or Idolater Christian Antichristian Religious Irreligious Holy or Wicked I find not any Warrant either in the Word of God from Precept or Example nor in any Ancient Father not in any approved Protestant Writer for any Private Persons or Society of such to oppose him by Violence but the quite contrary Calvin I know is charg'd with Antimonarchical Principles but how justly will appear to any serious Considerer of that last Chapter of his Institutions where § 7. sub fin he says The Government of one which least pleased the Great Wits of Old is commended by an eximious Testimony of God above the rest And § 8. permits not private Men to dispute which is best And though he upon some accounts like Aristocracy or a temper of that and Polity as best Yet saith Non id quidem per se Not of it self But because Kings rarely moderate themselves c. which plainly intimates that he judged Monarchy the best in it self though Monarchs not always the best Yet whatever be less eligible ex vitio personarum he will not allow so much as the desire of a change in the Government set over us by God but condemns it as Foolish Needless and Noxious Non modo stulta erit supervacua sed prorsus noxi◠etiam cogitatio And how strict he is in requiring Subjection even to Tyrannical Princes See § 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31. which would be too tedious to transcribe That which some pick out to snarl at in the end of § 31. De privatis hominibus semper loquor Nam siqui nunc sint c. as though he allow'd the three States to resist the King This cannot be concluded from his Words which are Hypothetical limited with a Forte and 't is but pro officio intercedere and they are only Persons qui se Dei ordinatione libertatis tutores positos norunt which he does not forbid non veto And let any Man of sence judge whether this be a true or false Proposition Those Persons who know themselves ordain'd of God to be Guardians of Peoples Liberties ought to interceed according to the tenor of their Office with ferocient Princes in the Peoples behalf and not connive at their Oppressions To make pro Officio contra Officium suum is wise Interpretation but since he confines them within the boundaries of their Office or Duty he must be a very Spider indeed that can such Poyson out of it But that may seem more important which we find here ver 16. He demands Who will rise up for me c. Whatever he meant doubtless he judg'd it consistent with Innocency and a good Conscience To clear which 1. The Hebrew to a Word runs thus Who will rise to me with the Evil Doers Who will stand to me with the Workers of Iniquity Now make what you can of it for the Doctrine of opposing Princes Admit that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be Translated For me or in my behalf as 't is Gen. 23.8 c. Yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not import Opposition and Contrariety but Conjunction and Association being of the kindred of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 People And 't is not that I remember any where in the Bible beside translated against In all places where the Holy Ghost would signifie the Enmity or Contrariety of Persons or things another Preposition is used either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to select one place of Multitudes because very like the Phrase here Psal 34.16 The Face of the LORD is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against them that do evil c. Or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to look no farther than this Psalm and but two Verses below my Text ver 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They troop against the Soul of the Just 'T is not sure for nothing that the Spirit of God here lays aside the usual manner of expressing himself The reason is above our reach But may not this account bid fair toward a Probability That possibly some Persons were with Saul and his Pertakers from whom the Psalmist had reason to expect better things than from those who were his profest Enemies The sense then will be Which of you all that being born down with the stream of the times associate with ill Men will now rise and stand for me to interpose and speak in my behalf as once did the truly noble Jonathan a Friend incomparable 2. The end for which he expected they should rise and stand up is not express'd in that Verse but the next has it express a help Vnless the LORD supply out of the former Verse had risen or stood a help to me c. For since those Words will make good sense why should aliene be inserted Therefore on the other hand make up the former Verse by adding that out of this which was the end of their expected rising and standing and 't is thus Who will rise or stand a help to me with evil Doers c. Now consider the quality of this help he expected was it Forcible Violent Vengeful by Arms and Bloodshed No this Psalm repudiates it in his appeals to the God of Revenges And 1 Sam. 24.12 13. and 26.8 9 10 11 16 23. He disclaims and abhors it as sinful urgently dehorts from it and rebukes the temptation to it when irritated by his Followers and invited by a fair opportunity and plansible argument Behold the day of the which the LORD said unto thee Behold I will deliver thine Enemy into thy hand that thou mayst do to him as shall seem good unto thee It was then Moral help that he expected Help by Counsel and Perswasion not by Power and Compulsion Such as he had from God which was not a coactive but a gentle rational and unforcible bowing the wills of Adversaries to desist God did not constrain but incline the Mind and Heart of Saul to cease the pursuit at Selah Hammalekoth 1 Sam. 23.26 27 28. To leave him untoucht and
Pet 2.4 To love thy self into Sobriety or Prudent self Government to cloath thy self with a Robe of Righteousness and Mercy in thy dealings with Men is not enough is not the full and adequate Doctrine and Duty taught by the Grace of God which brings Salvation Titus 2.11 There must be superadded not only a denying Vngodliness so as to crucifie it but a living Godly leading a Religious Life towards God in Love Faith Fear Honour Universal Acknowledgment out of Conscience For what Conscience in dealing well with Men and ill with God that is with the Subjects fairly and not with the Soveraign What Conscience in breaking the first Article betwixt God and Man which is to give him the sole command in his House thy Heart that living Temple which is the sum of the First Commandment What Conscience to dwell in his House and pay him no Rent No external Acknowledgment and Worship in Publick in thy Family in thy Closet the sum of the Second Command What Conscience whilst tender of thy own Name to be regardless of Gods forbid in the Third Command What Conscience in stealing time from God's reserved part when he allows thee so much beside the Fourth Command violated Be never so sober just free kind to Man-ward if thou respect not God O my Soul thou hast no Conscience For where there 's no Godliness there can be no Conscience Oh make it thy first and main business to approve thy self to God Thou canst never be true to thy self or Man if thou be a Traytor to God Thou hast no greater assistance in thy dutifulness to Men than a due regardfulness of God Thou canst have no better evidence of a due regardfulness of God than thy conscientious dutifulness to Men. Thou forfeit'st the reputation of thy Religiousness towards God if thou be not Righteous towards Man and of thy Righteousness if not Religious Like Hippocrates's Twins these are born and act and sicken and die together That 's the 4th ingredient of the Psalmist's Character he upheld universal Innocency and Integrity of Conscience CHAP. VII The Subject of Comfort Publickly Spirited c. True Christianity c. 5. THis Holy Man was of a Publick Spirit living under a Catholick sence of and care for the common concerns of the Church of God Lamenting its Miseries ver 5 6. longing and praying for its redemption from them by the Power and Justice of God ver 1 2 3 4 20. and encouraging his own and its hopes thereof by a serious reflection upon the Divine Attributes ver 1 2 8 9 10 11. Providences ver 12 13. and his own particular experience ver 17 18 19 21. withal by a Prophetick Spirit foretelling it ver 14 15 23. all which are plain in the Psalm and plain demonstrations of a Heart enlarged in its desires and endeavours for Publick Good A good Soul is not well at ease when the Servants of God are ill at ease The Sufferings of the Church are made its own by a sympathizing Spirit which is afflicted in all its Afflictions and cannot enjoy Prosperity or it self in Contentation when God's Children are groaning under the Cross Mourns with Mourning Rejoyces with rejoycing Sion and uses its interest in Heaven to work upon the Bowels of the ever-blessed Son of God that he may demonstrate his tender Commiserations toward his own Members in Misery by turning the course of his Providence And that this is a proper method to Comfort we see Isai 66.10 11. Rejoyce ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her all ye that love her rejoyee for joy with her all ye that mourn for her that ye may suck and be satisfied with the Breasts of her Consolations that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her Glory God had a People a Heritage which though Afflicted and broken in pieces here ver 5. yet he would not cast off nor forsake either in respect of Affection or Communion ver 14. So neither must we For 't is by Vertue of our Union and Communion with that Body and its Head that all those comfortable Spirits and Influences are derived to us which refresh and revive us I confess 't is through our internal and spiritual Confederation and Fellowship but he that values and receives benefit by this cannot despise and vilifie the External Hence our Psalmist here as a Member vitally joined to the Body and partaking of a common Sense does not only comfort himself and it with the consideration of the inviolableness of that Union and Communion which was of a spiritual Nature ver 14. nor only reflects upon those external Ligaments and Bonds which ty'd together so numerous a People into one single Heritage or Church but also was grievously afflicted for those external breakings in pieces rents and disunion of parts though involuntary which were the fruit of the outward Violence and Rage of Persecutors So should we But then Oh what Affliction would have rent his tender Heart in the view of those voluntary tearing in pieces the Seamless Coat of Christ the Divisions and Breaches we make amongst our selves Those Fractions were only some kind of dissolution of their Civil Political Union ours of the Ecclesiastical and Wounds are most dangerous in the most noble Parts State Factions are not more to be dreaded than those of the Church because these have more immediate respect to the Soul and God Lamentable are the Miseries of a Civil War where Thousands Born Bred up Nourished by one common Mother Brethren by Stock Blood Condition Cohabitation Membership of the same Body Politick perhaps of one Name and Kindred and Family of the same Body Mystical the Church Blind and Dumb and Deaf to the Cries and Shreeks and Wounds and Groans and Deaths of their own proper Limbs in a barbarous drunken rage tear off their own Skin Flesh and Bones rive open their very Hearts to let out Spirit Life Strength Soul hurl one another down to Hell under their Sin in a deluge of Blood and worry themselves by piece-meal into eternal Damnation And are the Church Digladiations in the Christian World less deplorable when those whose respite from everlasting Burnings cost no less than the Blood of God who are denominated from that most venerable Name wash'd in the same Laver of Regeneration Members of the same Spiritual Body privileged with the same most excellent Gospel and Covenants of Promise and would every one be ready to tear out his Heart that should dare to tell them that they shall not each possess the blessedness of an unspeakably glorious Heaven where therefore as in a Center they must meet if their hopes fail not When these I say who thus concenter and agree in their Titles Royalties and Expectations are so far from combining in the common profession and practice of Unity Love Peace Goodness Vertue Godliness Brotherly kindness Charity as to grind one another into Atoms bite and devour one anothers Hearts by bloody Animosities Reproaches
a serious upright undissembled Resolution to stand to it and abide by it in despight of all Temptations and Opposition thro the aid and assistance of the Spirit of Grace praying waiting in Faith and Hope to enjoy his Gracious Influences leading into all Truth that by it he may be made free formed after the image of God by his Grace strengthened with all might inwardly and revived by his Consolations A Man that in order to all these good Ends diligently examines his Conscience searches out his particular sins is afflicted burthened at his very Soul for them as an Offence to God rather than his own Damage uses all possible means to prevail with his Heart to relinquish them in its affections forbearing actually to commit them lamenting over and reforming sinful Omissions groans under and is daily pained with the woful depravedness of his Nature his very inward Bent and Inclination to Evil the Vanity as well as Vileness of his thoughts words and deeds accounting himself the Chief of Sinners and therefore maintaining an humble self-debasing Sense of his own Unworthiness and labours not only to desist from the Acts but subdue the very Lusts kill the root by mortification A Man who lives by Faith upon the Promises for the Communication of a Divine Nature the Law in the Heart that he may not only do the External Work of Duty but have a Dutiful Heart from and through which Principle he meditates hears reads praises confers about the best things as inwardly loathing the froath and vanity and venome of his former Communication and endeavours that it may be alway savoury season'd with salt that it may administer to the use of edifying minister Grace to the Hearers A Man that endeavours a right Understanding of himself is Cloath'd with Humility in lowliness of mind dehasing himself before God preferring others before himself and condescending to men of low degree and esteeming his own Graces less his Sins greater than any mans admiring that either God or man should favour him and therefore with a calm dispassionate Spirit bears Injuries Affronts Reproaches any Evils that extend to himself but can bear nothing with Unconcernedness that affronts the Divine Majesty hath a Bridle for his Tongue for his Heart and with a composed Evenness of Temper renders his Converses amiable profitable desireable to all grievous hurtful to none In all Conditions Companies or Occurrences prosperous or adverse being the same An ill turn will make him a Friend as Cranmer and the worse the Circumstances the better the Man living under the power of the Spirit of Sanctification in Obedience Meekness Patience Gentleness Simplicity godly Sincerity A Man that can bear Indignities from all forbear offering them to any keeping under his Passions even almost to an Apathy keeping down his carnal Appetite in a sober temperate use of the Pleasures of Sense and an Indifferency to this present World A Man that sets his Mind and Heart savourily upon Invisibles which he evidences by a Conversation in Heaven and values the Wealth and Glory of the Earth only as they deserve and as far as useful for God's Honour in Acts of Piety the Relief of the Indigent in liberality and the maintenance of the Reputation of his Profession with Contentment embracing the least share of the World but unsatisfiable without a large Portion of God and Heaven A Man that walks in his house with a perfect heart putting away Evil from his Tabernacle and advancing Holiness in his own Relations especially to whom he is useful both by Counsel and Example A Man that dares not do or design or imagine any thing unjust dishonest unbecoming Christianity tho' it might gain Indemnity for his Life Uprightness Loyalty Honesty Fidelity in all Promises Dealings Carriage are his Life therefore will he not forfeit and destroy it by contrary Practices A man that has the fairest Notices of Divine particular Love to himself yet will not abuse them to Presumption or Arrogance and Contempt of others that values the favour of Heaven infinitely above the Glory Esteem Riches Pleasures of the World but despises not these as the Gifts of God Yet does not behave himself unseemly when in the higest Repute with Man Alway his Thoughts beget his Words and his Word is his Deed and a good Conscience the Guide of all A man truly faithful to God and his Sovereign the King Modesty Gravity Seriousness Industry Clemency Sedateness of Spirit Peace of Mind being his Individual Companions and Ornaments Yet knows he nothing of those natural or acquired moral or spiritual Endowments that may recommend him to God and Man so as to swell and huff up his Heart he has them as if he had them not A Man that lives in the view of Death and therefore dreads it not whence 't is that whatever he hath or doth or feels or fears or suffers 't is as a dying Man and he therein possesses himself and God in Tranquility of Mind and a quiet Rest and Contentation He would be to others what he expects they and God will be to him Chiefly minds the weightiest Points of Religion in Faith Love Mercy Righteousness Yet having done all esteems himself an unuseful Vessel unworthy regard as having only done Duty and but a small degree of that neither therefore finally flies for Refuge to the love of God and deservings of Christ as the sole bottom of his hopes to be saved This is a Christian of whatever particular Denomination Prelatical Presbyterian Congregational c. All Persons all Societies of Persons thus qualified thou art obliged O my Soul to respect honour embrace do good unto or thou renouncest thy Membership and Fellowship with Christ and his Body Where-ever all the Essentials of this Christianity are received without such intermingled Corruptions as undermine or destroy them so insisted upon that without violation of Conscience and so Christianity thou canst not own them there impart thy best Affections thither direct thy serious and religious Cares and to all how bad soever how hostile soever thy Commiserations I cannot Communicate with an Idolater c. yet I can pity him and every poor deluded Soul that either presumptuously or in simplicity is carryed away from God For I my self am a Sinner and stand in infinite need of the Compassions both of GOD and Man Love Vnity Peace are Matters of so excellent a Nature Uncharitableness Schism Dissention contain so much of Hell that these are to be relinquish'd those pursu'd all possible ways consistent with integrity of Conscience that is consistent with Allegiance to God For Conscience is nothing except in Subordination and Allegiance to God CHAP. VIII The Subject of Comfort Honours God 's Discipline 6. THE Author of his Psalm was a Man that embrac'd a just and equitable Sense and made a benign and fair Representation of both the Instructive Discipline and also the Dispensations of God his special Teachings his severe Providences Ver. 12. Oh the Blessednesses Vocatively
every though never so fortuitous an effect of a spontaneous Agent to look at God I 'll not instance in other than David And 1. for evil Events As he intimates a possibility of Saul's being excited against him by God 1 Sam. 26.19 and was foretold that the Lord would raise up evil against him out of his own House and take his Wives and give them to Absalom under the notion of his Neighbour 2 Sam. 12.11 So even when he was cursed by Shimei he owns it as from God 2 Sam. 16.10 Not that he supposed God had a hand in the sin of the Act but order'd it as a part of the punishment threatned for his own Sin 2. Good Events of all kinds he more frequently ascribes to God Does he conquer his Enemies 'T is the Lord that lets him see his desire upon them Psal 59.10 and subdueth the People under him Psal 18.47 48. See the whole Psalm and smites his Enemies in their hinder parts Psal 78.66 Do his Friends own and anoint and crown him King He entitles God to it Psal 21.3 When his Father and Mother forsake him the Lord takes him up Psal 27.10 Is he secur'd in a strong City 'T is the Lord's marvellous kindness Psal 31.21 What do I enumerating Particulars every Psalm is an Instance And indeed were it not so Prayer would be mere Mockery and Praise Hypocrisie Epist 31. and that of Seneca would be better Divinity than we are taught by the Scriptures which yet to suppose is most horridly Blasphemous Per maxima acto viro turpe est etiamnum Deos fagitare Quid votis opus est Facte ipse foelicem Let those English it that allow it Now when a Man does thus in all Events take notice of the Finger of God and thereby give him the glory of his Efficiency he is in a disposition for renewed Experiments of the Divine Power and Goodness in Peace and Joy Where the Glory will be given to God he will grant the fullest and sweetest tasts of his Graciousness But who will lose a Benefit 'T is lost where no likelyhood of any grateful Acknowledgement Unthankfulness is the most hateful of Sins Ingratum si dixeris omnia dixeris If God must not reap Praises he will not sow Mercies Not that he needs our Gratitude but that we must own our Benefactor and testifie our advances in Love when by new Instances he testifies his Love to us Nevertheless this Love of ours is not profitable to God but highly as all other Graces to our selves Our own Advantage and Interest is alway at the bottom of our Duty which indeed can add nothing to God Job 34. is nothing to him as neither can our Iniquity detract from him or hurt him His good will towards us moves him to take care that it may be well with us therefore doth he follow us with his tender Mercies and richest Blessings that we may proceed upon ingenuous Motives in our observance of him and obedience to him and may not be obnoxious to the check of Satan or our own Consciences for servility of Spirit in that work wherein consists our Liberty Honour and Happiness Indeed we are not really good if we be not ingenuously good nor act at all for God if we act not from a filial disposition Love is every Grace and Virtue that Spirit of Life which as an universal Cause diffuses its benign animating Influences through all the Regions of true Goodness and Honesty All in us that lives to God every holy Disposition every gracious Habit is only a distinct particular modification of Love Even as the varieties of Nature in those innumerable differences of Plants sensitive Creatures and Men in their Bodies are but Earthly Particles diversly modified formed fashioned and qualified Hence Love is said to be the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 But without Love to be Good is impossible 1 Cor. 13. Where this Grace dwells God dwells also and the Soul inspirited by it dwells in God 1 Joh. 4.8 16. The more of Love therefore the more of God He will never be out of our Eye if he be thus in our Hearts Love there will command our Looks 'T was the dominion of this Grace in his Soul that mov'd the Psalmist to make such honourable mention here of the Love and Graciousness of God in his aid and sustentation 't was this that in his distress inclin'd him to take Sanctuary in God and own all the Spiritual Refreshments that solaced his Heart as derivations from God and engaged him to devolve all the Glory thereof upon God And how should that Soul do other that has all in God Hast thou then Oh my Soul evermore and in every occurrent an Eye toward Heaven and by thy acknowledgement of the Finger of God in every thing that befalls thee Dost thou honour his Providence indeavour to relish his Goodness and make some progress in thine affectionate pantings after him complacency in him resolution for him and dutifulness to him O let every thing remind thee of his everlasting Commiseration that in thy lost Estate remembred thee gave Blood for thy Ransom the Blood of God Acts 20.28 The time of thy lothing was the time of his Love Eze. 16.5 8. He loved thee out of the Pit of Corruption Isa 38.17 He hath prevented thee with the Blessings of Goodness Psal 21.3 He redeemeth thy Life from Destruction and crowneth thee with loving Kindness and tender Mercies Psal 103.4 He hath not dealt with thee after thy Sins nor rewarded thee according to thy Iniquities ver 10. Therefore ver 1 2. Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me Bless his Holy Name Bless the Lord Oh my Soul and forget not all his Benefits Hallelujah CHAP. X. The Subject of Comfort Seeks it solely in God THus much of the Character deduced from the Context there only remains one thing out of the Text it self Viz. The Psalmist was a Man who discern'd such an emptiness and insufficiency in all inferiour Contentments as to seek no relief from them nor take up with any in them as his rest in Trouble but in deepest anxiety and distress did look for and find all his comfort solely in and from God This is the very substance and marrow of the Verse Indeed the whole Psalm is a Testimony of his ceasing from the Creature from Man in a believing and affectionate recourse to God Where-ever he cast his Eye upon Earth the Inscription was Vanity and Vexation A deluge of Sin and Misery covered the World that like Noah's Dove he could find no rest for the sole of his Foot below therefore does he direct his course toward Heaven Thus Psal 55.6 Oh that I had wings like a Dove for then I would flee away and be at rest But Rest is not a Denizen of this World Nothing but the Heaven of Heavens is at rest and here does he fix only There was a Windy Storm and Tempest without as Psal 55.8
form Isa 6.6 Heb. 4.14 Hence may it not be inferr'd that the framing Fire in which Christ appears will be so far from being hurtful painful to his and their glorified Bodies as to be an object of special Sensitive Delectation and cause a pleasurable refreshment wonderfully grateful to those Celestial Natures which shall dwell for ever in and be cloathed with the Eternal Light of Heaven That if it were possible for a glorified Saint to be hurried into the material Fire of Hell 't would not be hurt or for a Damned Wretch to be led through Heaven the Light thereof to him would be tormenting Fire But this I leave in Medio as a Speculation perhaps too curious I question not but that the Almightiness of God which is engaged to promote to the utmost the happiness of the Saints can make those things that now to the Body are most painful to be then most pleasureful that even in its Physical Constitution as well as Moral it shall be delighted with that which is distastful in this Life if it be not sinful And possibly Adam's Body in its Primitive Innocent Estate of Creation might be of the same Constitution invulnerable incombustible c. as far as was requisite to his security from Death For I cannot so much as implicitly impute such Collusion to the Divine Majesty as to imagine that he only threat ned that as a Punishment of his Sin which was the condition and necessity of his Nature Neither will I deny that the Tree of Life was a Sacrament of Immortality But conceive that nor he nor it could be ubiquitary or inseparable nor do I think that the Deity obliged himself to a Providence respecting innocent Mankind which would have been a perpetual series of Miracles since 't was as easie with God to make Impassibility an amissible Condition of this Nature as Immortality But I am not Determinate here neither However the Elevated Sense of that Immortal State above will be abundantly pleasured with Super-natural and Super-sensual Gratifications in the Jucundity Profitableness and Honour of Heaven the vain and empty Shadows whereof engage it in endless Pursuits during this its Degenerate state on Earth The Generosity and Nobleness thereof will be so Transcendent that it cannot but entertain with Indignation Scorn and Horror all imaginable Solicitations to any thing sinfully Delightful Commodious and vain Glorious Every thing to it being as it self Sublimated into a Spiritual and Celestial Nature that it enjoys the sweet of all without the sowr in an unfading Quintessence of most exquisitely delicious Contentments where although there can never be any troubled Thoughts yet may we ever sing Thy Comforts Oh Lord delight my Soul Then Oh my Soul delight thou thy self in and with them alone and not meerly as in the Streams but in the Well-spring it self Own God in every inferiour means but rest no where except in God Oh do not in a pompous Dress of Shadowy delusory Satisfactions cheat thy self into substantial Miseries Secure to thy self something of a solid durable Nature by making the son of God Jesus Christ thy sure and everlasting Foundation that being strongly built upon the Rock when the Rain descends and the Floods come and the Winds blow and beat upon thee thy Comforts may not perish with thee And Phil. 4.7 The Peace of God which transcends or passes all mind or understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall watchfully guard or keep as with a Garrison 2 Cor. 11.32 thy heart and the devices thoughts of thy mind through Christ Jesus Must God be all in that Eternal Heaven after which thou aspirest and is there enough in him to satiate the most raised and sublime Desires of the Spirits of just Men made perfect and even the Angels those more Noble and Capacious Creatures Nay is there an all-sufficiency in him Commensurate to his own infinite Love in all the possibilities of its Perfection And canst not thou Oh my Soul fill thy self to the brim and measure out a Satisfaction more than adaequate to thy Rational Appetite in that unmeasurable fulness which comprehends the eminency and glory of all things If Infiniteness cannot overfill thee a poor Worm a little Atome of that which in comparison of him is less than nothing Isa 40.17 then mayst thou with some Shadow of reason attempt to eek out thy content with the Accumulation of other things But since there is in God all that good Vertually Unitedly and Transcendently as in a common Store-House and Treasury and that without the rebatement and allay of any the least commixtures of Evil Vanity or Imperfection which stain the Glory of all those dispersed Excellencies in the Creation that thy most unboundable desires in all their conceivable Varieties can court or make Suit unto and whatever thy longings reach out after thou mayest enjoy it cheaper and better in God than any where and since beside all this there is an unfathomable Surplusage of proper Excellency and Glory in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Maximus Tyrius calls the Deity Immense Ocean of all Goodness which has been is and will be his own and the whole Superiour Worlds Everlasting Contentation And since he declares his ready willingness to communicate and impart of all this unto thee not only what thine own Rational Consideration but even what his own unmatchable Love and Graciousness can make thee willing to receive thou canst not but be altogether inexcusable if thou goest about to patch up an evanid and delusory Felicity to thy self out of those cast-away Shreds and Rags of the inferiour Creation which are not sufficient for themselves but will be fatally disappointing to thee and frustrate thy most Solicitous Expectations whilst in the mean time thou sottishly and frantickly defraudest thy self of that plenary Satisfaction and Joy which is tendered to thee by and in God both on Earth to raise and quicken thy devout and active Suspirations and in the Heaven of Heavens to terminate and perfect them in an Everlasting Fruition Here then only Oh my Soul build thy Tabernacle Is it not good to be here Where thy Faith it self shall be converted into Sense Sight and Taste in a never ending Possession of what Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath entred into the Heart of Man to conceive Thou art allowed to eye and enjoy God in the Creature obliged to make all sensitive Contents which thou mayest lawfully or sinlessly receive from the Creature as so many steps to mount upon and ascend towards the Spiritual Contents of Heaven necessitated to use every good thing below as a Remembrancer to thee of its Perfection in God that it may blow up thy passionate Aspirations into a more vehement and inextinguishable Flame and Ardour toward him In all things thou mayst taste that the Lord is Gracious and enjoy sweet and comfortable Prelibations of Heaven This is thy privilege But on the other hand thou art prohibited to make a God of this World
and Sacrifice the Creature to thy Sense or Sensuality To be happy in Exteriour Things relatively to God making a Deference to him whenever that which he hath shed abroad of his Goodness upon them meets with thine Appetite in any agreeable Harmony is a part of Happiness indulged to Mortality but to hunt after Sensitive Pleasure for pleasures sake and Profits for profits sake and Honours for honours sake taking up an absolute Rest in them as if the ultimate end of Life and advancing them to a Competition with if not Preference before all-sufficient Goodness this is the greatest Debauchery of Humane Nature a step of Degeneracy below the Diabolical For though the Temperament of this admit of some hot and dry fiery and aery Sins as Pride Revenge Malice c. yet does it not of all the Four Elements of Sensuality Fiery Lust Aery Ambition Watery Drunkenness and Earthy Covetousness against which Oh my Soul it concerns thee to Fortifie and Arm thy self with the contrary Elements of Godliness viz. Watery Repentance Earthy Humility Fiery Zeal and Love Aery or Aethereal Hope and Heavenly Mindedness and that which as the Heavens is the Magistery and Quintessence of all Faith Vnfeigned This is the Grace which will carry thee aloft above all restless Visibles and possess thee of an Everlasting Sabbatisme and Rest in the Invisible God through the ever Blessed Jesus Oh therefore take heed of changing the Truth of God into a Lye worshipping and serving the Creature more than the Creator who is Blessed for ever Amen Rom. 1.25 Let thy sweetest Enjoyments be so far from creating an Acquiessence and Cessation of those ever active Desires which nothing but Infiniteness can satiate as to envigorate and heighten their Motions toward that Supreme and Soveraign Goodness where as in a Center yet Uncircumscribed Unlimited all the Rays of inferiour Excellency meet all the unquiet Pulsations and Palpitations of troubled Hearts are terminated in a perpetual and inviolable Stability and Rest Cease from the Creature Man thy self and be fill'd with God The Divine Majesty cannot with patience endure to be cast in the Balance with Vanity 't is a high affront and disparagement And what is it that in thy Appetite doth so oft Counter-balance the Felicity to be enjoy'd in him Behold and Judge The whole Earth is but as an invisible indivisible Point to the Heavens What is it then to God And what a point of this Point do the most Potent scramble for And how unspeakably less still is the utmost possibility of thy Quantum But then again how large may thine Empire be in thine own mind if God be Soveraign there How unbounded thy Lot in the Jerusalem that is above How Unfathomable Incomprehensible Unlimitable Inestimable Incomparable thy Portion in God If thy undervaluing it and over-valuing that which deserves not to be nam'd the same Day Age Eternity with it do not forfeit it Here thy mind shall be not only Illuminated but Invested Cloathed with the Sun of substantial Wisdom and Truth thy Will and Appetite dwell in the very affluence and fulness of unboundable and everlasting Love Goodness and Righteousness thy Heart even overwhelmed with a perpetual Torrent and Inundation of Prosperity Peace and Joy unspeakable and full of Glory in the Fountain of all Perfection the One only God in Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost to whom be Majesty Dominion Adoration Blessing and Praise in the Church and thee Oh my Soul throughout all Ages World without end Amen Thus far the Character CHAP. XI The Nature and Quality of the Psalmist's Thoughts 2. I Have obliged my self next to give some account of the Thoughts the excellent Pen-man of this Psalm thus decyphered was cumbred with under which he could find no redress on this side Heaven In this Inquiry we shall gain little assistance from the proper signification of the Original Word It is but by guess that Interpreters render it Thoughts no necessity from either the Word it self or the scope of the two places where 't is used here and Psal 139.23 does determine it for Thoughts properly so call'd any more than other Actings of the Soul Of the Inclinations of the Affections of the Will it may be understood as well as the Mind and its Motions Any thing proceeding from any of the Faculties and Powers of the Soul that resembles the Branchings of a Tree whether it appertain to the Head or Heart or both may be included in the sense of it Therefore we must not exclude any thing within deny no workings either of Understanding or Appetite or Conscience to appertain to the meaning of the Word But since the Translation confines us to Thoughts and the Original inforces no sense but what relates to the Physical quality of such like operations of the Mind in general which resemble the Ramifications or spreading dividing Branches of a Tree whereas 't is their moral Nature we are chiefly concern'd about in this disquisition hence are we again put upon a search into the Context and Scope of the Psalm and the Psalmist's present case that we may obtain a more clear and distinct Idaea of them Now I take it for granted that in some part or other of the Psalm these Thoughts are exprest in Words or at least plainly imply'd and hinted Therefore shall I survey it as impartially as may be to find them out and not clog my Discourse with Impertinencies 1. In General The Thoughts were such as in their Nature did enforce a necessity of Comfort and that from God himself as the Text evinces There seem to be insinuated a contrariety betwixt his Thoughts and Comforts that the latter were absolutely needful to antidote the former Had they been good and delightful cogitations they would have carried a spring of Satisfaction in their own Bowels Had they been sinfully evil he would not have said IN the multitude c. which supposes a continuance of the Thoughts even whilst the Comforts were apply'd as a remedy to remove the Malignity of them But sinful Thoughts are not to be oppos'd with Comforts that will permit them to continue but with Contrition Repentance Grace Conversision Holy Thoughts which will immediately eject and discontinue them Yet may I admit that the Thoughts might be such as were occasion'd by Sin Sin might be the object of some of them the cause of others yet the form of none They were without all peradventure Uncomfortable Undelightful Unpleasing Thoughts therefore does he derive his Comforts from another Sourse and Spring His Thoughts though a broad spreading Tree with multitudes of Branches yet did not bear a dram of this Fruit. No he never looks for it there but steps into Paradise and takes it from the Tree of Life Thy Comforts We therefore will suppose that they were not such as did corrupt his Mind but disquiet it sinless they were but saddening they induced no guilt but only Grief they did not avert his Mind from God
Spiritual we should in like manner be dog'd and pursu'd with their implacable Malice in our separate and immortal State and be desperate of succour and deliverance from that Eternal Erynnis those innumerable Legions of ever torturing Furies that would be let loose upon us to lash and sting us with the utmost of their virulent Indignation For how should the Deity relieve us if he know nothing of us 'T is therefore the highest Interest of real goodness that there is a God of Vnlimitable Intelligence and Love to supervise and care for us that no Evils can be imagin'd against us in the most dark and secret recesses of Hell much less on Earth but are to him as visible as though Writ or Graven in the Roof of Heaven by the Finger of God in Letters formed all of Suns or Stars and he is replenish'd with that Wisdom and Graciousness which both knows how is perfectly willing and effectually engag'd to counteract them But as this and the other Three so all the Sins of the Wicked are a bitter Grief to a good Soul Whence David Psal 119.136 Rivers of Tears run down mine eyes because they keep not thy Law Be their Sins only Omissions which in the Estimate of the World are of a lighter Nature though not in the account of God and an Illuminated Conscience yet will they be grievous to those that love the Lord and his Laws And 't is a good token of Integrity when the Sins of others are a burden Self may engage a Man against his own Sins but if the wickedness of those we have no concern with deeply affect our Hearts 't is an Evidence we are acted by the Interest of God Let this then Oh my Soul over-rule all thy Passions Live under some sense with God What dishonors him let it humble thee Be not so much troubled at the Mischiefs wherewith Men in the Triumphant Madness of their Prosperity indeavour to plague thee as at the Sin whereby they duel Heaven Where thy Father suffers most in his Glory do thou suffer with him Thy Irascibles never act more commendably than when they run upon the Errand of thy Maker Thou art angry and sinnest not when angry at Sin 'T is hard not to Sin in Sorrow if it be not Sorrow for Sin And if thou groan under the Wickedness of others sure thou wiltst not canst not darst not be so much a Hypocrite as to go light under the greater Load of thine own Thou art conscious to thy self of many Circumstances aggravating thine own which thou hast no reason to apply to the Crimes of any beside Where thou knowest of most Evil and that is in thy self there must thou spend Oceans since the little in comparison which thou knowest of other Mens faults requires thy Rivers Let thy Sorrows bear Proportion to thy Condition and Conscience Weep or at least mourn for and bemoan others but most thy self There must thou pay thy Drops here a Deluge To this place therefore appertains all Spiritual Trouble for Sin and the want and weakness and defectiveness of Grace with the effects thereof That Anguish of Mind which springs from the sense of Sin 's odiousness of God The Agonies and Anxieties of the New Birth and under Relapses whatever goes under the name of a Wounded Spirit or Troubled Conscience But 2. Not only the evil of Sin but other Evils in themselves or to him in effect did sadden the Holy Psalmist's Soul Two especially 1. The Prosperity of the Wicked their Joy but his smart Vers 3. How long shall the Wicked Oh LORD how long shall the wicked triumph A common Offence and Trouble to both the Religious and Rational World The Gracious Servants of God often bemoan it What a Multitude of Precepts and Comforts doth the 37. Psal present as an Antidote against fretting about it Habakkuk bewails it Hab. 1.2 3 4. Jer. Ch. 12.1 2 reasons and pleads with God concerning it In Job How many Discourses are there to this purpose And every where in the Psalms to instance in one more only Psal 73. Vers 3. I was envious at the foolish when I saw the Prosperity of the Wicked After a Description whereof he adds Vers 21. Thus my heart was grieved and I was pricked in my Reins This also was a stumbling Block to the Philosophical World whereof the more Considerate and Vertuous made a good use others a bad reasoning from the unequal Distribution of Temporal Things against the Being of God and Providence into such Absurdities may those run who having but dark Apprehensions of Immortality and the Eternal Recompences of a Future State take their measures from sense and consider not the Unproportionableness of this present moment of Temporal Life to a vast Immense Eternity 2. The Unprosperous Afflicted Persecuted State of the People of God did excite in him sorrowful Reflections I doubt not but that with a broken Heart he Writ down that Complaint Vers 5. They break in pieces thy People O LORD and afflict thine Heritage They slay the Widow and the Stranger and murder the Fatherless Sure with a Soul melted into Sympathizing Commiserations doth he remember this So Asaph Psal 73.10 Therefore his People return hither and Waters of a full Cup are wrung out to them 21. Thus my Heart was grieved c. which refers to all before Discours'd concerning prosperous Wickedness and suffering Godliness And How can the Body in many parts of it suffer and the rest have no Fellow-feeling Thou art not vitally united as a Member to the Body of Christ Oh my Soul but may'st justly dread that he will cut thee off as a dead Libm and bury thee in Hell if thou be insensible of its Pains and Agonies Shew that the common Soul and Spirit Animates thee by a common sense with the rest of the Members that Communicate in it with thee If thou be not with them in Passion yet be in Compassion Why Persecutest thou me Says Christ to Saul Acts 9.4 The pain is in the Members the sense in the Head Christ disclaims thee thou art none of that me whereof he is so tender if thou suffer'st not by Commiseration when his Servants suffer Affliction Put on thy Bowels if thou desirest the Yernings of his when thy Condition shall be like theirs With the Prophet Jerem. 9.1 Say Oh that my Head were Waters and mine Eyes a Fountain of Tears that I might weep Day and Night for the slain of the Daughter of my People My Bowels my Bowels I am pained at my very Heart the Walls of my Heart make a noise in me I cannot hold my Peace because thou hast heard Oh my Soul the sound of the Trumpet the alarm of War To this Head may be reduced all those Troubles which are Fruits of Publick Calamities to Church or State Persecutions Martyrdoms Massacres c. Wars and Violence Oppressions Injuries c. whatever may be the Effects of the Rage and Fury of Men and Malice of impure
up a dejected Mind which it found deeply buried in a doleful Hell of Wretchedness and Woe Oh sweet and amiable Peace How lovely are thy Looks How dear and pleasing thine Embraces What art thou not that is good desirable delightful contenting satisfying Riches in Poverty Health in Sickness Honey in Life Heart-ease in Death the Glory of Eternity But to give a Logical Description of it Formal Comfort is the inward Rest Quiet Contentment Satisfaction Ease and Refreshment of the Mind arising from the View Sense Consideration Application and feeling of such proper and suitable Remedies for all manner of Troubles as answer the Necessities Exigencies and Desires of the Soul in all things strengthning for Work supporting under Temptations inspiriting for Sufferings chearfully to bear them perfectly to conquer them and everlastingly to triumph over them Taken Actively and in Fieri it imports a Mans applying to himself the things which God hath provided to refresh and strengthen him Passively a Man is comforted when upon the Application of such things the Mind Heart and Conscience are satisfyed and settled within themselves in a calm and quiet Rest and Peace This is Comfort in facto esse as the Schools phraze it If we speak properly and according to the English Translation here This Formal Comfort is not that Comfort which the Psalmist reports but rather the delight in his Soul which did or might issue therefrom as an effect from its immediate Cause and therefore is not a stranger to the Text. Yet indeed the Comfort here mentioned is not to be understood Formally but Objectively or Materially for comforting things as in Physick a Cordial is not the Comfort the Heart receives but the Medicine which has Vertue and Power to Comfort the Heart as a means under Providence In Discoursing to this several things might be considered 1. The Matter or Thing it self which comforts which is God his Being Nature Perfections c. 2. The Instrument Vehicle or Means 1. Revealing Tendering Conveying The Word and in special its Promises 2. Receiving Appropriating Applying Faith 1. In the Mind Thoughts 2. In the Heart and Will Consent 3. The Condition or Qualification without which no right to Comfort is possible True Goodness particularly Goodness in Distress 4. The Principal immediate Efficient The Holy Ghost the Comforter Some of these I acknowledge concern Comfort Formally considered as well as Materially For though the matter or thing Comforting God have no cause and the Spirit cannot be said to be in respect hereof an Efficient but only of the Formal Comfort or Satisfaction in our minds and of the Instrument and Condition the Word being of his Immediate Inspiration and Sanctification his proper and peculiar Work Yet the Word is a means to beget Formal Comfort as well as convey the matter of it so also is Faith And Goodness is a Qualification necessary to inward Peace as well as right to the Material Cause of it I am not concern'd except about the Matter Means revealing containing and the Believing Thoughts that receive and apply with the Holiness that prepares the Heart for Reception and Application of Comfort Whatever Comforts is something of or from God The Father Son and Holy Ghost yet those things from them Comfort not in the same manner as they do themselves The Word and Promises are a Cordial as far as Messages of Love from Heaven no otherwise As they bring good News from our best Friend they revive us but nothing can give ease to our Minds which doth not report something of God If our Troubles be Spiritual for our Sins the assurance by any sound Evidence that God has pardoned them dispels our Sorrow Fear and Despair The feeling that God has purged away their Filth taken away their Dominion quiets us as an Evidence and Testimony that he hath pardoned us and is reconciled to us but all this only as a token of God's Love to us For a good Soul cannot sit down with its own Mercy without the God of Mercy Nothing Spiritually Comforts on Earth but what will solace in Heaven There God alone is the Eternal Ravishment of glorified Souls Now God as the matter of our Comfort solaces us merely as apprehended and applied by Believing Thoughts If we think not of him we derive no Content from him and our Thoughts taking in some comfortable Notion of God lay it before our Concupiscible and Irascible Affections that being embraced by the former it may appease still and quiet the other which is heedfully to be observed this being the true and natural Method to attain solid and substantial Peace and Consolation For they are Brutish not Rational Comforts that we are not led to by Light in the Mind observing the suitableness of the Object to our Condition which prevails with our Will to close with and embrace it Till this be done our Passions cannot be rationally calmed God doth not work upon them as Christ upon the raging Sea by way of Empire and immediate Power to hush them in a moment by Miracle That Peace which springs in the Conscience immediately without any antecedent Actings and Perceptions of the Mind or Election of the Will is Delusory not to say Satanical There 's nothing that can any ways Comfort but God is that very thing either Formally or Eminently He is the summ and substance of all Appetibles Eligibles Comfortables as the Chief Good and Happiness of Man who as he wants nothing for his own everlasting solace and contentation so neither for ours Whatever is of a refreshing Influence either to Body or Mind is the Ordination of God both in its Matter and that peculiar Formality For he both made all things and endowed them with all their Powers and Vertues which all are superlatively in himself i. e. either in his Nature or Power in Essence or Equivalence God's Love is a Comfort to our Souls and God is Love Meat and Drink are a comfort to our Bodies God is not these but he can create and give them and in Heaven supplies the want of them by causing us not to need them and giving us better in himself that Countervails them Thus 't is also in all other Cases whatever satisfies us is from him is in him Thy Comforts delight or look favourably upon my Soul Thy Comforts which thou Ar't Givest CHAP. XIII Comforts in God I. THE Comforts which God is delight the Soul These or none For nothing issuing from God is greater or better than himself He is much more than all without him therefore a more sufficient satisfaction both because there is a plenitude of Perfection in him and because he can inlarge the capacity of the Recipient and quicken the perceptive Powers more exquisitely to sense and relish the Sweetness of all those delectable Excellencies that adorn his Nature Now as God is every thing which is comfortable so every thing in God is a Well-spring of over-flowing Consolation to a good Heart his Being Names Attributes
c. 1. His Being or Existence That there is a God therefore a regarder of Goodness infinitely concerned to promote it to support it to reward it The First without beginning the Last without end Who possesses all Being in himself eminently and gives Being to all things that have a positive Entity and that very good Gen. 1.31 Without whose Agency neither thy Sorrows nor thy Comforts can be and if they receive their Being then also their Balance from the best hand in the Universe One that has Being so as nothing else can not thy Sins not thy Sorrows not thy spiritual Enemies c. not an arbitrary precarious Existence but necessary uncontroulable self-originating unalterable unperishable To which all other Beings are nothing in comparison faint evanid fading Isai 40.17 There 's none beside As his own Being is the greatest reality so can he make those Comforts which depend upon it to administer abundantly more reality of refreshment than there can possibly be real evil in all the Miseries of a thousand Worlds He will be and abide by us when all else fail us as an everlasting Fulness of all Essential Consolations ¶ 2. His Names and Titles El. Verse 1. Elohim Ver. 7.22 23. A strong Plurality in Unity of singular Excellency Sufficient therefore to relieve for he is El shaddai an additional not indeed express in the Psalm but necessary to be mentioned in order to the explaining of the following Jehovah so often used here God All-sufficient or Almighty In him therefore is there abundantly enough to satisfie intensively all Appetites in all their extents and possibilities This Name he gives himself with respect to his making Promises wherein mercies are exhibited as future whence it secures to us fully his singular Good Will and engages our Faith and Hope and improves and heightens them into an Assurance that Blessings and Comforts now out of our hands shall in due Season which himself is fittest to chuse be put into our possession by him Under his Name JEHOVAH mention'd Ver. 1.3 5 11 14 17 18 22 23. the proper and immediate reason of his giving himself this Name being his present purpose to fulfil with his Hand what he had spoke with his Mouth long before and give actual Being by his Power and Providence to that which only had a possible Vertual Being in his Promise made under the Name of Elshaddai This then is a Name intimating that He is not a Promiser afar off but a Performer at hand ready to comfort us in and save us out of our Spiritual Thraldom under Corruption Temptation and Affliction of Body and Mind And being Adonai which the Jews alway read instead of the Tetragrammaton as the Name Jehovah is called except where they are together Lord and Soveraign over All he hath a Right and Power to dispose of all Persons and Things according to the good pleasure of his own Will and cannot be controul'd in his Purposes or Performances by any but at their Peril Whence 't is alway likely to be best with those that in reverence and humility subject themselves freely to his Government which is designedly manag'd for the Good and Comfort of his Subjects and the final Trouble and Disquiet only of his Incureable Enemies therefore must and will for his own Glory and his Servants highest Advantage over-rule and overcome the Malignity and Malice of Hell the Madness and Rage of the World and the Corruptions and Confusions of our own Hearts all which without his Interposal would be irremediable and intolerable And as Jah Ver. 7.12 'T is congruous and decent for him to do all It highly becomes a Nature so excellent so communicative and bountiful to disspense of those Delights in which he for ever dwells and solaces himself to such of his Creatures as place their sole felicity in Him and cannot will not take pleasure in any thing without him ¶ 3. His Attributes are a rich Mine of Comfort both singly and conjunct as divers Conceptions but one only indivisible Perfection § 1. His Wisdom and Omniscience Ver. 9.10 11. 'T was a Question only becoming the Frenzy and Folly of a degenerate wicked Heart How doth God know And is there Knowledge in the most High Psal 73.11 Yes that there is as you shall know to your sorrow but the Godly do experience it to their wonderful Satisfaction All the Evils we feel He knows very well though we cannot nay though we will not though we dare not represent or describe them and a Friend's Knowledge of its Troubles is some ease to an oppressed Heart But our Griefs are not only the Objects of his Understanding but the Dispositions of his Wisdom which being infinitely more comprehensive than ours did design and knows how to effect our greatest Good out of that which our shallow Capacities apprehend to be the greatest Evil. 'T is no little Solace that boundless Wisdom which can never project Evil doth perfectly see and know this to be best for us which it dispences to us And though now we cannot fathom the Mysteries of this manifold Wisdom Eph. 3.10 as how should Finite comprehend Infinite Yet the Reasons of its Proceedure will be unfolded hereafter to the general Satisfaction of the whole World Have we not then sufficient ground to acquiesce and be pleas'd with that now altho' we cannot dive into its Methods which with the highest complacency we shall acquiesce and rejoyce in for ever when we more truly understand it Beside Infinite Wisdom is stored with Means Devices and Ways to comfort us beyond all we are able to conceive The incomparable Riches of Divine Consolation are owing to the inexhaustible Treasures of that Wisdom which can find out such as are most suitable and most seasonably and effectually apply them And foreseeing what may be a Bar to them can tell how to use the most proper Methods to remove it this being its most genuine work to know chuse and use the most accommodate and efficacious Means to bring about the most excellent End We triumph in the enjoyment of such Relief in a Friend on Earth Have we not abundantly more reason to solace our selves in the friendly aspect and superintendence of such an infinite Perfection in Heaven Is Satan continually injecting Terrors or Troubles or exciting disgustful horrid Imaginations Does he appear in the guise of the Fool and say in thy heart there is no God c. Psal 14.1 Does he with Job's Wife put on the desperate Bedlam and bid thee Curse God c. and dye Job 2.9 Does he personate the Cheating Knave and advise thee to defraud either God of his due Worship and Honour or Man of his due Respect and Right Does he transform himself into an Angel of Light and engage thee to be wise and Righteous overmuch Eccles 7.16 Or lastly Does he come in his own Form to invite thee to Lying Pride Malice Revenge Slaunder Backbiting c. his proper Sins in which with a daring Impudence
he would out-brave and out-face even his Maker in his Accusations of the Brethren c. Whatever his Methods Eph. 6.11 or Wiles Devises 2 Cor. 2.11 Snares 1. Tim. 3.7 2 Tim. 2.26 Depths Rev. 2.24 Whatever his Stratagems Policies are to delude defile disquiet or destroy thee however cunningly craftily managed Yet still is he not too wise for God who well knows how to defeat all his Designments and amongst infinite other has this one Method to lead thee to Comfort even when thine Adversary hath out-witted and got the better of thee and is leading thee into Temptation Trouble and Torment viz. to bring thee thorow the narrow way of Repentance to a New Life of Grace Peace Joy and Consolation present and eternal This he doth oftentimes with Man Job 33.28 29. Read from the 14th to the 31st Job 28 28. Vnto Man he said behold the fear of the Lord true Religiousness that is Wisdom and to depart from evil true Repentance that is Vnderstanding He knows how to rule the raging of that Sea of Sorrow Terror and Anguish wherewith the Devil attempts to overwhelm thee and shipwrack all thy Hopes and Happiness and so turns the Storm into a Calm of Godly sorrow that Satans Creature yields and gives place to the Creation of God and the Grief which God exhales does issue in the fruit of the Lips Peace of the same extraction Is 57.19 and thus is Satan over-reach'd and baffled in his most subtle Contrivances and his Machinations to ruine our Comfort become means for its Establishment But if his own immediate Actings be seconded with the Agency of his Instruments that all the Politicks on Earth combine with those of Hell to overturn our security and rest Yet are they never the nearer their Purpose of subverting the Counsels of Heaven for the solace of our troubled Hearts but rather promote them whilst they drive us nearer God as our everlasting Refuge and Sanctuary in whom we may be sure to find a Fulness of Joy and Compensation Is all the Carnal Wisdom on Earth set on the rack to devise the Ruine of True Religion and Thee in the Profession and Practice of it Are wicked Men thy particular Foes in a Confederacy against thee contriving thy Destruction in Spirituals and Temporals Yet where-ever they deal wisely proudly cruelly He is above them Art thou thy self are all Men else at a loss in their Thoughts either how Religion should be secured in whole or in part when at any time its Enemies conspire against it or how Jacob should arise when he is very small or how thy Personal Interest should be safeguarded or how thy Health restored or Death prevented or Deliverance be wrought under some grievous Calamity or any Mercy obtain'd for Soul or Body thy self thy Friends or the Church and Nation Be not solicitous the All-comprehending Wisdom of Heaven can never be at a Loss this unsearchable understanding has all Possibilities present in view and cannot but chuse the best for Himself for Thee for All and it seldom begins of its Work till all be at their Wits end when every thing else fails and the Wisdom of Men has given up all for gone Divine Wisdom resumes the Work and glorifies its self in bringing it to Perfection In short all the Artifices of Earth and Hell cannot invent or reduce into Circumstances so deplorable and desperate as to over-match the Contrivance of Infinite Wisdom for our Comfort under and after them its Provisions are truly Catholick extending to all possible Cases Conditions Seasons Places and Persons whereof the Holy Scriptures are a full Evidence as a legible Declaration of the Unfathomable Wisdom of God Here are the Rivers whose Streams make glad the City of God Psal 46.4 Oh the Adoreable Plenitude of the written Word of God which comprehends the whole Counsel of God for our Illumination Effectual Calling Sanctification Justification Comfort and Eternal Salvation There is nothing devised by the Infinite Understanding of God for the Ease and Quiet of troubled Hearts but which is contained in the Bible a Transcript whereof upon the Heart creates a Life of Joy Peace and Rest God's Wisdom speaks Peace to us in no other Language than that of the Word 'T is indeed visible in his Works of Creation and Providence which are under its Conduct and bear its lively Characters but these scarce intelligible without the Sacred Writings Here only is all perspicuous and plain that 's needful either to purifie or pacify the Conscience What a World of Consolatory Matter is couched in this one Psalm will appear anon What then is there in the whole Book of God Judge of the Immense Ocean by this Little Rivulet Admire and Reverence that incomparable Abstract of the Wisdom of Heaven in these Lively Oracles and hence derive all thy Consolations § 2. This Wisdom is not alone nor in this Case a Self-mover but goes upon the Errand and Designs of Infinite Gooodness An Attribute brim-full of Solace Joy and Rest as our Psalmist found Ver. 18. especially and every where Ver. 12 13 14 15 17.19 21. Indeed every Request in the Psalm supposes it and every Assertion refers to it even his Complaints are Addresses to it and all his Expectations are from it 't is the good Blood that runs in every Vein not a Verse but points at it Now as Wisdom chuses the Method and Means of applying Comfort and pitches upon such as are most accommodate in particular So Goodness administers the Matter in general Every thing that creates the light of Gladness and Consolation in a dark benighted troubled soul is a spark a beam of Goodness The Goodness of God lies in Two Things Love and Holiness Did I call them Two They are both but only Love Love in us is Holiness as a Conformity to the whole Law of God Holiness in God is nothing but Love to himself as the alone perfect Law and Standard of all Incomprehensible Excellency and Glory But to consider them as distinct Love is that illustrious greatest Light amongst the Divine Perfections the benign Rays whereof are plenteously reflected through the Sun of Righteousness upon wretched and miserable Man God is Love 1 Joh. 4.16 and Love in its Perfection is God that Love which God is is God and diffuses its sweet Influences upon us in wonderful variety Not that it is other than Unity indivisible invariable in it self but that it meets with several respects and produces divers effects in us We are Sinners the guilt it pardons the filth it purges the power of Sin it subdues We are miserable through sin Love lays it to heart that 's Mercy Is afflicted in our Afflictions there 's Compassion has yerning Bowels towards us which is Pity bears much at our hands and this is Patience suspends the Punishment due to our sin either for an Indefinite time therefore called Forbearance or a great while whence 't is stiled Long-suffering or exempts us wholly under the
Christ whose I am by Right of Redemption and not mine own if He re-invest me in a Liberty to enjoy my self in Him which I could not do under so bad a Master so cruel a Tyrant as the Devil this is a piece of the choicest Happiness which I can enjoy on this side Heaven Liberty to sin is the most uncomfortable Bondage Necessity to serve God the most solacing Liberty The most of this do we enjoy when we live most in and are swallowed up of the Love of God Corruption is a Dungeon a Prison a Pit God loves us out of it Isa 38.17 into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.21 Love is the Wealth of Heaven and the World a Treasure invaluable in Comparison whereof every thing all the Riches Honours Pleasures all the Substance and Glory of the World is contemptible Cant. 8.7 Every Comfort is comprehended in it 't is the Life and Soul of all they are but Carrion-Contents that are possest without it Oh Incomparable incomprehensible Love How hast thou even out-done thy self in thy Provisions for the Consolation of inconsiderable Man What infinite Desires could ever have wish'd what infinite Goodness could ever have bestowed a Gift greater than Infinite God's Love gives no less and sure it can no greaten Love is all Comfort and Holiness in God is not a Barren Womb but Pregnant also with the sweetest Consolations From this Topic the Psalmist derived Refreshment to his thoughtful mind Ver. 20. Shall the Throne of Iniquity have Fellowship with thee The Quaere carries in its bowels a Negative Resolution No it shall not It s Iniquity and thy Sanctity are altogether Incompatible Though it attempt yet cannot it prevail to overturn thy Throne 't will therefore assuredly be overturned by it Ver. 15. Judgment shall return to Righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and after it all the Vpright in Heart I take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there to be significative of Time as well as Place The Expression is allusive supposing Judgment and Righteousness were parted to a great Distance and that Righteousness was in a settled fix'd Habitation from which Judgment as a thing in motion was departed And 't is true Righteousness is of a stable Sunt certi denique fines quos ultrà citraque nequit consistere rectum firm invariable nature Judgment or Proceedures in Law are changeable sometimes wrong sometimes right now on this side then on the other depending upon the mutable Constitution of the Judges Whence 't is that Judgment is here represented as a Traveller from home but upon the Return in which motion it should never rest till it which had been so long absent got to the abode of Righteousness again Unrighteous Judgment did then prevail but begun to be weary of it self and at length must down and Righteous Judgment be set up and established which when once accomplished the upright in heart would certainly be advanced Let but true Justice obtain and immediately after that Upright Men will return out of the Retirements into which Unrighteousness had driven them and be in repute again Goodness cannot be supprest by Justice but only by Injury and when it is turned out of doors cannot be introduced except by the Soveraign Goodness of God to which its Restitution is here ascribed Ver. 14. as a Fruit of his Abode with and constant Adherence to his People The whole Process then of the Prophet's Reasoning is this Although God's People be now oppress'd and ruin'd by the violent Perversion of Judgment Yet God will not alway permit it to be so but will establish Righteous Judgment first and then relieve his People by it Divine Purity then will not long permit the Dominion of Unrighteousness God's Holiness will e're long harass all Unholiness out of the World and confine it forever unto Hell There shall be none in thy sight abroad there shall be none in thy heart within That which is thy greatest Discomfort on Earth which muddies thy Thoughts disquiets thy mind racks and tortures thy Conscience discomposes thy Affections blasts thy Hopes sowres thy Joys burthens thy whole Soul makes Heaven and Earth groan and sigh in Pain shall finally give place to the Divine Nature which the Promises bring thee in part 2 Pet. 1.4 and Heaven will perfect Oh blessed solacing Hope a secure Anchor in the deepest Sea of Sorrows Art thou at present in Affliction for thy unholiness Know that this very trouble is a dispensation of boundless Love and Sanctity directed by unfathomable Wisdom and of most illustrious Wisdom acted by unconceivable Love and Holiness for thy highest advantage to embitter thy Corruptions separate them from thy Soul and prepare thee for the embraces of the tenderest Affections of Heaven and its everlasting Joys and Rest Neither can there any other Temptation or Affliction befall thee without God's leave and his Goodness can no more be excluded out of his designments than his knowledge even his Permissions are subservient to the purposes of his Love nor can any thing betide us which will yeild an Argument to prove that he is not Good any more than that he is not God Whatever Perplexities sink thy Heart if they have a tendency to defile thee they are Enemies to Divine Purity and it will overcome them cannot be vanquish'd by them if they tend to disquiet thee the unboundable Love that embraces thee will not cannot leave thee to succumb and finally to despond under them if Spiritual this infinitely gracious Spirit is an Adversary to them and will master them if Temporal there is a Remedy against them in the Goodness of God which is Eternal Divine Goodness answers all things not as Money limitedly and with restriction but universally and infinitely In it is the substance of all real Good in it Compensation for all Evil else could it not be what it cannot but be infinite A Feast is made for Laughter Eccl. 10.19 and Wine maketh glad the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lives or Living Life Oft in Scripture do we find comforting the Heart attributed to our Natural Repast by Meat and Drink Gen. 18.5 Judg. 19.5 8 c. Or Truly Meat truly Drink Poor Comforts in comparison of Jesus whose Body is Meat indeed whose Blood is Drink indeed Joh. 6.48 to the 59th Wine makes glad the Heart of God and Man Judg. 9.13 Psal 104.15 But the Love of Christ is better Cant. 1.2 And more to be remembred Ver. 4. The Bread of Life and the Waters of Life are the very Life of all Comforts the Sweetness of all Comforts and Joys Any Mercy enoy'd with the Love of God is sweet indeed Whence in the Return of the Ransomed of the Lord with Songs and everlasting Joy upon their heads Isa 51.11 12. Jer. 31.11 12. 'T is Prophesied That They shall flow together to the Goodness of the Lord for Wheat and for Wine and for Oyl and for the Young of the Flock
as tender Mercy speaks the height of his Power as fully as the depth of his Love whence Elihu in Job 34.29 When he maketh quietness who then can condemn so all Translations Chald. Greek Lat. c. or make trouble and when he hideth his Face who then can behold him whether it be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon a Nation or upon a Man only against is not so ordinary a signification of the Word not doth so well suite both the opposite parts of the foregoing Clause of the Verse which it respects in common If God thus give Rest and Quiet and thereby Peace and Comfort what Power can controll him and destroy his Work surely none And why the reason is to be deduced from his Almightiness All the Malignancy and Enmity of Earth and Hell though in a confederacy of united Virulence Policy Power and Violence indeavouring to make a breach in or of that secure Peace wherewith a Good Conscience as a Brazen Wall doth guard fortifie and surround a true Servant of God by a Commission deriv'd from Heaven will but be like the vain attempts of the impotent Waves against a Rock which instead of overturning it only dash themselves in pieces Without the interposure of Omnipotence the Comfort of sinful Man would be impossible in that order of Government which Divine Wisdom hath pitch'd upon as most congruous for his Salvation For supposing Sin and God's purpose not to permit all Mankind to perish everlastingly under that Justice into the Hands whereof the administration of his Kingdom did necessarily fall upon the Apostacy of Man and supposing God's determination to uphold the honour of his Justice and Government in pardoning none but upon Consideration and in virtue of a satisfaction given to Justice I affirm 1. That satisfaction could not possibly be made for the injury done to God by Sin except only by Omnipotency For Death being threatned for Sin the threatning in the substance of it must be executed or both Justice and Fidelity violated For since in the nature of the thing some Punishment cannot but be due for so high an affront to the Divine Authority and Regiment and since the Commination had determin'd and exprest the kind of Punishment in substance to be Death with an Emphasis How could the Deity be just in his Word or his Deed had all been wholly wav'd Therefore the Satisfaction given must be by suffering the Penalty to the full in its substance The Threatning doth not express any thing concerning the greatness extensive or intensive of the Punishment only that it be proportionable to the Crime Justice requires The Crime is vertually infinite The Condition of the Creature will not admit of a Punishment intensively infinite Therefore the Death threatned can only be extensively infinite that is Eternal But an eternal duration that has a beginning is not actually infinite vertually therefore The Sin then being vertually infinite the Punishment proportion'd and threatned must be vertually infinite also i. e. as infinite as the state of the Creature was capable to admit If now this viz an Aeviternal Death be inflicted in kind because an end of it is impossible there could not possibly be any Satisfaction any Salvation Satisfaction therefore must be in another kind of vertually infinite suffering viz. that intensively so And 't is very consistent with Justice to admit this Commutation since it has its full demand therein viz. a Punishment proportionable to the Fault i. e. vertually infinite But now nothing short of Omnipotency or infinite Power can bear or wrestle thorow a Punishment infinite or which is Omnipoenal 2. Neither could any Power less than infinite raise the Satisfier of Justice from the Death Temporal which was indispensibly to be undergone by him and to this 't is ascribed Eph. 1.19 20. to be presently transcribed Lastly the same Power qualifies for the Fruits of this Satisfaction in Pardon and Consolation Eph. 1.19 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the exceeding greatness of his Power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty Power which he wrought in Christ raising him from the Dead and you who were dead in Trespasses c. Chap. 2.1 If this be not Omnipotency what is I had rather speak and think as the Holy Ghost teaches than in the profundity of my Reason make my self wiser than him who inspired the Holy Men of God whose Names these Writings bear Yet do constantly and confidently affirm that in working these Preparations or creating Grace in the Heart which quickens it Omnipotence is sufficiently able so to act under the conduct of Omniscience as to offer no violence to the faculties of Man at all Cleared before but through the influence of a more commanding Light in his Mind doth lead him in the exercise of a full intemerate and ingenuous liberty through the strait Gate of Regeneration into Eternal Rest and Peace In short we are sometimes involved in such Soul-troubles so insuperable and intolerable Prov. 18.14 A wounded Spirit who can bear and such inextricable insupportable straits exigences and occurrents of Providence and are reduc'd to such a pinch of extremity that without a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God in the Mount a supernatural Conduct and Power 't is impossible to bear up under them or be delivered from them These were oft experimented Cases with our Psalmist as appears particularly from ver 17 18. and as much is insinuated ver 20 21 22. and the cruel oppressions of the whole Church ver 5 6. evidence that it was not exempted And where can an over-whelmed Soul or a wasted desolate Church groaning under the Fury and Madness of Malice and Violence in numberless Legions of Principalities and Powers and spiritual and carnal Wickednesses in high and low Places and the Rulers and Sons of the Darkness of the World the whole Militia of Satan in Hell Earth and their own Hearts O where can they find defence refuge and relief against such an over-match of barbarous Enmity except in the Almightiness of Heaven In such distresses we have nothing left to comfort us beside this Omnipotent Power of God and it is enough more than enough All-sufficient § 5. God's Fidelity and Vnchangableness in Word and Deed to which I refer ver 14 15. For the Lord will not cast off his People c. This is still a more near ground of Consolation For other Divine Perfections stand in an indifference to us we have no right to take comfort in them till a Promise bring and lay them before us and engage them for us upon certain terms which accomplished all our Mercy is rendred Necessity and Destiny Yet a Promise that may never be perform'd will administer no certain indefeisible relief being only as a broken Reed * Hence the promised Mercies are suspended upon Conditions in us that the whole right of performing them may not stand in the liberty of the Maker but become Justice and Necessity to him that
performs the Condition Therefore also the comfortableness of the Promises depends as much upon the invariable Nature of God as the sweetness of the matter it self which is tendred in the Promise and here the Holy Ghost leaves it Heb. 6.16 17 18. An Oath is to Men an end of all strife Wherein God willing more abundantly to shew to the Heirs of Promise the immutability of his Counsel confirm'd it by an Oath That by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lye we might have strong Consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the Hope set before us No state is perfectly comfortable that is changeable for the worse Be our Contentments never so refreshing yet the fear to be despoil'd of them will introduce a secret sting and bitterness which will allay their Pleasantness and so much the more by how much the sweeter they are and yet the more as the parting time still approaches nearer But when it comes indeed the torment and anguish in their loss is so intolerable that the satisfactions of our forepast Enjoyment are utterly obliterate and forgot like the seven Years of Plenty in Egypt and we are ready to wish rather never to have felt them than so to be deprived of them But now the Nature of God not admiting the least variableness or shadow of change Jam. 1.17 And all the Promises of God being in Christ yea and in him Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 And the Gifts and Calling of God being without Repentance Rom. 11.29 We are secure that our right and possession is indefeisible and the Comforts that we really partake of in God at any time are ours for ever For he abides faithful and cannot deny himself 2 Tim. 2.13 Though we believe not and so the Promise be not fulfill'd to us in particular because we observe not its condition yet this will be no impeach to the Fidelity of God but rather a confirmation of it For if the Mercy were granted where the condition on which 't is suspended is not performed God would not act according to his Word which is conditional but would appear to change both his Word and that whereof it is a Declaration viz. his Will and Purpose God's Promises therefore are of an invariable Nature because he himself is so Absolute Promises shall undoubtedly be fulfill'd absolutely Conditional conditionally not otherways because God is unchangeable Heaven and Earth shall pass away but of his Word not a Jot or Tittle For it is for ever seated in Heaven Psal 119.89 His Faithfulness therein is to all Generations ver 90. His Promises are a sure never failing Foundation For even those Promises which in their immediate Nature are conditional to particular Persons yet to the Church in general are made Absolute because the Condition it self is promised For he that has engaged that the Church shall not be extirpated and destroyed no not by all the Malignity and Violence of the Gates of Hell has oblig'd himself to such a series both of special and common Providences as will infallibly secure it both from internal corrupting Principles and external destroying Powers Which yet cannot be done unless the inward Graces be given which entitle to the Promises as well as those outward defences granted which may guard against external assailings And indeed every Promise is made absolute by the greatest Promise which if it do not this under the notion of a Covenant properly so call'd yet does it as a Testament under which Title the Holy Ghost recommends it to us in the Gospel especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews Those holy dispositions which are required by the Covenant and Promises as terms of Mercy are bequeathed as Legacies by the Will and Testament of our Redeemer The Covenant by him is converted into a Testament That which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 9.15 The New Testament taking place after the death of the Testator ver 16 17. is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 8.8 A New Covenant It gives the Privileges Pardon Peace Comfort Glory upon Conditions But then it gives the Conditions themselves also inconditionally For he that hath made Repentance Faith Love working Obedience the Conditions of Forgiveness and Salvation hath promised also to write his Laws therefore the Laws requiring those in the Heart whence they are styled Gifts of God Repentance Act. 5.31.2 Tim. 2.25 Faith Phil. 1.29 Joh. 6.29 Love Gal. 5.22 1 John 4.7 Though all after-Grace be given Conditionally yet the Condition it self or the first Grace must necessarily be given Inconditionally or we shall make a process in infinitum and never find a First to be the Condition of the Second c. or we must resolve the first Grace into meer Nature or admit a work of Man for which he is not at all beholden to the Grace of God that yet is so acceptable to God as to have all the exceeding great and precious Promises of the Gospel Covenant suspended upon it To every Promise there 's an answerable purpose in the Will of God For if Promises were not expressions of Divine Purposes they would be mere Mockery and Delusion i. e. Engagements to give what never was intended to be given As therefore the Decree to pardon and save Men is Conditional but the Decree to create in them the Conditions is absolute so also 't is in the Promises which are therefore immutable because the Decree the Will the Nature of God is Whence Divine Veracity stablishes and fixes our grounds of Comfort from the rest of God's Perfections and adds new poyse and weight to the Balance without which all our Mercy is only Liberty and our Expectation nothing but strong Imagination our Faith Fancy For what have we to do to hope that a Majesty so exalted and eminent will in a peculiar manner above the course of ordinary Providence or indeed in that concern himself about us till he declare it And what considence can we have in any Declarations if we have no assurance of Fidelity in the Revealer Sinners have nothing in God interested about them but vindictive Justice and its subservient Attributes whilst they continue under the First Covenant and reject the terms of Grace Men may declaim what they will at rovers concerning the merciful Nature and boundless Goodness of God to his Creatures 't is acknowledged they are unspeakably Rich and Glorious but though they be the necessity of his Nature essentially considered yet their egress and flowing out into transient Acts is Arbitrary and merely Gratuitous His Nature is all Love and Kindness and Goodness yet these are not the next ground of Hope Go preach this Doctrine in Hell to the Apostate Angels extol the Mercy of God as high as the highest Heavens Rhetoricate upon it with the Tongue of a Cherubim through all the Varieties and Flowers of an Invention as large as the Universe as lofty as the Sky make them believe if you can that they are under the dispensation
saying be strong and couragious be not afraid nor dismayed for the King of Assyria nor for all the Multitude that is with him for there be moe with us than with him With him is an arm of Flesh but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our Battles And the People leaned themselves upon the Words of Hezekiah King of Judah The Comfort of these Words which was a Stay to their disquieted Minds did consist in the Assurance he gave of the Presence of God And what more common in the Scripture than for God himself immediately or mediately by his Prophets or Messengers to encourage his Servants unto or in any difficult hazardous displeasing terrifying troublesome Undertaking by this I am or I will be or God is or shall be with thee But incomparably above all things of this Nature is that most satisfying Ground of everlasting Consolation beyond all Miracles which we have in IMMANUEL That for the Recovery of Lost Mankind the Eternal Son of God should descend from the Heighth of his Sanctuary and Throne in Heaven to become GOD WITH US The Excellency and Beauty of Heaven The Son of Righteousness did Eclipse and shroud his Transcendent Light and Glory in the dark shadow of mortal flesh that in the humility of our Nature he might do and suffer that for us who had debased our selves even unto Hell Isa 57.9 which would be effectually conducible for our Exaltation to the very Akme of Celestial Perfection and Felicity This This is the everlasting Wonder and Astonishment of Men and Angels an Act of Grace and a Means of Peace truly worthy of an infinitely Glorious God! 'T is only in Vertue of this that sinful Man has any gracious Presence of God at all Joh. 1.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If God had not thus Tabernacled in our Flesh dwelt in our Nature we could have had no dwelling in God but as in a Consuming Fire and Everlasting Burnings All the Support we can derive either from God's Essential Presence or Voluntary depends intirely upon the Hypostatical Vnion and Presence of the Only-begotten Dearly-beloved of God to our Nature But dismiss we this to further Consideration in its proper Place 't was necessary to mention it here as the very Basis of all our Comfort in any thing of God Let a Man be Paradis'd in the sweetest refreshing Garden of all Sublunary Delights yet Solitude will be an Embitterment to all his other Joys he that can evermore be alone is either a Devil or a God The Deity pronounc'd that State Bad when Man's State was at the Best 'T is not good for Man to be alone Gen. 2.18 No his own Thoughts would devour him his Troubles crush him down and sink his Spirits into Despondency and Confusion 'T is no little Solace in Misery it self to have a Fellow though it be in Suffering and an Aggravation when our Sorrows are unparallell'd Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by behold and see if there be any Sorrow like unto my Sorrow c. Lam. 1.12 was the Sting of the Church's Misery But There hath no Temptation taken you but such as is common to Man 1 Cor. 10.13 is a singular Comfort under the most grievous Depressions Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris Society is an Alleviation of Calamities our Griefs are not so oppressive if they be in Consort Company begets a Harmony in Sorrows and the Consonancy of their Dolours makes a kind of pleasing Musick in Consent with our own although no other Interest knit them to us than Community of Cares and Troubles But how pleasant is the Society of a Friend to whom we can ease our Hearts in Adversity and who by condoling our Afflictions and bearing our Burthens lightens our Crosses and cheers our fainting Spirits by comfortable Discourses whom also in all our Prosperity we can make Partaker of all our Joys and all in whose Comforts we have a common Interest whose Good we can rejoyce in when we suffer Evil our selves in the noble Sensuality of reciprocating Kindnesses If the accidental Society of any be sweet much more this Elective neither is the Natural and Relative inferiour especially where the Love is not meer Liberty but Necessity What an unspeakable Solace is the tender pretty Babe to the Compassionate Mother With what ravishing Exultations does she entertain it into her Embraces How does her Heart leap for Joy at the very sight of it And her Bowels yern over it And in its Enjoyment can triumph over all her other Misadventures and Misfortunes In general any thing to which we can let out our hearts in an entire Affection administers Satisfaction The very working of Love and Commiseration singularly pleases There 's no Solace but in something that delights Thy Comforts delight my Soul Under Perplexity no Peace The Heart cannot rest in what displeases What 's unlovely is indelectable Whatever delights comforts whether it be in our own Act or an outward Object Now in incident Company there 's something pleasing something and often much more displeasing else we embrace it with Friendship In a choice Friend there 's much more pleasing than displeasing for we always give some Allowance for Humanity If a Relation in which blind Love sees the least ill yet do in nothing displease 't is ador'd and made a God Whatever is mortal is not without some kind of Embitterment The purest Gold has its Alloy 't is but so many Caracts fine But God is infinite Delectation alway in thy Company Thou art altogether incapable of Solitude He that fills the Universe is ever with thee Ps 139.18 Yet not accidentally but substantially essentially nor only as a Spectator but every way concern'd Afflicted in all thy Afflictions Isa 63.9 So thou enjoy'st that Solamen And if thou hast elected him for thy Freind he hath no less chosen thee In his Love mayst thou rejoice into his Bosome pour out all thy Griefs and meet with a Sympathy in his Compassionate Heart Vpon him mayst thou cast thy Burthen who has promised to sustain it and thee Psal 55.22 He cares for thee 1 Pet. 5.7 He is tenderly affectioned towards thee kind to thee all his is common to thee when none else will or can a Friend will he be and a Relation too the nearest the sweetest To the Natural Relation founded in forming and begetting thee as a Faithful Creator Merciful Father he hath for thy further Comfort superadded a voluntary tye in the condition of a Bridegroom Mat. 25. the beginning But as if Espousals were not firm enough to prevent thy jealousie of a dereliction the Conjugal Bond is actually ty'd Thy Maker is thy Husband Isa 54.5 Rom. 7.1 2 3 4. therefore has he obliged himself to ever enduring Cohabitation and Love with everlasting Kindness will be embrace thee never leave thee nor forsake thee Neither are his Converses and Communication less delightful than his Company and Presence The Discourse
of Friends and Relations mightily revive a dejected Heart not only by diverting and putting by sad disconsolate thoughts but in respect of their matter as Hezekiah's before mentioned to the People of Jerusalem A kind Friend is a Dove with a Olive-branch in his Mouth in and after a deluge of Calamities Good Words are as Oyl to the Joynts Marrow to the Bones a refreshing reviving Medicine to a sick oppressed Heart As a soft Answer turneth away Wrath Prov. 15.1 So a sweet one turns away Sorrow Good Words make the Heart glad even when heaviness in it causeth it to stoop Prov. 12.25 Pleasant Words are as a Honey-comb sweet to the Soul and health Medicine to the Bones Prov. 16.24 God is with us to speak to our Hearts even in a Wilderness State Hos 2.14 How oft are his Words compared to and preferred before Honey and Honey-combs What a revival was it it to Zechariah and the Jews when the Lord answered the Angel-Intercessor for Judah and Jerusalem with good Words and comfortable Words Zech. 1.13 And with no less exultation did the Psalmist say Psal 85.8 I will hear what God the Lord will speak for he will speak Peace to his People and to his Saints Christ himself when present on Earth came preaching Peace Eph. 2.17 His Embassadors by and through him preach Peace Act. 10.36 He is a good Man says David of Ahimaaz and brings good tidings 2 Sam. 18.27 Good Words with a good God are gladsome indeed O take pleasure in the Message more in the Messengers in the Sender most of all The inward secret whisperings of the Spirit of Grace and Peace in thy Conscience the outward publication of Peace by God's Ministers and People are only in the matter and method of the Scriptures in which alone God realy speaks Peace Nothing can comfort but Truth nothing savingly Comfort but Scripture Truth All truth is originally from God Essential Truth is God the Son of God Mat. 28. ult who is where-ever he speaks and maks that comforting Truth which is his Image efficacious by his Presence and Power so that the very Instrument of Comfort does but only delight us relatively to him of whom it is a lively Representation Thou mayst be mock'd with a Lye and bewitch'd into a false deceitful Joy with a Falshood but when the Mask is taken off thy bare Countenance will appear more sad than at first and thy Comforts more unretrievable No real Peace but in the God of Peace through the Prince of Peace Friends and Relations cannot alway be present personally with their Company and Counsel to minister to our Peace A Vertual and Vicarious Presence and Conference does not a little contribute to our Consolation when distance of place renders the other impossible and with what a transport of Joy do we receive their Tokens their Letters their Writings with what a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do we peruse and in a manner greedily devour them How are our Hearts ravished with the kind and affectionate Expressions Professions of Remembrance Respect Love every Word is a Cordial we are in an extasie of Contentation here as in a Glass we behold them their lively Portraicture is afresh painted hereby in our Imagination we hear them we talk with them solace our selves in this Phantastical Enjoyment as if it were Real And why should not our Delights be more transcendent in God who can never be absent whose Presence is Substance and not Phantastry and whose Tokens of Love and Letters of Comfort are not the Curates of a Non-Resident Being nor the Missives of a distant Superintendency but the immediate Visitations of an Overseeing Care and Love that naturally minds and regards our highest Concerns and cannot will not desert us if we first do not desert him How comfortable is good News of any kind what a reviving to our drooping Hearts With what passion do we long for it With what gladness receive it believe it bless God for it The Gospel of Christ is better News than the best on Earth Glad Tidings of the greatest Joy Peace Love and Life Here mayst thou see the omniform motions of Christ's richest Grace perceive the compassionate workings of his Bowels feel the solicitous beatings of his affectionate Heart in a tender regard of thee read of the astonishing effects of his wonder-working Power and Goodness all the Miracles of his Love and Kindness for thy Good in Illumination Sanctification Justification Salvation what he hath done what he still is doing what he further will do to raise thee up out of the bottomless Pit of unspeakable Misery to the top and crown of Heavenly Felicity and Glory Well might the Apostle tell of the Comfort of the Scripture Rom. 15.4 And David long for it as a means to his solace Psal 119.82 This and this alone is the richest Promptuary fullest Treasury of all real Soul-satisfactions hence have we them or they are but mere Legerdemain and Illusions And if the very News of Christ be so sweet what is he in himself What is he in Person None have reason to say of him as the Corinthians of Paul 2 Cor. 10.10 His Letters are weighty and powerful but his bodily Presence is weak His is not the presence of a weak contemptible Body but of an all-powerful Spirit he that can be Omnipresent cannot but be Omnipotent Christ as God is in all is all and even as Man full of Vertue a touch of his very Garments wrought a Miracle of Healing Matth. 9.20 21 22. And if in his Mortal Body there was such Power what is in his Immortal and Glorified The Principle I know was Heavenly though the Vessel Earthly yet this has lost nothing by its Exaltation to the Throne of God no nor we neither for in lieu of that Corporal Presence we enjoy a no less Comfortable Companion the Paraclete the Holy Comforting Spirit of God to abide with us not for a few days and years but for ever Joh. 14.16 So that although our sweetest Relation be gone to Heaven yet are we not Orphans ver 18. The Angel of God's Presence Isa 63.19 that saves us comforts us now by Proxy yet is not absent from us but essentially with us though Corporeally at a distance from us Gods Natural Presence is an immensity of Being Unconfinable to any Place Incomprehensible by all Places Exterminable out of none and with its fullness filling all in all So that there is no need of the supplement of any thing to avoid a vacuity nor is any thing by this Being excluded that needs a Place He is in all Space and beyond all Space not commensurate with it but infinite The Dimetient of all yet without Measure and all Corporeal Dimensions boundlessly greater than all things comprehending all within the Circle of his Essence whose Center is every where Circumference no where in all Varieties of Co-present Beings the same invariable Perfection no other on Earth than in Heaven that he can without any
and with them Sin their Cause never to have a Resurrection Then dawns the Day of everlasting Light and Blessedness and all Darkness Dolours and Shadows flee away Be our Miseries as great as they will or can they cannot outlive Mortality if our guilt do not and it shall not if true Repentance live within us At the day-break of Eternity we enter upon a Life of Contentation and Peace as endless as transcendent The Death of our Bodies is the Death of our Troubles and the Resurrection of those Joys over which Death hath no Power As there will then be no more beginning of Wretchedness so no end of Felicity The worst turn that the Devil and his Instruments can do us will turn to the best advantage and those Souls that die to the Body shall live in Christ they are uncloathed of Dirt and Putrefaction that they may be for ever Cloathed with God and Glory That as the Death of the Body is the easer of all our Pains so the No-death or Immortality succeeding is the Introducer and Maintainer of an unboundable Fullness of everlasting Soul-Satisfactions This we owe to the perpetual Duration and Life of God Whence the Psalmist in a sad Prospect of the evanid Nature of present Things doth solace himself with a view of the permanent Being of God Psal 102.11 12. My days are like a shadow that declineth and I am withered like Grass But thou Oh Lord shall endure for ever and thy Remembrance to all Generations I said Oh my God take me not away in the midst of my days thy years are throughout all Generations Of old hast thou laid the Foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the Work of thine Hands They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old as a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall have no end We are possest of many Transitory Comforts but of none Eternal beside God And if any true Content arise from those movable Enjoyments it springs from nothing else in them except that which being eminently in God is in him of an everlasting Nature and Perfection Whatever pleases doth so far refresh and comfort but all that pleasantness is only a little ray of Divinity transmitted through the Cloud of Flesh and Blood or the more clear Heavens of our Rational Powers Amiable Relations are Comforts beyond all things under the Sun but their lovely Qualities are only a dark Shadow of the unparallell'd Amiableness of God To be beloved by thy Friends is a Comfort estimable above Gold but neither the Act nor the Object durable no nor the Motive exciting or inviting that Affection Can any Man Rationally solace himself with a Being lov'd for a moment when he shall be deserted or hated for ever Fading Love on Earth will not do without the never fading Love of Heaven Though all the World for a while adore thee What compensating Pleasure can that bring thee if Hell everlastingly burn thee All thy fore-past Joys on Earth will rather add new Fewel than administer one drop to cool thy flaming Tongue No Love therefore is indeed considerable and comfortable without the Eternal Love of God Nor in the assurance of this is any hatred or rage valuable dejecting formidable As Eternity is the Venom and Sting of the Torments of Hell so 't is the very Triumph Jubile and Heaven of the Joys of Heaven If in the loss of these lauguishing expiring Comforts we can succenturiate or substitute any thing of God we richly gain by the loss as possessing unspeakably more pure substantial heart-reaching durable everliving Comforts in the everliving Spring who can and will give them that relish and sweetness which shall abundantly more than answer what is slip'd away from us as well in its delicious Gratefulness as Eternity Mortality is the great disgrace of all Worldly Enjoyments but it receives a plentiful Compensation in the Immortality of God Thus have I considered the Comforts comprehended in those Attributes of God which offered themselves to the Psalmist's Meditation as I find them either exprest or plainly implied in this Psalm CHAP. XIV Comforts from God COuld I allow my self the liberty I might here instance those Comforts which are administred from the consideration of the Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and the Relations wherein God stands to us and we mutually to God But I have determined to confine my Discourse chiefly to such Heads of Matter as fall within Cognizance of the Psalm and not make endless Excursions to things which none can imagine ever to enter into the Author's mind in order to the Revival of his disconsolate Heart I pass therefore from the Comforts that God is which was the first general to the 2. The Comforts which God gives That which God is in himself and hath revealed to us is wonderfully refreshing But there 's also something which not being immanent and essentially Constitutive of the Divine Nature but passing from him to us doth singularly relieve our troubled Souls Of this kind Promises Providences Privileges Experiences offer themselves to Consideration What was needful to be observed concerning Promises fell in under Divine Fidelity as included in its very Notion therefore shall all further Disquisition anent them be superseded Providence is the transit of God's Wisdom Power Justice Goodness Faithfulness out of Heaven and himself into the visible World Governing Protecting Caring for Directing and Ordering all for most excellent Ends worthy of God Under the conduct hereof all things prosperous or adverse the greatest the most minute Natural Moral Spiritual necessary or fortuitous are deduced from their immediate proper Causes guided and sustained in their Actings secured from external Violences maintained in a due steady agreeable Station and order to compose the Beauty and Harmony of the Universe and be conducible to advance the Glory of their Maker in both the general and special purposes of his Love and Goodness or Justice and Righteousness And there is not a more reviving consideration to God's afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted Isa 54.11 than this that they are the peculiar care and charge of Heaven which as it is concerned for the Catholique good so in special for those that love God and are the called according to his purpose Rom. 8.28 insomuch that Prosperity cannot be more delectable to their sense than Afflictions of all kinds are made to their Souls useful and profitable 'T is always best for them to be in the worst external Circumstances as never being more dear to God more regarded by him who is most tender of them when the Devil and World are most cruel and when the out-casts off-scouring and refuse of the Earth When here they can expect nothing beside Reviliags and Buffetings the liberal Alms of the Churches Enemies they are likeliest to receive the more bountiful tastes of Divine Goodness possess more of his
got to the foot of that Ladder whose top is Heaven Comfort is the Off-spring of God and thus descends to Man The matter and substance of it or the thing comforting is originally something of or from the Divine Nature it self Which when we had forfeited by Sin the ever-blessed Jesus God's Eternal Son did interpose to regain and purchase for us and remove all impediments to the conferring it on God's part Whence he is call'd the Consolation of Israel Luk. 2.25 And our Consolations are said to abound by Christ 2 Cor. 1.5 If there be any Consolations in Christ is the Hypothesis of a very powerful Argument Phil. 2.1 And that Prayer 2 Thes 2.16 17. is very considerable Now our LORD Jesus Christ himself and GOD even our Father who hath loved us and given us everlasting Consolation through Grace Comfort your Hearts and establish you in every good Word and Work Hence the Father who is the principal Author and Efficient hath obliged himself to bestow it and therefore is call'd the God of all Comfort 2 Cor. 1.3 God that comforteth those that are cast down 2 Cor. 7.6 See Isa 51.11 12. Hos 2.14 Isa 66.13 Especially that remarkable place foremention'd Heb. 6.16 17 18. The Holy Ghost hath his part also as removing the Impediments of Comfort on Man's part preparing for it and in the use of the means of Grace and Peace the Word and Ordinances applying it actually to us whence if our Translation be of any Authority he has the Name of Comforter given and appropriated to him Joh. 14.16 c. I mention the Word and Ordinances of God as the means of Comfort and not without warrant Psal 119.82 Mine Eyes fail for thy Word saying when wilt thou Comfort me Rom. 15.4 Whatever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope And to this purpose is it said of the Comforter Joh. 14.26 He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you And Joh. 15.26 He shall testifie of me all this in pursuance of his Office as Comforter Now by these means 1. He reveals Comfort to us in the Covenant and Promise 2. Declares to us the terms and conditions upon which Comfort may be assuredly obtain'd and 3. Works those Conditions in us 1. Repentance to qualifie and prepare for it 2. Faith to apprehend and apply it which 4. Experience feels with all other connex Graces operating effectually in our Hearts Wherefrom Lastly A full Assurance arises 1. That our Graces are sound and sincere 2. That the Promises are our Portion the Lord our God Christ our Saviour the Holy Spirit our Sanctifier Comfort Joy and Heaven our Inheritance by special Covenant-right and from all these together necessarily grows actual Peace of Conscience and true spiritual Consolation but then 't is only as far as we have the first Assurance for without this we cannot assume to our selves any true Joy and Comfort as far as the rest issue in Assurance but no farther have we solace in and from them Let there be as firm a Foundation laid both without me and within me as is possible yet if I know nothing of it my Heart is uneasie and unsettled I am no better for it But knowing that Sincerity gives right to all in God as soon as ever I attain true Faith of Evidence all is composed into a quiet Settlement and Peace And so certain is this that even the false and fallacious Joys of both Hypocrites and prophane Persons must have an answerable perswasion in the Mind of a right to them For no Man can take comfort in that which he knows he hath nothing to do with Indeed their Assurance is as groundless though they do not know so much as their Comfort is illuding and impostorous and alway the nature of the Comfort doth perfectly answer the quality of the Assurance if this be sound and good that is so also if otherwise we gull our selves into real woe under a delusory dream of merely phantastical Consolation Hence there 's an absolute necessity of abundance of Experience and diligent trial whether our Experience be conform to the Word of God if we desire that our Assurance may stand upon a secure basis For if we feel not the real effects of Divine Power and Goodness fulfilling to us in truth the Promise and Covenant of Grace in writing the Divine Laws in our Hearts and enabling and exercising us to observe and obey them we can have no Assurance that any thing is right within us or gives right to any thing without us We must experience a sound Work that without fallacy may be ascribed to God himself For no Grace is true which is not of God's creating to him doth the Scripture every where ascribe it One full place for all Ezek. 36.26 27. A new Heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take the stony Heart out of your Flesh and I will give you an Heart of Flesh and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my Satutes and do them Then shall ye remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your Iniquities and for your Abominations c. First the Principle and Power must be confer'd by God then and not till then the practice by Man will commence and begin but all under the influence of Divine Grace 'T is first I will I will then you shall and again to show that the very you shall though Man's act yet is not of and from Man it follows not for your sake do I this do I therefore not you without me nor so by my aid neither as that the doing it can more justly and truly be ascribed to you than me yet will not I do it without you for ye shall loath your selves i. e. by my Power nor will I do it without your asking for Ver. 37. Yet for this will I be enquired of by the House of Israel to do it for them We must then have good experience especially of the Work of Divine Grace in making the soundness of our Actings of Repentance and Faith apparent and the fruits of both must concur to give a clear Testimony that they are right and genuine such a full and thorow spiritual sense and feeling must we have of them and their agreeableness to the Rules and Laws of Scripture that require them as to be able to satisfie our selves and approve our Consciences to God that we do not play the Hypocrites and cheat our selves and the World with Counterfeits instead of unsophisticate sincere Graces else we can never be blest with any certainty that God is ours and his Comforts ours and therefore cannot groundedly take comfort in him 'T is then demonstratively clear that
Mixture of many Imperfections and Miscarriages and Pollutions by reason whereof he stands in need of Pardon and Justification that he cannot insist upon it as capable of rendring his Person and Actions in strict Justice acceptable to or allowable by the Righteous Judge of Quick and Dead Bildad there will admit him to stand in no higher Rank than that of a Worm when any thing in him aspires to a Competition with God as indeed there 's no Proportion betwixt Finite and Insinite And that the High and Lofty One that inhabits Eternity should humble and debase Himself to engage so admirably for so minute a Being make Provision so incomparably rich and glorious for a vile Worm is a Work of unparallell'd Bounty and Magnificence congruous and answerable to the immense Perfection of God but infinitely above the Merit and Meanness of Man Comfort 'T is a comprehensive an incomprehensible Blessing like Him who Gives it who Is it All that God hath done still doth and intends to do is implied in it or may be inferr'd from it All the eternal good Purposes of the Divine Majesty for the Benefit of Man the whole Undertaking and Purchase of His Well-beloved Son every of the Gifts Graces and Workings of the Holy Spirit are summ'd up here For a Man is not capable of actual Comfort till he enjoy Assurance as hath been evinced nor of assurance till he be Justified and Sanctified nor of these without the Spirit of Grace nor of that without the Mediation of Christ nor is he capable of Eternal Comfort till he enjoy all these in their Fulness This one Mercy therefore is All because where It is given All are given before or with it and it is given as the Fruit of All the Bestowal of it being the consummate Act of Divine Munificence In Summ Comfort in part is part of Heaven perfect Comfort is perfect Heaven Oh astonishing Grace Oh unimitable Goodness in the Donor Oh unlimitable Blessedness in the Possessor Oh what is man Lord that thou art thus mindful of him or the son of man that thou dost thus visit him Erect thy self Oh my Soul into an admiring Contemplation of this Descent of Majesty so stupendous so benign so beneficial Refresh thy Thoughts with it daily Let it dwell with thee Resolve and endeavour to endear to thy self that infinite Goodness which so incredibly humbles it self for thy advantage Improve it for that end for if this Meditation do not Better thee thou wilt be worse for it to all Eternity CHAP. XVI Elenctical Inferences NExt I have Deductions of Two Sorts according to the Signification of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Convictive and Reprehensive The Convictive are either Theoretical or Practical concerning Faith or Conscience This First confutes and condemns the Doctrine of Incertitude or the Impugners of Assurance For if in this Life there be Comfort there must be Assurance The Latter is neither Possible nor Rational without the former Which is thus proved Divine Actual Comfort being that Satisfaction Ease Quiet and Peace of Mind and Conscience which settles our discomposed discomposing troublesome Thoughts and Affections into a sweet Harmony and Rest cannot possibly be a brutish stupidity of Conscience but must proceed upon Light and Evidence For God does not act upon us as Blocks and Stones which have no Faculties or Sense to guide them but only an Obediential Power in a passive way to yield to the Conduct of His Wisdom and Omnipotence He does not still and becalm our tempestuous Hearts as the Sea which knows not what it does when it submits to the uncontroulable Violence of His Commands No He leads our Rational Powers in the sweet Method of their spontaneous natural activity into the Paths of Righteousness which issue in Peace Jam. 3.18 Which is therefore call'd Guiding Luk. 1.77 78 79. To give the Knowledge of Salvation to his People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the taking away of their Sins whether by Remission or Sanctification or both 78. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By or through the Bowels of Mercy of our God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which the Day-spring Sun-rise Mal. 4.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 East Mat. 2.1 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from on high hath visited us 79. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make an Epiphany to shine forth To give Light to them that sit in Darkness and the shadow of Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to streighten to guide streight our feet into the way of Peace A pregnant Scripture for my Purpose Peace then there can be none that 's Solid and Divine of which alone we enquire out of the way of Peace We cannot when sitting in darkness and the shadow of Death stumble or hit into that way without a Guide No other Guide can there be but the Sun of Righteousness the Day-spring visiting us Without Light He neither can nor will be our Guide This Light from the Day-spring is no other than the Knowledge of Salvation in the taking away of Sins which when particularly apply'd to my self is only this I know that I shall obtain Salvation by this viz. the taking away of my Sins and that 's neither more nor less than Assurance all which Blessings accrue to us through the Bowels of Mercy of our God 'T is not possible that a Man's Conscience should be truly comforted except he know that Comfort appertains to him is his right For though the Contemplation of Golden Mountains may gratifie the Imagination of a Fool yet no wise Man counts himself richer for a dream of the Spanish Silver Mines in Potosi c. or the Golden Tagus or Rio de Plata That Athenian is upon Record for no Philosopher who solac'd himself with a conceit that all the Ships arriving at the Port were his own Sound Peace of Mind is always founded upon good Evidence of an undoubted Right to Peace For if I doubt that I deceive mine own Soul in speaking Peace to my self where there is no Peace that very dubiousness will rack and torture me as much as possibly more than I should have been bad I never claim'd Peace since an usurpation of what I have no title to is a new sin superadded to the old sore of Soul-disquieters and the very fear that I am guilty of it hath Torment Now I cannot possibly be assur'd that Comfort belongs to me of right unless I find within my self the dispositions that qualifie for Comfort that is except I be consolable I cannot be comforted If I be not agreeable to Comfort it is not agreeable to me For the right to Comfort is not Absolute but Conditional 'T is not Nature that entitles to it but Grace therefore in all the Epistolary Salutations 't is first Grace then Peace Whence a Man can be no more assured that he hath right to Comfort than he is assured he hath true Grace And Experience demonstrates that a Person if he understand himself to be absolutely inconsolable who
Conversion There cannot then be any Divine Comfort if there be not a sweet Composure and Harmony betwixt Earth and Heaven and this can never be where a Man is at peace with his Sins Therefore whatever quiet may seem to be in such a Soul 't is only personated and illusive it reaches not to the real bottom of the trouble takes not out the Core But on the other hand when a Man makes Repentance and Mortification Faith and a good Life the main employ which drinks up his Spirits and Strength and Time industriously contending in all things to approve the sincerity and heartiness of his Affections Designs and Aims and whole Deportment in the sight of God and whilst he is thus doing finds any quietude Rest and Satisfaction of Mind to sweeten his Work and settle his Conscience he may be confident that this is the true Comfort of the Holy Ghost For as 't is impossible to enjoy true Peace under reigning Sin so t is inconsistent with Divine Goodness and Federal Love to permit a true Heart intirely devoted to him to delude it self into true Miseries under the vizor of false Joys I confess if a Man be too greedy of Comfort and too hasty in his Applications without due consideration and indeavour and care to derive his Satisfactions from solid Grounds laying the stress upon things which will not bear it in such indeliberate precipitation of Judgment concerning a Mans state and the true root of Comfort when he founds it upon any thing less than substantial Piety Righteousness and Sobriety as the evidence of his Right he may abuse himself with an unsound unsolid Peace Therefore I always suppose that the procedure in order to Comfort be justifiable and the Grounds upon which a Man bottoms his Evidence be genuine and that his reason and judgment lead him leisurely in the Scripture way to Heart-ease and Rest else all may issue in greater inquietude and trouble whatever fair Weather may at present flatter his conscience But if Spiritual sense light and a serious Preponderation of all circumstances according to the preceeding particular direct our motions hither and true Religiousness confirm them we may be secure that mere Shows and Pageantry do not now delude us into a Fairy Paradise A weak Head 't is true may lead an honest Heart into a deceitful Peace And 't is not the design of Grace to abolish or reform the natural Depravations and Deformities of our Faculties so much as the Moral But that which is defective must not be made a Standard A good Soul that understands it self and observes solid Rules in comforting it self cannot be deceiv'd in that Peace which it possesses whilst it loves God and keeps his way Such as a Mans goodness is will his Consolation be If that be but External and Hypocritical this will be insincere and delusory but a true intelligent honest Heart proceeding with a just caution shall never be gull'd with a Mock-Peace For Psal 97.11 12. Light is sown for the Righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Rejoyce in the Lord ye Righteous What God sows they shall reap Psal 85.8 10. I will hear what God the Lord will speak for he will speak peace unto his people and to his Saints c. Mercy and Truth have met together Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other Their embrace is strict and indissoluble God hath espoused them they cannot be divorced What he hath joyned together none shall finally separate and part asunder They give mutual testimony each to others integrity and soundness In Life they are lovely in Death they cannot be divided but will cohabit eternally Where then Oh my Soul is thy Righteousness not particular meerly but universal Shew me thy comfort by thy Works for 't is dead being alone As the Body without the Spirit is dead so is Peace without Holiness which is its very Life and Soul If thou be not God-like thy Joys are not Heaven-like All true pleasures are drops of those Rivers at God's Right Hand Psal 36.8 and 46.4 and 16. ult If the Waters of Life have never quickned and cleansed thee those Streams of Divine Comfort never yet did refresh thee thou hast only drunk of the Abana and Pharphar of muddy carnal Contentments not of the pure Fountain of Celestial Consolations Wherein then can thy uprightness and real honesty of heart approve it self to God Is this thy rejoycing 2 Cor. 1.12 viz. the Testimony of thy conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly Wisdom but by the grace of God thou hast had thy Conversation in the World What hast thou to shew more than an Hypocrite Wherein does thy Righteousness excel that of Scribes and Pharisees What are thy Principles Motives manner of acting Aims and Ends in thy whole course of Life Do'st thou really act 1. From God a Spirit of new Life breathed into thee by God 2. Through Christ as the Foundation of thy hopes of acceptance 3. By the Spirit as thy immediate aid in every Holy performance 4. Unto God as thy ultimate end Hast thou no secret reserved Dalilahs No one thing in which thou would'st have liberty and presume upon Pardon Do'st thou not run upon a biass in Religion and twine aside in some sinister respect to self or the popular Vogue in which thou would'st be somebody Is it thy great and uppermost care and study to be true to him that sees in secret rather than applauded by those who only see the Outside that thy inward gracious Dispositions may go no less than thy outward Semblances Art thou above all things jealous of thy deceitful Heart afraid of Hypocrisie willing to do any thing that may tend to a full discovery of thy self to thy self And if all be not right within or suspected not to be Art thou unspeakably troubled till it be righted Thou art full of thoughts but have thy Meditations been effectual through Christ to break thy heart from as well as for sin and bow thy Will to a Conformity and subjection to God's Will of Precept and Providence and bring thee to an intelligent self-denying humble penitent believing affectionate owning thy Baptismal Covenant in its whole latitude with sincere and indeflexible Resolutions to stand by it for ever And do'st thou expect thy peace in no other way Hast thou been industriously and labouriously diligent to gain a true and thorow understanding of thy State and Frame Godward searching all to the bottom very solicitous to see in a clear light What Conditions and Qualifications are prerequisite to dispose thee for Comfort and to be clear that in reality they are in thee and that thou do'st not build thy Evidence hereof upon self-flattering deceitful Grounds but do'st in truth find that the interest of God is Soveraign and Supreme in and nearest thy Heart hath the universal Regiment and command over all being thy singular delight and whatever thou feel'st to oppose becomes on that account an
excessive enough in their grief for Sin but are still ambitions to find their Head become Waters and theirs Eyes a Fountain of Tears that they may weep day and night which if they experience in any desired measure then are they well satisfied and at ease making this an Ingredient of their Comfort stiling it melting and being affected which when they feel not they are all upon the whine and cannot be reconciled to their more deep solid and less superficial Repentings and Dolors But this womanish part of Repentance in God's Whinls as one used to call them though in its due degree and place desirable and commendable yet is the least considerable and lowest thing in it as every judicious Divine and Christian very well knows being only sensitive not deliberative or spiritual in its rise and acting and real nature and the former viz. melancholick Pensiveness and delight therein is no part of Repentance at all but only an effort of natural Constitution or a gratification thereof including nothing reasonable and humane nor divine and spiritual No more is any thing in that Person who cannot satisfactorily resolve that Quaere of the Psalmist Why art thou cast down ob my Soul And why art thou disquieted within me Psal 42. ult For this is distinctive of sound trouble and unsound the former has some special and particular Matter as a reason and ground to alledge for it self the latter either can give no reason at all or hovers in the wild confusion of generals whence it springs and how it rises and for what it is lies in the dark Let not that pass then for right trouble which cannot give a just account of it self at the bar of Reason guided by the Word of God and if it cannot stand there how will it plead before the Tribunal of Christ Where we must render a reason of all things done in the Flesh whether good or evil 2 Cor. 5.10 the very Thoughts of the heart being there to be judged Rom. 2.15 16. troubled and troubling thoughts as well as others As then those are infinitely blame-worthy who maintain an ungrounded Peace in their minds although their hearts have never been sensible and sick of their native habitual enmity against God and Holiness and will not be beaten out of their presumptuous confidence in the Goodness and Covenant of God although altogether unqualified and those also who being a little chastized with the Whips and Scorpions of the Law in a tart Conviction and Terror of Conscience soon grow weary of the burthen and pain and being more sick of their Corrosives than their Corruptions begin Dog-like to lick whole their Sores and will have the Promises right or wrong as a lenitive or stupefactive rather to ease their pains or destroy their sence though the Core abide within and being well-pleas'd and satisfy'd with the palliate Cure trail on a little while 'till the more deep lancings of a thorough Conviction discover the deceit or the incurable gangrene break out at Death and Judgment to their ineffable Horror So likewise are they worthy to be greatly blamed on the other hand who are really sick but afraid of Balm and the Physician and though every Sin be made grievous and pain them at the very heart and nothing in the World would be more acceptable than a Saviour whom to subject themselves to they appear heartily resolved and willing to embrace every one of his Laws yet make danger of applying to themselves and taking encouragement from his Promises of Mercy that in Him are Yea and in Him Amen because forsooth they are not so and so humbled holy affectionate c. As if 't was not Evangelical New Covenant-Perfection i. e. Vprightness but Legal Personal Vniversal and Perpetual Obedience which God required as the Condition of the Covenant of Grace and they must not dare to accept of Christ and his Benefits except they were so good before-hand as to stand in no need of them But why I beseech you thus in love with your own Torture and desirous still to abide upon the Rack of Anxiety and Dolour Trouble is not its own end God does not wound our Consciences or crucifie our Comfort in carnal Things merely because he loves to torment us or that we may be Devils to ourselves by protracting our own Woes beyond the bounds of Decorum and Necessity He only designs by the Antiperistasis of our Sorrows more to sweeten the Joys of his Salvation which he hath prepared for us and by mingling Gall and Wormwood with our delicious Sins to embitter that which only prepares us for and assigns us over unto the direful Miseries of everlasting Damnation In brief one would not think that the reason of any could be reconcil'd to their own Woes much less their Sense Yet common Experience tells us that some will every moment be conjuring up new Fiends to torture themselves and seem to study nothing else but by fetching in all the Fuel they can possibly reach and all the Fire that divine Vengeance breaths out in the Scriptures to kindle a Hell in their own Consciences as though Misery were their proper Element and infinitely more desirable than divine Mercy which they solicitously fly from and with all imaginable Artifice and Industry fence against as if in a pernicious Malice against themselves they were sure 't would be their utter undoing to be happy Corruption Temptation and a dark cloudy Complexion with confederate strength and stratagems besiege and storm their Imaginations which having invested from thence as a strong Citadel they batter down their Reason so that nothing can be heard or regarded but what will take the stronger side to war against Comfort and God Display before them all the amiable Beauties of Infinite Goodness and Love in its wonderful descents to the Chief of Sinners with whose Transgressions their sober Considerations cannot dare to equal their own Represent to their view in a clear Heaven of Light the incomprehensible Glories and Condescensions of the ever to be admired and adored Son of Righteousness whose astonishing Free Grace induced him to be willing for the sake of lost Mankind to suffer an Eclipse under that thick Cloud of divine Vengeance which was due for the Sins not of one particular Sinner only but of the whole World and the Merit of whose Passion was sufficient to expiate the Sins of infinite Worlds yet will they scarce allow this to be a balance for their own Lay open before their Eyes the rich and glorious Treasury of the divine Promises and gracious Invitations to such as are under like Circumstances with theirs and therefore to them as fully and clearly as if their Names were engraven in the Front of every one of those Bonds upon God's Fidelity or these written upon their own Foreheads or proclaimed to them by name from Heaven Discover to them with the brightest Evidence that their Spirit Condition Frame and Preparations are really such as God hath described and
get advantage by nothing according to the Proverb of the Rowling Stone Therefore Command thy self in chief is a good Monition of Mr. Herbert If thou losest the regiment of thine own Mind and canst not bridle the exorbitances of thy Thoughts bring them to a beck like one in Authority keeping them under controul and if thou hast not a good stock of profitable matter treasured up in thy Memory to entertain them with at all times maintaining thy Jurisdiction and Dominion over them to be able to divorce and divert them from any thing to any thing thou canst never live in Tranquillity and Peace Those Cogitations that break the pale and run out of course will still be creating Civil Wars and Combustions among thy Passions and interrupt the Serenity of thy Conscience Hence it is that Meditation is not the immediate duty of nor proper for the constitutionally Melancholick whose temper it is to be too cogitabund and their Disease to be altogether unable to biass their Thoughts and to be too willing to lay out those Cogitations rather upon any thing than what is Joyous and Comforting Let such make use of other Mens Thoughts rather that their own and be more in Company and Conference than Solitude and Soliloquies Neme est ex imprudentioribus qui relinqui sibi debeat Seneea Ep. 10. 'T is dangerous riding in that Chariot where there will be no other Company than the Prince of Darkness and Melancholy by some is call'd the Devil's Chariot 'T is oftner managed by an Evil Spirit than a Good therefore 't is no Wisdom for a Man to trust himself with it alone And if trouble of Heart for Sin degenerate into it as sometimes it does 't is good to set a guard upon it to live under Inspection A Man can never keep himself secure from Sins or Sorrows that hath none to keep his House but a dumpish Mind Think thou but not too much that thy Thoughts do not swallow thee up as they will if that black humour prevail within Get a guide for thy Thoughts least they misguide thee into Darkness And for that end 3. Get a clear practical notion of God This was the Psalmist's great relief In every Distress he could find an accommodate suitable Satisfaction and Solace in God Did the Wicked rage and revel in the Blood of Innocents His Faith beholds a revenging Hand ready to execute Judgment for them Did those presumptuous Deists incourage themselves in Cruelty by renouncing Divine Providence He understands and convinces them that it supervises all even to the very thoughts of the Heart Did he feel the treachery and failure of Friends on Earth He both knew and found a never failing Friend and Helper in Heaven c. In every Trouble and Exigence he meets with God Now had he been unacquainted with his Nature and Perfections we should have seen nothing of all this and then in what deplorable Circumstances would he have found himself under those surrounding Calamities Whence could he have taken any Encouragement Let us take a view of Men making no such Reflections and therefore its likely but little acquainted with such Notions And the Instance shall be in his own Companions 1 Sam. 30.3 David and his Men return to Ziklag find it burnt with Fire their Sons and Daughters taken Captives wherefore ver 4. They lifted up their Voice and wept till they had no more power to weep Ver. 6. And David was in great distress for the People spake of stoning him because the Soul of the People was bitter every Man for his Sons and for his Daughters Here was wild work What fury of Passion first in Grief next in Rage first they swelt in Tears then would swim in Blood and what would they have been the nearer To such Excesses will the frenzy of a drunken Appetite lead Men that are ignorant of God or entertain no serious Considerations of his Excellencies and their concern in the Government of the World Now behold did not an other Spirit rule in David a Man acquainted with God Yes a brave Heroical Spirit Ver. 6. David encouraged fortified garrison'd himself in the Lord his God Mark His knowledge of God and Interest in God now mightily bore up his Heart and stood him in very good stead else might his Spirits have sunk with theirs But whilst they were impotent through effeminate or diabolical Passion he was strong in God Their puling and peevishness did emasculate their Hearts and melt them into Pusillanimity and Cowardice that they did not dare to confront and face this present hardship but he became Couragious and Valiant in God so as with an undaunted masculine Fortitude and greatness of Mind to triumph over and outface the imminent Storm and work his way through it though with redoubled Violence from both Enemies and Friends it rush'd upon him And truly since all our Comfort is originally and eminently and consummately in God 't is impossible to enjoy any sound Quiet and Heart-ease under ignorance of him For how should a Man be able to draw and derive Comfort from he knows not what But if he see that fulness of all delectable Joys in God which are all-sufficient to relieve his Mind and compensate his sorest Troubles as the Love of God in Christ will and contemplate study and dwell upon that infiniteness of Soul-satisfying Good till the inviting amiableness ravish his Desires command his Delight engage his Soul in the most vigorous pursuit and endeavours to gain an Interest therein he shall not fail to obtain that sweet reviving Solace and Peace in the most acceptable season which will place him as in a corner of Heaven Our Sorrows are more than half remov'd when we gain a sight of their most efficacious Remedies If a Man at unawares have drunk Poyson 't is no small satisfaction to see and be sure of a prevalent Antidote Despair is the sting of Miseries Be the Storms and Surges never so high and beat upon us with seemingly the most fatal Violence yet if our Hope can but meet with any Anchor-hold if we can gain a sight of Land if we behold a sufficiency of Help and Security there our Despondencies only are Shipwrack'd we escape Those Hopes can never perish that steer towards Heaven If our Course be guided with an Eye upon the Star 't is safe But if the very Heart despair Psal 73.26 and Hope be sunk yet that case cannot be desperate that 's under-taken by God Almighty Love is never at a loss either in Ability or Will to succour those whom it once Embraces which if we understand neither our Help nor our Hope can perish from the Lord. Fix therefore thine Eye here In summ God is all in all in him if we will but oblige our selves thereto may we behold infinitely more than enough to still the raging of our troubled Minds and all engaged in Covenant to meet us more than half way Pardon of Sin Propriety in God are
love the Lord then Oh my Soul with all thy mind with all thy Heart with all thy strength and thy Neighbour as thy self for his sake let him have thy whole desire thy whole delight at all times Minus te amat qui aliquid tecum amat quod non propter te amat Idiotae contempl de amore Dei c. 12. He loves thee but little Oh Lord who loves any thing with thee which he loves not for thee says a devout Man 'T is but meet that the highest God should have the Supremacy in my heart If in the greater World he be King must he be a Subject in the less I am worse than Hell if God must not be acknowledged Soveraign in my Soul The Spirits there dare not cannot but own him as their Lord this is the duty they pay extorted indeed by their sense and fear which that it may not be thy dismal lot and fate Oh my Soul advance thou him freely to the Crown within thy self in a spontaneous generous Ardour of pure Incorrupt Incorruptible Love Which if thou dost not thou art accursed if thou dost thou art blessed for 't is a Prayer upon record in God's Word 1 Cor. 16.22 and therefore part of the matter of Christ's Intercession Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Incorruption or Immortality i. e. with a never-fading Love Eph. 2.24 and that only is a sincere Love Oh Love the Lord on Earth as thou wilt love him in Heaven with the same kind and press toward the same degree of Love and be happy Thus live in God above the tumult and hurry of external things and be at rest Marc. Antonin l. 2. p. 5 c. Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse Supremum Live every day as if it were thy last and in every imployment so act Arrian l. 4. c. 10. as one that can be free to be found therein by Death p. 416. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It. l. 3. c. 5 p. 273. Antonin l. 6. §. 3◠What would'st thou be found doing by Death says Arrianus I for my part doing some masculine beneficial publick useful generous Work But if I cannot be found in these yet this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unhinderable this is given to me to amend my self to elaborate that faculty which makes use of Phantasies to endeavour apathy or freeness from Passion to give my Affections their due and if I can be so happy to gain soundness certainty of Judgment If Death find me thus employ'd 't will be sufficient to engage me with hands stretched out to God to say I have not neglected those Powers thou gavest me to observe thy Government and follow it I have done my endeavour not to disgrace thee Behold how I have used my Senses my Prenotions Have I ever blamed thee Have I been displeased with any thing befalling or wish'd it otherwise Have I misguided my Affections because thou begattest me I render thee the praise of thy Gifts in as much as I have well used thine it sufficeth me Resume them now again and where thou pleasest dispose of me For all were thine and thou gavest them me I the rather produce these Testimonies out of Heathen Authors to let Christians see how inexcusable it will be in them who have infinitely better Light Means Aids to neglect what even Nature and Reason taught Philosophers to practise And withall to awaken others with my self to a more assiduous care in these Exercises least it be found more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon for Sodom and Gomorrah than for us at the great day Observe all the inward Workings of the Divine Spirit both in calling out the actings of Grace and reviving thee with Peace and keep them upon record for after advantage Time may come when all thy present Sensations may be so cloudy that thou canst not see a peep of day canst not from any thing that thou feelest conclude that thy state is right before God But if at such a season and hour of temptation thou be'st able to call to mind that upon due trial when in a sober and composed calm of Thoughts the Lord satisfied thee upon sure and indefeisible Evidence that thy Heart was truly changed and that thou wast as a New Creature in Christ Jesus and that thy Objections and misdoubtings and temptations to the contrary were thorowly answered This will be such an ease to thy mind and a revival of thy hopes that ere long the mists and darkness will be driven away and thou wilt again reascend into a clear and serene Heaven of Light and Peace and Joy Make sure in this manner to lay up and reserve a good stock and treasure of Experiences if thou desirest Riches of Comfort yet content not thy self with the old but make new To remember what thou did'st enjoy and feel in the days of the right Hand of the Most High may revive thee but to sense and feel it at present much more Renew then those gracious Exercises over and over that did once produce Halcyon days in thy Soul and they will recall them the same effects will issue from the same Causes Amend what was amiss in former actings which gave Satan advantage to redintegrate thy Troubles and this will establish thy Peace upon a securer and more unexceptionable basis 'T is not possible to refute the Devils Objections against thy sincerity by a method more effectual than a more serious care to act all over again sincerely which he tempts thee to suppose was done unsoundly Renovated Acts of a sound Repentance and unfeigned Faith as sure Testimonies of thy Renovation after the Image of God will dash thine Accuser out of countenance If thou canst make any fresh Experiments of the Power of Divine Grace effecting this If God take thee anew into his bosom of Love to melt thee If a view of him whom thy Sins have pierced cause thy ebbing godly Sorrow again to flow over all the Banks Lastly if with a perfect Heart thou returnest from all thy by-past follies unto him from whom thou hast deeply revolted this will again retrieve thy sinking Heart and hopes as a new taste of the Lord's graciousness and evidence that he hath not forsaken thee but that his Mercy and Godness follows thee and shall all the days of thy life even to Eternity Set about this O my Soul with a resolved obstinacy of endeavour that will not be conquerable by any assaults of Corruption or Temptation For thou canst never take a Heaven of Joy and Rest except by violence and force Weak resolves do but only encrease the Devils Triumphs Strong cares are requisite to possess thee of strong Consolations Observe where when and how the Spirit moves and spread thy Sails before his sweet Spirations He is the Comforter because the Conducter into the way of Peace Thou canst enjoy no more of his Testimony to solace thee than
the Port of real Holiness then does he generously tender us those needful refreshments which will revive our weather-beaten Souls can we now spurn them away from us and be innocent Here therefore is Sin on both hands How shall we cast the balance We must not sin our selves into Comfort neither must we sin it away Cut the hair Well then all depends upon this the determination what is too hasty what too slow application of Promises And this upon the preceding Quaere what is due Preparation For to apply Promises when rightly qualified is no Sin but Duty therefore to neglect it is Sin Then are we too hasty when we run before we are bidden not otherwise God by creating in us the pre-required Promise-dispositions bids us take all the Blessings in the Promise which they dispose for When the Condition is perform'd the Covenant is a Command to accept its Merey which cannot be refused without disobedience to God 'T would be strange petulancy when Christ says Come ye Blessed of my Father inher it the Kingdom c. to reply no I dare not I am not qualify'd Such is the refusal to inherit his Comforts when he hath wrought in us their Conditions And if the foremention'd be not where are they Remember Oh my Soul thou livest not under the Covenant of Works but of Grace And if thou doubtest of thy Preparations resume thy Work try them better make them sounder that thy second and renew'd Essays may be unquestionable Yet remember also that 't is a grievous Sin to belye thy self and deny God's Work he expects thou should'st consider and own the Operation of his Hands and give him the Glory of the Fruits of his Love in thy Regeneration Take heed of detaining the Truth in the Prison of Vnrighteousness Be just to God and thy self Do not dare to blaspheme his Grace by attributing it to other Causes As thou must not flatter thy self so neither forswear the Grace of God If thou yet alledge that 't is God's Work to comfort by his Spirit who does it by inclining the heart to accept of his Tenders which thou dost not experience but rather he renews thy Troubles and Disquiets by presenting new Matter or setting on the old therefore should'st thou assume to thy self the Solace of the Promises 't would not be a Comfort of God's making but thine own and so a mere Fallacy put upon thy Conscience I answer 1. by Retort If God do his part to encline thy heart to accept of Peace but thou resistest him and against his Will resumest thy Troubles and quenchest those Motions of his Spirit that were intended to allay thy Disquiets and create Peace whose is the Fault now That this may be clear'd I answer 2. That God's moral Motion is antecedent to and leads all Physical his or ours For since he inclines in a way suitable to our Nature as he himself as we and all rational Natures act where the Mind and Reason leads the Will and inclines it therefore by presenting Objects and Reasons urging and enforcing them by sense and feeling of misery disquiet of heart and woe God strives with thy Will to move it freely to embrace those freely-offer'd Comforts without which thou perceivest thy self plainly to be ready to sink into Horror and Despair But thou against both divine Reason and thine own Sense stiffly irrationally and malapartly refusest to yield to either and yet art so sottish as to impute thy Frenzy to God Avaunt Blasphemy If the mighty important Perswasives of Heaven cannot prevail upon thee as a Man never imagine that the Almightiness of God will miraculously drag thee as a Beast or a Block into that Paradise of Rest and Satisfaction which now thou startlest and tremblest at And understand that if thou be'st a Rebel against the Reason of God thou wilt also be a Fighter against the Power of God If a rational Mind act in repugnancy to his Wisdom much more will an irrational brutish Will against his Omnipotence there being less aversation in any Man to be subdu'd by the Golden Liberty of forcible Arguments than the Iron-necessity of Club-Law The result is that to refuse divine Comforts when qualified for them is an evident fighting against God and to deny our Qualifications when heartily grieved for and undissembledly willing and active to divorce from and never return to any thing displeasing to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and unfeignedly desirous and diligent to espouse the Divine Interest in all things without tergiversation or delay This is an apparent Rebellion and Lye against the Holy Ghost and our own Souls which Oh my Soul there is an absolute necessity that thou should'st be much more afraid of than thy mere imaginary Presumption in accepting that which is so clearly and freely tendered to thee by God And what dost thou mean herein oh foolish and unkind to thy self oh ingrateful and impious against God that the wise and rich and sweet Provisions of Heaven in boundless Compassions to thy Necessity and Misery laid at thy Feet should be trod in the Dirt That thou wilt not vouchsafe to be so merciful to thy self and respectful to God as to permit his healing Balms to be poured into thy bleeding Wounds but in a blind Zeal against thy unworthy self or an over-righteous Revenge against thy abhorred Sins or an humorous Peevishness or Pertinacy of Spirit or I know not what woundest those gracious Hands which in infinite Tenderness and Commiseration offer so benignly by these most effectual Medicines against all Anxiety and Woe to deliver thee out of thy wearisome Hospital into an everlasting Heaven of Pleasure Joy Peace Soundness Safety Rest and Consolation Oh thy Madness to chuse thy Miseries and Vexations rather than so blessed an hope so unutterable Happiness What! be fond of Hell and dote on thy Torment and prefer thy Prelibations of eternal Plagues and Horrors before these Earnests of those unspeakably glorious future Recompences Is it not even so This is and well may it be for a Lamentation CHAP. XVII Instructive Inferences VVAving the Corrective Deductions because in part coincident with the Elenctical as I have managed them I shall close all with the Instructive And here as all along I have done I shall especially direct about Spiritual Comfort as the foundation of and introductive to all other that 's worthy of Name Every disquieted Heart is melted into a passionate longing after Peace If it can but see any dawnings of a lightsom day of Joy after the gloomy night of its Troubles If after all its tremulous Palpitations and Passions and Horrors it may be supported with the Revivings of the least glimmering Hope that God will entertain any Thoughts of Reconciliation it seems to glory in a willingness to be or do any thing to submit to any Terms whatever that may be conducible to this happy and amicable Closure To promote this blessed End and compromise of differences betwixt incensed Heaven
and trembling afflicted Souls the Son of God hath done his part in the way of Mediation as the Father hath done his by revealing his Covenant and Promise with the Terms upon which he will be at Peace and his readiness to embrace every one that submits to them both the Father and the Son have farther contributed towards this by the Mission of the Holy Ghost the Comforter who waits in the Ministry of God's Word and other Ordinances to be gracious to unworthy Sinners in illuminating their Minds and bowing their Hearts and Wills to comply with the Will of God and entertain Conditions of Peace and accept of their own Mercy God's Ministers also under these divine Influences take their Task in hand as Instruments by way of Proposal in explicating and directing about these Terms in propounding offering urging counselling perswading exhorting to yield to them And unworthy I amongst the rest would here contribute my Mite to promote the Establishment of true and solid Consolation in an endeavour to guide doctrinally as my Lord and Master does physically and efficaciously poor wand'ring Feet into the Psalmist's experimented way to Peace as far as there are any Lineaments and Footsteps thereof in the Psalm and this with all convenient brevity because some of the Rules have upon other Occasions offered themselves to Consideration 1. Be Men of Thoughts Exercise your selves in Meditation As there can be no Discomfort so neither Comfort without a multitude of Thoughts For if they only swim upon the Surface of the Mind they will but introduce a superficial Trouble or Rest Thoughts that sink and soak in go to the bottom and reach the most intimate Recesses of the Soul as the Psalmist's in intimo meo Thoughts that stick by us and are not easily shak'd off but follow us night and day these are most cumbersome or comfortable Men of desultory Minds that cannot settle their Cogitations but rove and ramble and skip like a Squirrel from Bough to Bough from Tree to Tree are here and there and every where throughout all the Ramifications of Thoughts yet no where fix'd as a Weather-cock may now face a blustering Storm and in a moment the sweet and refreshing Sun but never feel any thing never tast any durable Disquiets or Joys Lay up therefore a good Stock before-hand of heart-relieving Considerations as an Antidote to all sadning molesting Passions This no doubt was the Psalmist's Practice Those reviving Meditations which he afterward digested into this Psalm did dwell in his mind before in and upon the first Assaults of his Trouble and did their Work within him before he committed this Narrative to Writing What he felt then he here discovers 'T would be nauseous to recollect and repeat here those Cogitations which I have all this while been observing out of the Psalm that influenced his troubled heart and established it in Peace tedious to make new Observations throughout the Psalm where they very plentifully occur I shall only therefore take notice of a few Verses and I cannot furnish you with a richer Treasury of pertinent calming comforting Thoughts than are presented in Ver. 12 c. Take it according to the Translation Blessed is the Man whom thou chast'nest O Lord and teachest out of thy Law 13. That thou may'st give him Rest from the days of Adversity until the Pit be digged for the Wicked 14. For the Lord will not cast off his People neither will be forsake his Inheritance 15. But Judgment shall return unto Righteousness and all the Vpright in heart shall follow it Here we behold the Condition of Man troublous under chast'ning But 1. 'T is comfortable in that 't is only Child-like Discipline as the Word both in Hebrew and Greek imports and therefore proceeds from the Wisdom Heart Love and compassionate Bowels of a Father There cannot be more smart in the Rod which is at the worst but a finite Evil than there is sweet in the Love that manages it and is of an infinite Vertue and Satisfactoriness Then sence and feeling of that is bitter and grievous but the importance most pleasing and delectable How lamentable would thy Case be should the Lord spare the Rod and leave thee to harden thy self in thy evil Manners that is forbear all Designings for thy good that thy Damnation may become more inevitable and supersede his Corrections preventive of thy Sins and Woes that Hell may the more certainly devour and consume thee Happy Cross that is an Index of the good Will of God that is a demonstration that thou art a Child of God Heb. 12.5 6 7 8 9. 2. 'T is a blessed thing to be chastized the greatest Curse to be forborn as a Token of being devoted to everlasting Curses God has not pardoned those he does not punish no their Guilt escapes a present Reckoning because the Righteous Judge intends to pay them home in another World If thy Father in Heaven forbear thee not 't is because he hath forgiven thee the eternal Penalty and that 's a blessed thing indeed Psal 32.1 2. Sin must smart if thou be'st made to feel its Evil by Corrections now 't is to prevent the more grievous Pains of another Life God designs thy good by bringing upon thee these Evils Heb. 12.10 and his Purposes can never admit of a frustration 3. These Chastenings are only a burthen laid upon one who by Grace is or shall be made strong or mighty to bear and improve them 'T is not Adam Earthly Man nor Enosh sickly weak Man but Haggeber the strong 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emphat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 praevaluit robustut fuit mighty Man with an Emphasis whom God picks out to bless with his Chastenings If they do not find him so they shall be Means of Grace to make him so God who is Faithful and that supposes a Promise will not suffer to be tempted above ability but with the Temptation will also make a way to escape that he may be able to bear it 1 Cor. 10.13 Be thou never so weak diffident desponding in thy self yet if God call thee out to Affliction thou art strong not in thy self but in him he is with thee Psal 23.4 Yea though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of Death I will fear no Evil for thou art with me Thy Rod and thy Staff they comfort me Heer 's strong Confidence strong Support and it had a strong Foundation Ver. 3. He restoreth my Soul he leadeth me in the Paths of Righteousness for his Names sake Restoring turning again Psal 60.1 bringing back Ezek. 38.8 the Soul and leading it strengthens it to do or suffer any thing Isai 41.9 10 13. Thou art my Servant I have chosen thee and not cast thee away which being laid as a Foundation then 10. Fear thou not for I am with thee be not dismayed for I am thy God I will strengthen thèe yea I will help thee yea I will