Edinburgh was Twenty years in terrors of Conscience and yet delivered afterwards You may also direct them to the Lives of Mrs. Brettergh Mrs. Drake Mr. Peacock and Mrs. Wight where they will see a very chearful day returning after a black and stormy night and that the Issue from their Afflictions was more glorious than their Conflict was troublesom They went forth weeping they sowed in Tears but they reaped an Harvest of wonderful Joys afterwards You have in the Book of Martyrs written by Mr. Fox an instance of Mr. Glover who was worn and consumed with inward trouble for the space of Five years that he neither had any comfort in his Meat nor any quietness of Sleep nor any pleasure of Life he was so perplexed as if he had been in the deepest Pit of Hell yet at last this good Servant of God after so sharp temptations and the strong buffetings of Satan was freed from all his trouble and was thereby framed to great Mortification and was like one already placed in Heaven and led a Life altogether Celestial abhorring in his mind all prophane things and you have a remarkable instance of mighty joy in Mr. Holland a Minister who having the day before he died meditated upon the 8th of the Romans he cried on a sudden Stay your Reading What brightness is it that I see They told him it was the Sun-shine Nay saith he my Saviour's shine Now farewell World and welcome Heaven the day-star from an high hath visited my heart O speak it when I am gone and let it be Preached at my Funeral God dealeth familiarly with Man I feel his Mercy I see his Majesty whether in the Body or out of the Body God he knoweth but I see things unutterable And in the Morning following he shut up his blessed Life with these blessed words O! what an happy change shall I make from Night to Day from Darkness to Light from Death to Life from Sorrow to Solace from a factious World to an Heavenly Being O! my dear Friends it pitieth me to leave you behind yet remember what I now feel I hope you shall find ere you dye That God doth and will deal familiarly with Men. And now thou fiery Chariot that came down to fetch up Eliah carry me to my happy hold and all the blessed Angels who attended the soul of Lazarus to bring it up to Heaven bear me O bear me into the bosome of my best Beloved Amen Amen Come Lord Jesus come quickly And so he fell asleep See this and several other instances in Mr. Robert Bolton's Instructions for afflicted Consciences p. 87. and 235 c. Eleventhly The next kindness you are to shew to your Melancholly Friends is heartily to pray for them Let your eyes weep for them in secret and there let your souls melt in fervent holy Prayers they are not able in a composed or a lively manner to recommend their own Case to God you may use many arguments in your Prayers their forlorn state and the greatness of their miseries may be a very powerful motive to your Supplications You know that none but God himself can help them For as Mr. Greenham says If our assistance were as an Host of Armed Soldiers if our Friends were the Princes and Governors of the Earth if our Possessions were as large as between the East and the West if our Meat were as Mannah from Heaven if our Apparel were as costly as the Ephod of Aaron if every day were as glorious as the day of Christ's Resurrection yet if our Minds are appalled with the Judgments of God all these things would not yield us any help or consolation * See Mr. Greenham's Comfort for an Afflicted Conscience p. â—27 And you must wrestle with him on their behalf you may plead with him That his Power and Goodness will be more illustrious if he save those whom none but he himself can save and that his Grace will be more remarkable if he please to create Peace for those troubled Souls in which none but he can make a Calm and you know not but that his Light on your request may begin to shine on those who have bewailed his absence with many dreadful groans And tho your eyes be even weary with looking upwards yet continue still to wait and pray for it shall not be in vain Thus you will do them a great kindness and perform your own Duty tho perhaps they may be ready to say to you as Mr. Peacock to his Friends Take not the Name of God in vain by praying for a Reprobate And as Mr. Dod said to him when he said he could not pray Tho saith he most sicknesses hinder Prayer and therefore the Apostle James says If any Man be sick let him send for the Elders c. Yet if God stir up your Friends to pray for you he will stir up himself to hear their Prayers And do you consider that nothing but Prayer can do them good It is an obstinate disease that nothing else will overcome for it is a very slight Melancholly and which is not deeply rooted that can be drowned in Wine or chased away with sociable divertisements Some indeed tell us When they find themselves troubled their way is to bid their thoughts Battel and to oppose Thoughts against Thoughts and with the dint of Reason to subdue this peevish Humour But such must give me leave to say That they are not under the disease of Melancholly for that will neither hear Faith nor Reason till God himself by his Almighty Power work Salvation for us XII Not only pray for them but get other serious Christians to pray for them also When many good people join their requests together the cry is more acceptable and prevalent When those in the Acts joined to remember Peter in his Chains he was after that very soon delivered and in the very time of their Prayers All believers have through Jesus Christ a great interest in Heaven and the Father is willing to grant what they beg in the Name of his dear Son I my self have been greatly helped by the prayers of others and I heartily thank all those that kept any particular days wherein more solemnly to remember my distressed condition blessed be God that has not cast off their prayer nor turned away his mercy from me Every day gives us several experiences of many that have been rescued from their diseases their temptations and their fears by the Prayers of others And I might also add you have very great cause to pray for your selves that God may give you strength to bear so heavy a Cross as you are afflicted with in the afflictions of your friends Their doleful complaints their repeated groans and their long and sore trials are enough to sink you too if God do not give you wonderful support You have need to beg strong faith and great patience that you may not be unhinged with their passionate or hasty speeches XIII Put your poor
Friends in mind of the Sovereign Grace of God in Jesus Christ often put them in mind that he is merciful and gracious that as far as the Heavens are above the Earth so far are his thoughts above their thoughts his thoughts of mercy and love above their self-condemning guilty thoughts Teach them as much as you can to look up to God by the Great Mediator for Grace and strength and not too much to pore on their own souls where there is so much darkness and unbelief And seek to divert them from puzling themselves too much with God's secret and unknown Decrees and strive to help them to believe in Christ which is their certain duty shew them what great sinners God has pardoned and how he is merciful because he will be merciful finding motives to help them from their very miseries and from his own gracious nature Thus I find they dealt with Mrs. Drake she would send to several Ministers to know concealing her name Whether such and such a Creature without Faith Hope Love to God or Man hard-hearted without natural affection who had rejected all means nor could submit to the same yet might have any hope to go to Heaven And they returned for Answer That such like and much worse though as bad as Manasseh might by the mercy of God be received into favour converted and saved which did much allay her trouble For said she the Fountain of all my misery hath been See her Life pag. 1â—7 that I sought for that in the Law which I should have found in the Gospel and for that in my self which was only to be found in Christ This is what I thought necessary to say to you and you will find the course I have mentioned being taken with your Friends will do them no prejudice I do not speak only with borrowed expressions in this matter nor without some experience The mild and the gentle way of dealing I know very well you 'l find to be the best and the way of roughness and severity will but aggravate and increase their miseries And I desire you that are yet healthful and chearful to improve your health for if ever this distemper seize you you will be able to do nothing for your Souls or Bodies You may have time but such will be your anguish that you will not be able to do any thing to purpose in that time This Book has a peculiar Relation to the distresses of the mind for as to what concerns that bodily pain that I had with my inward trouble I have largely shewed what it was in my Practical Discourses on Sickness and Recovery that were published about a year ago And what a mercy it is to have our afflictions sanctified and to bear the yoak in our Youth I have explained in my Treatise of Early Religion lately published which is peculiarly designed for young people and if God bless it to their good it may help them to avoid those woful Terrors which many others have groaned under I think I could in the composing of the following Book have used a little more exactness had I set my self studiously to do so and by that means it might have been more pleasant to the Reader but not so well have served my design for according to that old saying Aeger non quaerit medicum Eloquentem sed sanantem A Physitian that can remove the disease is more welcome to the sick than one that can talk finely about it but do him no good and if the Cure be performed 't is no matter tho the potion was not extreamly sweetned I purposely avoided all pretence to a regular smoothness of stile because that the Ears of people in great affliction are not so tender and so delicate as theirs are who are in heaith I know that the Age in which we live is very curious and critical and that the English Language has been within a few years greatly polished and improved and Religion deserves the best words we can find wherewith to express our thoughts And in Eccles 12.10 't is said The Preacher sought out acceptable words by which I suppose he means words that were grateful as well as profitable I hope the Reader will mt find either Bombast or slovenliness in my expressions and if in them there is not as I do not pretend there is an accomplished beauty yet that at least they are not all deformity Whatever some persons may say I think it my duty to express my thoughts not altogether in a neglected and a careless manner so it be with plainness and clearness and such as may tend to edification Tho I have not in the following Book given such a particular relation of my Troubles as perhaps the Readers may expect yet I desire them to take notice that where ever I speak of inward distress as by a third person I there speak what I my self have felt It is an observation of the Readers of St. Cyprian that through all his Writings almost every word doth breathe Martyrdom his Expressions are full of spirit and passion as if he had writ them with his blood and conveyed the anguish of his sufferings into his Writings If I had had the judgment and the Pen of so Eloquent a person I might have much better described the sadness of my case but I am sure nothing in the world could fully express it it was so very terrible and the greatness of the danger does heighten the mercy of God my deliverer to whose Grace and wonderful Salvation I owe my present peace and hope to whom I will devote all my poor endeavours That those which I have used in the following Treatise may be serviceable to his Glory your advantage and the relief of your Melancholly Friends and many others as also to my own good is the prayer of Your Hearty Adviser TIMOTHY ROGERS London Sept. 10. 1691. The LETTERS that were sent from several Divines to the Author are these following LETTER I. From Matching-Hall in Essex Nov. 21. 1690. .................................... Sir I took the first opportunity to read your good Book and besides the many useful things which are there to be learned in detail the general scope and occasion of it did much affect me partly with gratitude partly with an awful fear with the former to consider how it might have been with me with the latter considering how it may be with me I see in what others suffer what I might have suffered and what am I that God should exempt me from the lot of others better than my self It is likely now it is over you may have cause to say That all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth and the comforts that you have in the return of the morning after a night like theirs that live under the Poles may more than recompence all your sorrows and pains And God hath thereby fitted you to support and comfort others from your own experience yet it is a favour to
do not flow forth nor do the sweetest of the flowers smell with such a perfume and such a fragrant scent as they then do If we would have a warm sense of the Love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts it must be done by the efficacy and influence of the Holy-Ghost he brings the most suitable Truths to remembrance and he seasonably applies those Promises that are most comfortable and reviving he raises in us holy courage and hope and he fills our Sails with his favourable blasts he banishes that fear and those perplexing doubts that enslave us and sets before us the Mercy and the Loving-kindness of God and pours into our smarting and bleeding Wounds the Consolations of the Gospel There are indeed some particular times when God is pleased to give to the soul the clear manifestations of his favour and they are usually by Divines said to be in such particular circumstances as these 1. He is pleased to condescend to New Converts that are suddenly cheared with mighty Joys and filled with an admiration of his Grace He considers the weakness of these tender Pilgrims and his joy becomes their strength he feeds them as with Angels food for he knows they have a great way to go and therefore he carries them in his Arms and leads them gently along and they meet not with those sharp and heavy Tryals that more experienced Christians meet withal The sudden change that such perceive when they go from gross darkness into a marvellous light when their Chains are struck off and their Prison-doors set open makes them to wonder and adore Hence it is that they have vigorous affections and are very active for the Glory of their Saviour hence it is that their Zeal is so fervent and the flame of their Love burns so clear and bright 2. Another season when God Communicates to his Servants peculiar manifestations of his favour is at the Lord's Supper when they see their Redeemer Crucified before their eyes when they see the torments of his Body and the Agonies of his Soul how pained how amazed he was and that all this pain was for them and for their Salvation and that as surely as they receive the Bread and the Wine so surely do they receive this Jesus and all his benefits Direction for the present and a title to everlasting Glory this carries them up to the top of the Mount this makes them to tast of the Tree of Life This sight of a dying Saviour and of the Heaven that he purchased makes them to worship him with praise and to think themselves even as already there where he is To this Table of the Lord the believing soul goes hungry and a thirst and from the same Table returns greatly pleased with so Divine a Banquet tho' not without the most earnest desires of that entertainment that is reserved for it above 3. God is pleased to give his Servants a clearer manifestation of his Love when he intends to employ them in some remarkable or extraordinary service and as he encouraged Joshua that met with great difficulties by saying Fear not but be of good courage I am with thee Josh 1.9 When he sets before them the Labours and Dangers of the Combat he displays at the same time the greatness of the Reward and the glory of the Victory Thus docs he animate his Soldiers to fight his Battels thus he prepares his Martyrs to witness to his Truth and with such a sense of his favour no Cup seems too bitter for them to drink no danger too great for them to Conquer Hence Moses said If thy presence go not with me carry us not up hence Exod. 33.15 But with that he was content to go to what place of difficulty soever he was called he would rather as one says * Culverwell's White Stone p. 125. be in a desolate and howling Wilderness than in a pleasant and a fruitful Land without the presence of his God he knew there was no sweetness in Canaan without him there is more Sting than Honey in the Land of Promise unless he be there and Canaan it self will prove a Wilderness if he withdraw himself Thus God as the same person says when he called Abraham to that great expression of obedience in the sacrificing of his Isaac he first warms his heart with his Love and seals up the Covenant of Grace to him he spreads before him ample and comprehensive Promises I am thy God alsufficient I am thy buckler and thine exceeding great reward and this will bear up and support Abraham though the staff of his old Age be taken away and by his own hands cast into the Fire Or 4. In Prayer God is many times pleased to shew his favour to the Soul giving it a secret assurance of his Mercy saying I am thy God and portion and so sends it away filled with good things Or 5. In great straits and pinching wants when there is least of the creature there is usually most of the Alsufficient Creator when all the Cisterns of Earthly Comforts are broken then this Fountain overflows and sends out his comfortable streams He carries his people into a Wilderness and there he speaks comfortably to them Hos 2.14 And is then most kind when the World will shew them no kindness Or 6. after they have got the victory over some Lusts and Corruptions that were both dishonourable to him and uneasie to them such a Conquest is attended with his approbation and that gives them a mighty joy like the joy that the poor Israelites had when they saw their Enemies drowned in the Red Sea Or 7. in the day of death When all the shine of Earthly delights is clouded and their Sun is just upon his setting they lift up their feeble and their longing eyes toward Heaven and he draws away the Vail and they see the Son of God standing at his Right hand as their Advocate and Mediator and then it is that a poor weary Soul says with Paul I desire to depart and to be with Christ As Mr. Flavel says of old Mr. Lyford that being desired a little before his death to let his Friends know in what condition his Soul was and what his thoughts were about that Eternity to which he seemed very near he answered with a cheerfulness suitable to a Believer and a Minister I will let you know how it is with me and then stretching out an hand that was withered and consumed with Age and Sickness Here is says he the Grave the Wrath of God and devouring Flames the just punishment of Sin on the one side and here am I a poor sinful soul on the other side but this is my comfort the Covenant of Grace which is established on so many sure Promises hath salved all There is an Act of Oblivion passed in Heaven I will forgive their iniquities and their sins will I remember no more This is the blessed Privilege of all within the Covenant among whom I am one What
than he did as you may see 2 Cor. 11.25 26. What is a moment to a day and a day to a year And yet such and infinitely less are our longest afflictions here to that Eternity What is one grain of sand as one says Jurieu Balance du Sanctuaire p. 72. to all those vast heaps of sand that are in all the Sea What is one drop of Water to the vast Collections of it that are in the large Ocean What is a little gnat to the whole Universe So is all the affliction of this life which passes away when compared with the glory which is to come And yet a grain of sand is something in respect of the whole earth and a drop is not altogether nothing tho compared with the Ocean for by a continual heaping of grain upon grain it were possible to make a Globe as great as the Earth and the Ocean might be emptied of its Water but Eternity cannot be diminished it suffers no changes after Millions of Years in Happiness it will be as sweet arid as comfortable as it was the first moment It is the Length of our Troubles and our Pain that makes them more grievous And as when we do not sleep the night seems very long and the doleful hours of our sickness seem to move with a much slower pace than those of our pleasant health Thus Job discourses as if his time being clogg'd with miseries seem'd an Eternity Job 7 15 16. My soul chuseth strangling and death rather than life I loath it I would not live always let me alone for my days are vanity He was weary of being in so long pain and thought that his afflicted life would never have an end But yet all the afflictions of the present time are not worthy to be compared with that glory which shall be revealed Rom. 8.18 We are near to a Blessed Change and who would not undergo the dangers of a troublesome Voyage for a month if he knew that ho should return laden with great Treasures to his home and live in Splendor ever after What a pleasure is it to such as are besieged to know that they shall certainly be relieved in a little time It causes them tho press'd very close by their Enemies to resume a new Courage and to hearten one another So should it be with all Believers the day of their Lord's coming draws near and then he will put all their Enemies to the flight and reward their Diligence and Perseverance The Enemy of our Souls is full of Rage but that which fills him with fury may yield us comfort even because we know that his time is short The God of peace will bruise Satan under your feet shortly Rom. 16.20 Oh what comfortable words are these that enemy that fills us with vexation and whose malice is both great and constant shall in a little time not molest nor interrupt our satisfactions any more Your tears that you shed for your offences now are very just 't is what we owe to God for having sinned so much against him but shortly we shall be with him and never complain of his absence from us any more When a man is tost with storms and sees no prospect of the shore 't is very dismal but it is not so with us who have our Haven in our view What if our troubles should continue for Twenty or Thirty Years this would be very overwhelming to our sense and yet it is nothing when compared with an Eternity of Joys above How soon will this be over but how long will that remain It casts a great damp upon all things under the Sun that they are unsatisfying and that they are very short how pleasant soever they are to us they will depart Our Friends and all the Delight of their Conversation our Riches and all the Respect and Service they procure us will fade away Our beloved Bodies which we maintain with great Expence and Care will leave us and must go into the Grave but our Happiness will be for ever it is Eternal Happiness and what that is our thoughts cannot comprehend nor our words express we shall then know what it is when we are in actual Possession of it To be for ever with the Lord what an encouragement does this afford to Patience and Resignation To be with him who is our Portion and our all to be with him and to be without our sin that provoked him to wrath and made our spirits sad what an Heaven will this be As this life by its tedious afflictions seems to those that are in distress to be as an Eternity so the pleasures of that undecaying life will seem but a moment to us it will be so very pleasant and we are near to it Tho the pains that forerun our departure prove to be very sharp yet in a moment death whenever it comes will be past in a moment we shall see the face of God that was hid from us here we shall be changed as in the twinkling of an eye and when we are in that Eternity shall we then say that we cleansed our hearts in vain Shall we not then see that we had no cause to murmur or repine All our Faculties will be gratified with proper Objects and with suitable Employment and all overspread and swallowed up with a quick and a lively Joy Oh how blessed are the Tears that will lead us to such a Joy Blessed is the Cross that will yield us such fruit as this and blessed be that God who will bestow such a reward upon us When we come there we shall sing in the consideration of those very afflictions that while we were on earth made us sigh and groan It is good to be there and how freely should we suffer our thoughts always to dwell upon the pleasant Subject but that our worldly business and the necessary affairs of Life call us away from the Mountain of our Transfiguration However let us not forget that these things are the Truths of God which he hath shewed to his servants and which shall shortly come to pass and they are very near too and should have a suitable influence upon us How did the Martyrs of old rejoice when they saw the day wherein they were to suffer How did they embrace and encourage one another saying We want but an hour or two of Heaven We have but one combat more to finish and we shall be with Christ We dine upon bitter Herbs but we shall sup with him Ere the Crowd that came to see us dye be disperst we shall be with God and with innumerable Angels and the spirits of the Just With what calmness have the blessed Sufferers bid this world adieu saying Farewel Sun Moon and Stars and welcome better Lights Farewel Wives and Children Friends and Acquaintance Farewel ye deceiving Pleasures of the World and now welcome ye joys of Paradise welcome thou sweet Cross of Christ and welcome death that will convey us thither And thus their
from him as we did but he designs not to raise them again they groan'd under the wrath of the mighty Judge and they must always groan under it no beam of chearful Light will shâ—ne into their Dungeon no Messenger will be dispatched to give them the glad-tidings of Salvation the anger of God threw them out of Heaven and the door is for ever shut they know this to be their woful Case and therefore they rage against him and against his Servants and his Interest in the world What could move Christ to take the nature of Man and not of Angels Heb. 2.16 to say to us Live and to suffer them to dye to visit our sinning World to set us at Liberty to set open the Prison-doors whilst he suffers them to roar in chains of wrath As they have greater Capacities and Natures more knowing than ours so they might have honoured their Creator more than we had they been redeemed but they must mourn for ever and never sing his Praise they must grieve whilst we rejoice whilst we look for our Lord they tremble in the fear of his coming whilst we have the sweetness of hope they are in anguish and vexation in despair and horror we have our Sabbaths but they have no days of rest we can through Jesus Christ call God our Father but they know him not by such a comfortable Name they feel his Power but they tast not his Love they tremble under his Vengeance but all comfort and Joy is fled away from them for ever why are we in the light and they in darkness Why is Christ a Phisician to us whilst he is a Judge to them truly nothing makes the difference but his own love and what manner of love is this 2. It was great love in Christ to bear the anger of God because now his poor tempted Servants have one to whom they may repair in all their straits Heb. 2.18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted he is able to succor them that are tempted 'T is a great relief to the miserable and afflicted to be pitied by others as Job 19.21 Have pity upon me have pity upon me O ye my friends for the hand of God hath touched me It is some relief when others tho they cannot help us yet seem to be truly concerned for the sadness of our case when by the kindness of their words and of their actions they do a little smooth the wounds that they cannot heal but it is an unspeakable addition to the Cross when a man is brought low under the sense of God's displeasure to have men to mock at his Calamity or to revile him or to speak roughly this does enflame and exasperate the wound that was big enough before and it is an hard thing when one has a dreadful sound in his ears to have every friend to become a Son of Thunder It is a small matter for people that are at ease to deal severely with such as are afflicted but they little know how their severe speeches and their angry words pierce them to the very soul 'T is easie to blame others for complaining but if such had felt but for a little while what it is to be under the fear of God's Anger they would find they could not but complain It cannot but make any person very restless and uneasie when he apprehends that God is his Enemy It is no wonder if he makes every one that he sees and every place that he is in a witness of his grief but now it is a Comfort in our Temptations and in our Fears that we have so compassionate a Friend as Christ is to whom we may repair Heb. 4.15 For we have not an High-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in every time of need Had it not been for his Mediation the absolute and pure Deity would have been too glorious and inaccessible to us but he is cloathed with our nature and though it has undergone several alterations since he is exalted yet we are sure that he retains a tender sence of our miseries And tho he be very high he does not think it below him to regard the most troubled and sorrowful Believer He was on earth acquainted with grief Isa 53.3 And has carryed to Heaven with him a remembrance of what he felt in his own Temptations and of what he felt when his Father frown'd upon him and his own experience renders him more capable of helping us and makes him full of pity when he sees us mourn well knowing what was his own Case As God has fashioned the hearts of all men and some who have naturally more mercy and pity than others and then the holy Spirit by its renewing grace carrying their good Dispositions to greater degrees and proceeding and working usually according to their tempers so it is certain he temper'd the heart of Christ and made it of a softer mould than all the tenderness of all the men in the world put together would have made it he had such a humane nature that might be more merciful than all Men and Angels together Goodwin Christ's Heart in Heaven p. 55. Our groans and our sighs teach his Heart above and tho he does not come with help just when we desire it yet he is providing for our welfare he sends us some inward supports when we have not an immediate deliverance he will not suffer us totally to sink tho he may leave us for a while to try our faith or to let us understand our own weakness we may think that our vessel will be covered with waves when he is guiding us to shore even when we think that he is asleep and has forgot us and cares not though we be cast away only let us never cease to say Master save us or else we perish CHAP. V. Shewing the unreasonableness of long-continued angers among good People as also that the temporary effects of God's displeasure are more elegible than the wrath of Men. Of the Excellency of Religion and that the Enemies of the Church have no cause to insult over it because of its certain deliverance and the dismal Conclusion of their own Wickedness upon which account Christians have no Reason to envy their Prosperity Inf. 2. SEeing God is angry but for a moment How unreasonable are long-continued Anger 's among good People Let not the sun go down upon your wrath Neither give place to the devil Eph. 4.26 27. i. e. he that has injured or provoked another must come to a Temper and sue for a Reconciliation speedily or else before the time of solemn praying to God which was constantly at Evening and so the Exhortation bears proportion with that Matth. 5.23 24. If thou bringest thy gift unto the altar and there remembrest that
present undisturbed Case and their seeming welfare for their happiness is not real but apparent and all the goods that are bestow'd upon them are but mean and low in themselves though our erroneous and blinder Judgments think them to be somewhat great and considerable Dr. Scots Christian life part 2. p. 255. For considering of what little moment the present goods and evils are which good men suffer and bad men enjoy they ought rather to be lookt on as an argument of God's Wisdom than as an objection against his Providence for he understands the just value of things and knows that the best of these worldly goods are bad enough to be thrown away upon the worst of men and so expresses his just scorn of these admired vanities by scattering them abroad with a careless hand for why should he partake of the error of vulgar opinion and express himself so very regardful of these trifles as to put them in Gold Scales and weigh them out to mankind by Grains and Scruples When we see therefore bad men to rejoice and the good to mourn let us not censure but adore that Providence that will assign to them both different portions in another world those that are healthful are not more beloved for that nor are the sick and weak more hateful to God for those outward troubles that they now suffer there are many who have their paradise in this world that shall have none hereafter and there is many an one torn and mangled with the thorns and bryers of the Wilderness to whom God does reserve a Throne above We see many a Vessel on whom the Sun shines and which sails with a fair gale that yet by splitting on a Rock or on the Sand never reaches the Port And others we see that meet with nothing but high waves and contrary winds and tho' they have an unpleasant voyage yet it is for all that very safe and attended with comfort in the latter end The wicked do not always prosper in this life God sometimes makes them examples of his Justice and if he do not usually do so to those that are very bad it affords us a certain ground for the belief which we have of a Judgment that is to come wherein punishments and rewards will be distributed after another manner than now they are This maxim of our Christian Divinity * Fragmens de Serm. de Mons Morus p. 74. That God sometimes afflicts very severely those whom he tenderly loves even then when they well perform their duty even then when he is well pleased with them was unknown to the ancient Isralites This was a Lesson above their understanding God did not afflict them but when they had provoked him by some particular transgression but when they did not so they always had a peaceable and happy life it is not so with us our afflictions are sometimes indeed not the marks of his Anger but of his Favour as when he calls his own out to the enduring of things very bitter and unpleasant for the tryal of their patience and faith there is none of the Prophets that does reckon suffering among the gifts of God but our Apostle does esteem them to be so Phil. 1. We hear none under the new Testament which gives us a clearer discovery of another world say as they did heretofore Why doth the way of the Wicked prosper but rather count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations CHAP. VI. Of the duty of such as never have been under a sense of God's Wrath and Terrors and what is the doleful condition of a Soul that apprehends it self to be under his hot displeasure 1. SEeing God is often angry with his own Servants what cause have those of you that fear him to bless him that he is not angry with you and that you do not feel his displeasure He sets up others as his mark against which he shoots his Arrows you hear others groaning for his departure and yet your hearts are not sadned as theirs are your eyes can look up towards Heaven with hope whilst theirs are clouded with a vail of sorrow He speaks roughly to them but comfortable words to you he seems to set himself against them as his enemies whilst he deals with you as a loving Friend you see a reviving-smile in his Face and they can discern nothing there but one continued and dreadful Frown Oh admire and for ever wonder at the Soveraign distinguishing Grace of God are you that are at ease better than many of his people that are now thrown into a fiery Furnace Have you less dross than they Have they sinned think you at an higher rate than you have ever done He is angry with them for their luke-warmness for their backsliding and have your hearts always burn'd with Love have your feet always kept his way and not declined have you never wandred have you never turned aside to the right hand or to the left surely you have and therefore what a mercy is it that he is not angry with you as well as them You see many whose Consciences for their sins are turned all into flame and horror and perplexity full of accusations full of guilty fears for their sinning their sinning against Light Knowledge Mercy and Love and have you never so sinned Have not your Consciences also been defil'd Have you never done what was evil when you knew it to be so Have you not been often kindly entertain'd of God after you have run away from him Have you not after great Transgressions met with joy and pleasure in the sense of his pardoning healing Grace whilst others that have been it may be more dutiful did not fare so well nor have ever had such a fatted calf killed for them nor such feasts to refresh their Souls as there have been prepared for you You can never sufficiently bless God for his mercy every day you deserve his Anger and yet you have not been under the terrible apprehensions of it for a moment Why are you sitting at his Table and honoured with his Presence in all your Duties in all your Sufferings whilst he is a stranger to them and as a wayfaring Man that tarries but for a night What is it that makes him to bless some Children of the Family with greater peace and comfort than he does the rest Nothing but his own Grace and Mercy Some are drawn with Cords of Love and some have their Iniquities constantly visited with Stripes Some are glad with the hopes of Heaven and some are afraid they shall never go thither and know not by experience what Joy and Pleasure means Some have their spirits overwhelm'd their whole Souls covered with thick darkness and their Bones broken whilst others are at ease and see the light of his Countenance and have an unchanged Health Some travel with weary steps and make their pilgrimage with their own sorrows to be a vale of tears whilst others run the way of his
tho more in this I fully believe I shall be so As Zeph. 2.3 It may be you shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger Joel 2.13 14. Who knows but he will return and leave a Blessing Tho you are afflicted and tost with Tempests and not comforted yet there is a prospect of a quiet shore Christ is not far off with his pleasant and reviving Consolations Hold out a little longer and your expectation shall not be in vain length of pain and continuance of sorrow does tire and spend the natural spirits and long attendance upon God without any manifestation of his appearance for our help dulls our motions enervates our souls strikes off the Wheels of our Chariots and greatly tempts us to despair and to say Because he does not help us that he never will Jer. 8.18 When I would comfort my self against my sorrow my heart fainteth within me for the harvest is past and the summer is ended and we are not delivered But let us hope still for when we are at the lowest then is the proper season for God to work we are indeed altogether desolate but in him there is compleat and suitable Salvation it is an honour that we give to his promise when we believe it and rely upon it when all things seem flatly to oppose our Faith Isa 8.17 I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob and I will look for him Psal 27.13 14. When we let our hope go we pull up the sluce we deluge our selves with Miseries and Calamities that are inexpressible tho that God that raises the dead does many times after long despair give our departed hopes a Resurrection and makes our broken bones to rejoice So very merciful and so good is he CHAP. X. Shewing that People under great Trouble and Anguish of Soul are not to look for Assurance or great Joy on a sudden but as far as they can to enquire into the Reasons of God's Displeasure towards them and to look up to him through the Great Mediator and not further to provoke him As also how they may know when Afflictions are sent in Wrath and when in Love VI. WHen you are under the sense of the Anger of God do not look for assurance and great triumphs of Soul on a sudden if you have supports 't is a great matter tho as Mr. Bayne used to say You do not know what Spiritual Festivities and Jubilation means If you have daily bread to maintain your Life 't is what you ought thankfully to acknowledge tho your Tables be not covered with Dainties and tho you do not fare deliciously every day They were but Three of the Disciples whom our Lord admitted to the sight of his Glorious Transfiguration he does not treat all his Followers with the same Dishes with the same Joys and Transports We are sufficiently priviledged if we are in the Verge of his Family if we are adopted ' tho there be several that are greater Favourites than we and whom he is pleased to set at his Right Hand and on his Left He may chuse whom he will to be his beloved Disciples to whom he will manifest more of his Presence and his Love and an extraordinary Care Do not think that because you have read of some that have had Heaven to meet them with Angelical Triumphs and Consolations that therefore you must drink as full draughts of the same Rivers of Pleasure or that they will follow you as much as them in this Wilderness Some of the Eminent Servants of Christ that have been very laborious and useful that have been remarkable for their Patience their Faith and their Self-denial have been blest with a nearer access to God and have seen more of the Lord of Hosts in his Glory but it is enough for such unprofitable Servants and such great Sinners as we have been that we look for the Promised Land Tho we have not many Clusters of the Grapes of Paradise to chear us on the way our Master uses us very well if he do not turn us out of doors tho we fare not so well as others do it is a Mercy that we have but the Crumbs that fall from his Table This advice is needful because if we look for extraordinary Joy and Delight and then find it not after long waiting we shall be ready to give over our work when we do not receive that Pay in the hope of which we flattered our selves a long time Because some in a Transport after long Desertion and sore Tryals and after long Absence of Christ have cryed out He is come he is come oh he is now come whom I longed to see Now Salvation is come to my house Now I am fully satisfied now I am content to dye Oh the Riches the Depths the Greatness of the Grace of God! Now I see that my Fears were too great my Thoughts of him too low I see that he that inhabits Eternity even the Great Jehovah will deal familiarly with the Sons of Men. I could not have thought that ever I that was so faint should be revived that I that was so full of Despair should be full of Hope that I who was so near Hell should be brought to the Gates of Heaven but my own experience now tells me that so it is Cant. 2.3 4. I sate down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste he brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love This is the language of those whom the King of Heaven delights to honour These are the Golden Vessels which he fills with the Oyl of Gladness These are the Elijahs to whom he sends his Chariots of Fire to convey them home But this is not the Lot of all his Subjects this is not what we are certainly to expect if we go to Heaven tho by Dispensations that have in them a great deal of Cloud and Darkness yet it will be very well for us if we believe we shall be safe tho some there be that with Simeon embrace their Saviour in their Arms and see his Salvation before they dye for the sight of which we must stay till after death the greatest part of Believers have a comfortable and reviving hope through Grace that they shall come to Heaven but few there are that are so well assured of it as to have no remaining doubts and fears But notwithstanding what I have said we must endeavour to work out our Salvation and by a diligence in good works and holy duties to strive that we may be among the blessed number of these excellent Saints whom God is pleased to clothe with the Garments of Praise and Joy The passionate feelings of Joy are not essential to Holiness tho when they are bestowed they do greatly quicken our obedience and inlarge our hearts If we resolvedly adhere to God he will give us what will be sufficient for us Our very fears shall
thoughts of God and therefore they may be earnestly but always with submission prayed against And tho if you be naturally melancholly all the Prayers in the World will not change your Temper yet by them that black Humour may be kept from tyrannizing over you as it hath done over many thousands pray against all such Diseases as are not common to Men and which being unknown cannot be relieved and which by affecting your natural Spirits may cause you continually to think and with tormented anxious thoughts so that you shall be a terror to your selves unable to follow your Calling and yet by not affecting you so visibly as other Diseases do expose you to the uncharitable Censures of your Friends and to the Reproach of thers as also may we pray against such Afflictions as do disturb our Reason that we cannot think nor exercise our Faculties as we used to do as it is lawful to pray for the removal of Afflictions Job 20.22 So also to desire That his stroaks may not be over-heavy upon us and that he would remember our frame and how we are but dust If we have been in Diseases that have overwhelmed us it is our duty to pray and to use all imaginable care that we do not fall into the like again and to pray for others that they may never fall into any such for of all other Distempers there is none so insupportable and so terrible When we beg new Favours of God for our selves we must remember others and wish that they may never feel what we have felt Beggars as one observes when they crave an Alms frequently use this for a Motive That the Person of whom they beg may be preserved from that misery whereof they themselves have had woful Experience If they be blind they say God bless your Eye-sight If Lame God bless your Limbs if undone by casual burning God bless you and yours from Fire So we may say to our Redeemer Lord mayst thou never be put to fresh Agonies by the deep Distresses and Agonies of thy poor bleeding Servants And to you that are good we may say The Lord preserve your peace The Lord bless you and make his face to shine upon you the Joy of your Lord be your strength the Lord give you the sweet hopes and foretaste of Heaven and we wish that you may never drink so much Wormwood and Gall as we have drunk that you may never see and know and feel such Terrors and so much of Hell as we have felt It is our duty as I have said to pray against such Diseases which have an influence for the most part upon the mind though it would be a thought very Atheistical to imagine that all inward horror of Conscience comes from bodily distress for God to whom all things are naked and open can make immediate impressions of his Wrath upon the Soul that shall fill it with sudden amazement and trouble yet I verily believe that of all the Christians that are under dreadful fears of Wrath and in long Terror there is not one in twenty but whose inward trouble comes either from a Melancholly Temper or from a multiplication of sharp and severe outward Afflictions and from these the Devil takes an opportunity to throw his fiery Darts and to put them all into a flame Those that know how great Temptations attend long-continued Afflictions will heartily pray against them to which I shall only add two Questions and so conclude this First Part. Quest If the Anger of God be but for a moment what shall we think of those with whom he is angry to their dying day and who dye in apprehension of his displeasure Answ It is very true his Servants may dye in these Circumstances And it is to their poor Souls a very uncomfortable Passage it is very sad to the Servants of God for of such I speak to go to Heaven speaking in one sense the Language of Hell 'T is a mysterious and a very deep transaction of Providence that is wise and good though it be not understood but many a Believer even at last in his dejected apprehensions thinks himself an Heir of the Curse that finds himself to be an Heir of Glory Many a time as one said once by a Person dying in trouble the Sun sets in a Cloud and yet arises in a marvellous Light or as Mr. Dod said once to a Minister that ask'd him what he could say to one going out of the World and had no Comfort What answered he will you say to the Son of God himself who when he was dying complained he was forsaken It is as I mentioned before sad to the Person himself and sad to his Relations whom he takes his leave of in such doleful Expressions His sorrowful departure may bring some of them also down to the grave in sorrow but yet they may after all their mourning meet with joy in the great day and their mutual sorrows at their parting may encrease their joy when they meet again many an one dyes with a dreadful sound in his ears as if he were a Reprobate and a Cast-away whom God will bless and who immediately after his dissolution shall hear a comfortable Sentence many an one does Satan pursue and hunt like a Bird upon the Mountains who shall arrive safely at his Eternal Home where neither his Malice nor his Spite shall ever enter Many an one wanders about here like Noah's Dove finding no rest whom God will take into his Ark And though he seem to be fallen into the very Belly of Hell yet shall rise again in a blessed Immortality And those Eyes which were closed with tears shall in peace see the Lord We must not judg such Persons whose Troubles continue to the last moment of their Lives for if they have been holy in their Conversation they shall enter into rest tho by a way that is very dark and frightful Moses by the Displeasure of God against him for his Provocation dyed and came short of that Canaan which he very much desired to possess but when he was in Heaven he was fully satisfied and in his God he met with all that he before could desire Q. 2. But suppose a person be distracted with the terrors of the Lord and dye in that woful condition the Anger of God towards such an one seems to be very great And how is it consistent with his Promise That all things shall work together for good to them that love him A distracted person can exercise no Grace cannot think of God aright cannot commit himself to Jesus Christ nor put his soul into any fit posture by Faith and Patience for his Lord 's coming Answ This has a relation to the former Question and what I then said may give some answer to this and indeed all terror long continued in a sense of God's displeasure is attended with distraction What Man can have his eyes opened to see God against him as he thinks and to see
the Spices to flow forth he excites and quickens our Graces when they begin to languish and when we are lukewarm and cold he makes us to be lively and fervent in the performance of our holy Duties for as one says what the Soul is to the Body to move it to natural things to breathe to eat to walk and the like the same is the Spirit of God in our Souls to move us to spiritual actions as the fear of God love to him and trust in him and all the works of Righteousness Charity Humility Patience and Sobriety that are the motions of the new creature so that we may say of this Spirit that he is the Soul of our Souls and take away this Spirit and the Soul resembles a dead Body it has no zeal for God no compunction no tenderness When we are disconsolate one kind look from God makes us to be of good chear When our hearts are benumb'd and our Eyes are dry he melts them into tears with his Love When we are unfruitful he sends his Dew upon our branches that makes us to flourish in his Courts and to look fresh and green and when we are under Spiritual decays he causes us to thrive when we backslide he heals our backslidings he brings us through the great Mediator into a nearness to and acquaintance with himself For as far as we are distant from him so far are we removed from true and real Life When we wander he recals us he sends us fresh influences and establishes our goings when our motions are like those of a wounded body very faint and tottering 3. Eternal Life is in his favour Hence it is said That Eternal life is the gift of God Rom. 6.23 Psal 16.11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence it fulness of joy at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore It is there that they are said to see God for the sight of his face is that which makes it to be such a glorious and delightful place His Wrath is that which kindles Hell the withholding of his Favour makes it to be such a dark and gloomy Dungeon and the clear manifestation of it does make all the Glories of the Coelestial Paradise And therefore Jacob when he had a Vision of God's Favour to him said This place is no other than the gate of Heaven Gen. 29.17 Frame not to your selves a gross and a material Happiness 't is all in the Love and Favour of God To see him fills all the Souls above with ineffable delight to be deprived of this blessed privilege fills all the Souls in misery with Mourning and Lamentation To his Saints God will be all in all his Communications will be entire and full there Lettres de Monsieur Claude p. 10. †As the Creatures are of divers orders every one receives its portion of Divine Favour different from that of others He communicates himself otherwise to the Heavens than to the Earth otherwise to an Angel than to a Man The Earth hath an Image of his firmness the Sun hath an image of his beauty the Heaven an image of his immensity and so in others but there is no Creature that has assembled in it self all the beams of the Communications of God It shall be otherwise in Paradise God shall be all things in the Saints and they shall be filled with his Favour And as he further says God is not so all in all in the Faithful here the troubles of our Conscience the weakness of our Faith the languors of our Devotion the shadows of our Knowledge our Sins our Miseries our Sickness and our Death are the fruits of the Fall and of the Malice of the Devil But in that Felicity there shall be nothing of US in us nothing of the Impression of the Devil All shall be of God our Shadows shall be swallowed up by his Light and our Weakness by his power It is a state of Glory and Glory is a mixture of all the Blessings of God in a degree Sovereignly perfect That Country that is above is indeed the Land of the Living they Live and shall never Dye But this Earth is a Region and a place of Death For beside that which is Natural the most part of men are dead in Sin and truly even those that are alive have but a weak and a fainting Life There it is that that the Saints shall be admirers of the Grace and Favour of God That after various difficulties and innumerable temptations and overwhelming fears did at last bring them to that happy Place For the poor trembling Saint that thought himself cast off and forsaken of God to find himself in his Arms in his Presence in his Heaven how great will his joy and praise be How will he ascribe all his life there to the meer Favour and Grace of God that shall set him at liberty when by his many Sins he had deserved to be bound in Eternal Chains That shall cause him to sing Hallelujahs when others weep and wail for ever How will he admire that Grace that has placed him in Heaven when so many others are in Hell And the more admire when he shall consider that this distinction of States was freely made That that Crown which will adorn his Head was freely given How will every look on God fill his Soul with a wondring Joy because he freely gave his Son How will every view of Christ encrease his wonder When he shall consider that he freely undertook the kind work of his Redemption that he freely shed his Blood and paid the debt which the Sinner himself could never pay and that he freely gave the Spirit and offered that Salvation upon easy terms without money and without price which cost him very dear All the Saints above will continually adore the Riches of his Grace that admitted them to Glory when they deserved to be shut out as well as others That they were deformed till he put his comeliness upon them That they were liable to Death till he justified them and polluted in their Natures till he renewed them and dying till he made them to live That they learned nothing but what he taught them had nothing but what he gave them did nothing but what he enabled them to do So that all must be wonderful in their Eyes from the beginning of God's design for their Salvation to the conclusion of it And when it is all finished they must with loud Praises sing Grace Grace By Grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the Gift of God Eph. 2.8 First No common Mercy yields any Comfort without the Favour and Love of God His loving-kindness is better than life Psal 63.3 If a man have all that he can wish every thing that is splendid and delightful every thing that may please his Eye or gratify his Appetite if he have not this with the Love of God he is a Miserable man For this will mingle
Kingdom and relies upon his faithful Promise to bring him thither he knows when he is most pained he is under the Conduct of a tender and a skilful Physician that though he search his Sore will not fail to advance and compleat his Cure and therefore does encourage himself to trust in him whom he shall praise as the health of his countenance and his God He knows that when he is thrown down by Sickness the Everlasting Arms will be underneath and that he shall be strengthned with strength in his Soul when his Body begins to decay but now without the favour of God every little Cross proves a burthen too heavy for us to bear When a man thinks with himself thus These pains that I feel are the wounds of an Enemy when a man sees nothing but what is dismal dark and troublesome and has do prospect of a dawning or approaching Light how sad and how overwhelmed must he needs be how small a thing will sink us when the Comforter that should relieve our Souls is departed Lam. 1.16 3. This Fâ—â—â—â—â— of God is Life to us in the Troubles of our Conscience and there are no Troubles in the World like to these Psal 88.3 4. In all other Troubles our Friends by their kind Discourses and their pitiful Expressions may mitigate our Sorrow but how can they speak peace when God has declared a War against us Job 34.29 When he giveth quietness who then can make trouble and when he hideth his face who then can behold him When he in his just displeasure raises a Storm who can make the Warers smooth again When the Sun is once set can all the power of Nature make it to rise again Other Troubles make the Body droop but these make the Soul it self to languish and to pine away What but the Favour of God can revive us when our Hearts under the sense of Sin and Guilt begin to dye within us When our Sins are set in order before us who can free us from the formidable sight Who but he can teach our hands to fight and to get the Victory When we are awakened with the sense of Wrath with the fear of Hell and of Destruction who can close our eyes again When we are under these inward Wounds who can pour in Oyl who can bind them up or heal them but he alone When our Consciences accuse us for our former and our later Sins who then can plead our Cause who can be on our side when God himself has overthrown us When the spiritual and holy Law slays us who can give us Life When the Word pronounces a dreadful Sentence against us who is able to reverse it Who in Heaven or Earth can be our Helper if we find not help he God Who will give us any comfort when through the terrors of our Souls we are looking for the Wrath to come Who will give us rest when we lie down and rise again with a sense of the Fury and the Displeasure of the Lord Deut. 28.66 67. VVhen a Soul is continually venting its presaging Fears and saying Now I am troubled but I shall shortly be in much greater trouble now I am with my Friends but it may be shortly I shall be with Devils now I am on Earth but it may be shortly I shall be in Hell now the Favour of God brings life to the dying Soul one beam of his favour causes the disconsolate Mourner to lay aside his mourning Garments and to rejoice After long Terrors how sweet is the Voice of God that brings the news of a pardon how welcome are the Tidings of a Pardon to a Malefactor at the very place of Execution and when God has brought us out of the deep VVaters and the miry Pit our very Bones begin to rejoice it spreads a chearfulness over every part to think that one whom we had so highly offended will yet be reconciled again it raises us even to transport and wonder what will he be gracious and merciful to such as we are Is it not pleasant after a long war to be at peace after hard labour to rest after a long Journey to arrive at our home so it will be to see the Face of God after a long darkness to shine upon us again As a devout Lady once said I have found him whom I sought the Love of my Soul and the Joy of mine Heart My Lord and my God Now my Joys return I now behold the Face of God and feel his Comforts in the service and worship of him and therefore every hour seems five till the hour of Prayer comes till by Contemplations and Meditations I bring my God to my Soul I could wish every one of the days for the solemn worship of God to be a Joshua's day the longest is too short for me and my wonted hours of Devotion and Meditation are too narrow a confinement for them and when I am refresht with the Comforts of God my heart dilates it self further by looking on the Joys of Heaven for if there be such joy during the Seed time See Life of the Countess of Falkland p 22. now infinite is the soy Harvest VVhat can be more great more delicious and more comfortable than to find that the Sun of Righteousness will shine upon us with his healing beams assuring us of his Grace here and of his Glory in the VVorld to come To see that Hell and that Curse of the Law in which we thought our selves involved to be under our feet to see the Yoke of Sin broken and the power of Death abolisht to see the Heavenly Sanctuary open and Christ our Salvation on the Throne reaching out to us his hand and guarding us to that happiness which he hath purchased with his Blood Oh! how cold and how miserable are all the Delights of the VVorld to such a delightful sight as this and how happy are the People whose God is the Lord No Pleasures no Creature-comforts no merry Songs can give quiet to a troubled Soul without the Favour and the Love of God till he come all other methods do but make the Clouds more black and encrease our Sorrows 4. His Favour is Life in the vehement Assaults and Temptations of the Devil VVhen the strong man armed comes against us when he darts his fiery darts what can hurt us if he compass us about with his loving-kindness as with a shield Psal 5.12 He can disarm the Tempter and restrain his Malice and tread him under our feet If God be not with us if he do not give us sufficient Grace so subtle so powerful so politick an Enemy will be too hard for us how surely are we foild and get the worse when we pretend to grapple with him in our own strength How many falls and how many bruises by those falls have we got by relying too much on our own skill How often have we had the help of God when we have humbly ask'd it And how sure are we
them from pain and yet suffer your Souls to languish and pine away If you did but know how miserable you are without the Favour of God it would create a vast horror in your thoughts How deeply would you groan if you were but sensible of the vast load of Guilt that is upon you How earnestly would you cry for help if you did but see whither you are sinking and where you are like to be for ever How would you start if you did but perceive that the Devil flatters you that he may destroy you That it is his work you do his Lusts that you embrace his Designs that you comply withal There is no Dungeon so doleful no Place so full of Torment no Fire so hot as that whither he leads you and which will be more insupportable to you because you let him lead you captive at his own pleasure If we receive any Life from God let us bewail our Dead let us pity them that have no pity for themselves let our eyes and our hearts melt and be troubled for them tho they will not shed any tears for the sadness of their own case Inf. 7. Hence we see the Reason why some grow more in Grace than others do and are also more serviceable in the world Fear and sadness damp and contract our Spirits but joy and comfort dilate them and cause them to act with spriteliness and vigour The Displeasure of God weakens the Faculties and Powers of the Soul by the terrible apprehensions which it is then fill'd withal but his favour-bringing life fills it with defight and Faith is then strong and unmov'd when it can behold God his Son and the Promises all as her own Portion Love is then genuine and durable when it has a warm sense of the Love of God and under the constraining power and force of this the heart is dissolved into a tender Sorrow and a true Repentance It is the shining of the Face of God that makes us active for his Glory and unwearied in his Service And under his pleasant and reviving Beams the Christian travels with delight and haste to his dearly-beloved home But when this Favour is eclips'd this Sun covered with a cloud then the poor Christian is as one who travels in the darkness of the night and has lost his way he is full of fear and perplexity and so is the deserted Soul but the first Beam of day makes him to go on and to finish his Course and then is accomplished that promise Isa 35.1 2. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad and the desart shall rejoice and blossom as the rose it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing c. The Favour of God is as dew upon the grass it causes fruit where there was nothing but withering and decay before According as he is pleased to favour us or to be displeased so there is either a great Ease or Restlesness and Indisposition on our Spirits His Favour excites Admiration and Praise and Love and Joy and with these cheerful Affections a man may do a great deal for God Whereas most usually with our departing Comforts does our strength depart what can we do for the Salvation of others if we are under great fear that we our selves shall not be saved How can we work in the Vineyard if we fear that our Master will in Anger cast us out Psal 51.11 Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from me v. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit And so it is as it 1. Delivers us from those Lusts and Corruptions which chain us down that we cannot run the way of God's Commandments 2. As it keeps us from being intangled with the affairs of the world that subjugate and enthral our minds 3. As it is in us a Spirit of Adoption and frees us from those slavish Fears of the Justice and Sovereignty and Holiness and Power of God which overwhelm our hearts Job 22.26 Then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty and shalt lift up thy face unto God Thou shalt pray unto him and he shall hear thee It gives us access to the Throne of Grace it takes off our unwillingness to and our restraint in holy Duties it gives a freedom and enlargement of Soul and it is then as the flower that opens it self to the shining Sun †See Mr. Burrough's Gracious Spirit p. 20. Tho a man suffer no alteration in his Constitution or his outward appearance yet if God withdraw all greatly decays within When the Spirit came upon Saul 1 Sam. 10.6 He prophesied and was turned into another man He was inspired with greater courage and had a disposition more Heroical and better qualified but when this Spirit was taken away an evil Spirit succeeded in his room then Saul was no more the same nothing but fear and horror and despair and vexation raged in his breast he was in all respects a very miserable man he had the name of a King but was divested of all Royal Qualities when he was left of the God of Israel and went to ask Advice of the Witch of Endor see his own Complaint 1 Sam. 28.15 I am sore distressed for the Philistines make war against me and God is departed from me and answereth me no more neither by prophets nor by dreams Does not every Christian find it by his experience that he is not the same in his Duties at one time that he is at another Sometimes his heart melts under a sense of the Love of God and he feels such a vital Influence of the Spirit that it seems as the Foretaste of Heaven he seems to be even swallowed up with Joy he seems to be within the Courts of God and to set his foot within the Land of Promise Oh who can express the sweetness that spreads over all the panting Soul when it sees the Face of God! it lives then indeed but hardly knows whether it be in the body or out of it so many wonders of Grace and Mercy does it view And yet this same person that is now in Triumph at the Gate of Heaven may at another time be bewailing its own case and in deep sorrows as at the very door of Hell When the Dew of God ceases to fall upon it it looks no more so fresh and so fair but sighs and groans for her Saviour tho a little while ago she could say I am my beloved's and he is mine The same person may look upon God as a Judge that before thought him to be a Father The Life as one says which God gives his servants may be weakned but 't is never extinguish'd there is oftentimes upon them a spiritual fainting tho not a total Death when the Spirit does not produce any chearful motion nor display any of his usual Beams of Light so that they are tost between Fear and Hope between the
heed that you do not weaken your selves for the joy of the Lord is your strength Neh. 8.10 Is it not motive enough to say that his Favour is your Life and his Displeasure is your Death Let us but take as much pains for our spiritual as for our natural Life and all will be very well When we find the least decays of Nature we are very industrious to repair them when we find the least faintness or indisposition on our spirits we have recourse to Cordials or to something that is very comfortable and reviving to refresh them when we are sick we complain of our illness we make abundance of inquiries and use a great deal of care to know what it is that will do us good we have a great value for our dear Life and are afraid of every thing that may deprive us of it and when we are in Health What do we not attempt for our own preservation What Arts do we use What provisions do we make for Meat and Drink and Cloaths and Houses and Gardens and other accommodations that we may live at ease And my Friends is not our Soul of more worth than the Body Are not its decays and its death more painful and more intollerable than all the languishing and decays of our outward Man Let us therefore as we have a great horror of natural death have no less for that which is spiritual Let us keep with a greater care the Favour of God that is our Spiritual and Eternal Life And that we may not lose it 1. Let us not grieve his Holy Spirit Ephes 4.30 Tho' we are not so happy as to have a familiar Conversation with Christ as those had who enjoyed his presence here on Earth tho' he be withdrawn from our eyes and we see him not in his exalted and glorified state yet he has sent his Spirit to dwell in our hearts and we ought with all manner of obedience and respect to treat and entertain so Divine a Guest to do nothing that is unsuitable to so great a Presence not to pollute our selves nor to defile his Temple with any sort of sin lest we grieve and vex him The Divine Nature indeed is incapable of our passions 't is above our joys and our sorrows and as 't is said of those that are upon Mount Olympus they see the Clouds gather below their feet they see the Hail and the Thunder disturb and lighten on the Plain whilest they rejoice in the pure light of the Sun In such manner the Divine Essence sees all the troubles and agitations of the Creatures remaining always in its own peace and tranquility * Claude Serm. Sur. Eph. 4.30 p. 29. This expression is borrowed from humane affections and when the Holy Spirit does that in us which our nature does when it is seized with sorrow then he is said to be grieved And if we make him sad we cannot expect that he will make us to rejoyce if we affront and abuse him he will not be our comfort if he retire all our Evidences will be covered with darkness and we shall be plunged in the lowest depths Let us therefore obey all his suggestions whatever he bids us do let us do let our minds always be yielding to his good and profitable motions let us not slight the Revelation he hath made nor be unmindful to grow in all the Graces that are pleasing to him let us remember the kindness that he does us how he chases away our darkness and when we are fainting how seasonably he does apply the Promises and brings to our remembrance those Truths that are most suitable and refreshing to us let us not grieve him by neglecting to read or meditate upon the Word which he endited or by foolish Communications by rash Anger 's or Malice or Bitterness or Wrath or Contention Ephes 4.31 but let him be the absolute Master of our souls when we are afflicted let us not grieve him by our murmuring or impatient complaints in our afflictions nor by security and hardness of heart in our prosperity And when he would carry us towards Heaven on the wings of spiritual desire and love let us not suffer our selves to be seduced by the World the Devil or the Flesh and if we obey him he will maintain a sense of the Divine Favour on our souls and the Life that he will give us will not be like that of the sick the feeble and the dying but like the Life of the most strong and healthful 2. Let us beware of Spiritual pride The contrite and humble are those that he regards The proud he looks upon afar off Psal 138.6 Though the Lord be high yet hath he respect unto the lowly but the proud he knoweth afar off That is with disdain and scorn 'T is nothing but our ignorance that makes us Proud We are ignorant of God and of the multitude and greatness of our Sins were it possible for us to be Proud if we frequently considered the Great Majesty of God and our own Vileness His Holiness and our Pollution His Almighty Power and our Weakness His Glory and our Darkness His Eternity and our own fading being What comparison can be made between the Great Ruler of the World and us that dwell in houses of clay It was a mighty Condescention in our Blessed Lord and one of the chiefest parts of his Humiliation to be cloathed with our Nature that is in it self so mean and low And as one says The whole World from East to VVest lies very sick but to cure this very sick world there descends an Omnipotent Physician who humbled himself even to the assumption of a Mortal Body as if he had gone into the Bed of the diseased 'T is an Ignorance of our selves that is the cause of our Pride we remember not how often it is that we offend in Thought VVord and Deed How we are by Nature children of wrath And how we make our selves more so by repeated acts of Sin God resists the Proud but he hath a regard to the Contrite and Humble Soul Isa He fills the hungry with good things but the rich he sends empty away Luke 1.53 All on whom he bestows his Favour he first convinces of their own misery shews to them the Curse the Hell the Condemnation that they have deserved and when they are pardoned after such a sight that Pardon fills them with low and self-abasing thoughts and when he comes to embrace them he finds them in the posture of the poor Prodigal Luke 15.18 19. Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son One sight of the face of God will dash all our Confidence and lower all our Pride and the more this is revealed and discovered to the Souls of the Faithful the more they see cause to loath and abhor themselves in dust and ashes Hence it is that our Apostle that knew so much of God was so very
the transports the sweetness and the satisfaction that you have found in God the settlement and the quiet that you have had when you have cast your Anchor on the Rock of Ages what views you have then had of the New Jerusalem and what a pleasant prospect you saw when you were upon the Mount Oh! remember how often you have fallen and his kind hand has raised you up how often you have been at the very Gates of the Grave and he has been your Life how often his Bowels have melted over you when you were Rebellious how often he has embraced you when you were Prodigals how often he has forgiven you and bid you be of good comfort when you did condemn your selves You have found all the Creatures as the drop of the Bucket and how unable so small a drop was to gratify your earnest longings your pantings and desires and that after many a weary step you found no rest till he manifested himself and gave you that composure and stillness which in vain you sought from lower things Have you not found more solace in an hours converse with God in Prayers and Meditation than in many days discourses with the best of Men This World I dare say you have found to be worse and worse the more you have tried it but the clearer views you have had of God have shewed you something in him still more and more excellent How often have you come to hear his Word with entangled perplexed thoughts and he has sent you away refreshed and satisfied How often have you with sad hearts and mournful looks kneeled down in your Closets and have risen again after having had communion with him with great calmness and serenity So that you have cried out Oh! that I had known him sooner and loved him with my first affections for he very well deserves all my faculties and all the powers of my soul Remember the large experiences you have had of the goodness of God! With what kindness did he draw you at the first with what gracious Promises did he cherish your languishing and your feeble hopes How seasonably did he awaken you from the sleep of death with his threats and calls and seasonable chastisements How has he made your broken bones to rejoice How often has he enlarged your hearts in Duty and you have felt so much of his Power and Presence and in so comfortable and so sweet a manner as if you had not only heard of him by the hearing of the ear but seen him also with the seeing of the eye How often has he renewed his Mercy when you thought he would never be favourable any more And how often when your unbelief has made you say that he was departed has he return'd again How often has he listned to your doleful cries and given you many a proof of his love in the gracious answer of your Prayers How many times has your heart and flesh failed and he hath given you support How many times have you been sorely tempted and he has overthrown the Tempter How many Storms have put you into consternation and he has appeared to your help and said It is I be not afraid He has put you it may be into the Fiery Furnace but he has been with you there and made even the severest Tryals to purge away your dross He has corrected you with a very tender and a skilful hand and has ordered with a most exact Wisdom all your troubles both as to the nature of them and as to their duration they have not been too heavy nor have they stayed too long Psal 119.75 I speak as to wise men judge you what I say These Experiencies well remembred will be a means to preserve you from losing the favour of God which is your Life As 't is useful for your health to remember what hurt you and what did you good heretofore so these spiritual Experiences will be very beneficial For may you not say with David Ps 119.96 I have seen an end of all perfections but thy commandment is exceeding broad CHAP. V. Of Assurance As also of the False Grounds upon which many are apt to conclude that they are Gods Favourites when they are not so 7. ENdeavour to be assured that you enjoy Gods Favour that is your Life Not only to believe that it is so but to feel this animating your Faculties and spreading it self through every part that you may not only have his Countenance but the Light of it and that you may not walk in darkness without the pleasant beholding of this Glorious and Reviving Sun His Favour towards you tho' it be undiscerned will make you blessed but nothing but the sense of it will cause you to rejoice Tho' you be safe yet it is very desireable to know that you are so not only to be going towards Heaven but to see the Crown of Glory shining before your Eyes as you go along It is very terrible tho God be your Father if you cannot think of him but as of a Judge Fears and Doubts are disquieting and uneasie things the restlesness and the torment that they give you should excite you to try all means whereby they may be removed It is much better to have a vigorous and a stirring Life than the sickly feeble motions of it that are scarcely discerned As in Apoplexies and other Diseases where the soul is retired inward and the spirits have so cold a motion that they scarcely make the Pulse to beat What peace can you have without an evidence of your Interest in God What comfort from his Promises if you know not whether they belong to you or not Will it enrich you to see large Treasures if you have no share therein What tho' there are abundance of Fountains of Consolation if you are like to perish and to die with thirst You must endeavour to have your hops as an Anchor that is both sure and stedfast Heb. 6.19 And you have encouragements given you for an hope so sure And as one says Hope were but a poor Anchor if it should leave the soul to the courtesy of a Wave to the clemency of a Rock to the disposing of a Storm Hope were but a weak Anchor if it should let the soul be lost with uncertainties or leave it in danger of Shipwrack Be not satisfied that you think that God's Favour is your Life till you can say with David He is the health of my countenance and my God Psal 43.5 and these two met together will produce a very solid and a comfortable joy when you can say with the Rapture of Thomas My Lord and my God! or with the Church I am my beloveds and he is mine Cant. 6.3 Use all the Ordinances the Word and the Sacraments to this purpose that you may find him whom your Soul loves Cant. 3.3 4. Oh what will be your pleasure when you see the great God of Heaven to be your own God! to see that Saviour of
to thy self I have indeed deserv'd this usage for thou wast with me and I did not value thy presence thou didst call but I did not obey thy voice thou didst stand at my Door but I shut thee out wo wo unto me that I have sinned wo unto me that I did not improve thy Grace thy Presence and thy Love as I should have done But tho I have been a Prodigal thou art a Father still and tho I have not done as becomes a Child yet I will return to thee because thou wilt not cast off the comfortable Name of a Father Thus I say do those that have had experience of God's favour mourn for his absence Their Spirits are like the tender Flowers that hang their heads when the Sun is set and they walk more disconsolately than any Subject can be supposed to do who after having once shared in the peculiar Graces of his Prince sees him at length because of his Crimes to look upon him with a severe or a less savourable eye VII If you enjoy the Favour of God you will have a great value for his Word for the Spirit and the Blood of Christ For his Word as discovering to you this God and persuading you by many comfortable Promises and Entreaties to accept of him and not only so but conveying to you saving light and knowledge with its great and powerful efficacy You will love the Word because of the many Supports and Consolations which you have received from it you will love it as the Rule of your Duty and all its Precepts will be dear to you as conveying to you life and strength you will love it so as to read it often so as to meditate upon it and to lay it up in your hearts you will love it as the Instrument of your Regeneration and rejoice in it not only for a season but for ever You will value and obey the Spirit that sets home revealed truths upon your hearts and when you were destitute of this life convinced you of your miserable state and restored vigor and motion to those Faculties of yours that were stupified and benumbed chasing away their ancient darkness and guiding them to their proper Objects and causing those Objects so discovered to produce glorious effects in your once barren Souls You will also prize all the Ordinances of God in which you may have communion with him as Prayer Hearing Meditation and the like and it will leave a sensible grief upon your minds when you miss of these Ordinances by your own fault VIII You will be very humble and heavenly minded His Favour fills all his Servants with the lowest and most self-abasing thoughts you will never speak of him but in terms full of respect never pray to him but with great reverence and veneration the nearer access you have to him the more will you discern of his Infinite Holiness and Purity and how vile you are when compared with him you will wonder at his Condescentions and cast down your Crowns before the Throne and imitate his humble Language in 2 Sam. 9.7 8. when David told Mephibosheth Thou shalt eat bread at my Table continually he bowed himself and said What if thy servant that thou shouldst look upon such a dead dog as I am This will cause you to admire the distinguishing Grace of God that is vouchsafed to you more than to many others in the World great numbers whereof are buried in Ignorance or open Idolatry and the rest in Profaneness or Hypocrisy many it may be are passed by in the same Families where you live and whilst you are alive your next Neighbour perhaps is dead And then if you have obtained this Favour you will be heavenly minded your Treasure and your Hearts will be above you will taste and relish spiritual and divine things and never be more pleased than when you are least earthly and carnal and this holy temper will be your comfort and security against the Temptations of Satan and the Evils of this lower World as those Birds that soar aloft are out of the danger of Guns and the Snare of the Fowler who catches those that fly nearer to the ground IX You may then know that you have the Favour of God if you are industrious and zealous in the performance of all holy Duties If you perform them not only from the force of awakening convictions but from love and delight if you refuse no service that may glorify him though it seem to thwart your worldly Interest and to be painful to the Flesh and it is impossible but to find a very calm and chearful progress in your obedience when you know that God accepts what you do As it is a mighty encouragement to the labour of a Servant when he sees that his Master is very well pleased with his work Darkness you know with its many Inconveniences does greatly put a stop to diligence which yet is quickned and excited by the return of Light So if God's Countenance shine upon you it will make you not only to walk uprightly but even to run the way of his Commandments with enlarged hearts Psal 119. and you will associate with such as are serious holy Persons for the living do not use to take pleasure in being among the dead X. And Lastly If this Favour of God be your Life it will make you patiently to long for Heaven This Favour will be sweeter to your taste than honey or the honey-comb it will yield a more delightful relish to your renewed Appetite than all the Joys of this World the little drops that now and then refresh your hearts will cause you to pant for those Rivers of Pleasures that are at his Right-hand for evermore Are you weary of sinning weary of your imperfect Faith and Hope and Love Does the prospect that you have of God at this distance render him so amiable to your Souls that you would fain be with him where he is Are you so sensible of the evil of your Sin that you would fain be in that place where you shall sin no more for ever where your panting Soul shall have all its longings turned into an eternal Complacence and Delight You will often lift up to Heaven your longing eyes and send thither many a servent wish saying with David Oh! when shall I come and appear before God! Psal 42.2 When will it be that I shall see his glorious Face and feel beyond all doubt that I am loved of him and that I love him better than I now do where the joys of hope shall be turned into fruition and when that which I have now but in the promise I shall have in the sweetest and most comfortable possession When shall I be near his Throne and see that glorious Majesty that I have adored When shall I see that Face all serene and have no black or mournful Cloud to interpose between my God and me for ever Oh that I might join in the Hallelujahs of the Blessed
and I have hated him He has called me and I have disobeyed his Voice He has provided for me and I have rebelled He has been a Father but I have been undutiful and prodigal and disobedient and now his slighted his forgotten Love and Kindness wounds me to the very Soul Oh! what did I think of when I did not think of him What was it that my vain foolish heart loved when I loved not him that is altogether amiable What was it that I cared for or in what did I spend my time that I did not care for my Soul and the pleasing of my God who spared me and bore with me with an admirable patience I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men Job 7.20 I will put my mouth in the dust I will loath and abhor may self for mine Iniquities if so be there may be hope I have wandred but my wandrings have cost me dear I have been in a strange Land and with tears will I return home saying Bless me even me also O my Father And then the Love of Jesus constrains the poor Christian to be sorrowful saying Did he leave his Heaven for me and for me that many times would not leave a sin for him for me that was a lost Sheep a dying Malefactor an Enemy by my Evil Works Did he come to rescue me when I was in the very jaws of the Roaring Lyon and at the door of Hell and shall I not be grieved to think that I have requited him so ill for all his Love they were my sins that made him astonisht and troubled and exceeding sorrowful even unto death and yet alas I have done what I could to increase his Agonies by my new sins It was my sin that filled the bitter Cup that betrayed that whipt that exposed to so injurious usage the Son of God my sin that wounded his Breast and raked in his Sides and nailed him to the Tree and made him dye and can I look upon what I have done and not be troubled Can my eyes behold him hanging on the Cross and not affect my heart Never was there any Sorrow like to his Sorrow never was there any Love like to his Love Never was there Disobedience more inexcusable never was Sin more sinful than mine has been I have often made light of that that prest him down to the Grave I have rejoyced at that which made him mourn and weep but I will do so again no more for ever And then it troubles the good Christian to think how often he has refused the motions of the blessed Spirit and how when the Spirit has moved upon his heart with a design to do him good he hath sent him grieved and vexed away All this is occasion of grief tho it do not always express it self in tears for there is a rational sorrow as well as a sensitive one and tho this may be more passionate yet the other is more lasting and durable Those that are converted in their younger days the warmth and heat of their glowing and beginning zeal does more easily dissolve and melt them into tears and then the rivers flow more than they do afterwards but yet when the flood ceases the fruitfulness appears and when their tears are dried up yet their hatred of sin remains for these outward expressions of sorrow are very much influenced by the temper and constitution of the body 2 Cor. 7.10 11. As in the first so 't is in the second birth as soon as they are born they cry No sooner are they brought from darkness into marvellous light but they wonder at their folly and at the grace of God that saved them from it and that wonder does produce love and grief First their hearts are softned with his love and then they mourn for their Provocations tho this wherewith good Christians bewail their sins is not a lazy grief but attended with serious endeavours of new obedience as the Husbandman after the profitable showers of rain sets himself with a renewed industry to cultivate the Ground and it is but reasonable that our eyes that are too often the instruments of sin to us should by tears help us to bewail that sin Isa 38.15 I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my Soul 2 Those that are good Christians weep also for the sins of others The love they have to the name of God causes them to grieve for the reflections and dishonours that are thrown upon it by wicked men They cannot without sorrow behold or hear of the sins of men in general the sins of Kingdoms and Provinces and Towns the sins of Families the sins of their Fellow-citizens their Brethren and their Neighbours the tears that they shed are tears of compassion for the very sad and miserable condition of the World Whilst others make a mock at sin and through the blindness of their folly know not what they do good men lament their unconcernedness and insensibility whilst they see them sporting on the hole of Aspes and touching Firebrands and Death They cannot see men treat their heavenly Father with insolence and scorn but their hearts in a just zeal for his glory rise against them not with indecent passions for their ruine but in an hearty longing for their reformation Psal 119.138 Rivers of water run down mine eyes because they keep not thy Law Thus saith the Prophet to his hearers Jer. 13.17 My soul shall weep in secrew places for your pride mine eyes shall weep sore and run down with tears Our love to our Neighbour and our zeal for God's glory does oblige us to this it must grieve us to think what men are doing when they sin how great a God they provoke to punish them how great a misery they are bringing on their own souls It must grieve us to think how unsafe a way they go and what a dismal end will be to that way Phil. 3.19 Jer. 9.1 The Prophet wishes 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 And yet as one observes when he pronounced these sad words Dubose Sermons pag. 1. the misery of the Jews was not arrived Jerusalem did as yet subsist in its Magnificence and splendor its Temple had not lost thatadmirable Beauty which made it the wonder of the world its Palaces had lost nothing of their Pomp its Walls and Fortresses were entire and the Daughter of Sion was Princess among the Provinces but he spoke thus foreseeing that their abounding sins and their hardness and obstinacy would certainly bring upon them the Judgments of God We must consider what we were our selves when in the house of bondage and serving divers lusts how enslaved and how miserable that so the remembrance we have of our former danger may quicken us to do others all the good we can that they may not fall into hell whilest we
are looking on and do not all that is in our power to hinder their going thither To this compassionate sorrow we may be excited by the kind example of our Lord Luke 19.41 he wept for those that rejoyced he pityed them that had no pity for their own souls because their hearts were hardned his was very soft and tender It is matter of mourning and lamentation to consider how few there are that profess Religion in its strictness and among those few how many that are scandalous or backsliders or hypocrites It has been often observed that among the bitter Ingredients of our Lords passion this was none of the least to foresee that there would be so many who by their final impenitence and persevering in wickedness would receive no benefit by it * Norris's Discourse on the Beatitudes pag. 44. And if we may judg by proportion the Angels in Heaven who rejoice at the conversion of one sinner do also mourn and lament for the Irreclaimable wickedness of so many Millions in the world To a zealous Magistrate it is an occasion of sorrow to see in his Dominions the great King and Ruler of the world so little valued and his grief will stir him up to use all the wholsome methods he can by good Laws and a necessary severity to keep the Divine Laws and Authority from being scorned and trampled on by profane and blasphemous sinners To a good Parent it is an occasion of grief to see the undutifulness and miscarriages of his children and very cutting to think that he has brought forth such as shall be his torment and factors for the Devil To a Minister it is an occasion of grief when he meets with a careless Auditory or with an unfruitful people that he is like to see them perish under the means of safety and that he is like to be their accuser in the great day and that they are like to be separated for ever when the judgment comes it is with an heavy heart and many a tear that he thinks of their forlorn state Rom. 9.1 2. Ye know after what manner I have been with you at all seasons serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations Act. 20.19 For the space of three years I ceased not to warn every me night and day with tears ver 31. 3. They weep for the manifold tribulations and persecutions they meet withal When God is pleased for their chastisement to let loose the passions and the fury of wicked men whose tender mercles are cruelty Cant. 2.2 As the Lilly among the thorns so is my love among the daughters She is beautiful and glorious but surrounded with difficulties and tribulations Psal 84.6 Passing through the valley of Baca they make it a well the rain also filleth the pools They are satisfied indeed to endure in the hope of Heaven but yet their sorrows and torments make them go weeping thither They have sense as well as Religion and their sensible nature Whether they will or no will be affected they cannot be sick but they must groan and sigh as well as others they cannot feel tortures racks tedious Imprisonments and flames without shrinking a little at them even the Apostles those great and couragious believers were troubled and perplexed tho they were not overthrown 2 Cor. 4.8 In times of Persecution there is a general license of doing mischief a bold oppressing of the poor a scornful despising of the affilicted and the desolate as they complain Psal 123.4 Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt of the proud and the scorn of evil men is so base a thing that the most patient cannot but be somewhat concerned at it Psal 42.11 My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me Where it thy God when I remember these things I pour out my soul in me 'T is true the servants of Christ esteem it abundant matter of joy when they fall into divers tribulations their minds are quiet and very well satisfied they love their Master and they will never leave him they will follow him to the Cross and die with him there but inasmuch as they are composed of flesh and blood and have a nature that is tender and soft and averse to suffering as well as that of others and that has several things that engage it to the world several Relations and Friends to part withal they cannot with respect to these leave this Earth without some grief and sorrow as the Hearers of Paul wept that they should see his face no more and it was even like to break his heart that he was to leave friends so affectionate so loving and so kind And we must think they did not part at last without flowing eyes on either side Act. 21.13 4. Christians however easie in their own Circumstances have still occasion of sorrow from that sympathy that they have with their brethren that are in distress The spirit of our compassionate Lord dwells in their heart and as he is afflicted with all the afflictions of his people so are they they are all the members of the same body and one part of the body cannot rejoice whilest another part thereof is in pain Thus they weep with them that weep Rom. 12.15 To hear of the desolations of others is extremely grievous to them nor can they laugh and be merry whilest others sigh and groan see Jer. 4.31 Ch. 8.21 22. Jer. 14.17 to the 20. They cannot chear themselves with Musick when the Harps of others are hanging on the Willows Lam. 1.12 16. Ch. 2.11 12. And this Book of the Lamentations is so very lamentable that it very well deserves to be read and considered by us that so the miseries of our Neighbours may affect us as they ought to do Job 30.35 Did not I weep for him that was in trouble was not my soul grieved for the poor It must be a temper very Hellish that has no relentings for the sufferings of others even such a Diabolical temper as reigneth in France at this day where by the encouragement of a Cruel King and as Cruel a Clergy the poor Protestants have undergone barbarous and more than Heathen severities if they had any thing humane left they could not have used those poor Harmless and Innocent people as they have done But they have long since degenerated into Wolves and to this day retain their brutal and savage nature tearing to pieces the sheep of Christ without any provocation and tho some have had such a brazen impudence as to say they have all along used with them nothing but sweet and gentle methods yet there are Witnesses enough and too many if it pleased God in all parts of Europe that tell us Melancholy stories of their Hillish Cruelties had there been the lowest degrees of Christianity left in that Execrable Country they could not they durst not have proceeded to
think our Sighs better than Praises and Hallelujahs Let us hasten in our desires from this diseased World which by its low scituation is apt to suffer an inundation of innumerable miseries and prepare for that World where there is an Eternal Health and Joy CHAP. IV. Shewing what dreadful apprehensions a soul has that is under desertion and in several respects how very sad an doleful its condition is from the Author 's own Experience THE next thing I design to insist upon is To shew that the time of God's forsaking of a soul is a very dark and mournful time 't is not only night but a weeping stormy night and it may not be unuseful to you who have it may be hitherto lived in the beams and chearful light of day to know what passes in this forrowful and doleful night And in this matter I will not borrow Information from others but give you My own Experience 1. In this night the deserted soul it overwhelmed with continual thoughts of the Holiness and Majesty and Glory of the Lord nor does it think of him with any manner of delight according to that of Asaph Psal 77.3 I remembred God and was troubled I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed And in how deplorable a Case is such a Soul that cannot think of its God and its Creator but with grief and sorrow That fixes upon nothing in him but his terrible and severe Attributes In other Cases when a Man is distressed on Earth and beholds vexation and disquiet there he can lift up his eyes towards Heaven and see joy and comfort for him there but in this woful Case there is neither the light of the Sun the Moon or the Stars for many days the face of God is hid and covered with a dreadful Cloud Job 31.23 Destruction from God was a terror to me and because of his highness I could not endure Secondly The deserted soul in this mournful night does look upon God at its enemy and as intending its hurt and ruin by the sharpness of his dispensations and this makes it to be incapable of receiving any consolation from the Creatures for will it say to them Alas if God be mine enemy as I apprehend him to be which of you can be my friend I have a dreadful sound of his displeasure in my ears and which of you can bring me any glad tidings If his power his Irresistible power be against me who can keep off the killing-blow Job 19.6 Know now that God hath overthrown we and hath compassed me with his net he hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass and he hath set darkness in my paths And so v. 9 10 11. and Psal 88.7 Thy wrath lyeth hard upon me and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves If in such desertion God were apprehended to be upon a design of the future happiness and welfare of the soul it would bear up with courage or with hope but having no such belief it must needs sink and languish The stroke that wounds us in such a case is the more painful as edged with a sense of wrath Psal 102.9 10. I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping because of thine indignation and thy wrath for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down Thus does the weeping person vent his sorrows God never gives to his people such a bitter Cup but he mingles love and mercy with it but alas I taste nothing but gall and wormwood nothing but misery and vexation He is with his people but he has forsaken me he has cast me into a fiery furnace where I am daily burnt and scorcht and he is not with me there He is unto me as a Roaring Lion and who can turn away his powerful wrath Ruth 1.20 The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me I have often heard that it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God and I now find it to be so all the wrath of men is nothing to his one frown of his is more intolerable than all their rage and persecution Job 16.12 13 14. I was at ease but he hath broken me asunder he hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces and set me up for his mark his Archers compass me round about he cleaveth my reins asunder and doth not spare he poureth out my gall upon the ground Job 10.16 17. Oh what anguish what desolation is caused in the soul by such thoughts as these I dare not says the mourning person look up to Heaven for there I see how great a God I have against me I dare not look into his word for there I see all his threats as so many barbed arrows to strike me to the heart I dare not look into the Grave because thence I am like to have a doleful Resurrection And what can a poor Creature do that apprehends the Almighty to be his enemy It is a common thing to say why do you so lament and mourn you have many mercies left many friends that pray for you and that pity you Alas what help is there in all this it God himself be gone nothing is then lookt upon as a mercy And as for the prayers of others will the distressed person say they can do me no good unless I have faith and I find I have none at all for that would purifie and cleanse my heart and I do nothing else but sin and God as he is holy must set himself against me his Enemy 3ly In this doleful night the soul hath no evidence at all of its former grace so that in this night the Sun is not only set but there is not one Star appears such an one looks upon himself as altogether void of the Grace of God he looks upon all his former duties to have been insincere or hypocritical he feels his heart hardned at present and concludes that it was never tender finds himself at present listless and indisposed and concludes that he never had any true life and motion and expresses his sorrows after this or the like manner I thought I had belong'd to God but now I find I am none of his I thought I had been upright but now I see I was mistaken the storm is come and that house that I built upon the sand is now washt away those that are Christ's he will enable to persevere to the end but I am fallen from grace I am an Apostate if I had any share in the Intercession of the Great Redeemer he would not leave me thus sad and desolate I thought that I had been planted in his Vineyard and brought forth fruit but now I am cut down as a barren tree Oh how greatly have I been deceived that imagined my self to be an Heir of Heaven and am now seizd with the pangs of Hell I now see that I was never right never born again never renewed by the Spirit never changed from death to life And Oh
to him to see God hiding himself from his Child and that Child broken with fears torn in pieces with Griefs made a Brother to Dragons a Companion to Owls under restless Anxieties perpetual Lamentations feeble and sore broken their Tongue cleaving to their Jaws their Bowels boyling their Bones burnt with heat and their flesh consumed * Dr. Gilpin on Satans Temptations Part 2. p. 281. He sets upon us after we have been long troubled and weary with our March in the doleful Night And which is the sorrow of our sorrows God may for a long while leave us in his hands and by his usage of Job we know what his temper is Luke 22.31 'T is the hour and the power of darkness Eleventhly Sometimes this Sorrow is mixed with deep Despair It is a Tempestuous and Stormy Night And as Paul said in another case All hope of their being saved is taken away I shall surely perish saith the mourning soul I am damned I am lost for ever I am already as in Hell under unexpressible insupportable pains and amazing fears the Lord will be favourable no more he hath shut up his Bowels and his Tender Mercies he is gone he is gone from me and he is for ever gone No more shall I call him Father no more shall I behold his shining face no more shall I hear his kind and loving Voice he is my Judge and my Enemy and I am afraid he will be so for ever He hath cast me off he hath forsaken me he hath condemned me and I am lost for ever I am now like to have my poor Soul gathered with Sinners and with Bloody Men I am now never like to see that Heaven where I once hoped to go I see nothing but ruin nothing but desolation nothing but blackness of darkness and these unbelieving despairing Conclusions produce hard and strange thoughts of God and an enmity to him in our minds Twelsthly Looking upon their present troubles as an Introduction to more and that these are but the beginning of sorrows Isa 38.13 I reckoned till morning that as a Lion so will he break all my bones from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me How often do we hear such saying Oh! what will become of me should I dye in such a state as I now am in in such horror and amazement where will my guilty soul then go Alas I am no way prepared to give up my accounts and yet am like every moment to be called away If I cannot bear these Pains and this Wrath what shall I do to bear an Eternal Hell If I tremble so now what shall I do when the blow is given and the final Sentence past I have but one change to make and it is like to be a sad and woful change God knows I dare neither live nor dye Oh! what shall I do whither shall I go Stay I must not and depart I dare not I am now sorely tormented and must I be for ever and for ever so and worse too I now see that the Gate is strait and the way is narrow and that there will be few indeed that will be saved The shadows of the Evening are stretched out upon me and what shall I do if it prove an Eternal night For as it is the glory of Faith to shew us future things as if actually present and to give us joy from them so considered So it is the torment of despair to make poor distressed Souls believe they are even as in Hell whilest they are on Earth and that they are actually scorched with that wrath that is to come in greater measures Thirteenthly From all these follow strange discourses and expressions of sorrow they are forced to complain to cry out and to weep bitterly Job 7.11 Therefore I will not refrain my mouth I will speak in the anguish of my spirit I will complain in the bitterness of my soul They speak without any manner of concern or fear things that both vex themselves and make others tremble they scarce care what they say of God or of themselves My soul is weary of my life I will leave my complaint upon my self I will speak in the bitterness of my soul Job 10.1 3. Nay they frequently proceed to wish they had never been born knowing it is better not to be than to be miserable Job 3. Job 10.16 17 18. Nay they may proceed so far as to wish even to be destroyed that they may know the worst Such is the sorrow of their hearts and so violent Job 6.26 Do ye imagine to reprove words and to reprove the speeches of one that is desperate which are as wind And there are two things that make their sorrows more sorrowful 1. As comparing their state with that of others 2. As with their own former state 1. It makes them more sad when they consider the case of others with what peace and joy they live with what hope and comfort whilest they are drowned in sorrows Others says the deserted Soul can sing the Praises of God with delight whilest I am overwhelmed and my Harp is hung upon the Willows others can go into the solemn Assemblies and hear his Word but I am confined in my thick darkness and dare not go thither others have the hope of Heaven and I have the dayly fear of Hell I am like to see others enter into Glory and my self shut out Oh! what have my sins done If I had not greatly sinned I might have had as much quietness and comfort and peace as they and I that am now cut down for my unfruitfulness might have been serving God with as much chearfulness and light and hope as they do 2. When the deserted soul compares its present with its former state To a person in misery it is a great increase of misery to have been once happy It was to David an occasion of new Tears when he remembred his former Joys Psal 42.3 4. Time was says the poor Soul when I thought of God with comfort and when I thought of him as my own God and to lose a God that I once enjoyed is the Loss of all my Losses and of all my Terrors the most Terrible Time was when I could go and pray to him and ease my self in Prayer but now I have no boldness no hope no success in Prayer I cannot call him my Father any more Time was when I could read the Bible and treasure up the Promises and survey the Land of Canaan as my own inheritance but now I dare not look into the Word lest I read my own Condemnation there The Sabbath was formerly to me as one of the days of Heaven but now it is also as well as the rest a sad and a mournful day I formerly rejoyced in the name of Christ I sat under his shadow Cant. 8.10 I was in his eyes as one that found favour but now my soul is like the deserts of Arabia I am scorched with burning heat From
how great an height have I fallen How fair was I once for Heaven and for Salvation and now am like to come short of it I was once flourishing in the Courts of the Lord and now all my Fruit is blasted and withered away his dew laid all night upon my branches but now I am like the Mountains of Gilboa no Rain falls upon me Had I never heard of Heaven I could not have been so miserable as I now am Had I never known God the loss of him had not been so terrible as now it is like to be Job 29.2 3. Oh! that I were as in months past as in the days when God preserved me When his Candle shined upon my head and when by his light I walked through darkness These are some of the sorrows that deserted Souls often meet withal and indeed but a small part of what they feel in this dark and stormy night Before I proceed any further I will answer two Objections for I foresee that against what I have said some may object CHAP. V. Answering some Objections and of the further doleful state of a deserted Soul and whence it is that God is pleased to suffer a very Tempestuous and Stormy Night to come upon his Servants in this World Obj. 1. YOV make a great deal of noise and pother about desertions and God's forsaking of the soul and it is nothing in the world but Fancy or Imagination and the whimsies and the fumes of Melancholly Answ It is no new thing for us to hear such Language from Atheistical and Prophane People from men that are covered with ignorance and sloth With ignorance because they know not the ways of God and his dispensations and sloth because they will not search into the Methods of his Government To grant them for once that it is Imagination it is not the less tormenting because it is so for a Man that strongly imagines himself to be miscrable is truly miserable if a man think himself unhappy he is so whilest that thought remains But then they would do well could they but once obtain of themselves leave to consider a little they would find reason to suspect their own foolish Objections Who was a Man as appears by what we read of him more distressed with the sense of God's Anger than David yet he was of a Musical and a pleasant Temper of a Ruddy and a Sanguine Constitution Do they think that such a great Prince as Job was was led meerly by humour and by fancy when he complains so much of the Arrows of the Almighty Or that Heman Asaph and many others were men of no clear understandings It is their ignorant Pride that makes them to talk so boldly of the Judgments of God which they do not understand but if ever their Consciences be awakened with a sense of guilt they 'll find in what I have now discoursed something more terrible than Fancy or Imagination Obj. 2. You take a way to discourage men from all Religion If it be such a mournful business it is better to let it alone and to rejoyce and to be merry and to take our ease and our pleasure Go by your selves to Heaven if you will we 'll joyn our selves to more chearful Companions we see those that are gay and brisk that know no sorrow while they live and that dye in peace and to their Assembly we will unite our selves In Answer to this I desire such to consider That it is not our Religion that is the Cause of our sorrows but our wandrings and our deviation from it If we were always obedient we should have an Eternal day our heavenly Father chastises us because we are undutiful and he does not delight to grieve the Children of Men and even in these necessary Corrections he carries on a profitable design for our future and final good 'T is true this is nothing but anguish of Conscience that draws up a process against it self that presents it self as before the Tribunal of God without hope of pardon or escape and the weight of Mountains would not be a load so heavy as this it is a night wherein we are kept waking with our danger whether we will or not Wicked men tho they have as great a burden yet are not sensible they feel not the bitterness of sin they are like fishes bred in the Sea that tast not the saltness of the water they are like swine that find something agreeable to their meaner appetites even in that which is most nauseous to other Creatures When they sin they feel not the weight of it for it is their nature to do amiss their iniquities are like waters that are not heavy in their own Element as Intellectual joy is most refin'd pure and durable so is the trouble of the mind of all others most troublesome Job 6.2 3. Oh that my grief were throughly weighed and my calamity laid in the balance together for now it would be heavier than the sand of the Sea therefore my words are swallowed up 2. 'T is attended usually with great pain of body too and so a man is wounded and distrest in every part There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger says David The arrows of the Almighty are within me the poyson whereof drinketh up my spirit Job 6.4 Sorrow of heart contracts the natural spirits makes all their motions slow and feeble and the poor afflicted body does usually decline and wast away and therefore saith Heman My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave In this inward distress we find our strength decay and melt even as wax before the fire for sorrow that is an ingrateful languor of the soul * Natural History of the Passions p. 152. darkneth the spirits obscures the judgment blinds the memory as to all pleasant things and beclouds the lucid part of the mind causes the lamp of life to burn weakly In this troubled condition the person cannot be without a countenance that is pale and wan and dejected like one that is seized with strong fear and consternation all his motions are sluggish and no sprightliness nor activity remains Prov. 17.22 A merry heart doth good like a Medicine but a broken spirit drieth the bones Hence come those frequent complaints in Scripture My moisture is turned into the drought of Summer I am like a bottle in the smoke wy soul cleaveth unto the dust my face is foul with weeping and on my eye-lids is the shadow of death Job 16.16 Job 30.17 18 19. My bones are pierced in me in the night season and my sinews take no rest by the great force of my disease is my garments changed He hath cast me into the mire and I am become like dust and ashes Many times indeed the trouble of the soul does begin from the weakness and indisposition of the body Long affliction without any prospect of remedy does in process of time begin to distress the soul
displeasure whilest his favour and his gracious eye makes others to go smiling thither Enoch and Elias had a pleasant Removal from the world very short and very glorious was their passage hence but the most part of men groan a long while before they are called away and then he does it to shew his own Power that when the wound appears to be desperate he can give a cure with a word When the night is fullest of horror he can bring the reviving day When the storms are highest he need but say to the waves to our doubts and our fears Be still and immediately there is a calm What is not a God and so great and so good a God able to do He that produced from a meer Chaos this beautiful and pleasant World need only say to us in the middle of our doleful darkness Let there be light and it shall be so Job 5.18 He maketh sore and bindeth up he woundeth and his hands make whole in acknowledgment of this Soveraign Ability it is that David prays Psal 51.8 Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice Why so had not Nathan told him That his sin was pardoned Yes but all the testimonies of men are nothing without the inward witness of the Holy Spirit God has committed to men the administration of his Word but reserves the Spirit to himself that Spirit which gives consolation to our hearts and peace to our Consciences When Mary and Martha were in sorrow for their Brother's death 't is said Joh. 11.19 Many of the Jews came from Jerusalem to comfort them but they received no comfort till Christ himself came thither CHAP. VI. Shewing whence it is that Melancholly and Troubled People love Solitariness and whence it is that serious Persons are not so light and frothy in their Conversations as others are With some other Inferences deducible from the foregoing Doctrine With some Advices to those that have never been deserted and to such as are complaining that they are so Inf. 1. HEnce you see the Reason why People in trouble love Solitariness They are full of Sorrow and Sorrow if it have taken deep root is naturally reserved and flies all Conversation Grief is a thing that is very silent and private Those People that are very Talkative and Clamorous in their Sorrows are never very sorrowful Some are apt to wonder why Melancholly People delight to be so much alone and I 'll tell them the reason of it 1. Because the disorder'd Humours of their Bodies alter their Temper their Humours and their Inclinations that they are no more the same that they use to be their very Distemper is averse to what is joyous and diverting and they that wonder at them may as wisely wonder why they will be diseased which they would not be if they knew how to help it but the Disease of Melancholly is so obstinate and so unknown to all but those that have it that nothing but the Power of God can totally overthrow it and I know no other cure for it 2. Another Reason why they chuse to be alone is Because People do not generally mind what they say nor believe them but rather deride them which they do not use so cruelly to do with those that are in other Distempers and no Man is to be blamed for avoiding Society when they do not afford the common Credit to his Words that is due to the rest of Men. But 3. Another and the principal Reason why People in Trouble and Sadness chuse to be alone is Because they generally apprehend themselves singled out to be the Marks of God's peculiar Displeasure and they are often by their sharp Afflictions a terror to themselves and a wonder to others It even breaks their hearts to see how low they are fallen how oppressed that were once as easy as pleasant as full of hope as others are Job 6.21 Ye see my casting down and are afraid Psalm 71.7 I am as a wonder unto many And it is usually unpleasant to others to be with them Psalm 88.18 Lover and friend hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into darkness And tho it was not so with the Friends of Job to see a Man whom they had once known Happy to be so Miserable one whom they had seen so very Prosperous to be so very Poor in such sorry forlorn Circumstances did greatly affect them he poor Man was changed they knew him not Job 2.12 13. And when they lift up their eyes afar off and knew him not they lift up their voice and wept and they rent every one his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights and none spake a word to him for they saw that his grief was very great As the Prophet represents one under spiritual and great Afflictions that he sitteth alone and keepeth silence Lam. 3.28 Inf. 2. Hence we see the Reason why the Servants of God have not such light and frothy spirits as others They do not indeed always mourn but even when they rejoice 't is with a serious and solid Joy Their own Sins and the fear they have of sinning and the concern they have for the Sins of others cause them to walk softly The many Miseries to which they are obnoxious and the many that they see the Church of God groaning under keep them from innumerable Follies from many Lightnesses and Vanities in Conversation which others do not scruple tho frequently when their Countenances are grave their Hearts are full of the most lively joys Inf. 3. What a mean sorry thing a Christian is many times in this World as to his outward appearance A Mourner never makes so great a shew as one in Triumph does His Graces and his Excellencies are many times like the Ground in Winter covered with Rain and Storm which make him not to be much regarded because Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief therefore the Jews saw no beauty or comeliness in him that they should desire him they hid their faces from him because he was stricken smitten of God and afflicted Isaiah 53.3 4. The life of all Believers is hid with God in Christ Col. 3.3 'T is maintained with suitable nourishment formed by the Gospel and preserved by the Spirit but because of innumerable Temptations and Weaknesses the Glory of their Grace is very much eclipsed 't is hidden under a thousand Crosses and Infirmities and does not yet appear in the clearest Light A Christian in this World is like a King that Travels Incognito in a strange Land he is coursly treated by Men that do not know the greatness of his Birth and Quality he Travels but in the habit of a Pilgrim and cloathed with Heaviness and hath Tears for his Meat and Drink Or he is as the Sun ascending to his Meridian but obscured from our sight with many thick and
dissipated and that dissipation causes fear when a soul has long had in it self the sentence of condemnation a pardon from God is very comfortable our former darkness does encrease our present comfort as shadows set off the light 2. Joy arises from the possession of a present good Thus is the presence of God unspeakably sweet to a soul from which he was once departed I. As it now thinks upon him as reconciled 2. As it has by faith possession of Christ by whom his favour is restored as our sadness came by unbelief so does our joy by faith When it was in anguish every thought of God was terrible and amazing but now nothing is so refreshing so desirable so satisfying as to think of him Psal 94.19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul Now the poor finner does not look upon him as an enemy but as a Father sees no more in his hand a flaming Sword but a Scepter of Grace hear 's no more his angry voice but his gentle comfortable Calls and Invitations according to that in Isa 66.13 As one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you and ye shall be comforted and when ye see this your heart shall rejoyce and your bones shall flourish like an herb Oh what a joy is it to the soul to find God with it to behold the wonders of his pardoning mercy to see that all its unbelief all its impatience all its murmurings in its wilderness-condition shall not finally obstruct its Journey to the Land of Promise to be pardoned when they thought themselves actually dying in their guilt does aggravate the mercy of escape 'T is true God loves his people even when he is angry with them he designs their good by the sharpest and severest strokes and when he withdraws 't is that they may give a better welcome to him at his return when our lower Region is most cloudy the Sun is still full of light but it is pleasant to us to see the clouds vanish and the sky clear and to be refreshed with his inlivening beams again God indeed is the same for ever our distresses our fears and our troubles do not alter his kindness these several variations in us make no change in him no more than the several alterations in the air infer a diversity in the Sun which is one and the same it self tho the changes be multiplied here below but yet even Paternal wrath is wrath still and his Love is what we ought earnestly to desire and at the manifestation of which we should greatly rejoyce It was once the saying of Mr. Peacock under great distress of Conscience Oh God reconcile me to thee that I may tast one dram of thy Grace by which my miserable soul may receive comfort Such was his longing after him and afterwards when the storm began to cease being put in mind of God's mercy to him he said Oh the Sea is not so full if water nor the Sun of light as God is of Goodness his Mercy is ten thousand times more The good man long'd but for a drop before and he had given him full draughts of Consolation so far are the ways of God above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts in our sore trials we think of God as a frowning Judge but when we are deliver'd we see him to be our best friend that he is really kind to us of whom we were so much afraid who can express the joy of having him at peace with us There is a Heaven in the smiles of a Reconciled God Figure to your selves as one expresses it De Lang-Treize Sermons pag. 850. a person that is condemned to death for his Crimes and who at the same time that he prepares to undergo it sees an Herald from the King bringing his pardon in his hand and stops the Execution by crying Mercy mercy to the miserable man with what transports of joy does the poor Malefactor see this Messenger and hear these tidings such and so pleasant is the joy that a deserted Christian finds after he heard the sentence of ruin and saw it near when the Law condemned him and his Conscience ecchoed to the voice of the Law to find that he is absolved that the Sentence is reversed and the sins that made him afraid are blotted out then it is that the mourning foul dares to look up to God as being no more at war with him nor afraid of the Thunder of his Power then it is refresht with his sweet and amiable Attributes and then the disorders and the pangs that it felt within are vanisht and all is quiet then it dwells not as in the shadow of death nor as on the borders of eternal grief Secondly As the deserted soul does by faith obtain a possession of Christ so it is full of joy and Christ is both the Object and the Author of it he has purchas'd it by his own blood and has born our griefs that we might not mourn for ever the having of him is a constant inexhaustible source of joy to the believer to be possessed of this Saviour who is the brightness of the glory and the express Image of the Father His Word his Wisdom his Love and his Good-will the Treasury of his Graces in whom his Fulness dwells this Divine Saviour is our Light that chases away the darkness of our night and who with his Gracious hand dries our eyes this is that Glorious Sun that arises with healing on his wings that not only chears our hearts but cures our wounds dispells the night and makes the voice of sighing to expire at the first dawning of the day this is the Tree of Life the Coelestial Manna that gives us Immortality * See Daille on Phil. IV. v. IV. This is our David that defeats our Enemies our Solomon that establishes among us a sweet and inviolable peace he expiates our Crimes and gives our minds rest he saves us from the wrath to come he delivers us from our sins from Hell from our slavish fears and causes us at length in our darkest and most tempestuous nights to hear his Voice saying It is I be not afraid We are first sadned by unbelief and faith doth first revive us and this faith is attended with joy and peace when the poor deserted soul begins to apprehend its Interest in Christ how are all its apprehensions changed saying Heretofore in my terrible anguish I thought that he was my certain enemy that I had no portion in his Blood nor any share in his Intercession That as I was under unbelief so I should be vastly more miserable than those that never heard of him than Heathens and Pagans and all the rest of men to whom the Gospel never came I then thought and was fully perswaded that I should not hear of him with comfort any more I then thought that I should see him coming in the Clouds to my terror that I should be placed at his
enough Enter into thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee When it can reflect and think of him as its own portion then the sorrows and darkness of the Night are gone for it has God that is all light and with him is no darkness at all and to see the light and to possess it is the same thing There is as one observes a reflected and a direct Light I see Palaces and Mountains and Towns and Fields and Trees with a reflected Light and hence it is that I see them without possessing them but I see the light of the Sun and of the Stars by direct rays and in seeing them I possess for to rejoice in the light of the Sun and to possess it is the same thing We now see God indeed by a reflected light which comes to us from the Creatures and hence it is that all those that see him do not possess him but in Heaven God will be seen without Vails and Reflexions His light will be a direct light which will fill us throughout it was a comfort to the Patriarchs and holy men of old to have the hope of Christ's appearance they saw his day afar off and they rejoyced but how much more is it to that soul that has actually seen him come and not only spreading his beams to remove the general darkness of the world but shining with a peculiar light and heat into its self It is peculiarity that endears the most of things to us our own Friends our own Relations our own Joys are the most pleasant It is not from Christ's being singly considered as a Mediator that we derive this comfort but from the reflexion that we are able to make of our happiness in him it is that which creates the sweetest motions in our hearts Before this propriety there may be a calmness of spirit and lesser degrees of Complacency expressing themselves in love and hope and desire but 't is the actual possession of a good as our own that is the Parent of a real joy the Christian may find some comfort in beholding the Incarnation the Sufferings and the Promise of his second Coming but when the soul can say He died and rose again for me this touches it with a very lively satisfaction and makes it say as in Hab. 3.17 CHAP. VIII Of the further Properties of the Joy that comes to a Soul after long desertion 'T is Irresistible tho usually Gradual it revives the body and the natural spirits It fills the late mourner with the hope of Glory and causes him to express his delight to others From all which we may justly admire the Wisdom of the Divine Providence 7. THis Joy is Irresistible As all the darkness of the Night cannot hinder the approach of the welcome day so neither can all our doubts nor our fears nor all the horrors of the Night hinder the beams of God's favour when he is pleased to shine upon us Job 34.29 When he giveth quietness who then can make trouble Notwithstanding all the directions and the helps that our Ministers or our friends give us in our trouble we refuse to be comforted but when he speaks the word we must obey He creates the fruit of the lips peace peace and we can no more resist his Almighty power than the first Chaos could withstand his Command when in the Language of a God he spoke and said Let there be Light Our escape from our Spiritual troubles bears some proportion with the Resurrection of our Lord from the Dead as that was owing not to a power ordinary or created so neither is ours but to a power that is Coelestial and Divine It was not as * Claude Traite de Jesus Christ Liv. v. 12. one observes the effect of the Power of God in the ways of nature such as is the Rising of the Sun the Return of Seasons the Fruitfulness of the Earth but the effect of a power altogether Infinite and Supernatural it is not according to the usual Laws of Nature or the course of Ordinary Providence 8. This Joy is usually Gradual and not all at once I say usually for sometimes persons in great distress and agonies of soul have been suddenly relieved in their darkest Night and in the deepest Dungeon a great Light has shined upon them so that those that have one hour cried out they were damned and lost have the next triumphed in the hope of glory and from the fear of Hell have come to a glorious view of Heaven to their own exceeding comfort and the comfort of all that heard them But tho God may do what he pleases this is not his ordinary way as the Night comes and the Sun goes down by degrees so does the morning come and the Sun arise by the same degrees as it rarely happens that any fall into great distress of Conscience on a sudden some lesser afflictions make way for greater strokes so seldom are any comforted immediately but their comfort comes like the break of day there are some faint streaks of light some little supports and quiet hopes before the Sun arise And God in this accommodates himself to the weakness of our nature for a sudden passage from a great Affliction to a great Joy is a thing which our tender nature is hardly capable to bear and usually the Consciences of those that have been very long terrified and afflicted begin to be calm as the humours of the body that have been disordered return to their Ancient course for so long as the Spirits and the Blood are disordered so long the Soul will unavoidably be in some unpleasant agitation 9. This joy has a pleasant influence on the Body and revives that with the reviving mind they fall sick and droop and they recover and rejoyce together When God is our God it causes health in our Countenances as well as pleasure in our Hearts and though I know that abundance of poor people that have been long amazed with the fear of God's Wrath have very feeble sickly Bodies to the day of death yet this calmness and peace of mind does greatly mitigate their pains and pour Honey and Sweetness into the most bitter Cup For what is it that makes affliction in trouble of mind to be so intollerable but that the afflicted person looks upon it as the beginning of sorrows as a few drops before a more dreadful storm and as the introduction to hell and woe But when the sting of guilt is removed and sin is pardoned the yoak sits very easie on their shoulders that used to gall them before Prov. 15.13 A merry bea rt maketh a chearful countenance Joy as well as grief cannot be dissembled if it be real and very strong Joy in the Heart is like the Rain at the Root of the Grass it will after being moistned to the bottom appear much more green and flourishing Prov. 17.22 A merry heart doth good like a medicine Even that chearfulness which arises
his deliverance or to obtain his mercy If he had never come to our relief till he saw something in us to invite him we had not yet been relieved No more did we contribute to our Restoration then we do to the rising of the Sun or the approach of day We were like those dry bones without motion and without strength Ezek 37.1 And we also said That we were cut off for our parts and our hope was gone and he caused breath to enter into us and we live Who is a God like to our God that pardoneth iniquity transgression and sin that retains not his anger for ever that is slow to wrath and delights in mercy That has been displeased with us for a moment but gives us hope of his Everlasting kindness Oh! what love is due from us to Christ that has pleaded for us when we our selves had nothing to say that has brought us out of a den of Lions and from the Iaws of the Roaring Lion To say as Mrs. Sarah Wight * See her Life written by Mr. Jesse pag 40. I have obtained mercy that thought my time of mercy past for ever I have hope of heaven that thought I was already damned by unbelief I said many a time there is no hope in thine end and I thought I saw it I was so desperate I cared not what became of me Oft was I at the very brink of death and hell even at the very Gates of both and then Christ shut them I was as Daniel in the Lions Den and he stopt the mouth of those Lions and delivered me The Goodness of God is unsearchable how great is the excellency of his Majesty that yet he would look upon such an one as I that he has given me peace that was full of terror and walked continually as amidst fire and brimstone 2. Let us walk humbly and be full of cautious fear that we offend not a God that is so terrible and that we grieve not a Benefactor that is so good Let us walk softly all our days remembring there was but a step between us and Hell Oh! let us put our mouths in the dust let us lothe and abhor our selves for the manifold iniquities that we were guilty of during the darkness of the Night and now the Morning is come and such a Morning as we never hoped to see let us walk as children of the day that so being come out of the Furnace we may be as Gold that is refined 3. Tho we do rejoice yet we must rejoice with trembling with trembling lest another Night so black so frightful and so dismal come upon us Let our obedience be more lively and as the tender grass springing out of the Earth by clear shining after rain but let us remember that our joy is not yet perfect tho it be as the light of the Morning when the Sun riseth It is not a Morning without clouds 2. Sam. 23.4 The Sun will be Clouded with many Fogs and Mists for 't is but yet a Morning-Sun it will shine with greater glory in its height when the Noon-day and our compleat Salvation comes The Devil that has tempted us will assault us again Let us watch that his designs may not take effect for it may be he has but left us for a season alas our unbelief and our other sins are not yet wholly dead Let us rejoice that the Face of God now shines on us but let us tremble to think what would become of us should it be hid again Let us rejoice that we have good hope through grace but let us tremble lest despair and the pains of Hell should again take hold upon us The fear that we have of future suffering does somewhat now diminish the brightness of our joy tho we ought not to live under the perpetual bondage of such fears but trust in God and hope that he will be our guide even unto death We are brought indeed out of the miry pit and the deep clay yet we cannot but tremble at our foregoing misery We are like a Person that after a Shipwreck has with great difficulty upon a Plank got safe to Land he finds himself in a place assured and rejoyces in it nevertheless the noise of the Waves and the great agitation that he was so lately in makes him tremble He remains a good while astonished at his former danger and his present safety Let us not have a trembling of distrust but of vigilance and of holy care not to doubt of the Promises of God but to keep down our own pride and carnal security Let us pray that as he has set our feet upon a rock so he would establish our goings remembring how low we have fallen into what depths and under what Calamities we have constant cause to be afraid Ps 149.6 Let the high praises of God be in our mouths and a two-edged Sword in our hands Let us be as those Soldiers who tho they have newly gotten the victory over their Enemies and rejoice for it yet amidst all their Acclamations stand upon their guard lest the remainder of those that are unsubdued should rally their scattered Forces and attacque them again to their disadvantage 3. We must be very active in the service of our good God We must begin to travel whilst the morning lasts and whilst we have day before us 4. Our mouths must be full of praise to him that has delivered us Shall we not praise him to whom we vowed praises when we were in trouble Shall we not praise him who alone has wrought salvation for us none but he could help us and he has done it Magnificently has he delivered us far above all our hopes Oh how much more pleasant is it to you and me to call him Father than to fear him as a Judge How much more pleasant to celebrate his praises than to mourn for his departure to tune our Harps after our Captivity than to have them hanging on the Willows Oh Let us praise him for he deserves our praise Let us praise him for he hath remembred us in our low estate Let us praise him for his Terrors his Rebukes and his Frowns are gone Psal 116.1 2 c Psal 37.6 The Lightning and Thunder the horror and the darkness of the tempestuous night is over and a chearful and a calm day now revives us Let us praise him for he is infinitely excellent Let us praise him for he expects our praise So David Psal 116 1 2 3 5. I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplications because he hath inclined his ear to me therefore will I call upon him as long as I live the sorrows of death compassed me and the pains of hell gat hold upon me I found trouble and sorrow Gracious is the Lord and righteous yea our God is merciful And Ps 27.6 Now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemines round about me Therefore will I offer in his Tabernacle