Divine Goodness on your behalf that he hath visited you with his own Presence tho he had his way in the whirlwind and in the storm when he came unto you I bless the unsearchable Riches of his Grace in our Lord Jesus Christ that he hath shed abroad any sense of his Love upon your Soul who had poured so much of his displeasure forth that you complain of his Anger in every stroke of the Rod of God upon you I rejoyce abundantly that he hath bowed his ear unto Prayer for you when you thought he had bent his Bow like an Enemy that he hath botled up your Tears when your Roarings were poured forth like the Waters that God hath form'd you into a Vessel of Mercy when you thought he had slung you away as a Vessel wherein is no Pleasure In a word I rejoyce with comfort and enlargements that the Lord hath given us so good hopes through Grace that you are Sealed up unto the Day of Redemption who did once mournfully express it in my own Hearing That you were Sealed up unto the Black Day of Wrath and should not see me until the Heavens were no more No more at present but my Hearty Requests at the Throne of Grace That He who hath been the Author of your Faith may become the finisher of the same and confirm you unto the End till an Abundant Entrance through the Broad Gate of Assurance be administred unto you into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I am SIR Your Affectionate Friend Servant and Brother in the Lord J. HUSSEY LETTER III. Dear Brother AS the tidings of your Distemper affected my Soul and drew out my heart to make request unto God for you so the tidings of your deliverance from trouble confirmed by so evident a demonstration of it as your appearance both in the Pulpit and Press hath much affected me with joy and thankfulness to the Lord. In your Book I read the Wisdom and Goodness of God in his severest dealings with his afflicted Servants and the accomplishing of what Job speaks That when he hath tried them he brings them forth at gold you have not been in the Furnace in vain but to humble and prove you and do you good in the end O how good is God! good in himself good and kind to all his Creatures but especially good to Israel You have had abundant experience of it he hath upheld you when falling and raised you up when you was bowed down and hath turned for you your mourning into dancing hath put off your sackcloth and girded you with gladness that your soul may sing praise unto him and not be silent and you have well done in making so publick an acknowledgement of your thankfulness to God that as deliverance hath been granted at the request of many so by the many who have been concerned for you thanks may be given unto the Lord on your behalf I am persuaded the Lord hath taught you the truth of that viz. That the School of the Cross is the School of Light You had not known so well either your own vanity or the Vanity of the Creature and of all humane help nor the marvellous loving-kindness of the Lord in stepping in betwixt the Bridge and the Water many times for your help had you not learned these things by being in the School of Affliction and I am encouraged to believe that the Lord hath reserved you and restored you that you may be through his Grace greatly instrumental for the glory of his Name in turning many to righteousness the most eminent Servants in the Lord's work have been prepared for it by manifold temptations our Blessed Redeemer himself was tempted that he might be able to succour those who are tempted and the Lord comforts his Servants in all their tribulations that they might comfort others with the same comfort wherewith they have been comforted of God the Lord hath brought you out of the depths of distress that you may be the more skilful Pilot to lead others through the Waves and Billows which they are afraid will swallow them up Now Dear Brother What doth the Lord require of you but what Paul sets before young Timothy 1 Tim. 4.12 Be you an example to Believers in word in conversation in charity in spirit in faith in purity your sound speech holy converse servent love and spiritual mindedness rightly improving spiritual Gifts both in sincere professing and publishing of the truth and unspotted purity of life will be a speaking Rule to others and so adorn both your Person and Profession that it will appear you have been with Jesus and that the Life of Christ doth shine forth in you And that you may be long a shining and burning Light in this World and at last be abundantly recompenced with the Reward promised to the Wise and Faithful is the fervent desire and prayer of Your Vnworthy but Affectionate Brother in the service of the Gospel RALPH WARD York Nov. 6. 1690. LETTER IV. From Steeple in Dorsetshire May 1. 1691. My Dear Friend I Did hope when I was last in London to have had the satisfaction of a free and large Conversation with your self and to have discours'd some particular matters with you but I was unhappily defeated I am now at too great a distance to use so much freedom with you as some of my Circumstances would prompt me to if I were placed so near you as would admit of my waiting on you personally But tho I do not think it proper to desire satisfaction from you by Letter about some things which would be of great use to my self and about which I believe you can better resolve me than other of my Acquaintance yet if it be consistent with your conveniences I would be glad that you and I might maintain a correspondence sometimes by writing I heartily bless God for his gracious dealings with you and for the good I hope he hath done me by what you have published to the World I have found my self obliged frequently to peruse your Book and the oftner I do read it the more I am affected with it I heartily wish English People might become so sensible of their great concernment that you might have encouragement to publish what you intimate in your Preface you did design It is what I earnestly long to see and what I am persuaded would be of singular use if people were a little awakened out of their Lethargick Distemper Peradventure God will use it to rouze and awaken many who otherwise will sleep on and continue in their doleful regardlesness and formality It would greatly rejoice me to understand by a line or two from you that I have some ground to hope to see that Tract in Print The Lord preserve his faithful Messengers and arm them against Discouragements Remember Eccles 11.1 6. I am Your Affectionate Friend SA BOLD LETTER V. Dear Mr. Rogers SIR I thank you for your Discourses on
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
the last day but he will come to you in the Spirit and judge for your Soul against your Enemies to deliver you from all even Sin which is such a burthen to you As also from Satan the great Troubler of your peace who does either accuse you falsly or aggravates all your Infirmities and Miscarriages though such as he has tempted you to above all reason I shall be glad to have some account from you how it is with your Soul .......... I shall endeavour what lies in me as enabled by the Spirit of Christ to be a helper to your faith and joy ............ I shall add no more at this time but only to let you know That I have you and others in your condition daily in my prayers so I commend you to the mercy of God in our dear Redeemer I am Your very affectionate Friend and Brother in Christ GEORGE PORTER Febr. 21. 1688 9. LETTER II. Written to a Relation of the Author 's by one that had been under Melancholly Mrs. Rogers IF you dare believe one that hath been in your Case which I confess is very sad and much to be pitied you have very much of a Bodily distemper and tho by reason of your Clouds you cannot hope for relief either by spiritual or natural means yet know that nothing is too hard for God to do use both and look up to God as well as you can for a Blessing The Lord's arm is not shortned that he cannot save nor his ear heavy that he cannot hear And tho your Sins and sad Apprehensions keep you in sadness that you cannot see the Lord Jesus nor call him yours yet he sees you bemoaning your Misery and Disability to love and serve him I know you would give all the World were it at your disposal for a glimpse of this favour Do not side with your Enemy so far as to believe that you would not accept of the Lord Jesus to be your King as willingly as to be your Saviour If you can get so much ground of your self then judge you are not alone in this for those that have been in deep Melancholly have not only had hard thoughts of themselves but hard and sinful thoughts of God as if he delighted in the death of a Sinner although he hath sworn the contrary In that dismal condition they could not see the loveliness of Christ nor hardly discern desires after him unless only to be saved from Hell they could plead against themselves That their Day of Grace was past and that they had sinned the unpardonable sin and that for several years Much more I could say but I know it is to no purpose none can speak to the heart but God alone only I beg of you to cherish that hope you have which the Devil would have you disown but had you none you would not ask any to pray for you I knew one that was in so despairing a Condition that did not that nor believed it more possible to be saved than the Devil At length was persuaded to use a Steel Course and Drink the Waters and other means which by God's Blessing did good and as the bodily distemper wore off more clearness came into the Mind and hope returned which before seemed to be quite dead and tho the Party still hath Clouds ........... and Satan is apt to put in that all is naught still through God's Mercy the poor creature can reply I am changeable in my frame God is unchangeable in his Covenants Tho I cannot find the sensible joy nor love nor delight that I would yet blessed be God that he inables me to wait on him in the use of the means by which he hath promised to renew my strength and tho I want that sweet sensible Communion with God which is the Life of Heaven Is it not a Mercy that I can hope in his Mercy Have I deserved such high favours that I must be always full of Joy This is what I would but if the Lord will keep me a poor Beggar 't is infinite Mercy that I am not in Hell and that the desire of my heart is after him I chuse to love him I cast my self on him I neither expect nor desire any other Saviour if I perish it shall be in serving him as well as I can and let him do his will There is forgiveness with him that he should be feared This poor Creature often thinks of that Scripture when Christ spoke to Thomas Thou seest and believest blessed are they that do not see yet believe You say this is no Comfort to you it is not your Case true but you know not how soon it may be This Party that I speak of was in your Case and I verily believe in worse therefore pray cast not off your confidence the Lord I verily hope will shew you Mercy But you must wait be not impatient Is not Redemption from Hell and hope of Heaven-worth waiting for .... The Lord shine in upon your Soul and let you see that whatever he doth is in love and faithfulness Pray for me that I may not forget how it hath been with nor be insensible of your Condition or others in your case ................ I am in some small manner sensible of your trouble I wish I were abundantly more so for then I should hope to be hereafter a partaker with you in your Joys July 24. 89. LETTER III. To a Relation of the Author 's MY very kind and dear Friend whom I much respect and love in the Lord even as I have Cause having found you to be one who I am persuaded Love the Lord Jesus in sincerity which you have fully manifested by your longings after him and your great inward sorrow when you could not enjoy him as you would And now he is returned unto you your soul is at rest rejoycing in him as the Lord your Righteousness Peace and Life in whom you have all your soul needs and desires And the Lord manifest himself to you more and more and fill you with abundance of Peace and Joy in Believing which I doubt not you desire for this end That his Joy being your Strength and your Heart enlarged by it you may be able to run the ways of his Commandments and to serve him not only in sincerity but with all gladness in all love and thankfulness for all his loving-kindness and all the great things he has done for your soul in bringing it out of that horrible pit of darkness and the shadow of death wherein you saw neither Sun nor Moon nor Stars but were afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted without all light comfort and joy tho the Father of Lights and the God of all Consolation were with you when you perceived him not and could discover no tokens of his Gracious Presence as neither could I in the like gloomy Condition But I now find as you also do blessed be the Father of Mercies That he was ready at hand to
humble saying 1 Cor. 15.10 By the grace of God I am what I am I laboured more abundantly than they all yet not I but the grace of God that was with me He calls himself the chief of Sinners and admires the grace of our Lord that towards him was exceeding abundant 1 Tim. 1.14 And elsewhere he styles the mercies of the Gospel the exceeding riches of the grace of Christ Eph. 2.7 As ever you would have the favour of God continued strive against all pride A man is then proud 1. When he attributes that to himself to his own Industry Wisdom or Prudence which he hath received from God 2. When he attributes to or expects that by merit which is a free gift Or 3. When he thinks he hath that which he hath not Or 4. When he despises others and affects preheminence It is usual with us to take the measures of Pride from the garb or attire from the outward behaviour gesture or the use of some less grave or decent Fashions and indeed there may be an excess in these things that may be very justly blameable But my Friends there is a Pride worse than all this even spiritual Pride that hath in it the very Image of the Apostate Spirit and is truly Diabolical when a man is proud of the Graces or the Gifts of God it alienates from him the Divine Favour for which we are more prepared when we are covered with shame and sorrow And when we are poor in spirit then we may hope that he will enrich us with his Love When we are emptied of all Self-conceit or a flattering opinion of our own Actions then we may hope that he will fill us both with grace and glory VVhat a sorry unbecoming thing is it for a man even the best of men to be proud Alas How soon can the Great God cause all his glory to wither and to fade away What a vain thing is it for a man to pride himself in things that relate to the Body when it is liable to Agues Fevers Consumptions Convulsions and many tedious days and years of pining sickness and must at last be the prey of death and moulder in the Grave And it is no less evil and foolish for a man to pride himself in any thing that relates to his Soul in his knowledge in his faith in his serviceableness for upon his sin an hour of temptation may come upon him that will be an hour of darkness that will cause the light of all these to vanish and what is man when his Conscience is awakened with a sense of guilt when his Sins are set in order before him when the Devil is permitted to sift and vex him to ruffle him with amazing Terrors and the constant view of Hell If God depart from us that Envious raging Spirit who is of great power and malice does with ease insult over us and tread us under his feet Oh! how vain is it for us to be proud that live a miserable life and may dye a very painful death All the Designs of God are to exalt himself and abase the Creature The Consciousness that the Saints have of their own Unworthiness will produce an eternal admiration of his Love and they will all cast down their Crowns before the Throne 1 Cor. 4.7 Who maketh thee to differ from another And what hast thou that thou didst not receive 1 Pet. 5.5 6. 3. That you may not lose the Favour of God you must beware of formality and all slightness of spirit in the performance of holy duties It will be also very prejudicial to us when we can omit them and have no great trouble or regret for so great a Sin Whereas if we were duly tender of the welfare of our Souls we should refresh them with frequent thoughts and meditations as we do our Bodies with two or three meals a day When we bring dead Sacrifices to the Altar of God we need not wonder that we have so little spiritual and heavenly life we need not wonder that we have no more sense of his Favour when we often pray for it as if we prayed not the coldness and indifference of our Petitions shews that we do not much care whether they be granted or denyed and God will not thrust his Mercies upon us whether we will or not none shall enjoy his gracious comfortable Presence but those that strive and wrestle and such as have the zeal of Jacob that will not let him go till he bless them Heaven and Salvation we would all have but God knows we beg it after a very poor fashion and he may justly expel us from the sight of himself because we draw near to him with so little fervour and give him cause to complain of us as of those in Isa 29.13 We are guilty of slightness and formality in duty in these following Instances 1. When we perform them as a task and not with delight and love 2. When we do not excite and stir up our selves to call upon the Lord. 3. When we are satisfied in the bare outward performance and have not those inward exercises of contrition faith and holy sorrow and vigorous desires which are as the life and the soul of Prayer 4. When we suffer our Thoughts to wander or when we run to such Duties from a hurry and a croud of worldly business not considering the greatness of our wants and of that Majesty that fills the Throne before which we pray and how he will be sanctified of all that draw nigh to him 5. When we look not for the answer of our Prayers and when having done our duty we are unsollicitous whether it produce any good effect or no. 6. When we are more studious to approve our selves to the eyes of Men than to the eye of God I might add That if we would not lose the Favour of God we must duly improve all his other Ordinances we must hear as for our lives and take heed that his word do not at any time slip out of our minds We must receive the glad tidings of Salvation with obedient and joyful hearts and upon all fit occasions in the Celebration of the Lord's Supper with holy Affections and a melting zeal keep up the remembrance of the Love of Christ till he come again and with great constancy and seriousness read the Scriptures that direct us how to obtain this Favour of God that is our life but if any person has so little value for the Favour of God that he will not earnestly pray for it he must go without it and smart for his refusal of so excellent a Blessing when it shall be too late to repent 4. That you may not lose the Favour of God that is your life you must avoid all sloth What pains hath God taken what Exhortations what Promises has he used to bring you near to himself what hardships and sufferings did Christ undergo to gain your love and will you do nothing in answer to
there are several ways like to this way that have a resemblance to it and yet vastly differ from it there is the Peace of God and there is the Peace of Satan it is the design of that malicious Spirit to let you be quiet in your Sins that you may not see their evil nor feel their bitterness and then you save him the labour to make you miserable for you make your selves so Suffer not him to blind your eyes nor to lead you to destruction whilst you never so much as make one halt nor startle at it You hear others complaining of their Sins and crying out that they are forsaken and undone and miserable and you thank God you have no trouble your Consciences are still and quiet I beseech you take heed that it be founded upon good Reasons that it prove not to be only a short slumber and not a lasting peace It may be you never doubted of God's love to you and it is very well if you have no cause to doubt You think it may be that such as are in Soul distresses are so because they have committed greater sins than other men and that Vengeance therefore like the Viper on Paul's Hand fastens on them because they have been guilty of some very great and monstrous Sin but you must know the Judgments of God are too great a deep for you to fathom he has wise Ends in those severe Dispensations though those that are at ease may have committed as great Sins as those that are in trouble many times a great Calm precedes an Earthquake many times the Sky is very clear just before the Clouds gather and the Lightning and Thunder comes Beware lest you be unsafe whilst you are most confident Beware lest you go down to the Grave as thousands do with a foolish and ungrounded hope Remember the foolish Virgins and that of the Apostle 1 Thess 5.3 CHAP. VI. Shewing by what means we may know whether we have God's Favour or not And first by the graces of his Spirit though the acting of them is neither so strong nor so comfortable at one time as at another And secondly by our hatred of Sin and our being satisfied with all his Providences THE next thing is to Examine and to try whether you have indeed this Favour of God in which is Life There are a great many people that think God to be their Friend when he is their Enemy and a great many troubled distressed Christians think that he is their Enemy when he is their Friend Let us I beseech you be very careful in a thing that so nearly concerns both our present and our future peace Let us take heed that neither the Devil nor our own hearts cheat us in a matter that is of so vast a consequence and we have need of the greater care because if we should flatter our selves with a foolish hope that we are God's Favourites when we are not truly so as our vain Expectations would leave us at the last so the Ruine that it would bring forth would come with a double weight upon us for to fall from great hopes is worse than never to have hoped at all to be miserable after we have thought our selves happy gives a more acute and bitter sting to that misery There is many an one in Hell now groaning under the Eternal Wrath of God that thought he should have seen the Smiles of his Face and not have been terrified with his Frowns that thought he should have walkt in the Streets of the New Jerusalem in liberty and light and peace whereas he is now in Chains of darkness and in anguish inexpressible With what tenderness with what caution and with what holy fear should we manage such an Affair as this with what solemnity ought I to proceed when I am enquiring whether I am a Favourite of God or not whether I belong to the Living or yet remain among the Dead whether I am an Heir of Heaven or an utter stranger to the blessed place and the God that makes it to be so blessed as it is And there is not one person that reads this but has cause to make such an Enquiry and to say with himself I feel by the warmth and vigorous motion of my spirits that I have a natural Life I eat and drink and sleep and take abundance of care and use a thousand projects to maintain this same dear and pleasant Life but whilst my Body is indulged and thrives is not my poor slighted Soul in a state of death and whilst men shew me favour and are friendly to me have I the favour of that God that is to be my Judge and who is either the best Friend or the worst Enemy Now in this matter we may proceed by such Rules as these 1. Have you those graces of the Spirit wrought in you which are the certain pledges and tokens of his Favour Are you rich in faith and yet poor in spirit Are you hungring and thirsting after Righteousness And when you find your own best Actions fall vastly short of the strict and pure demands of the Divine Law do you prize and seek the Righteousness that is in Christ Is that Sin now bitter to your taste and grievous to your thoughts which was once highly esteemed and prized Do you hate and bewail that with a relenting spirit that was once your dearly beloved and your joy Are you mortified to this World and do you walk humbly as wisely considering how weak you are and how liable to be surprized and to fall always considering that you are very sinful and very frail These Graces of Faith Mortification Humility and the like are certain tokens of the Love of God and in a Soul thus qualified he delights to fix his Habitation Isa 57.15 in such a Soul there is a Heaven begun and it not only lives but will attain new strength and proceed to further degrees of life though it now flourish in the Courts of the Lord yet his Light shining upon it will cause it to take the deeper root and to look with a more amiable freshness the Self-conceited shall miss abundance of refreshments that a Soul so lowly will meet withall as those showers of Rain that slide away from the tops of Mountains descend into the Valleys and make them more fruitful Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty He does not give this to remain for a small space only but to remain with his Servants till their work be done it is called the earnest of our Inheritance Ephes 1.14 An Earnest you know is part of the Payment not to be returned again and we are said to be sealed with this Spirit unto the day of Redemption Eph. 4.30 i. e. that is as one explains it God does by that distinguish Believers from other men as Seals are employed to make a difference from other things that are not so much to be regarded and as we seal our own Goods or Papers
of the World As also the Reason why good People are many times very willing to dye and of the inexcusableness and misery of those that are without God's Favour and whence it is that some grow in Grace more than others and are more earnest for a share in God's Love p. 207. CHAP. XIII Shewing that the Favour of God is diligently to be sought and what is to be done that we may obtain it p. 228. CHAP. IV. That we ought to take heed that we do not lose the Favour of God after we have once enjoyed it and what we are to do that we may not fall into a condition so miserable as this would be p. 241. CHAP. V. Of Assurance and of the false Grounds from which many are apt to conclude That they are God's Favourites when they are not so p. 263. CHAP. VI. Shewing by what means we may know whether we have God's favour or not And first by the Graces of his Spirit tho the acting of them is neither so strong nor so comfortable at one time as another And secondly by our hatred of sin and our being satisfied with all the Providences of God p. 275. CHAP. VII Of several other ways whereby a sense of God's favour may be preserved in our souls and how we may certainly know that we are in that happy state p. 294. CHAP. VIII Of the several Privileges that belong to those who have God's favour p. 309. The Contents of the Third Part. CHAP. I. OF the many miseries of this Mortal Life that are the usual occasions of sorrow to the sons of Men with respect both to their Bodies and their Souls p. 317. CHAP. II. Shewing that the Fall of Adam was the Cause of all our Miseries and in how excellent a condition the blessed Angels are and the folly of such as expect to meet with nothing in the World but what is easie and pleasant p. 331. CHAP. III. Of the Peculiar occasions of Weeping that good Christians have more than other Men. p. 338. CHAP. IV. Shewing what dreadful apprehensions a soul has that is under desertion and in several respects how very sad and doleful its Condition is from the Author 's own Experience p. 352. 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 p. 370. CHAP. VI. Shewing whence it is that Melancholly People love solitariness and whence it is that serious persons are not so light in their Conversations as others are with some Inferences deducible from the foregoing Doctrine as also some advices to those who have never been deserted and to such who are complaining that they are so p. 381. CHAP. VII Of the great joy that fills a soul when the sense of God's favour returns to it after having been long in darkness and that this is great in several respects as it was unexpected as it discovers God to be reconciled and gives the mourner an Interest in Christ by Faith through the Influence of the Holy Spirit It revives his Graces delivers him from the Insulting of the Devil and shews the soul irs right to the Promises p. 393. CHAP. VIII Of the further Properties of the Jâ—â—y that comes to a Soul after long desertion 'T is Irr sistible 't is 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 p. 408. CHAP. IX Of the different ends that God hath in the Afflictions of the Good and the Wicked and what Reason we have to be reconciled to his Providence And that we must be satisfied that God carry us to Heaven in his oven Way and Method p. 421. CHAP. X. The Conclusion of the whole Treatise with Directions to such who have been formerly in the darkness of a sorrowful Night and now enjoy the Light of Day p. 427. A DISCOURSE Concerning TROUBLE of MIND AND THE DISEASE of MELANCHOLY PART I. PSAL. XXX 5. For his anger endureth but a moment in his favour is life weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning The INTRODUCTION THE Miseries under which the whole race of Men have now for a long time groaned and under which they still groan are owing to the Fall of Man The day on which our first Parents complied with the temptation of the Devil was a mournful day to them and in its effects no less sad to us It filled their once pure and quiet hearts with trouble and disorder and made them unable to think of their great Creator with delight It intercepted those chearful and comfortable beams of his Love which were more satisfying to them than all the glories of the lower Paradise For tho' it did after the Fall abound with all the same natural refreshments with the same Rivers Herbs Trees and Flowers yet it was to them no more a Paradise No Musick could delight their sense when they heard a terrible voice from God summoning them to answer for their Crime no objects could please their eyes when they saw the Clouds thickning over their heads and dreadful frowns in the face of their mighty-Judge All the Creatures could minister nothing to their ease or safety when the great Creator was against them From their Apostacy we may derive all our miseries both the pains and sicknesses that afflict our Bodies and the fears and terrors that overwhelm our Souls Our Bodies are liable to a Thousand calamities that may be both long and sharp but how long and how sharp soever they be they do not altogether give us such a sensible and such lively grief as we have when we are under distresses of Conscience and when we are under a sense of the Wrath of God that is due to us for Sin There are many persons who endeavour by all the Rules of Art to give relief and help against the mischiefs that attend our Bodies but which after all their Art will go into the Grave and there are as many that by the Duty of their Office and the Character they bear are obliged to imitate their Saviour To preach good tidings to the meek and to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound Isa 61.1 But they are many times at a loss to know what Remedies to apply to these inward and spiritual Diseases and always unable to make their applications successful unless God himself by his Almighty Power Create Peace and turn that Chaos and those Confusions under which a poor troubled Soul is buried into the joy and light of day It pleases the Wife God that may make us serve to what uses he thinks most convenient for the good of the Universe and the welfare
shall soon decay and that there needs not the Force of his Arm and the Greatness of his Power to crush such worms as we are As David said Is the king of Israel come out after a flea 2 Sam. 24.14 so may we in our distresses say to God Why dost thou arm thy self with wrath against us whom one word of thy mouth can throw upon the ground or send into the grave It is not with him as with the great Oppressors of the world that use their greater power to trample upon those that are of unequal strength no he delights to bind up the broken to heal the wounded and to comfort those that mourn Isa 57.16 For I will not contend for ever neither will I be always wrath for the spirit should fail before me and the souls which I have made Such is the impatience the unbelief and the unsuitable behaviour of his people that they give him cause enough to be always angry but he does not proceed with the utmost rigour of his Justice he freely pardons what with right he might exact Psal 78.38 39. Their heart was not right with him They did flatter him with their mouth but he being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not yea many a time he turned his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath for he remembred that they were but flesh a wind that passeth away and cometh not again And when our extremities are so great and our sense of his displeasure is so very pressing that we know not what to do we may desire him to remember his own Greatness and our Frailty that we are his own handy-work and that we are no more able to resist his Power than we are to change our own natures and to be his Equals Job 13.25 Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro Wilt thou pursue the dry stubble Remember I beseech thee that thou hast made me as the clay Job 10.9 2. Reason why his Anger towards his people is but for a moment is Because he is obliged to it by his Covenant If they break my statutes c. Psal 89.31 32 33. then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them nor suffer my faithfulness to fail He is obliged by the Covenant of Grace to be their God to use all the methods that his Infinite Wisdom sees necessary for their final Happiness and if his Anger and their own Afflictions will contribute to this tho their flesh be pained and their bodies smart he will not fail to use those severities His dearest servants may by temptation and their unwatchfulness be overtaken by their spiritual Enemies they may wound and hurt themselves and occasion his departure and to excite them to a due consideration of their Folly he will leave them for a season Their sins are the object of his abhorrence and he may send very sore troubles upon them tho they shall even then come upon a gracious errand and promote their future welfare when in the anguish of their souls they may conclude them to be the mark of his Eternal Wrath he will not spare his rods nor by a fond Indulgence suffer them to take their own course for a Parent you know will correct his own child tho he concerns not himself with those that are strangers to the Family The Anger of God for your sin may deprive you of your dearest Comforts your most kind Relations your most beloved Children your Estate your Health and your Ease and yet in all these he may have a design to make you more full of Holiness and to bring you nearer to himself This is an ordinary Discipline wherewith he trains up all those whom he will convey to Glory tho their own Reason and their gloomy Thoughts may judg that it is for a quite contrary purpose He has promised That all things shall work together for our good and he is faithful when he lays upon us the severest strokes because they stir up our sleeping Grace and purge away our Sin 3. Reason his Anger towards his people is but for a moment Because whatever his present dispensations are he will never throw off the Relation of a Father to them they do not render void the Kindness and the Grace by which he did at first adopt them to be his own A Father when he frowns and when he corrects is still a Father and his bowels earn with him when the rebellion and undutifulness of his child causes him to be severe Tho we groan and weep through the bitterness of our grief yet he changes not his Paternal care as Christ when he was a man of sorrows was pronounced by God to be his beloved Son Psal 103.13 Like as a father pities his children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him None of our earthly Friends can be more tender-hearted than he is only with this difference that they would heal our wounds when they first begin to smart and he being more skilful does make our Cure to advance by slow degrees he does bereave us of this or that enjoyment which we dearly love because he sees it necessary for our Salvation as 't is many times expedient to cut off a gangreen'd part of the body to save our Life He will separate between us and our Iniquities rather than that they should make a separation between us and him and there is nothing but a most tender Love in all this Jer. 31.20 Is Ephraim my dear son is he a pleasant child for since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy upon him saith the Lord. If there were any ways more mild and gentle that would equally promote our good he would use them with the greatest readiness if our own absolute necessity did not require that he should bring Judgments upon us Nor would he use at all those methods that seem to be rigid and severe Those that are his people should be in as much ease as other Men and laugh and rejoice as much as they do but only that he would by his displeasure teach us that knowledg of himself that faith and that patience and those other Graces which without his seasonable Corrections we should never know 'T is more grateful to him to smile than to frown to reward than to punish Deut. 5.29 O that there were such an heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always that it might be well with them and with their children for ever When we wander his Goodness and his Love will not suffer him to see us run to misery His Anger will overtake us to stop us in our hasty course and to reduce us into the right way He never strikes but for just Reasons tho they may be for the present very much wrapt up in his own
the ungodly and the sinner appear Prov. 24. 17 18. Rejoyce not when thine enemy falleth and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth lest the Lord see it and it displease him and he turn away his wrath from him Entertain not a secret pleasure in the downfall and distress of any Man whatsoever for these inhuman affections are so displeasing to God that they may provoke him to translate the Calamity from thy Enemy unto thee and thereby damp thy sinful joy with a double sorrow first to see him delivered from his trouble and then to find thy self involved in it See Patr. Paraph. in loc Do not triumph over any in affliction lest the Cup be taken out of their hand and put into yours Do not with the Friends of Job censure them for greater sinners than any in the World because of their sorer Tryals as if you were acquainted with the secrets of the Decrees of God and could pierce with your shallow Reason into the bottom of his unfathomable Judgments Those that are under an apprehension of the Divine displeasure know that it is for sin it is that which troubles and afflicts them more than any thing besides but you ought not to conclude that they are sinners beyond the rest of Men but rather wonder at the Goodness of God that he is gracious and more favourable to any when they all deserve to dye Do not by reproachful Language add affliction to those that are afflicted Zech. 1.15 I am very fore displeased with the heathen that are at ease for I was but a little displeased and they helped forward the affliction It was the cruel insulting of wicked Men over her miseries of which the Church was sensible when she says Mic. 7.8 Rejoyce not against we O my enemy when I fall I shall arise when I set in darkness the Lord shall he a light unto me Inf. 6. How much happier is the condition of a good Man than of one that shall remain impenitent In his wickedness He is angry with the one for a moment but with the other he will be so for ever The Servants of God have never so much cause to mourn under the sense of the heinousness and aggravation of their Sins as they have cause to rejoyce in the riches and the freeness of his Grace They have never so much cause to be troubled at their own distress as to sing at the remembrance of his holiness They have cause to weep indeed because they have provok'd so good a God to wrath and to be glad that his anger is but for a moment They have cause to be concerned that they have made him to frown but cause to rejoyce that he will smile on them for ever The Righteous have a bitter Cup but as 't is here mingled with love so it prepares them for a sweeter tast of heavenly pleasure In the hand of the Lord there is a cup and the wine is red it is full of mixture and he poureth out of the same but the dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them Psal 75.8 God does correct his own here with measure but his punishments of the wicked will know no bounds wrath shall come upon them to the utmost and how low must they sink and what a load must they bear who have a God to punish them whose Being is Eternal and whose Power is Omnipotent On his own he frowns for a season and he does it to bring them to their Duty but on his obstinate unrelenting enemies he will frown for ever He will abhor them he will cast them out of his presence trample upon them in his fury and leave them to be the Brands of Hell and the Prey of Devils Now indeed we cannot with all the Terrors of the Lord which are terrible beyond expression perswade Men to repent tho' we tell them death and destruction is at hand tho' we shew them the threats of the Scripture the Examples of their evil predecessors that are gone to their own place they slumber on tho' we tell them of the danger and of a Pit that is opening its mouth to swallow them up tho we see wrath gathering and the Clouds ready to burst and bid them make haste to get a shelter before the Storm come tho we bid them flye for their Lives out of Sodom they still linger and delay But after death they cannot if they would he secure they will then have no pillows whereon to rest their heads no water to quench their thirst no friend to help them no God to hear their Cries they cannot then stop their ears at the roaring Wrath of God they cannot then stupifie their Consciences nor put the evil day far off Now they make a shift to stifle the checks of their own consciences they mock at the Threats of God and deride his Message but Sinners you shall sadly know what a dreadful and a terrible God you provoke to wrath all your Entertainments and Diversions all your Mirth and Laughter all your carnal Comforts and your jolly Company will be gone and be gone for ever And what will then remain nothing but Consternation Amazement and Woe nothing but Anguish and Tribulation Who shall speak comfortably to you who shall deliver when you are fallen into the hands of the Living God when you shall find that God that is a gracious Father to the Saints to be a severe Judge to you when he who is the Joy of their Hearts shall depart from you and he who refreshes them with the Smiles of his Face shall kill you with his Frowns What will you do when the full Wrath of God shall be poured on your guilty Souls Where will you turn when it shall scorch and burn you and set you all on Fire How will it overwhelm you when you find that all your hideous Cries all your Lamentations and your Groans are to no purpose When you are in the power of cruel Devils and meet with no pity from God none from his Angels or his Saints We think it long to be in pain for a month or two or for a year but how long will they think it to be who are to be in pain throughout all the durations of a sad Eternity We think it long when we sleep not in the night and wish for the light of day But Oil what a long night will that be and how uncomfortable that will have no morning that will not be succeeded with a a Beam of Day for ever Men do now think an hour or two in attendance upon God to be a great while they think Fast-days and Sabbaths to be long but if they come to that misery Oh how long and how tedious will they find Hell to be How insupportable it is and how unavoidable Hear therefore all you that live in sin hear and live oh do not throw your selves down that Precipice under which there is a Sea of Wrath and a
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
Commandments with inlarged hearts Some Families are filled with Lamentations and some with songs of Praise And all this gives us still greater occasions to magnify his Grace and Love that we have a moments ease that we can observe one Sabbath or make one Prayer with hope deserves our highest thanks and admiration Secondly Do not presume for all this for tho' he is not angry yet with you he may be so This was the fault of David Psal 30.6 In my prosperity I said I shall never be moved but it immediately follows vers 7. Thom didst hide thy face and I was troubled The Sun shines now upon you the Candle of the Lord does refresh your Tabernacle but you may meet with many Storms and Clouds and Darkness before you come to your journies end The Disciples were once greatly pleased with the glory of the Transfiguration and during the delightful interview between Christ and Moses and Elias they thought themselves as in Heaven but a cloud came and obscured the preceding glory and then the poor Men were afraid 'T is true the Anger of God endureth but a moment but even that moment is very sad and terrible beyond expression Weeping endures but for a night but it may be a very bitter and a doleful night for all that It is a night like that of the Egyptians when they arose they saw all their first-born slain and there was an hideous universal cry and mourning throughout all the Land So this night of the Anger of the Lord may destroy all our Comforts and make the first-born of our strength the confidence and the pleasure of our hopes to give up the Ghost Psal 77.2 3 4. My Sore ran in the night and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted I complained and my spirit was overwhelm'd Thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak Tho you are at ease to day and feel no trouble no disquiet Are you sure that it shall be so to morrow Are you sure that you shall never see any frowns in the face of God Presume not upon the strength of your grace nor the brightness of your evidence for Salvation for that may languish and this may be obscured and those of you that now think your selves at the door of Heaven may be brought for ought you know to the contrary to the very Gates of Hell Tho' God is pleased at the present to deal gently with you yet your sins may cause him to send his dreadful rebukes upon you your Souls lye open and naked to him Heb. 4.13 and he can make what impressions either of his goodness or his severity he pleases there Be not secure for it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Who can stand when he is angry Who can bear his blows or what hand can strike so hard a stroak as his There are these things in the sense of his Anger that may prevent your security and I will tell you not only what I have seen and heard but what I have experienced and felt in my own Soul 1. If you have once a serious and a fixed apprehension of the displeasure of God no creature can yield you the least comfort if you be never so rich all your Gold cannot purchase one hours Peace and Joy You may complain indeed to your Friends and you cannot but complain but alas they can give you no relief Their Language is Vnless the Lord help we cannot help You may go to your Ministers they may speak kindly to you but they cannot make their own words to take effect If the Heavens above you be as Brass they cannot give you Rain nor make the Dew of God to fall upon your Branches as it used to do they can mourn with you but they cannot wipe your tears away If you once apprehend that God is angry with you in vain shall you seek for rest in pleasures or diversions or change of Company for such a stinging thought as this will always pierce you to the quick God is mine enemy and what will these avail The sense of his Anger will put even your natural spirits into a strange unquiet agitation and after this you will not find your very bodies at ease as they used to be Psal 38.2 Thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore there is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin When I say My bed shall comfort we my couch shall ease my complaint then thou scarest me with dreams and terrifiest me through visions Job 7.13 14. All the Fountains on Earth will never quench your thirst if the Fountain of Living Waters be shut up Your Bed will not then be a place of rest nor your Meat delightful to your taste your sorrows will keep you waking all the night and your fears will haunt and pursue you in rhe day My sighing cometh before I eat and my roarings are poured out like Waters Job 3.24 Your Soul will then abhor all dainty Meat and your Life will draw nigh unto the Grave and when you have tired your selves in seeking rest among the creatures and have found none you must then sit down and say by a sad experience Miserable Comforters are you all for tho' you run to never so many crowds of quiet people you can meet with no quietness as the wounded Hart tho she run into the common herd yet by that means does not lose her pain but carries her wound with her where ever she goes 2. Whilest you are under the sense of God's displeasure you will find no comfort in his Ordinances every part of his blessed Word will be as a Sword cutting to your very Soul You will find every Threat to be as a dart thrown at you and see every promise that is full of Consolation to others yet to be as dry to you That Scripture which was once your delight will fill you with Gall and Wormwood That which you once reckoned to be the book of Life will then seem to be the book of Death and you will be afraid to read there for fear of reading your own Condemnation So great a change does the sense of God's displeasure make Those-Assemblies that were once your joy will then be terrible to you I go not says the troubled Soul there to meet a friend as I used to do but to see an Enemy To see others joyfully serving God and singing of his Praise whilst I am silent with deep Affliction and can only Mourn whilest they Rejoyce What pleasure is it to see others feasting at his Table whilst my Sins have destroyed my appetite and there is not one crumb of the bread of Life that belongs to me I pray and he shuts out my cry regards not my entreaties does not ease my distress nor seems to relent with all my Groans I have Sinned against him and I dare not say My God
221. and were not Forgiveness in God somewhat beyond what men could imagine no flesh could be saved Isa 55.88 My thoughts are not your thoughts neither are my ways your ways saith the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts It is not the manner of men to pass by multiplied Transgressions as he doth The consideration of his Infinite Mercy removes all those obstructions which our unbelief viewing the greatness and aggravations of our sins throws in the way and tho our sins have been every way inexcusable and do upon every reflection that we make upon them fright and trouble us yet the Mercy of a God surely will yield us some relief for there is no other reason why he does good to this or that sinner but his own Grace Hos 3.4 He freely chuses justifies adopts and renews the Souls of his Elect 't is all not from their merit or from any thing that he foresaw in them but from the good pleasure of his will Eph. 1.5 All that he does for them all that he will do for them to Eternity will be to the praise and glory of his own grace This is the true way to humble us when we see nothing in our selves but what exposes us to misery and that is true Gospel Obedience which is the fruit and product of his Love shed abroad in our hearts This is the only Rock whereon we are to build our Comfort when the Storm comes This Free Grace of God is that which the Saints admire on earth which revives their drooping spirits and which they will wonder at for ever 'T is a shelter from the accusations and the malicious insultings of the Devil for tho he set our sins with all their overwhelming circumstances before us tho we cannot deny the charge and believe that we are miserable in our seves yet do we resolve to flye to the Mercy and the Love of God in Christ We should disparage the Excellencies of his Nature and the Offers of his Goodness if we did not lay hold upon them And this is that which some call a natural Novatianism in the timerous Consciences of Convinced Sinners whereby they doubt and question pardon for Sins of Apostacy and falling after Repentance IX Beware of running into further sin and so to provoke God to further Anger When our Hope is perished there is nothing so evil which we shall not dare to do If help do not speedily come we are apt to say it is in vain to pray it is vain to look up to a God that has thrown us of Jer. 2.25 Thou saidst There is no hope no for I have loved strangers and after them will I go You are lost for ever will the Devil say and therefore it is all one whether you sin or not you can but still be loft this is one of his fiery darts and if by our compliance we suffer it to take hold upon us it will terrifie us the more he will rejoice at our fall and put our Souls by every new Transgression into much more violent and scorching Flames What monstrous Injections what unbecoming Thoughts of God does he suggest and alas how frequently do we entertain them for they come thick upon us In the time of God's displeasure when the edge of his Holy Spiritual Law does wound our Souls what vast multitudes of Corruptions do we then discover that we never saw before How do our old Sins amaze us and new ones arise and spring from them And what can we do in the swelling of Jordan What in so great an inundation but endeavour in our poor feeble manner to look up to Christ for help Beg the Spirit for as one says There is no heart so unclean which this Spirit will not cleanse no soul so feeble which he does not fortifie none so forrowful which he does not comfort none so desolate which he does not cause to rejoice none so slavish which he does not set at liberty none so sick which he does not heal none so dead which he does not quicken Surely he will regard us for he knows that of our selves we cannot bear up against the Winds and Waves And let us always remember That among so many cruel Enemies 't is Unbelief that leads the Van It encourages and draws them on and when we have got the Victory over this all the rest will be daunted and run away By Unbelief we open our hearts and let in all those Thieves and Robbers which deprive us of our Peace It is the defilement of our Consciences by manifold acts of sin that makes us like the troubled Sea which cannot rest And for a Conscience guilty of many neglects to lay claim to God's Mercy is to do as we see Mountebanks sometimes do who wound their Flesh to try Conclusions on their own Bodies how sovereign the Salve is yet often they come to feel the smart of their own Presumption by long and desperate Wounds Let us in the case even of sore Afflictions be afraid to sin Sibbs Souls Conflict p. 31. for that Devil that tempts us will immediately vex and torment us the more for it X. Mistake not those things for evidences of the certain Wrath of God which perhaps are not really so He may suspend the expressions of his Love tho he love us still as Joseph had the tenderness of a Brother whilst his Brethren thought him very angry with them Nay in our secret supports we are not destitute altogether of his care tho we know not how they come As the Metals that lye deep in the ground partake of the Influence of the Sun tho he does not shine upon them with his Light There are few Afflictions but have rather the marks of a Fatherly Kindness in the seasonable Correction of our Faults than the Marks of Displeasure No outward losses no inward troubles that are but for a time are the certain signs of Wrath no tho they be very long and very grievous for it was not so in the case of Job But how shall I know will some say when Afflictions are in wrath It is a question to be answered with great tenderness and caution They are by Divines said to be so 1. When they come with great Violence and suddenly destroy as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah and in the Deluge Psal 58.9 Before your pots can feel the thorns he shall take them away as with a whirlwind both living and in his wrath Nahum 1.9 He will make an utter end affliction shall not rise up the second time And yet this must have some limitations for a good man may be seized with a violent Disease and suddenly dye of whom we ought not to say that he died by the Wrath of God 2. When there is no Mercy discernable in the Cross but only what is evil 3. When one Evil makes way for another and none are sanctified 4.
Hell as he thinks preparing for him and yet have calm and quiet thoughts It must needs fill him with horror and confusion it must needs eclipse his Reason and put all his Apprehensions into an inexpressible ferment to see himself so like to perish He can mind nothing else nor think of nothing else but his danger and his misery this always returns this always perplexes and overwhelms him I have met but with one that ever handled this Question and because of his Judgment his Learning and the good report that he has in the Churches of Christ I will give you the substance of his Answer 1. This may be for the good of others Is there not many a lesson that such as are not so afflicted may learn from so sad a Providence May not they learn more to admire the Goodness and the Mercy of God to them that they are not in the like case And it is so far good to the person himself tho he discern it not that he is used as an Instrument to promote the Glory of God 2. It may as he says do him the same good as Death will i. e. deliver him from the evil to come from the beholding of such Sorrows on the Church or on his Friends as would have been a daily torment to him and on which being deprived of the use of his Reason he cannot reflect with so great a grief as otherwise he would have done Or 3. By this means the Wise God may have prevented his falling into many such Sins and Temptations as might have been very hurtful to others and have more defiled his own Soul And who knows but this may be the case of the distracted Person See Mr. Richard Allen 's Godly man's Portion p. 62 63. Thus Reader we have been travelling as through a Wilderness of Fiery Serpents You have as I may so say born me company whilst I have been shewing you how God leads his Children through a Desart and the House of Bondage And I hope it has not been without some profit to some poor Troubled Souls for whose sakes especially I have so long insisted on this Subject In the following Part shall with God's Assistance lead you to the brighter side of the Cloud where you will not meet with things very Doleful but very Pleasant A DISCOURSE Concerning TROUBLE of MIND AND THE DISEASE of MELANCHOLY PART II. PSAL. XXX 5. In his favour is Life CHAP. I. Of the several sorts of Life that we enjoy by God's favour and in what conditions of our present Pilgrimage it doth more especially revive us 1. IN God's favour is our Natural life We are the work of his hands and his kindness and bounty does continually maintain what he at first created his Providence secures us from innumerable dangers he gives us meat and drink and health and strength but his displeasure does quickly deprive us of all these 'T is said of all the creatures Psal 104.28 29. What thou givest them they gather thou openest thy hand they are filled with good Thou hidest thy face they are troubled thou takest away their breath they dye and return to the dust 'T is this great God to whom we owe our peace and plenty our liberties and all the comforts we enjoy he saves our Bodies from Plague and long sickness and pining wasting sorrows all the delight we have in our Friends in our Families or in our Relations flows from his goodness and his meer mercy and 't is he that saves our Houses from Fire our Estates from Robbers and our Country from desolating Wars Ps 30.7 Lord by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong Man being the noblest creature and the most dignified in all this lower World God has appointed the lower creatures to Minister to his use and his delight The Air as one observes is his Aviary the Sea and Rivers his Fishponds the Vallies his Granary the Mountains his Magazine The first affords Man creatures for nourishment the other Metals for perfection The Animals were created for the support of the Life of Man the Herbs the Dews and Rains for the same purpose there is not the most despicable thing in the whole creation but is endowed with a nature to contribute something for our welfare either as food to nourish us when we are healthful or as Medicine to cure us when we are distempered or as a Garment to cloath us when we are naked and arm us against the cold of the season or as a refreshment when we are weary or as a delight when we are sad all serve for necessity or ornament either to spread our Table beautify our Dwellings furnish our Closets or store our VVardrobes The whole earth is full of his Riches Psal 104.24 2. Spiritual Life is in his favour 'T is he that draws the first lineaments of the new creature and his hand that brings it to perfection he first infuses a vital principle into the soul that is dead in sin and that maintains it afterwards against all the powerful motions of sin and against all the stratagems and tentations of the Devil from his own Grace he did elect his people to Salvation and gives them in time his word and his spirit to quicken them together with all those other blessings of Adoption and Justification and Sanctification which are the product and the fruit of his Electing Love The first quickning and those exercises of Life afterwards which his chosen do perform the first motion and the renewed strength which they receive to enable them to walk in his ways is his own gift 't is his pardon that bestows upon his Servants a new Life when they were dead in Law and could see nothing to ensue but a terrible execution 'T is his favour that contrived the way of our escape from death through the Blood of Christ and that was pleased to accept of the sufferings of that Holy person in our stead That Faith is of his own operation which unites us to his Son the fountain of Life and conveys quickening influences to us Joh. 5.24 He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not enter into condemnation but is passed from death to life This Faith is of his bestowing which enables us to be moderate in our prosperity and to bear the Cross when we are afflicted All those acts that are the fruit of the New Birth as well as the New birth it self are the work of his own hands for he gives both to will and to do he teaches us to fight against our spiritual enemies and his power being employed for us causes us to get the Victory When we are bewildred his Word is our guide to direct us and when we are fainting we have many great and precious Promises to revive our spirits when we are in darkness and when we are in danger he is both our Sun and Shield his Wind blows upon our Gardens and causes
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
to get the Victory if Christ pray for us that our faith do not fail Luk. 22.31 VVhere can we go for shelter but unto God our Maker when this Lyon of the Forest does begin to roar how will he terrify and vex us till he that permits him for a while to trouble us be pleased to chain him up again 5. Gods Favour is Life even in Death it self He cures all the disorders of the Soul He weans it from the Body and makes the passage to another World sweet and easie He can take away the frightful ghastly aspect of Death and bestow upon it a pleasant and amiable look and hence it is that sick People are often heard to say Oh! If I had but the Favour and the Love of God I could he freely willing to dye even in this moment If I had but his Love I could bear all these pains and quietly submit though I have restless nights and weary days for then I should be sure of Eternal Rest It is our estrangedness from God that makes us live in bondage all our days and when our time to dye is come makes us so very loth to depart This sense of God's displeasure makes a Death-bed to be a Bed of sorrow and makes Death to be indeed the King of Terrors and who can but tremble when he finds himself leaving this World and knows not what will be his portion in the next That finds himself going to the Judgment-feat but knows not whether he shall be acquitted or condemned there how many times do the very thoughts of Death cut us in our Sickness to the very Soul because our spirits are clouded and our evidence for Salvation is departed even before we depart so that we stand trembling on the borders of Eternity and would fain stay on Earth though we cannot VVhat but the favour of God will help us When our heart and our flesh fails He will be the strength of our heart and our portion for ever Ps 73.26 VVhat but this will attend us through the shady Vale How can we part with our Friends if God be not our Friend How can we leave this Earthly Tabernacle if we have not an House not made with Hands How shall we look upon so vast a Change as that of Time into Eternity if we are not to change this Mortal for a better Life But one smile of the Face of God in that great and concluding-work will keep us that we shall not be afraid to dye one fore-taste of Heaven will make us with undaunted hearts to bid this sinful VVorld adieu we shall then like Moses undress our selves and dye we shall with the same chearfulness go down to the Grave which Jacob went with into Egypt because our Mediator and our elder Brother lives and has made good provision for us VVe shall not be amazed to lie down in the dust when once we have the hope of a blessed and a glorious Resurrection and the day of our death will be a comfortable day if our blessed Lord be then pleased to tell us that on the same day we shall be with him in Paradise CHAP. II. Of Heaven and Hell and of that spiritual death which hath seized the greatest part of the World As also the Reason why Good people are many times very willing to dye and of the inexcusableness and misery of those who are without Gods favour And whence it is that some grow in Grace more than others and are more earnest for a share in the Love of God WHat a blessed and glorious place is Heaven Inf. 1. that is full of God's favour The City bad no need of the sun neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Rev. 21.23 Rev. 22.2 3 4 5. It is the Land of the Living and 't is no wonder that death shall never enter thither here indeed he is a God that hides himself he is hid under the veil of the Creatures and under abundance of mysterious Providences for tho' his Throne be established in Righteousness yet Clouds and Darkness are round about it Psal 97.7 Beams of his Glory do every where break forth through every Creature Providence Law and Ordinance of his yet much of his Glory that shines in the Creation is hid by a train of second Causes through which few look to the first his work in the World is carried on in a mystery his Interest lives but is deprest they who are devoted to him are supported indeed by his invisible hand but are in the mean time low for the most part and afflicted But in that Eternal state Mr. How of delighting in God p. 353. the Veil shall be rent and he will in a brighter manner shew himself his Glory will shine out with direct and pleasant Beams to all the beholding and admiring eyes he will there give forth the full and satisfying Communications of his Love that will chear and satisfy and refresh a vast multitude of grateful and adoring spirits Here the Souls of good Men are deprest by the misrepresentations of Satan and by the frequent jealousies and suspitions of their own guilty souls but there they shall see him as he is and which will encrease their joy see him to be their own God for ever No storms shall there molest their Peace nothing shall interrupt their Eternal Calm Not a vain tumultuous repining or uneasie thought shall assault their peaceful and quiet hearts for ever No more shall they cry out Is his Mercy clean gone Has he forgotten to be gracious for they shall be with him in his own presence Here his Family is composed of several distressed mourning Children and when some praise him their praises are disturb'd by the groans of others or their own sins but there they shall all be clothed with praise and none shall be sick or dye If we did but know that there were a place in the World where the people never dye the love that all have of Life would put them upon many inquiries how they might get thither This Countrey is Heaven thence death and fear and consternation is banished for ever and thither should we lift up our eyes thither should we direct our hearts in Heaven the favour of God shines with an unclouded brightness they that are Inhabitants of that holy place are employed in an honourable attendance on their mighty King they need not they desire not any of those enjoyments which are here below no more than favourites of their Prince desire a meaner station or a poor Cottage or some obscure and forlorn retreat And alas what are all our pleasures and our most splendid entertainments to that Bread and to those spiritual and intellectual Joys which Angels and glorified souls feed on The first hour the first day of joy there is better than an Age of joys here below if one day spent in his Courts in his Love and Praises here
will not have him to be so he would save them and they will not be saved he would bless them and they chuse to be curs'd How many are there that prefer a Lust before a Saviour and Earth before Heaven and the applause of their vain sottish Companions before the approbation of the All-seeing Judge O blind Sinners Why will you lay hands upon your selves and do all you can to deprive your Souls of Life What a sad thing is it as one says to deny sustenance to thine own Life The breath of God is in thee what shall be done to him that starveth a Prince's child Symmond 's Sight and Faith p. 214. What have we of like worth to Spiritual Vigour Agility Courage and Peace of Soul And shall we who have a door of Life at once offer contempt to Divine goodness and violence to our own Life by not using what God hath put in our hands for our relief Is there so much allurement in destruction and so much Beauty in Eternal Flames that you cannot forbear going thither Why will you suffer your Souls to starve whilst you are contriving to gratify the Flesh Why will you still serve the Devil and your own Sins Are they so good Masters will they pay you so well in the latter end Are you content to have the pleasures of Sin for a season though you lose your share in Paradise Oh what bitter reflections on so bad a choice will this cause hereafter VVhen you shall lift up your Eyes in misery and see the Kingdom of Heaven afar off and say I was once offered that Kingdom and those Joys and I would not have them I was once fair for Salvation but I slighted I might have had the Favour of God and I would not have it O my cursed Sins How you have deceived me You promised me delight and you have brought me to bitterness and wo you promised me safety and you have made me to perish Oh that some Angel or some Saint might be sent to bring me some relief The word of God told me of that Glory his Ministers earnestly intreated me to prepare for it my Friends were always bidding me to leave my wicked course my Conscience checkt me for it and I broke through all these exhortations and these checks and so am come laden with guilt to Eternal Misery I was at my Games and Sports when I should have been upon my Knees I had indeed time and strength and health and many helps and advantages O that I had all my days watcht and strived and denyed my self then I should not have come to this place of Torment O that my Sun would rise again O that I might have another Tryal and more time But alas the Judge is my Enemy I have heard my Sentence and he will not change his purpose I am condemned I am lost for ever O Sinners As you would never fall into such a hopeless state now even now seek the face of God Have you not already spent time enough in Sin in walking in the imagination of your own heatts and the sight of your own eyes Have you not loved your sottish pleasures long enough O! come leave the tents of Wickedness come and Love your God for he is ready to receive you come to him and all your sins shall be forgiven O let not Mercy it self that speaks for your hearts be denyed Who will be so good a friend as God Who will abide with you when life it self is gone And now surely the heart of some sinner or another begins to relent some that is saying with himself Though I never prayed in secret before yet now I will begin to pray Though I lost abundance of my youth and my health I will strive to lose no more I have put off God and my Conscience with vain excuses and delays but I will not put them off again He shall have my thoughts my heart and my endeavours who gave me life and I will ever admire the riches of his Love if he will pardon such a Malefactor and condescend to such a Worm and entertain such a Prodigal as I have been Inf. 6. In what a woful Condition are those poor Sinners that are without this Favour of God! To how great a danger are they every day exposed And which is a part of their misery they know it not Spiritual Death has closed their eyes and they see not where they go What a sad object is a poor sinner that is yet a stranger to this God that is every hour liable to his Eternal Wrath that seeks the Friendship and the Favour of men and has no thoughts of his Creator no dread of his Displeasure no taste or relish of his Love Surely they must be fallen into a dead sleep whom all the Terrors of the Lord all the Threats of his Word and all the Calls of his Ministers will not awaken With what peace can you eat and drink or work or rest whilst so great a God is your Enemy Will his Wrath that makes the Devils in their Hellish Agonies to roar and tremble be tolerable to you When his Vengeance pursues you whither will you run for help When he frowns what will it avail you tho all the world should smile upon you When he casts you off who will shew you pity When he condemns you who will plead your Cause Do you not know that your Life is short that your Change is near that the Judge is at the door Do you not know that this World will leave you that you may quickly go into another And can you dwell with Eternal Burnings Can you venture to go to the Judgment-Seat before you have an Interest in Christ Are you fruitless and barren here and do you think to flourish in the Coelestial Paradise Do you remain dead here under all the means of Grace and do you hope to live for ever What pleasures are those that enchant you that you will not come and taste the Joys of God Who is that that will be a better Friend than he If you laugh at destruction it will not be the further off Oh let not the Devil be your Master nor the world your God Let not sin cheat and impose upon you with its false and counterfeit Delights Others are mourning in secret after the Lord and have you not as much cause to mourn as they Others are striving with earnest Prayers and Supplications and holy Endeavours to enter in at the strait gaâ—e and will it open of it self to you Or have you not also Souls to save as well as they Others Read and Hear and Pray and do all that they can for Salvation being afraid they should fall under the Power of Eternal Death and have you no cause of fear VVhence is it that when they are running so fast in the way of Heaven you run faster in the way of Hell VVhy do you with so great a care tend and regard your Bodies to preserve
and down in a thick and foggy night and which lead the deceived Traveller into some Pit or Gulf but the Joys of God are like the brightness of a Summers day their clearness their comfortableness and their continuance render them worthy of our highest admiration The smiles of the World many times cover a designed mischief but the smiles of God are to make us happy Whether then shall we most prize the Fountain or the polluted Streams the rich Ocean or the smaller Brooks Why should we love the Creatures when we have a God to love Why should we doat upon a Bubble that every little Storm blows away and not embrace that Salvation that is offered and that is both suitable to our faculties and not liable to perish With Angels and with glorified Saints let us make God our all our portion and our hearts-desire for our great Creator is much more amiable than his own handy-work Let us leave the Men that know not God to fall down before their Idols of Clay and Dirt but let us with the highest reverence with the most cordial submission adore him from whose Favour we have life Let us leave them to dig in the Bowels of this Earth for a sordid happiness but let us arise and go hence Let us go and seek after God Let us go and seek till we find him and when we have found him let nothing in this World no pleasure no pain no promises no threats nor life nor death make us part with our dear God again Let us never cease to sigh and to long for him Let us never be weary of his work nor ever think that we call do too much for so good a Master Let us feast our selves with the chearful expectation of his Eternal Love and so take up the good resolution of the Church Cant. 4.6 Vntil the day breaks and the shadows flee away I will get me to the mountain of Myrrh and to the hill of Frankincense 6. That you may with more care seek and endeavour to obtain the Favour of God improve your experiences to this purpose Have you not found what a pleasant thing it is to be near to him to have access to his Throne and to see his Face And on the contrary Have you not known what a dismal and uncomfortable state it is to be without him And there are two sorts of Experiences that may be very seviceable to you in this great affair 1. Those Experiences that you have of all other things in common with the rest of Men Have you not found that the Promises and Friendships of this World have been very changeable Have you not embraced many a time a Cloud when you have promised your selves a real and a solid happiness Has the World given you that pleasant entertainment that cordial satisfaction that you proposed to your selves when you first let your minds run upon it Have you not a Thousand times called it a very vain World Have you not a Thousand times found it to be so Have you not prick'd your hands and vex'd your souls when you thought to have gathered the pleasant flower that you doated on Have you not seen that the most beautiful Rose is attended with a neighbouring Thorn Has it smelt so sweet and lasted so long as you once thought it would Has not all your Wine had some Wormwood and Gall mingled with it Has not every Comfort had a mixture of a Cross and where you hoped for the greatest pleasures have you not met with a sad allay of grief Have you not been eager and importunate and restless for this or that creature-good and when you have obtained it has it been so suitable so delightful so every way amiable as at a distance it did seem to be He must be a young Man indeed that hath not found this World to be a cheat and he must be a Fool that when he has been once cheated will suffer himself to be again impos'd upon A few years experience will make us all to say with the Wise Man That all is vanity and vexation of spirit and if we hope to extract more from it than so great an Observer of Nature as he did we shall be miserably deceived In our first and rash desires we flatter our selves with something here on Earth that is great and plausible and charming but in our more sedate and second thoughts we find that all that is under the Sun is but a shew and a meer appearance And when we find it to be so as a great many have already and all shall in a little time it becomes us to apply our selves to something that is more durable and satisfying and that is only the Favour and the Love of God 2. Improve not only your common but your Spiritual Experiences to this end and purpose I suppose there are a great many people here that have been under distress of soul and that in such distress have been brought very low Now What was it I pray you that gave you relief in so sad a Case Was it that you had many Friends and great Estates and a flourishing Trade and abundance of outward Accommodations I am sure you will answer No no none of these things gave us the least help Methinks I hear you saying We tried several methods for a Cure we tried several diversions and pleasures the Conversations of our Friends and whatever innocent Recreation it was that we thought might give us ease we heard Sermons we read good Books we enquired of our Ministers but we found them all to be Physicians of no value they did not open our Eyes nor heal our Wounds nor answer our Doubts nor refresh our tired and weary Souls till God himself was pleased to do it Nothing in all the World did avail us nor could all the means we used pull out the Sting that the sense of our guilt and condemnation pierced us with Abanah and Pharphar all the Rivers of Damascus and all the streams of sensual delights were not able to mitigate or quench our thirst All was desolation and terror and amazement till his Face was pleased to shine through the threatning cloud We lived in darkness and in the deepest sorrows till he became our light and joy we were sinking till he held us up and dying till he was pleased to revive us All the delight and mirth that ever the World gave us was but as a flash of Lightning to that clear and serene day that his Grace created in our hearts his Love did indeed mitigate our pains and remove our sores and one beam from him was as the dawn of Heaven He has fed us like John the Baptist with Honey in the Desert his Loving-kindness did indeed quench our thirst This I know is the sense of your Souls that have tasted how good the Lord is and having had so pleasant a relish of his Mercy I beseech you let not the remembrance of it wear away Oh! remember with delight
whom the Prophets and Apostles and Martyrs and all your Ministers and your Christian Friends have spoke so much to be at length your own Saviour how will you be at ease when you see his Excellencies to be yours and that you are among the joyful and adoring-throng that wait upon him To love him and to have his love shewed to you and to have these mutual Delights to increase but never to decay to possess one another for ever with renewed and repeated Extasies this is an Heaven begun that no thoughts can fully apprehend nor words declare in order to this you must give all diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Often you must try your hearts and your Actions by the Word of God and beg his Spirit and obey his motions and excite your Graces and watch against Sin and deny your selves The Trader endeavours all he can to get a plentiful Trade and would have a great deal of business and money flowing in upon him The Merchant strives to have all the plentiful Returns imaginable Oh! Let us strive that our Souls may not only be safe but that they may prosper too not only that we may pray but pray with boldness to God as Children to a Father and when we are able to look upon him as so related and as our Friend our Service will be more fervent and all our work done with greater life and heart our slavish fears and despondence will give way to Love and Hope and then every thing that concerns us will undergo a most comfortable change we shall be able to hear the Thunders and the Curses and the Threatnings of the Law without astonishment and terror because we shall dwell as in God's Pavilion We shall be able to think of Hell and not be overwhelmed because we shall look upon it as a Dungeon from which we are saved by the Grace of God We shall attend to the Messages of the Gospel for it will bring us glad tidings the blessed Angels will be your Guardians the Ministers of the Church your Directors and your Helpers the Malice of the Wicked and the Rage of Devils will fall below us and not reach our happiness 8. Take heed of concluding the special favour of God from the Common Mercies you enjoy 1. You must not conclude you have this Favour from any of your outward Privileges God may long dwell among a People by the outward Testimonies of his Presence by his Word and the means of Grace and yet leave them at last Who were once more happy than the Jews in his Protection and yet none are more miserable than they are by his departure Jerusalem where he had placed his Name and that was once the glory of all Cities is now no more remarkable for its glorious Temple and its stately Towers for its Riches Grandeur and Splendor wherewith it shined heretofore The Holy Land the Countrey of Judea which our Saviour blest with his presence which he instructed with his heavenly Sermons and honoured with his Miracles is now no more the same Judea that it once was it is now groaning under the cruel Dominion of the Turks and the Seven Churches have lost their Golden Candlesticks and the blessed Guest that one walkt in the midst of them The Stars that shone there are now eclips'd and their glory gone It is a great mercy indeed so have the Gospel but it will not in the issue be so to you unless it shine into your hearts If it do not prevail to the conversion of your Souls it will aggravate your ruine inasmuch as you will go from the clearest Light to the thickest Darkness from the brightest Day to the most dismal Night You cannot conclude that you have this Favour from any common gifts of knowledge or of understanding unless you be sanctified throughout When our Lord ascended he gave gifts to men * Du Monlin's Sermons XI Decade Serm. 2. Like those Liberalities which Kings scatter indifferently among their Subjects in the day of their Coronation without making a distinction between the good and bad and of those pieces of Gold and Silver several partake that least deserve them but their great Honours and the Principal Offices of the Crown they reserve for their peculiar Favourites and for those that belong to the Houshold and wait upon their Persons so Christ distributes many Favours to all that enjoy his Gospel but there are some that are peculiar to his own Family as distinguished from the rest of men such are the gifts of Faith of Regeneration and Adoption Happy was the Womb that bare him and happy were the Paps that gave him suck and yet more happy are those that keep his Words Luke 11.27 28. Neither circumcisim nor uncircimcision availeth any thing but a new creature Gal. 6.15 2. You cannot conclude from your outward Prosperity your Richer or abundance in the World that you have this Favour of God in which is Life Our Lord that by his own Example did intend to shew to men better things than the Goods of this World did first cause his Angels to appear to the poor Shepherds not to the Courts of Princes and the Schools of Philosophers He could have had Kings if he had pleased to wait upon him and to lay their Crowns and Scepters at his feet but he chose a Train of poor Followers whom he did enrich with Heavenly Treasures and not with those of this Earth though the whole Creation and all its glories were at his Command The Poor were they that received the Gospel and not many Noble are called c. 1 Cor. 1.27 The poor of the world are rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom Jam. 2.5 Tho as Riches are no sign of God's Election neither is Poverty a mark of Grace but yet with the Lower sort of People and those that are not many times very wise for this World God does often build his Church Afflictions and Crosses are no mark of his displeasure nor is a continued Prosperity the character of his Love for many times God lets his Sun shine upon the Wicked to their dying day their strength is firm the Rod is not upon them they fear no evil they know no sorrow there are no tears in their eyes no sadness in their hearts no complaining in their Families See Job 21. from the 7th to the 13th verse Riches are indeed of themselves great blessings with them a man may do abundance of good works which the poorer sort of People cannot by reason of those straits and difficulties that they are to wrastle with they are great Talents and serviceable to great purposes they do afford men great leisure for the affairs of their Souls and not being perplexed with anxious cares how to get a livelihood they may read and meditate and pray with more devotion but then these soft and easie Blessings meeting with the Corruptions that is in Humane Nature they prove frequently to be a
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
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
from natural and ordinary Causes is very healthful and adds very much to the strength and vigour of the body much more then will that joy promote it which is founded on the Word of God and on the hope of his Acceptance And no question David had a respect to this when he said Psal 51.8 Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoyce Ps 35.10 All my bones shall say Lord who is like to thee which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him and the needy from him that spoileth him No troubles wast our natural spirits more than our inward griefs and fears no joys refresh and make them more sprightly than the joys of our Souls See Job 33.19 to 26. God is gracious unto him and saith Deliver him from going down into the pit I have found a ransome his flesh shall be fresher than a childs he shall return to the days of his youth he shall pray unto God and he will be favourable to him and he shall see his face with joy Those that have writ of Long Life and the means to obtain it advise us to keep our minds always full of splendid and illustrious objects of Histories and the contemplations of Nature and the like but the best Medicine is a quiet Conscience And tho all our Religion will not indeed save us from sickness yet it will enable us to bear it not to be too much concerned and overwhelmed with the manifold and unavoidable Calamities of this mortal Life This is Joy indeed that will recreate our souls and our bodies too that will prepare the one for its passage to Glory and the other for its lying in the Grave Thus our soul which is our glory shall rejoyce and our flesh also shall rest in hope Psal 16.9 and both at length as they have mourn'd so rejoyce together and that for evermore For when God is pleased to speak and to help us both in our bodies and our souls 't is multiplied Salvation and many thousand Cures in one The third General is that Joy arises from the hope of some future Good and this good must be both very agreeable to the soul and very certain For if it be not so there cannot be any other than a weak and a trembling joy There is a great pleasure in expectation of what is to come if it be great and lasting and attainable now to one that hath the returning-sense of God's favour ' tis-very pleasant to look for that hour or day or rather for that chearful Eternity when he shall have the same reviving smiles of his heavenly Father in a more bright and conspicuous manner when not only the night of weeping is gone but that morning is come which shall shine more and more to a perfect day And thus will the comfortable person say If the tast that I have now of God be so sweet Oh! what will the full enjoyment of him be If in this strange Land I am entertained as with the Bread of Angels What Feasts will refresh me when I am at home when I am past the Storms and beyond the Grave and Sin and Tears shall give me no further molestation The first Fruits make them to long for the full Harvest thus says the Apostle We rejoyce in hope of the glory of God and this made the Church to say Make hast O my beloved and be thou like a Roe or a young Hart upon the mountains of spices Expectation of any main event as one says is a great advantage to a wise heart If the fiery Chariot had fetcht away Elias unlookt for we should have doubted of the favour of his Transportation 4. This Morning-Joy will express it self As our griefs cause us to groan and sigh so does this make us in an open pleasant way to manifest our gladness The reviving sense of God's favour does so fill our hearts that we cannot without dishonour to him and prejudice to our selves conceal or stifle it When we apprehend our selves to be happy we take a peculiar pleasure in communicating to others the notice of that happiness and are much more pleased by such a communication This Joy is always attended with an expression of the Mercies of our Deliverer that we cannot but say to our Brethren Come and behold what God has wrought for us Behold what Salvation his own Arm and Power has accomplished so Psal 51.12 Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit then will I teach transgressors and sinners shall be converted unto thee Then I shall be able to tell them That thy ways however rugged they seem to be for a while yet are at length even and pleasant ways That they lead to Life and Happiness and beholding the beams of thy Love that make me so pleasant and so chearful they shall by such a sight be incouraged also to Religion And to the same purpose Psal 16.9 My heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth His inward Joy was not able to contain it self We testify our pleasure on lower occasions even at the gratification of our senses when our Ear is filled with harmonious melody when our Eye is fixed upon admirable and beauteous objects when our Smell is recreated with agreeable odours and our tast is so by the delicacy and rareness of Provisions and much more will our soul shew its delight when its faculties that are of a more exquisite constitution meet with things that are in all respects agreeable and pleasant to them and in God they meet with all those with his Light our Understanding is refresh'd and so is our Will with his Goodness and his Love So in Psal 126.1 2. When the Lord turn'd again the captivity of Sion then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing It was a sign their hearts were very sull of joy seeing the mouth and the tongue poured it out in so great abundance nay their Neighbours could not but take notice of it They said among the heathen the Lord hath done great things for them far beyond the methods of an ordinary Providence Their Liberty was strange and miraculous that surpassed all Imaginable Reasons and behold as people take delight to go over and over again with a pleasant thing they Eccho to this saying of the Heathens saying Verse 3. The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad Others knew it only by report that God had been so good to them but they by sweet experience In the delivered people it was indeed an inward Jubilation with a loud Cry and Song of Triumph as when God is withdrawn we are forced to speak in the anguish and bitterness of our Souls so when he returns the return is so pleasant that we cannot hold our tongues In our troubles there is a latent grief so sinking and so very sad that no words can express so in the good hope of God's acceptance
there is a sweetness that cannot be declared Ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 We dare not give a particular relation of our grievous sufferings lest we should discourage many poor people that are apt enough of themselves to sink and be discouraged or if we would we cannot they are so very terrible So the sight of God after long darkness fills us with wonder and with pleasing astonishment we feel we are delighted but we cannot fully tell what it is to be so and sometimes we are in such transporting joys that like the blessed Apostle when he had the view of Paradise whether we are in the Body or out of it we scarcely know The poor soul is so transported that it is every way surrounded with delight Will God dwell in such an heart as mine that has been so full of murmurings and so full of unbelief Will he pardon and accept of me Shall I that was doomed to dye in my own sad thoughts have the hope of glory and instead of my slavish fears from the dread of Hell have the sight of Heaven Shall I be his Favourite of whom I had such hard and unbecoming thoughts Oh! what Grace is this how unlook'd for how undeserved and yet how suitable Is this the manner of men O Lord God! Is this thy kind usage of a poor sinner and of so great a sinner as I have been This is Grace indeed this is all free Love and Mercy How can this be past over in silence Such a person escaped after such apprehensions of so near a danger is like the Lame Man that was healed He leaping up stood and walked and entred into the Temple walking and leaping and praising God And all the people saw him walking and praising God Acts 3.8 9. and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which happened unto him As inward anguish causes the distressed many times to roar out vehemently so heavy is the load that presses them on the contrary when the fear of Wrath is removed they rejoyce with shouting and with a loud voice like those that Conquer or reap the Harvest For as when a Man is under inward anguish and tribulation he looks upon himself as a Beacon fired on a Hill to give warning to others and to shew them the danger of Sin so when he comes to peace and hope again he wishes that he might be placed as on a Mountain and enabled to trumpet out to all the World the Riches of the Grace of God that as none may presume when they see his misery so none may despair when they see his safety and his escape from that misery Inf. 1. The Wisdom and the Beauty of the Divine Providence That as in the World there is a comfortable Succession of Night and Day so in his Servants mourning after the Sorrows of the Night the Joy of the morning comes this Night comes and this morning dawns when it is most proper for it so to do He hath made every thing beautiful in his time Eccl. 3.11 The Storms and Rain and Cold of Winter are as beneficial to the Universe as the Summers heat Tho we from our Self-love judge of God either with more admiring or less becoming Thoughts as he deals well or ill with us but it is not particular Churches nor particular Persons that God only regards but his whole Creation his Providences to us contribute to the good of that We know not to what uses God will put us but it ought something to support us to think in what state soever we are we are serving his Design how pressing and how violent soever our Dangers and Tribulations are he can save us even by methods contrary to those which our Reason apprehends by throwing us down he can make us to be more established and by seeming so destroy us promote our welfare he can make unlikely things to advance his purpose 'T is many times more dark just before the break of day and the going back of the Sun on the Dial of Ahaz was to be a sign of Hezekiah's longer Life Isaiah 38.8 Therefore if you will allow me a small digression 't is a very evil thing for men to censure the Providence of God because of the present Miseries that he suffers his Servants to be afflicted with there are many that think it a piece of Zealous Loyalty not to blame their Superiors for the higher Matters of Government which are above their reach and yet dare to Arraign at their Bar the Supreme Ruler of the World if what he does be not according to the Model of their Fancies or suitable to their Imaginations or because whilest others are gratified their Humours are crost and disappointed not considering that the difference and variety of Circumstances amongst particular Men are necessary to the general and publick Good To censure God and to reflect upon his Conduct is as if a Country Clown who never travelled beyond the Smoak of his own Cottage should condemn the Proclamation of a King or the Votes of a Parliament when he does not know the great Reasons of State that these Actions depend upon But as St. Basil observes When Men are first crossed in their Worldly Affairs they begin for want of Patience to doubt whether God in very deed regardeth the things of this World whether he take notice of particular Men when they see no end of their Miseries but one evil continually is attended with another they are blasphemously apt to think there is no God God can bring Affliction to try and manifest the Graces of his People as the Stars that are a chief part of the Glory of the Worlds are then most illustrious and visible when the day is gone and then he makes the Sun to rise again that displays new Objects to us The Rods of God are many times very sharp but at last we shall find that they were dipt in Honey and managed with Love The Conduct of Providence is always Wise and Good but very often Mysterious and Unfathomable and in nothing more so then in his bringing abundance of his Servants to Heaven by the very Gates of Hell and in suffering Satan to buffet and to vex them that they may triumph over him in the latter end He makes them to be in great perplexities that the sweet wonders of his deliverance may the more appear We went through fire and through water but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place Psal 66.12 Thus he preserved Moses in a Cradle of Bull-rushes and would not suffer the great Infant to perish though he was in manifest danger either to be carried away by the force of the Water or to be devoured by Crocodiles with which that River did abound So was Noah preserved in the Ark not by any Art in Navigation but by the Government and Conduct of God himself He hastens deliverance many times when it seems to be at the remotest distance In the Evening
doth behold the upright Psalm 11.7 He encourages the weakness of that Soul that is tender and afraid of sin he will not treat you with the kindness that he shews to his honourable Subjects if you take part with his open enemies Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Joh. 15.14 Obedience is the genuine effect of so excellent and so near an alliance and 't is the proof and evidence thereof Joh. 14.21 He that hath my Commandments and doth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my father and I will love him And vers 23. We will come unto him and make our abode with him A Promile full of Mercy Words that have in them all that is desirable that are big with consolation What can a soul wish for more than to have God the Father and the Son to have them for his Friends for his Guest and not only to tarry for a night or a day but for ever Not to comfort him with a transient visit which were a great privilege but to dwell with him Oh! blessed is the House that hath such Inhabitants and blessed is the Soul who is thus honoured and esteemed By obeying his Commands you shew your selves to be vessels of Honour and when you are so he will at one time or other fill you brim-full of Joy If you serve the Devil you can by no means have that satisfaction that flows from the hope of being a Son of God and an Heir of Heaven And tho' his Showers fall upon the Sands as well as on the manured and cultivated ground yet till you are fruitful you cannot expect to be refresh'd with his gentle and comfortable Dews There are peculiar influences of his Grace that fall upon his inclosed Gardens and not upon the Deserts If favour should be shewed to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness Isa 26.10 It shines like the Sun on a Rock he is no more fruitful no more tender-hearted than he was before if you embrace your ancient Sins if you hold on your correspondence with your former Lusts God will not pour the oyl of gladness into such old and depraved hearts if we go on in sin we violate our own serenity and raise within our breasts a multitude of storms whereas Psal 119.165 Great peace have they which love thy Law and nothing shall offend them And so Gal. 6.16 As many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy Isa 64.15 Thou meetest him that rejoyceth and worketh righteousness By these means you shall obtain the favour of God and when you have so obtained it CHAP. IV. Shewing that we ought to take heed that we do not lose the favour of God after we have once enjoyed it and what we are to do that we may not fall into a condition so miserable at this would be 7. TAke great heed that you do not lose the favour of God again It is true indeed that those whom God once loves he loves to the end they are not suffered totally to be miserable but yet they may lose the sense of his favour and all the comfort that once flowed from the pleasant thought That he was their God Those that have sailed with a very prosperous gale may upon their negligence be tost with very many storms and may be terrified with a Thousand dangers and calamities whilest they do not see the Sun Moon and Stars for many days and nights together and tho' they do not at length fall short of Heaven yet they may travel as through a Wilderness in their way thither and not meet with those clusters of the promised Land with those joys and comforts that others meet withal The Spirit may suspend his influences and leave the Conscience in a very lamentable slate and take away the peace that he once gave so that the poor soul in that condition cannot but look upon it self with as sad an eye as if it were a reprobate and great difficulties and dangers there are ere the spirit return again to repair the breaches which our sin hath made The disorders of our souls afterwards remain a great while and it will cost us vast labour to remove them as when some River that is very muddy has overflowed the neighbouring Fields tho' it do return to its ordinary Channel yet it nevertheless leaves those places all covered with slime and dirt The least Eclipse of the Face of God is a very formidable thing 't will shake all the powers of your souls and put you into such terror as will seem to be like Hell it self If you be so foolish as upon slight temptations to forfeit his favour you ll dearly pay for that folly you may do that in a moment that may fill you with astonishment and sorrows all your days and make you go at last mourning to the Grave You may by a sudden fall have your Bones broken and it may be never again recover your former ease and strength do not therefore wound nor bruise your selves If you are not very careful that Candle of the Lord that shines upon your Tabernacle may be removed and then you I know by a sad experience that it is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against him Tho' you now do not question your title to Salvation yet you shall then be full of doubts and fears tho' you are now looking to God as to a Friend yet you shall then be forced to look upon him as an Enemy and think your afflictions not the rebukes of a Father but of an angry Judge He will be indeed the same God still as full of Goodness and of Love but to you he will be as a Fountain sealed up and your poor mourning souls like the Mountains of Gilboa curst and barren there will be no Dew nor Rain upon them Tho' you are never so flourishing now yet then the sharpness of the Winter will blast all your Fruit that the Fig-tree shall not blossom neither shall there be any fruit in the Vine and the labour of the Olive shall fail Consider how great was the sorrow of David when God was for a season departed from him How many were his Tears how heavy his Complaints and how sad his Thoughts Tho' he was as 't is usually judged of a sanguine and a merry temper and had a peculiar skill in Musick which is the usual allayer and charm of Grief yet in the sense of God's displeasure his Joy was turned into Lamentation his Harp and those Songs with which he had driven away the melancholly of Saul could not stifle or chase away trouble from his own soul the Storm was too loud to listen to those softer Airs the Wound was too deep to be Cured by those gentle and easie Methods Beware lest you lose the sense of the Favour and the Love of God lest you make your Heavenly Father to visit you with painful Rods and severe Afflictions Take
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