both as to God and as to his Son but of none as to him I thank God all is in a good way of cure now through Jesus Christ Donatum ob causam non est donatum sed potius permutatio A gift given for some cause is not a gift but rather an exchange of one thing for another but when very costly in it self and yet of no cost to us then it sparkles in the eyes of the receiver such a gift is Christ in this great work of the cure of our carnal state And doth the freeness of this love sparkle in your eyes and lay bonds upon you and make you go bound with holy affection and admiration No man that was ever cured of a desperate disease wherein he gave himself up for death but it was much obliging to him as to the instruments used for his Cure Naaman the Syrian thought himself bound to choose the God of Israel for his God that had cured him of his Leprosie If you be cured of your filthy Leprosie which is Christ's Priestly work and Kingly work too your Cure is between them both Do you choose him and own him for your Jesus and Lord as the Apostle here doth I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ by kindness conquers as Jeptha did If I do thus and thus for you slay your Enemies deliver you from slavery Shall I be your King And will ye chuse me to rule over you and they consented willingly If Christ hath cured your Soul diseases then are you under the Law of this great kindness and willing that he should be your Lord and to Rule you in all things according to his Word Secondly The Apostle was taken as with the love of Christ so with the love of the Father in this matter I thank God he hath found out a way to do me good a new and living way through his Son So the Apostle Peter Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead to an Inheritance incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.3 He saw an abundant mercy in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as well as in the Son our Lord Jesus Christ That having no more Sons should part with him out of his Bosom in Heaven to lodge Him in a Manger yea worse to lodg Him in Hell nay in a Place worse than that the filthy heart of the fallen Sons of Adam So the Apostle Paul again writing to the Ephesians saith But God who is rich in mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin and trespasses hath he quickned us together with Christ that in the Ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus Ephes 2.4 5 6. He saw rich mercy and great love exceeding riches of grace in God that by his own Son and not by any lower hand he should quicken Men dead in trespasses and sins And surely some thing of this is where this great Work is wrought a confessing that Jesus is the Lord To the glory of God the Father Vse 3 The last Use is for Exhortation seeing Christ is the proper remedy of our fallen state let this draw us to him to attend his Word and Ordinances and to attend the Angels stirring of these Waters Christ doth open Prison doors and deliver Captives but he doth it according to his Commission Now well observe the termes of his Commission Is 61 The Lord God hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek To which agrees 1 Pet. 3.19 By the which also he went to preach to the Spirits in Prison which were disobedient in the Days of Noah Preaching how lightly soever esteemed and how much soever opposed and suppressed is the great Ordinance by which Christ frees Captives and Prisoners and therefore this Ordinance which is the most general Ordinance to convince and convert should carefully and tremblingly be attended upon They that make light of preaching make light of their own depraved state of their Captivity to sin and Satan these groan not with this Apostle under the body of death Christ did create every day orderly by his Word he could have done it without but he did all as his Father appointed him and did not Movere per saltum make hast and pursue his own will or his own infinite and absolute Power so he doth in the new Creation and therefore wait upon wisdomes Posts Whoso is simple let him turn in hither where he will have Line upon Line now a little and then a little to touch and turn his heart Presently after the Creation was finished the Creator takes to himself the Title of Jehova Gen. 2.4 These are the Generations of the Heaven and of the Earth when they were created in the Day that Jehova Eloim made the Heaven and the Earth When you do approach to the Preaching of the Word Remember this Name of Christ that he is Jehova and able to give Being to his Word That what he bids you to be that he makes you to be Be exhorted when you attend Ordinances to pant for this thing that Christ as Jehova would Preach to you as one giving Being in your heart to every Word which he speaketh in your Ear That Christ would so speak that you might hear and believe all that he saâ—th as they at Iconium Act. 14.1 Take an Harp go about the City thou Harlot that hast been forgotten make sweet melody sing many Songs that thou mayest be remembred Isa 23.16 This spake the Lord to Tyrus a filthy sinful City and their punishment fore-told and the time for Seventy Years and then counselled to bemoan her self that she might be remembred and it is observable how holy bemoaning our selves is called and holy panting for deliverance from the slavery of sin and wrath it is called sweet melody and singing many Songs So indeed is such panting under the body of death and to be delivered from it as here the Apostle doth The mourning Doves note under the sense of our wretched state with a panting after Christ to cure it no Musick is such melody in the Ears of God to make him to remember us Thus crie and be ye all pained to be delivered Thirdly Take to you words and tell your great Physician how it is with you And if you want words help your selves with those Ephes 4.18 This I say and testifie in the Lord that ye walk not as other Gentiles in the vanity of your minds having your understandings darkned being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you because of the blindness of their heart being past feeling c. Take up these words and apply them to your own depraved condition saying O wretched man that I am what a vain mind I have and how I walk in the vanity
only to roar and cry out when we are beaten and over-burden'd he teacheth us to believe and to expect Songs to be given in the darkest Night Job 35.9 The true state and life of man is not to be shaken with tumults and distresses nor be lifted up with prosperity and ease said the Heathen and what can poise and even the Soul thus in all conditions but faith by which we know how to abound and how to want how to be high when low and how to be low when high if faith have its perfect work so will patience and then the Soul is entire and wanteth nothing no though all the things of this World he wanting Likewise we may learn from hence that we are never gone and quite undone till faith be gone For loe they lie in wait for my Soul the mighty are gathered against me they return at Evening they make a noise like a Dog and go round about the City behold they belch out with their mouth Swords are in their Lips for who saith he doth hear But thou O Lord shalt laugh at them thou shalt have all the Heathen in derision because of his strength will I wait upon thee for God is my defence Psal 59.9 The God of my mercy shall prevent me he shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies Things were very bad indeed when the wicked were at this height that they could belch out any thing and run every where as Dogs and tear God and Man and yet David was not quite ruined Because of thy strength I will wait upon thee A believer is strong enough as long as God is strong and wise enough as long as God is wise and rich enough as long as God is rich and lively enough as long as God lives Hanibal offered himself to make War with the Romans without an Army saith Seneca And truly a believer will himself make War with all enemies in the World and without any Army only by the strength of God and is never at a loss for an Army nor Counsel nor Provisions but saith as that Father of believers God will provide God will fight for you and ye shall hold your peace said Moses in a great strait Cain was not utterly lost when he had committed murder for so had David done But when he rejected the offer of grace and desired death as a despairing Creature He had a most glorious offer of grace Gen. 4.7 And if thou dâ—st well shalt thou not be accepted or certainly accepted and though thou dost not well yet a sin-offering lieth at the door so it should be read saith a great Scholar in the Languages of the Scripture Dr. Lightfoot And this great offer of grace he despised and so forsook his own Mercy and desired Death through a proud dogged spirit having lost the honour which was given to Abel Now therefore let it be that any one that fudeth me may kill me So should these words be read saith the same Author And now and not till now was Cain quite undone Use 2 This Doctrine in the next place may be for reproof and it may be for reproof of unbelief upon any account whatsoever seeing faith looks through all matters whatever As for the Jebusite the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Children of Israel could not drive them out but they dwell there to this day Judg. 15.63 David along while after drove them out And why could not these lame and blind be driven out It was their unbelief The enemy had gotten a strong Fort and the advantage of that City Jerusalem and yet had they had faith they might have lookt thorow these Forts and Rocks of Jerusalem and have conquer'd it as they did Jerico and other places as strong by faith Their sin was the same with Rubens Dan and Asher Sisaâ—'s Host was great and therefore they could not see through them and over them For the divisions of Ruben there were great thoughts of heart Gilead abode beyond Jordan and why did Dan abide in Ships Ashar continued on the Sea shore and abode in his breaches Judg. 5.16 17. Distresses are of several magnitudes but yet how great soever they be faith should be such as to master them and look thorow them but when it is not so then men betake them to their self ish shifts and every one is but for one Why did Ashar abide in his breacher 'T is a grand evil of this time every Man seeks his own and stands with all he hath to make up his own breaches but as to the publick and the common calamity of others Who hath a Heart or a Purse or a Hand which speaks plainly our unbelief and that we do not see through the dark Clouds which are come upon us but say in our hearts as David I shall one time or other surely perish by this and that great tryal and these Sons of Anack are walled up to Heaven and no dealing with them Necessity saith one of the Heathen maketh us more violent than valorous There are amongst us through many necessities many violencies both inward and outward spiritual and corporal unto great hurt every way but little true valour that which flows from faith which is that that doth business as we have seen Secondly This Scripture reproveth giving way to unbelief We flatter our selves in our unbelief as Jona in his passion and in many cases very desperately we think we do well to be unbelievers whereas the greater the difficulties be the more our duty is to believe Curse ye Meros curse ye bitterly that they came not out in a plunge to help the Lord against the mighty Judg. 5.23 If thou think some great tryal shall encounter thee â—aith Seneca do not flinch but comfort thy self with this that surely thy death and suffering is of some great importance Great distress is no warrant for us to make great consult with flesh and blood but great consults with the promises and with our own experiâ—nces and to call much upon a cowardly and deceitful heart Why art thou cast down O my Soul hope in God for I shall yet see better things than these If unbelief were as profitable as it is self-pleasing and that it would further escapes out of distresses one might through self-self-love give way to it as Men do to many gainful sins but it doth not this but rather obstrucâ—e caâ—â—s as our Fathers unbelief in the Wilderness upon every occasion it caused God to swear against them that they should dye in the Wilderness It is not the giving way to unbelief but the exciting faith what ever the difficulty be that is the likely way to make escape As Caleb and Joshua said We be well able to deal with them for God is departed from them and they are bread for us and this is called following of God fully which God took well and honoured them with escapes from all dangers and they enjoyed the good Land To this agrees that Psal 37.40 And
Christ which hath an Arm like God Omnipotent By the which he went and preached to the Spirits in Prison 1 Pet. 3.19 It is a very strong Prison and very filthy in which we are by nature and who can go into this Prison to preach there but Christ The Doors are all Iron and Iron-bars and Bolts upon them If any one could go into these Prisons and preach 't would have spoken the state the less deplorable but for as much as none can but Christ himself it speaks the Prison in which man is by nature very strong and terrible 'T is a great heap of filth and a very great Dung-hill indeed which all the Carts in the World imployed about at once could not carry away no none but an Infinite strength Then was a fiery Sword turning every way to keep out Adam from the Garden and from communion with God and from eating of the Tree of Life the Seal thereof and surely this misery of Man is great upon him and this fiery Sword terrible that none can sheath it and take it away and bring Man into Paradise again and communion with God but the Omnipotent Power of Christ If any could have taken away that brandished Sword or if an Angel from Heaven could have done it and have taken Adam by the hand and have brought him into the Garden of delights i.e. of communion with God the misery had not been so great They are great and fearful diseases which none in this World can cure no nor none in that World above though much more populous than this but one even Christ himself Let the Inhabitants of the Rock sing let them shout from the top of the Mountains Isa 42.11 This is spoken of them that lived in the Wilderness of Arabia among Stones and Rocks Ishmael's Posterity where nothing but wild Beasts and Devils haunt the Inhabitants were like the Country they dwelt in their Hearts Rocks and Mountains and Legions of Devils and cursed Spirits haunting them Now O how mighty must he be that drives a Wilderness How mighty must he be that bids or commands the Inhabitants of these hard Rocks to sing and melt with joy Secondly Learn that we are much obliged to Christ and God for laying the help of such desperate Diseases on one so mighty The Apostle John wept that there was none found worthy to open the Book nor to read it nor to look thereon and he wept much and when one was found out how the tone is changed They that wept much rejoyced much and sung a new Song saying Thou are worthy to take the Book and to open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God with thy Blood out of every Tongue and Kindred and hast made us to our God Kings and Priests Rev. 5.4.9 The opening not only of one Book but of all the Scriptures and the heart too much weeping there is among sinners about this and none is found worthy that is anointed and accepted of God to this service but Christ and he hath bought his skill dear with his own heart blood he was slain to get this art and ability Worthy art thou to receive Power c. for thou wast slain And being thus how much are we bound to this Physician for our eyes and for his eye-salve as to the light of the Scriptures and the way to any good which we have I will bring the blind by a way that they know not I will lead them in Paths which they have not known I will make darkness light and crooked things straight this will I do and not forsake them And who this is by whom God will do this see Isa 42.6.16 compared namely Christ To lead a blind Body from place to place and to do so all Day long all the Year long yea all the Life long and never to be weary how wonderfully is Man obliged to Christ and to God that hath given him to such a work Who is not tier'd to lead a blind Body a Day Thirdly Learn that it is dangerous to reject Christ because he is the appointed and proper remedy of our fallen state There is no other Name given under Heaven whereby we can be saved but by the Name of Christ As there is but one Faith one Baptisme so there is but one Lord Ephes 3.5 There being no more Doors to go out from our filthy state we had need to take heed that we do not neglect it the shame of our nakedness will by such a course appear The marshy places will not be drained or healed Ezeh 47.11 i.e. we shall remain unhealed and die in our sinful state our sin will remain Ye are come to Mount Zion not to Mount Zina and to Jesus the Mediator of the New-Testament and to the Blood of Sprinkling which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel See then that ye refuse not Him that spake Moses was a Mediator of the old Covenant and could do little Christ is the Mediator of the new Covenant and can do all the Services of our fallen state and fulfill the great and precious promises of the New-Testament to us He that rejected that Mediator which spake on Earth died for it Heb. 12.25 How much more will they who reject this Mediator which now speaketh from Heaven to us If Christ be only he which blesseth us and turneth Jew and Gentile from their sins and God hath only raised him from the dead for this end to bring Salvation from afar and we reject all it cannot be taken well either by God the Father or by Christ his Son Vnto you first God having raised up his Son hath sent him to bless you in turning every one of you from his iniquity Act. 3.26 As if the Apostle had said God hath been at great cost and pains to part with his only Son to die and then to raise him from the dead and all for this end to bless you Jews and to turn you first and then the Gentiles from their sins and so to make them and you eternally happy If you shall reject all this love of God and love of his Son it will fall heavy he will conster it that you have no mind to be turned from your sins but to continue in them and so you shall for ever and die and perish in them He that is filthy shall be filthy still Vse 2 Try your selves Is Christ become actually yet a remedy to you Hath he delivered you from the body of this death Then as you have long groaned under the want of it so you are much taken with the mercy in any measure obtained with the freeness of it that the Waters which cleanse you should come to you through such a golden Pipe as the Blood and Wounds of Christ I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Apostle is much taken with this that the Pipes of his cleansing should be laid through the sides of Jesus Christ so costly a conveyance
all good to the great good Christ and to the embracing of him Some are well and yet still offering their hand to the Physician saith Seneca their hearts being like a Pond after a storm a long while trembling Some are not Soul well the Plague of a hard heart being on them and their sores and swellings daily to be seen without searching for and yet never offer their Pulse to any to feel them but judge themselves well and their state good which confidence is carnal and an evident token of an impenitent and insensible heart If ye say that ye have no calamity in your Families nor Death in your Houses yet Death is much in the dwellings of many others How do ye lay this to heart God doth whip some upon others backs and this is tender mercy and should be the more melting and abasing and drawing to Christ as Cords of great love Is it thus with you How the Prophet Jeremiah was affected with the calamity of others especially as he saw it did no good upon their Souls which was an evident token how well it wrought upon his Soul though others smarted yet he laid to heart and profited My bowels my bowels I am pained at my very heart my heart maketh a noise in me I cannot hold my peace because thou hast heard O my Soul the sound of the trumpet and the alarum of War Destruction upon destruction is cryed for the whole Land is spoiled suddenly are my Tents spoiled and my Curtains in a moment How long shall I see the Standard and hear the sound of the Trumpet for my People is foolish they have not known me they are sottish Children they have no understanding they are wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge Jer. 4.19 20. Let us apply these words to our selves do not we lie in such an ill frame of Spirit Are not our hearts though God's hand be so heavy still sottish and sensless of all that whereby we have provoked God to do all this against us Very wise and quick to see the Moat in others Eyes and to lay the blame at others doors You will say so did Jeremiah in this Scripture which you have quoted I answer That the Prophet did see provocations abroad it is true but that it was not without looking well to his own heart see Jer. 12.1 2 3. Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy which deal very treacherously Thou hast planted them yea they have taken root they grow yea they bring forth fruit thou art neer in their mouths and far from their Reins but thou O Lord knowest me and seen me and tryed my heart towards thee pull them out like Sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the Day of slaughter As if he had said thou knowest right well that I have frailties and infirmities many yet thou also knowest that I bewail them and in all things I endeavour to approve my self to thee by thy help and would do nothing to provoke thee in this Day Can we thus approve our selves to GOD now Vse 4 Let the last Use of this Doctrine be for Exhortation Be sensible and lay to heart this mortal time and this dying day the many thousands of all sorts good and bad which now are swept away Let it not be said that the Graves are wide open Hell is wide open but our hearts are still fast shut Righteous and merciful Men as well as profane drunken covetous Nabals are taken away but none lay to heart one or the other If the Prophets charge in my Text should be found a true charge against us alass for us we are all dead Men and Women and no escaping Wherefore stir up your selves weep not for the dead but weep for your selves saying alass alass what have I done How do I live that so many die where I dwell Do not I infect the Parish my Family this City And be close home in these Queries and in these Heart-smitings for surely if we did judge our selves as we should every one in truth we should not thus continually be judged of the Lord. The Bells tole and ring in your ears every Morning and Evening but is there nothing else sounds in your Ears No Achan no accursed thing that yet your hearts hide and cleave so fast to And will not yet though thus affrighted part with A dreadful sound is in his ears Job 15.21 in prosperity the Destroyer shall come upon him said Eliphaz to Job he speaks to Job as to a worldly Man catcht in his worldly ways You have had worldly ways and tumblings all over the World you Citizens and now you are at leisure and quiet Do you not hear some dreadful sound in your ears of sin in this and in that you have complained for want of leisure now you have leisure pray lissen well now to your consciences what dreadful reports they are ready to make at the great Bat above against you O lay these to heart well for these have slain you and us now in all that is dear and will slay yet all the remnant unless we all repent The Prophet Elija by killing two Captains and their Fifties brought the third Captain upon his knees and to humble himself whether in truth I know not but he saved his life by it and the lives of his Fifty men O that Christ by killing so many Thousands so many Eight Thousands and so many Five Thousands might bring the rest upon their knees indeed to him he got his life and we should get our lives and our Souls and so would the Plague as a Plague not come nigh our dwelling Secondly Let me exhort you to lay to heart the import of these general strokes that one and all are so cut off wicked and righteous These kind of general strokes do import that we all have sinn'd and have much provoked God one as well as another Righteous Men and merciful Men have not been so holy and righteous and so merciful as we should Behold the Days come saith the Lord That I will punish the circumcised with the uncircumcised Aegypt and Juda and so puts them together and then Edom and Ammon and Moab and Israel with them which are in the uttermost parts of the Earth For all these Nations are uncircumcised in Flesh and all the House of Israel are uncircumcised in heart Jer. 9.25.26 Some Men are outwardly and openly stark naught and the best of us it seems are not so good at heart as we should be this let us lay to heart all of us Or else the import of this general mortality is that God means to harden the hearts of some much by slaying the good as well as the bad that they who have no mind to repent and change their courses may be confirmed and encouraged in them in as much as
yet it doth not denominate the Person which so doth a friend according to the sense of my Text and yet he is a friend in a large sense or rather in a little sense A friend is a Man of a noble Spirit that soares high and far to fetch the biggest and best prey to feed and supply want Hence it is that one compares friendship to marriage because friendly love is stronger than that which runs in any other Channel Now how wonderful for strength and how unexpressable for pleasure and pleasantness Is marriage love as we have some signature of it through Solomon's love-Song where the word Friend is used to express Marriage-love and the highest love which passeth between Man-kind His Mouth is most sweet yea he is altogether lovely This is my beloved and this is my friend O Daughter of Jerusalem Cant. 5.16 And proportionable to such a great love is all industry and expence to help and bless with the best and most precious things As Araunah brought friendships like a Prince to David and yet but a friend and a stranger a Gentile And the wise Men of the East what Presents they made to Joseph and Mary and their Child or else they had had nothing to flee with all into Aegypt to save their lives And our Saviour who was Lazarus's friend how he sighed and groaned to make a Resurrection of Him so that standers by beholding his carriage his sighing his weeping over Lazarus Grave said Behold how he loved him which is written that we might have a right pourtraiture of a friend So Christ called Lazarus Our friend Lazarus is dead And Martha which was Christ's friend What a deal of care and how taken up to provide all that possible could be for Christ and thought she could never provide what was good enough And so Pharaoh when he became a friend to Joseph he thought he could never do enough for him he set him up next to himself over all his own Nation and Relations And so the Persian Emperor advanced Daniel and Mordecai A friend is a favourite and a favourite is a signet set on the heart by the finger of God than which What is of more estcem At such a great and unexpressableness of love as the true form of a friend pointeth that Scripture Deut. 13.6 And observe well the words at what a height a friend is put even by the Lord himself in some sense it should seem above all relations If thy brother the Son of thy Mother or thy Son or thy Daughter or the Wife of thy bosome or thy Friend which is as thy own Soul entice thee The meaning of all these high expressions is that the love of a friend is very strong unexpressable no relation nor thing in this World dear enough nor full enough almost to express it A Brother a Son a Daughter a Wife yea ones own Soul a Friend is as neer as dear as any of these and being brought in in the close when he had named all neer Relations Or thy Friend which is as thine own Soul he would seem to give preheminence of love to a friend and set him as Pharaoh did Joseph next indeed to his own Soul and Life And if of due there go such a deep Channel of love to the Creature O! what an Ocean of love is due to Christ our good friend Fourthly A friend loveth thus as I have before-said and loveth thus not for a spurt and away Gâ—colampadiâ—s Capito Their friendship lasted as long as they lived but he loveth thus at all times A friend loveth at all times Cum dives eris plures numerabis amicos Whilst we need no friends we shall have more than a good many But the love of friendship is as the motion of the Sun all the year and in all weathers Winter and Summer Brutes love one another only whilst together and whilst they see one another but when parted they utterly forget one another and thus do most love which sheweth it to be short of the love of friendship A friend loveth at all times when sick and when well when poor as when rich when absent as when present when dead as when alive And Naomi said unto her daughter in Law blessed be he of the Lord who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead Ruth 2.20 yea or any that are of him as David did Mephibosheth the Son of Jonathan He shall eat at my Table and be as mine own Children And Jonathan said to David go in peace for as much as we have sworn both of us in the Name of the Lord saying the Lord be between me and thee and between my seed and thy seed for ever 1 Sam. 20.42 The love of friendship hath a kind of Eternity in it a for ever The Lord be between my Seed and thy Seed for ever 'T is a love like the love of God a kindness like the kindness of God as David expresseth it that lasteth to the Third and Fourth Generation Is there any of the House of Saul that I may shew the kindness of God to him that is an everlasting love 2 Sam. 9.3 'T is noted by Historians of Queen Elizabeth that as she reformed corrupt Religion so corrupt Coin There is nothing so corrupt in these last days as love both towards God and towards Man as appears by the instability thereof towards both which involveth both Tables of the Law and so all Religion and this is above all powers to reform but God Fifthly and Finally A friend loveth at all times that is most tenderly and compassionately and especially in adversity which is the meaning of this significant and emphatical expression which followeth And a Brother is born for adversity The reading should be saith some And he is born a Brother in adversity that is through his exceeding tender compassion he become as the neerest natural relation and so is by his tender love and tryed love born and brought forth as it were a new neer Kinsman on purpose created of God to serve the poor Creature in this strait as a Creature new made and now made which what a great honour it is to him to whom God giveth a merciful heart he is as a Creature then extraordinarily and purposely born for such a great and acceptable service Abimelech the Priest loved David at all times but most especially when David was at a plunge when he and his followers were ready to starve for want of bread then he gave them the Shew-bread which was the Bread out of his own mouth beside the hazard he ran in it of his life and did not only give him hallowed bread on which the Priests lived but observe how he takes his life in his hand and speaks for David to Saul to blunt the edge of his fury against him And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David which is the Kings Son in Law and goeth at thy bidding and is
well in fair weather as in fowl saith Seneca but so doth not the Soul Thou hast made a Hedge about Job Doth he serve thee for naught No thou dost give him much and so hire him to serve thee do but take away as thou hast given to him and he will curse thee to thy face so saith God all he hath is in thine hands and then again saith touch his Bone and his Flesh and he will curse thee c. Take away Estate and take away health health and wealth and then questionless he will forsake such a hard Master and yet Satan was deceived Job held his integrity and now Job goes for current Coin in the Lords account Hast thou considered my Servant Job that he is a just Man and upright c. Though thou hast moved me against him without cause such an instance is David Thou didst thrust sore at me that is Satan because he saith that he thrust sore at him that he might fall but the Lord helped me Psal 118.13 God afflicts sore sometimes and then the Devil thrusts sore to shipwrack Conscience some way or other and thus doth God try Men sometimes to know all that is in their heart There is a Nursery at a great Dukes seat abroad which is called Schola illustris Great afflictions are the great God's Schola illustris that in and by which he makes the integrity of Men appear that is all the graces of Men in their true glory According to that 1 Pet. 1.7 That the trial of your faith being much more precious than that of Gold that perisheth may be found unto praise and honour at the appearing of Jesus Christ Barbils taken among Rocks are brave Fish and have their right colour Thirdly God brings all afflictions on Men yea on good Men to humble and to mortify Our Fathers were worried with all afflictions in the Wilderness forty Years together as to prove them so to humble them to pull down pride and stubborness and to make them long much for Canaan the Land of Rest And Job was kept at such a distance in all his conflicts as to try him so to humble him and abase him for his heart was too high What good Man's heart is not The Sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite spirit such sacrifices in Religion God likes well Psal 51.17 He doth not despise low humble bleeding sinners that is he doth not worry and sleight to see them because they are as Wheat ground small enough to be Bread fit for their Masters Table David when his bones were all broken that is soul and body much afflicted then he begins to talk of a broken spirit when our conditions are high our spirits are so too and to bring the one low the Lord is forst to bring the other low too Paul that was a high confident Man God was fain from Heaven to fell him to the Earth and afterward to keep him low and humble was fain to let loose corruptions of nature and buffitings of Satan that by these thornes in his sides he might prick out and let out all the swelling windy conceits of himself and of his own holiness and goodness and usefulness which fluttered in his heart Mephibosheth being a Criple how humbly he speaks And he bowed himself and said What is thy Servant that thou shouldst look upon such a dead Dog as I am 2 Sam. 9.8 So when God Criples us in all things wherein we may be of use to him estate health inward and outward and yet keeps on a secret support and kindness though not sensible Oh how humble it makes the Man What a dead Dog am I that the Lord should regard me to do the least favour for me the ground is too good to bear me Naturali praevalet accidentale Sometimes accidental things prevail against natural accidental rods and punishments prevail against Natural Corruptions and Sins Secondly As God doth bring all afflictions to mortify pride so to mortify other sins to which our natures are too too prone to pluck up all sin by the roots well especially hypocrisie with which we do best play with in the matter of humiliation and mortification and renewing faith and repentance till the Lord swinge us indeed with all his Rods and long David though a good Man was beaten till he roared and made to roar all the Day long and Night and Day was God's hand heavy on him and his moisture turned into the drought of Summer to make him acknowledg and confess some special sin which lay hid and was kept close till a Fire was kindled in his bones then he confessed and spit out the sweet morsel which he tumbled in his mouth so long Psal 32.5 In some bad matters we are very bad and naught and ready to make excuses and defences and to hide our sin this way as Adam 't is but a little one and I do not use it it is but now and then when I meet with such bad company All afflictions and smart Rods are but few enough in these cases to make us speak out and do out as we should and to make such clearing our selves in these bad matters as becometh Penitents Sometimes of the year in Ethiopia when most hot their Silver waxeth Lead and no cover of any rich matter can endure saith the Historian And truly I may more fitly spiritualise it sometimes when the entisements of some sins most sutable to our nature are strong and hot through Satan's Fire-Darts all our silver becomes lead 1 All our graces Faith and love and courage fails and become corrupted and bribed by the sin which so easily besets and then is God enraged and layeth about him as a jealous God and taken up all his Rods and layeth them on as with all his might and all little enough to kill pleasing sin and beloved sin at the Root to dis-heart it well He makes a great Fire to purify well and make the scum come all out as it should When the Children of Ammon saw that they stank before David then they sent to him the Syrians 2 Sam. 10.6 So till a Sinner by the many punishments of God seeth that he stinks in the Nostrils of God he doth not raise forces against his sin as he should 1 He doth not set hmself to repent of it and clear and cleanse his afflictions throughly of it as he should by faith in the death of Christ They say of the Spaw Waters broad that they are not so pleasant as wholesome so I may say of afflictions that they are not so pleasant as wholesome Inutile per inutile perimitur Thirdly As God brings afflictions upon Men yea upon good Men to mortify sin well so to mortify them well to all the natural good things of this World and so to make them indeed dead with Christ to all here As the Nurse puts bitter things on her breasts to take off the Child from the sweet milk and put his mouth out of relish and
joyned together in the Scripture-phrase Our Day through many Clouds and Storms is very dark especially to some and yet the Day may more cease and become universally dark that what it is to any one at this Hour for calamity that it may be universally in one sense or another And when things are thus universally dark that every ones day is ceased it will look like a Dooms-day indeed and if you cannot look thorow the Clouds of your condition now How will ye do then If ye cannot run with the Foot how will ye run with the Horse The Jews hold that such as made not use of the Flood but continued in their unbelief were punished with scalding Water in Gehinnom And surely they that make not use of present Clouds and Storms upon their condition to get faith to wrestle well with these and to fit them for worse will be scalded indeed with those Waters which yet may overflow us The wo Trumpets are for the Idolatry of the Christian Empire As our own Personal matters are dark so are the matters of the Christian World dark in most parts though not so generally and universally as they may be I will give you two Scriptures to express my self in in this matter The one is Amos 5.12 13 14. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins they afflict the just they take bribes they turn aside the poor in the Gate from their right therefore the prudent shall keep silence for it is an evil time hate the evil and love the good establish judgment in the Gate it may be the Lord God of Hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph Sins are now in the Christian World mighty and manifold oppressions of the just surely were never greater and yet must be silent must not Petition nor complain and all this is done Ex anima heartily yea with great malice and rage that reacheth up to Heaven God's wrath and rage is so provoked by this as we feel at this day that it is doubtful who of us will escape when he shall go on in his judgments for these things Therefore thus saith the Lord wailing shall be in all Streets and they shall say in all the High-ways alas alas and they shall use the Husband-man to mourning and all Vineyards shall mourn hate the evil c. It may be the Lord God will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph Sinners are so mighty in the Christian World and so many and repentance and faith so rare and scarce hating the evil and loving the good c. That judgments when they further come Famin Pestilence Sword surely they will sweep clean that we shall have cause to use the Prophets phâ—ase Wailing shall be in all Streets and they shall say in all the High-ways alas alas and it may be some of us shall escape If such as have most faith be brought to their may be by reason of such general calamity what will they be brought to who are wholly destitute of faith when such Floods overflow The other Scripture to set out the state of the Christian World at this day is Rev. 13.6 7. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his Name and his Tabernacle and them which dwell in Heaven and it was given unto him to make War with the Saints and to overcome them and power was given him over all Kindreds and Tongues and Nations and all shall worship him whose Names are not written in the Book of Life The Anti-Christian world is at these heights of sin blaspheming the matters and People of God and at Warre with them shedding their blood and their success it seems will be general power will be given them over all Kindreds Tongues and Nations and then when there is no Nation to flee to under Heaven when the Earth and the Sea and the dry Land i e. all places and corners of the World shall be shaken what need will there be of faith to flee to God In the Generations when the Son of David cometh say the Jewes the Scholars of the wise shall be rare and as for the rest of the People their eyes shall fail for sorrow and grief and great afflictions and soar decrees shall be so renewed that before the first is ended the second shall come Saith others of them In the week of Years in the which the Son of David shall come the first year that shall be fulfilled to wit I rained upon one City and not upon another Amos 4. In the second year The arrows of Famine shall be abroad In the third year the Famine shall be so great that Men Women and Children yea good and godly Men shall die c. I do not make this as Scripture but as I see a congruity in them to the Scriptures they are not be slighted Now what of all this is approaching upon the Christian World and at the Door I know not sure I am faith yea the faâ—th of David in my Text against such a dark hour would do well Thirdly Get faith this faith I am treating of or else you will be of little or no use one to another VVhen Senachetib came into Judea Hezekiah sets Captains of VVar over the People And gathered them together to him in the Gate of the City and spake comfortably to them saying Be strong and couâ—agious be not afraid nor dismay'd for the King of Assyria nor for all the Multitude that is with him for there be more with us than with him with him is an arm of flesh but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our Battel And the People rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah King of Juda 2 Chro. 32.6 7. How wonderful useful was Hezekiah by his faith to the whole Nation in that strait He put a fresh life and soul into them had he sunk they had all sunk with him and so the enemy and the wrath of God had justly preyed upon them all The Arabians if their King be sick all fain themselves sick too as Homines ad Jervitatem parati saith the Historian When Persons in place are sick of unbelief of a faint weak spirit in difficult matters all about them more than fain themselves sick too they are so in earnest and more down than ashes And truly ones use lost is more than the loss of ones life What a dead living Man is a useless Man and yet so shall we be unless we get the faith of this Scripture I am upon in some measure and the faith of this evil time wherein we live The evil spies made the hearts of the People to melt The Levites which kept the Doors were to try the offerings and God will try every Man by his offerings that is by his use Quest If you now ask me How shall I obtain such a faith A. I answer It is the proper adjunct of such a staâ—e a renewed state The eyes of the Lord are on