be freed from such pains and terrors Those that go down to the Sea in Ships and do business in great waters see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep but when he commandeth and raiseth up the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof they mount up to Heaven they go down again to the depths their soul is melted because of trouble and they are at their wits end so that many would be afraid to purchase their experience so dear or to venture to Sea in a storm tho they might with pleasure relate their adventures when the danger is over Some have a smooth and even way through the world while others are like those that go over Salisbury Plain or some such place where they have sometimes a clear prospect of the City and their way to it when they get upon the high ground but when they are down in a valley quite lose the sight of it and may fear they shall never find the way to it Some by a fiducia perfugii keep on a fair and softly pace towards Heaven and never have any experience either of the ravishing joys or amazing terrors of others who are sometimes lift up to Heaven in ravishing comforts and sometimes cast down to Hell with fears and terrors But tho through the mercy of God I have had a safe and easie passage hitherto through the world I know not what storms I may meet with before I get into harbor I remember that great man Mr. Marshal of whom we were lately speaking told me not long before he died That through the mercy of God he had much peace and quietness in his own mind tho he was not acquainted with the ravishing joys which others felt but knew not how it would be with him before he came to die he did depend upon God and was at his mercy not only for his Salvation but for the comfort and assurance of it Many charge the Doctrine of Assurance and Perseverance as tending to licentiousness and emboldening men to sin but if there were nothing else to be said in the case those terrors which they who are sure to go to Heaven may here fall under are sufficient to check mens boldness and presumption if I were sure that what I eat would not presently kill me yet if I knew that it would most likely breed the Gout or the Stone I should forbear it Tho God may not send us to Hell he may bring Hell to us and make us feel the anticipations of it in our Consciences who knows the power of his wrath Or who can endure his terrors if he run upon us like a Giant take us by the neck and shake us to pieces We have need to pray that he way not be a terror to us in the day of evil we are always at his mercy and depend upon him for the comfort and evidence of Grace as well as for the habit and exercise of it If he give quietness none can cause trouble but if he hide his face who can behold him I have sometime been on a mountain in the skirts of the Alpes when one while we have had the Sun shining out clear and presently a Cloud hath come and we have been as in a thick mist and could nor see a step before us God when he pleases can hold us as over the bottomless pit as some will hold Children over some dangerous place to affright them he can keep our minds intent upon our sin so as it shall be ever before us he can suffer our judgments to be so clouded that we shall have such dark apprehensions of things as to look upon those evidences which we have stored up against an evil day as self-deceivings and delusions he can let Satan loose upon us to dispute us out of all our hopes he can make our hearts soft so as our fears and troubles shall make a sensible impression upon us and be as an heavy burden upon a galled back He can bring our souls to the grave and our lives to the destroyers setting us upon the very borders of Eternity so as we cannot relieve our selves by putting far from us the evil day And thus he deals sometimes with such as are to him as the apple of his eye he uses his Soveraignty in distributing both comforts and terrors but an humble submission and resignation of our selves to his good will and pleasure will be the best means to prevent such storms or at least the best posture for them to find us in I am Your Real Friend Hen. Lukin LETTER II. From Sissafernes in Hartfordshire Nov. 4. 1690. Dear Sir I Have Read your Practical Treatise upon Sickness and Recovery which you have lately published to the World and am glad to find so Universal and deep a sense of the goodness of God manifested in your own wonderful and late return to the Ministry as is exprest in those Lines which I take as a real Copy transcribed from the Original in your inward Parts I hope Grace Mercy and Truth will keep you and preserve alive those sparks of Zeal in your Soul to fly always upwards to God which have been kindled by him If the Lord shines forth more clearly and influentially upon you after so black a Cloud I question not but the Light of His Countenance will make amends for the Darkness you lay under The most violent Storms can never beat off the Loving-kindness of the Lord from One of his tho' sometimes in the deep Waters all hopes of being saved may be taken away by them Blessed be the Lord that threw out a Plank to save you in a time of need and secured you comfortably upon dry Land when you thought of nothing but of being Shipwrack'd and swallowed up in the deepest Mire You have found a Rock when you fear'd a Gulf and may stand upon one that is higher than you when you had been carried so near unto the Land of forgetfulness that God seemed to be just a laying you in the lowest Pit in Darkness in the Deeps with his Wrath lying hard upon you and afflicting you with all his Waves Doubtless God hath thus cloathed you with the Garment of Salvation that you may encourage others to put on Christ tho Hell be naked before them and destruction hath no covering from those that are not hid in him God hath emptied you of your own Fulness that you may be filled with Him that filleth all in all You have been taught even under Judgment to sing of Mercy and in every part of Salvation to cry Grace Grace unto it having seen that his Grace is sufficient for you He hath given you a Sip of Wrath that the Cup of your Consolation may drink the sweeter and that you may tast the more how good the Lord is that would not leave you to take up the Full Draught or wring out the Dregs in your Cup of Bitterness and Astonishment to all Eternity I desire to adore the
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
say to him because we are the work of his own hands Our hearts in sore distresses are apt to say Why are we so much and so long afflicted Why are we compassed with such terrible Calamities when others are at ease that to appearance have sinned as much as we But these first risings of Murmuring and Disquiet are to be resisted by the considerations of the Majesty and the Greatness of God who may put his Creatures to what use he pleases and so as may tho with their own smart promote the good of others and their own final good Tho Job as Mr. Charnock observes Discourse on the Attributes pag. 781. were a pattern of Patience yet he had deep Tinctures of Impatience he often complains of God's usage of him as too hard and stands much upon his own Integrity but when God comes in the latter Chapters of that Book to justifie his carriage towards him he chargeth him not as a Criminal but considers him only as his Vassal he might have found flaw enough in Job's carriage and corruption enough in Job's Nature to have cleared the Equity of his Proceedings as a Judg but he useth no other medium to convince him but the Greatness of his Majesty the Unlimitedness of his Soveraignty which so appales the good man that he puts his finger on his mouth and stands mute with a self-abhorrency before him as a Sovereign rather than a Judge His Wisdom also that makes the Night to precede the Day and Storms to clear the Air and make way for a fairer Season ought to silence and pacifie our Souls Isa 30.18 And therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you and therefore will he be exalted that he may have mercy upon you for the Lord is a God of judgment blessed are all they that wait for him He knows the fittest times and seasons wherein to heal our Diseases to remove our Fears and to do us good Cons III. How great the Mercies are that we are to wait for 't is for Heaven and Glory and we have his Promise That our Faith and our Patience shall not be in vain Isa 35.3 4 5 6 7. And after all the dangers the snares and hindrances and temptations of this world to come to Salvation at the last is so great a Mercy that it is surely worth staying for Tho we labour Six days yet the rest of the Sabbath does refresh our Spirits and so will after the sufferings of this mortal Life that Eternal Sabbath that is to be kept above with God give us great Refreshment our time on earth is a season wherein by several Trials and Afflictions to prepare us for that Happiness and Glory As the Night does affright us the Morning will surely bring us Joy It is but a little while and our Lord will come and save us Let us not surrender our selves to our Spiritual Enemies tho we are straitly press'd for our Saviour is marching to our Relief Jam. 5.7 Behold the Husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the early and the latter Rain Be ye also patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh The Husbandman gives not his Grain for lost tho it be covered with Snow and Storm he expects to see it rise with the returning Spring so neither should we despair of finding Comfort tho the Prayers that we have made bring us no present satisfaction You know David had the promise of a Kingdom but what strange Difficulties did he meet withal And what a long time was it before he came to sit upon a Peaceful Throne We must have Conflicts before we get the Victory we must run our Race and strive hard ere we get the Reward but when it shall once be bestowed upon us it will abundantly recompence us for all our Tears and all our Heaviness we are to take up our Cross daily every day on earth will afford us cause of Patience we are to watch for all our time is but as a moment to Eternity Let not our Lord that will bless us with a long and unspeakable Felicity have cause to say to us as he did to his sorrowful Disciples Could ye not watch with me one hour Mat. 26.40 He looks on knows our weakness and will give us help he could immediately solace and refresh and save us if he would but seeing that he is not pleased so to do let us humbly be silent and acquiesce in the Wisdom of his Appointment and Decree for tho he delay he is not unmindful of our sorrows and in the very Minute that is most for his Glory and for our Good he will come and save us Isa 64.4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear neither hath the eye seen O God besides thee what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him V. Entertain a secret hope that it will not always be thus sad and dismal with you Tho you have made several Prayers that have not yet received a Gracious Answer of Peace yet pray still and be not discouraged but like blind Bartimaeus cry the more earnestly You know that the Woman of Canaan persevered in her attendance on our Lord tho the words he spake seemed to have in them a great deal of sharpness and severity yet she was resolved not to leave him nor be denied and at the last our Saviour commended highly that Faith of which he seem'd to take no notice before It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait to see the salvation of God Lam. 3 27. The reason whereof is alledged v. 31 32. For the Lord will not cast off for ever but tho he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies Tho every thing that you look upon within your own hearts terrifie and perplex your thoughts yet the vastness of that Mercy that is in God and which through his Son he is willing to communicate to you may afford you support and relief the very possibility of help tho never so remote may a little quiet and calm your souls for tho you see nothing for the present but Frowns and Anger in the Face of God yet you cannot you ought not to say that it will never shine again tho his strokes are increased and every day more painful than they were the day before yet you must not then conclude That he who chastens for your profit will not lay aside the Rod Tho you are sinking with your fears and you have no power left yet lay hold on the strength of God he will not strike off your trembling hand but encourage your dependance and your trust in him you are not everlastingly perisht you have not yet received your final doom it is possible that you may escape There is great comfort in a May be I shall be saved even tho by fire
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
be mingled with many failings The meanest Oblations that you lay upon his Altar shall be grateful while the more pompous and costly Sacrifices of others shall be disesteemed your inward groans shall move his tender heart sooner than their howlings and their loudest cries Prov. 15.8 He will cherish your feeblest breathings after him and add more strength to the bruised Reed and more slame to the smoaking Flax He will register your good Actions and not upbraid you with your evil ones There was some good thing in Abijah toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam 1 Kings 14.12 and he took peculiar notice of it and at the last day Our Lord mentions the Charities and the Bounties of his People which they themselves had forgot long ago He will not reject your Faith though there be many doubts mingled with it nor cast off your desires though they have a great deal of deadness and want many further degrees of life and fervour He will remember his Covenant tho' you forget your Duty Mal. 3.17 I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him 4. God will either preserve you from outward dangers or give you strength to bear them He will be afflicted in all your afflictions and tenderly regard you as the Apple of his Eye What can you fear whilst you have so great a Defender what may you not hope for when you have so good a Benefactor as he said to Abraham Gen. 14.2 Fear not I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward A Reward to quicken your service and a Shield to keep you from hurt in the day of battel Or as in Dan. 10.19 O man greatly beloved fear not peace be unto thee be strong yea be strong What safety must he needs have that had the Almighty for his Helper what honour must he have whom an Angel called greatly beloved 5. He will keep you in his favour that you shall not finally be cast away Though you be saved as by fire and by great difficulty yet you shall surely be saved He may suspend his Influences but he will not change his Covenant he may be angry but he will not be so for ever You may fall and bruise your selves but his gentle hand will heal your wounds Rom. 8. ult He that loved you when you were Prodigals will not shut you out when you return home again He that pitied you in your blood will not reject you when his Image is upon you though sullied with manifold defects Your Life is hid with him in Christ and though by various tentations and troubles it is weakned yet it shall spring forth again Christ is the Vine whereof you are the Branches though your Life is exposed to many storms yet in him 't is very safe and you shall not expire by a total death because Christ himself will never die the Faithfulness of God and the Life of Christ are both unchangeable Supports to you you need not fear the rage of your Enemies while your Saviour is your Guide for he will bring forth Judgment unto Victory Sixthly and Lastly God will be your God his Wisdom and his Power will direct and save you Could I tell the Tradesman that is setting up that I could help him to a plentiful Trade could I assure the Merchant of the succesful arrival of his Ships could I tell the Poor how to be rich and the Rich how to get all that they wish for I should be a very acceptable Messenger but to you that have the Favour of God here are better tidings the Lord of Heaven and Earth is yours and then if you can tell the Stars or the Sand of the Sea or the drops of Rain you may be able to number the Benefits that will accrue to you by such a Privilege whatsoever is truly useful to your spiritual welfare whatever in in all the large Dominions of God will do you good you shall be sure to receive God the Father will be your Reconciled Father God the Son your Mediator God the Holy Ghost your Sanctifier You shall in no distress want an Alsufficient and Almighty Friend you shall have all your holy Prayers heard and granted Life and Death shall be yours the Mercy of God will relieve you when you are in Misery 2 Cor. 6.18 I will be a father to you and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty And he will say as in Jer. 32.41 I will rejoice over them to do them good with my whole heart and my whole soul To be a Child of a King sounds great and carries with it an high degree of honour but to be the Children of the King of kings is infinitely more honourable to have so great a Father is an unspeakable and a mighty Privilege All the Dignities that Ambitious Courtiers seek with all their Cringing Arts are but little Trifles when compared with this all the Renown that Soldiers purchase with their sweat and blood is but disgrace when compared with the glory of being a Son or Daughter of the most High God If the Queen of Sheba when she beheld Solomon that in the splendor of his Court and the wisdom of his Actions exceeded all the Report that she had heard before cried out with wonder 1 King 10.8 Happy are thy men and happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee and that hear thy wisdom How much more may we say Happy are the Servants of the Living God that serve him day and night that wait at his Temple and that sing his Praises that see with what wisdom he manages all the great Affairs of his vast and large Kingdom and that the same eye that is in the Wheels does watch for them and all is carried on with a peculiar respect to his Glory and to their Salvation the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is their Father the Angels are their Guard the Spirit is their Teacher Afflictions are their Physick 1 Cor. 3.21 All things are yours whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas the stars that are in the right hand of Christ shine to give them light The World is theirs so much of it as is necessary to promote their real welfare Life is theirs wherein to prepare for happiness and Death is theirs to convey them to it They are Christ's his Brethren and his Subjects and Christ is God's who is delighted with his Son and with them in him This is the privilege of a Favourite of God He is now it may be poor and low affronted and disgraced but the day draws near when the same person that is disesteem'd by the Sons of Pride shall be owned of his Great Lord clothed with Garments of Praise and led out in triumph and applauding-Angels say to the grief of the Wicked Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King of heaven delights to honour Thus you have set before you that which is Life indeed a Life that shall never
Edinburgh was Twenty years in terrors of Conscience and yet delivered afterwards You may also direct them to the Lives of Mrs. Brettergh Mrs. Drake Mr. Peacock and Mrs. Wight where they will see a very chearful day returning after a black and stormy night and that the Issue from their Afflictions was more glorious than their Conflict was troublesom They went forth weeping they sowed in Tears but they reaped an Harvest of wonderful Joys afterwards You have in the Book of Martyrs written by Mr. Fox an instance of Mr. Glover who was worn and consumed with inward trouble for the space of Five years that he neither had any comfort in his Meat nor any quietness of Sleep nor any pleasure of Life he was so perplexed as if he had been in the deepest Pit of Hell yet at last this good Servant of God after so sharp temptations and the strong buffetings of Satan was freed from all his trouble and was thereby framed to great Mortification and was like one already placed in Heaven and led a Life altogether Celestial abhorring in his mind all prophane things and you have a remarkable instance of mighty joy in Mr. Holland a Minister who having the day before he died meditated upon the 8th of the Romans he cried on a sudden Stay your Reading What brightness is it that I see They told him it was the Sun-shine Nay saith he my Saviour's shine Now farewell World and welcome Heaven the day-star from an high hath visited my heart O speak it when I am gone and let it be Preached at my Funeral God dealeth familiarly with Man I feel his Mercy I see his Majesty whether in the Body or out of the Body God he knoweth but I see things unutterable And in the Morning following he shut up his blessed Life with these blessed words O! what an happy change shall I make from Night to Day from Darkness to Light from Death to Life from Sorrow to Solace from a factious World to an Heavenly Being O! my dear Friends it pitieth me to leave you behind yet remember what I now feel I hope you shall find ere you dye That God doth and will deal familiarly with Men. And now thou fiery Chariot that came down to fetch up Eliah carry me to my happy hold and all the blessed Angels who attended the soul of Lazarus to bring it up to Heaven bear me O bear me into the bosome of my best Beloved Amen Amen Come Lord Jesus come quickly And so he fell asleep See this and several other instances in Mr. Robert Bolton's Instructions for afflicted Consciences p. 87. and 235 c. Eleventhly The next kindness you are to shew to your Melancholly Friends is heartily to pray for them Let your eyes weep for them in secret and there let your souls melt in fervent holy Prayers they are not able in a composed or a lively manner to recommend their own Case to God you may use many arguments in your Prayers their forlorn state and the greatness of their miseries may be a very powerful motive to your Supplications You know that none but God himself can help them For as Mr. Greenham says If our assistance were as an Host of Armed Soldiers if our Friends were the Princes and Governors of the Earth if our Possessions were as large as between the East and the West if our Meat were as Mannah from Heaven if our Apparel were as costly as the Ephod of Aaron if every day were as glorious as the day of Christ's Resurrection yet if our Minds are appalled with the Judgments of God all these things would not yield us any help or consolation * See Mr. Greenham's Comfort for an Afflicted Conscience p. â—27 And you must wrestle with him on their behalf you may plead with him That his Power and Goodness will be more illustrious if he save those whom none but he himself can save and that his Grace will be more remarkable if he please to create Peace for those troubled Souls in which none but he can make a Calm and you know not but that his Light on your request may begin to shine on those who have bewailed his absence with many dreadful groans And tho your eyes be even weary with looking upwards yet continue still to wait and pray for it shall not be in vain Thus you will do them a great kindness and perform your own Duty tho perhaps they may be ready to say to you as Mr. Peacock to his Friends Take not the Name of God in vain by praying for a Reprobate And as Mr. Dod said to him when he said he could not pray Tho saith he most sicknesses hinder Prayer and therefore the Apostle James says If any Man be sick let him send for the Elders c. Yet if God stir up your Friends to pray for you he will stir up himself to hear their Prayers And do you consider that nothing but Prayer can do them good It is an obstinate disease that nothing else will overcome for it is a very slight Melancholly and which is not deeply rooted that can be drowned in Wine or chased away with sociable divertisements Some indeed tell us When they find themselves troubled their way is to bid their thoughts Battel and to oppose Thoughts against Thoughts and with the dint of Reason to subdue this peevish Humour But such must give me leave to say That they are not under the disease of Melancholly for that will neither hear Faith nor Reason till God himself by his Almighty Power work Salvation for us XII Not only pray for them but get other serious Christians to pray for them also When many good people join their requests together the cry is more acceptable and prevalent When those in the Acts joined to remember Peter in his Chains he was after that very soon delivered and in the very time of their Prayers All believers have through Jesus Christ a great interest in Heaven and the Father is willing to grant what they beg in the Name of his dear Son I my self have been greatly helped by the prayers of others and I heartily thank all those that kept any particular days wherein more solemnly to remember my distressed condition blessed be God that has not cast off their prayer nor turned away his mercy from me Every day gives us several experiences of many that have been rescued from their diseases their temptations and their fears by the Prayers of others And I might also add you have very great cause to pray for your selves that God may give you strength to bear so heavy a Cross as you are afflicted with in the afflictions of your friends Their doleful complaints their repeated groans and their long and sore trials are enough to sink you too if God do not give you wonderful support You have need to beg strong faith and great patience that you may not be unhinged with their passionate or hasty speeches XIII Put your poor
dreadful Temptations Clouds Confusions and Terrors of Soul c. so that there was no hope or help to be expected but from Heaven in answer to many Prayers which through mercy were succesful .............................. though still I am under weakness though I hope rather going forward than contrary As to my Soul I have not been without good experiences blessed be the free Grace of God! I cannot neither may I trouble you to enlarge upon any of these things My old Enemy will not lay down but by force strong Temptations and Corruptions c. are my daily Exercise Good Sir help me by your Prayers over to the Lord Jesus there 's as much in that as if I had made more words Pray Sir forget me not and please to put others in remembrance of me you know what Graces are necessary to such a Condition 'T is a true saying Tranquillus Deus tranquillat omnia the Lord teach me to be as humble as he would have me be and in every thing give thanks I desire to rejoice with you and them that rejoice concerning you for your restauration Good Sir again remember them that are still out in the storm such have need of patience c. I know not how to break off But time and strength failing me I remain Daventry March 10. 1690 1. SIR Your Friend and Servant Joh. Worth Jun. LETTER VIII From a Young Student in Divinity Dear and much respected Cousin LOng Experience proves it beyond a thousand Arguments that they who have made choice of God for their happiness must expect none here 't is a contradiction to expect Heaven on Earth or to look for a setled duration where all things rush round in vicissitude I cannot tell what they may find who have the world at will but I am sure Believers upon a reflection and consideration of the hard usage and unquieting perplexities which they are still meeting with cannot but long to be where the weary are at rest The Saints who have now got to the end of their way may well rejoyce for they have good reason for it happy are they who have got safely to their Father's House through so many threatning Difficulties When others are lawless as to their practices we are limited to the holy Rule of the Word our life must be a life of Self-denial mortification and contempt of the World I know not what thoughts many Professors may have of Religion but for my self when I seriously think what a life a true Christian's is I am ready to cry out True Religion is a rare thing Dear Cousin What manner of men should you and I be who are designed for such special work I desire to bear part in the praises for your wonderful Deliverance the Lord teach us the true nature of Thankfulness that we may live more to and for God ............................ I desire an interest in your Prayers that God would keep me from Melancholly which I am inclined to and that God would bless my study to me and make it successful and in so doing you will add one more to the Favours you have bestow'd on Rauthmell in Yorkshire Novemb 17. l690 Your very Loving Cousin THO. BARNS LETTER IX To a Relation of the Author's who was long under Melancholly from a Minister who several years was under that Disease My dear Christian Friend AS Christ has given me any bowels of mercy I cannot but pity you under your Soul-affliction and disquietment of spirit being greatly oppressed by Satan that malicious and active Spirit who hates you for the Truth 's sake and no doubt therefore hates you because he finds in you the love of the truth by the proper and convincing evidences of it And that you might not have any comfort by it as the work of the Spirit of Grace in your heart as also that God might not have from you the praise and glory due unto his Grace for it for he envies him all the worship and glory that 's given him by his Saints in Heaven and Earth Therefore he does all he can to hide the knowledge of it from you by clouding your mind by darkning your evidences by his own malicious suggestions against you as also by stirring up all sorts of sin in you but more especially Unbelief the sin of sins his First-born the Mother of all Abominations in the Soul and so the Provocative whereby he well knows if he can work it up to its perfect and full dominion he shall effectually hinder the income of all peace and joy and so fill the poor despairing Soul with all heaviness and horror never to be removed but by faith and its actings on Jesus Christ the King of Righteousness and the King of Peace I beseech you therefore Dear Sister and the Lord himself work it in you turn away your mind from all the malicious deceitful lying Suggestions of the Adversary whom you know by the Scripture of Truth to be a Lyar and a Murtherer from the beginning and will do all that he can to beguile you of the Grace of God in you as also of all that mercy pardon and peace which God has provided in his Son for all believing broken-hearted Sinners such as I doubt not you are whatever you may seem to your self in your present darkness and hour of temptation Turn your self yea the Lord do it for you and in you from him to your Saviour who will not accuse you with the Father as he does but is pleading his Sufferings and presenting his Blood and Atonement made thereby for you Look to him dear Sister look to him whom you shall find to be as the true Brazen Serpent to your love-sick Soul which has been sore wounded by that fiery-flying Serpent and old Dragon but your Lord has overcome him by death and you also I doubt not have overcome him in divers Combats and Temptations already and shall overcome him fully and finally by the Faith of your mighty Redeemer and the Captain of your Salvation who as he is able to save you to the utmost so I doubt not he will do it whatever your Doubts and Fears may be at present He is with you taking care of your Soul and all its Concerns though your eyes are withheld that you cannot discern him as it was sometimes with the Apostles themselves but he will ere long manifest himself to you and then you shall know and acknowledge also That he has born with you and will be with you for ever even as I now do though I were as much to seek for his gracious presence with me as you are or can well be The Lord himself even our Lord Jesus Christ work this very thing in you and cause you to hold fast your confidence firm unto the end and you shall find that it has great recompence of reward as the Apostles has testified to the Hebrews For he that shall come will come and will not tarry He will not only come to Judgment at
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
Decree There are many people whom we are angry with and reprove whom notwithstanding we do in the mean time most sincerely love and Christ has told us Rev. 3.19 As many as I love I rebuke and chasten 4. The Anger of God is but for a moment because he delights in Mercy Psalm 103.8 The Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy He will not always chide neither will he keep his anger for ever It is long before he punishes and 't is with haste that he comes to our help when we repent and many times before In the midst of Wrath he remembers Mercy he does not always inflict what we have deserved but considers what is most proper for him to lay upon us and what we are able to bear and therefore he gives to us some mitigations with our most bitter Cup. He is called the Father of Mercies and the God of all Comfort and tho Punishment does proceed from him as well as Tenderness and Affection yet he is no where called the Father of Judgments Mercy ariseth from his own Nature and he delighteth in it Micah 7.18 He retaineth not his anger for ever because he delighteth in mercy His wrath is said to be reserv'd in Golden Viols Rev. 15.7 i. e. it doth not flow forth all at once but by degrees but his Mercy is compared to a River and a flowing Stream Isaiah 66.12 to the Oyl of gladness to the smell of Myrrh Aloes and Cassia It is a Glory to this God to relieve the miserable and to help his Servants when all their power and might is gone and he ends the Controversy with them when there is cause enough on their side that he should pursue the Quarrel further When he leads us into a Wilderness yet he provides some Water some refreshment for us there It is one of the great Wonders of his Providence that he supports those poor Souls that have no light of Evidence no sense of his Love no hope nothing but the fears of Wrath and Desolation and yet the matter of Fact and our own Experience plainly tells us that so it is his everlasting Arms are underneath and his Power does maintain our Life when we say that he has forgotten to be gracious He bottles our Tears when we weep and hears our Groans when we lament and proportions the Troubles that he sends that they shall not be too long nor too violent Jer. 30.11 I will not make a full end of thee I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished And those Afflictions which his People suffer are not in all respects proper Punishments because his Anger is mixed with mildness and mitigated by the Intercessions of a Mediator Lam. 3.31 32. The Lord will not cast off for ever but tho he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his tender mercies 5. That his Anger is but for a moment is for his own Name sake His Nature is most inclinable to do us good therefore the Prophets to those Idolaters mentioned in 1 Kings 18.24 says The God that answers by sire let him be God and he chose that Element above the rest to signify how soon we shall have Mercy it comes as upon the wings of the Wind it is as swift as the rays of Light Hosca 11.9 I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger I will not return to destroy Ephraim for I am God and not man A Man when he is greatly provoked by his Enemy is not satisfied with having once made him feel his Anger but carries on his Revenge to further degrees and only ceases the pursuit with the Death of him that he first assaulted But the Great God tho he is able to Conquer those that oppose him with a total Defeat and Ruin yet he suffers them to breathe and live that they may Repent and that he may cause his Goodness to shine with a greater Brightness to the World He could follow them with one Blow after another with a Succession of new and greater Miseries but he restrains his Anger for his own sâ—ke And it maybe a great Consolation to poor afflicted People to consider that they have to deal with God and not with Men when they have sinn'd they have not to deal with Men that are full of Rage and Cruelty but with a God that is gracious and full of Mercy not with Men that may Caress them to day and Hate them to morrow but with a God that is unchangeable and even when they are in the Fire or in the Water his Love is still to them the very same Men think it a dishonour to spare their interiors if they do not by the lowest Submissions testify their Sorrow for their Crimes but the Great God is so far above all his Creatures that he may when he will think them below his Indignation and magnify his Goodness in sparing and forgiving them when they most deserve to dye Isaiah 4.8 9. For my names sake will I defer mine anger and for my praise will I refrain for thee that I cut thee not off 'T is his Power that moderates his Anger Those Persons that have the least strength either of Reason or of Courage are the most passionate and inclinable to Revenge In Punishments he shews his Dominion over his Creatures but his Power over himself when he forgives great Injuries and is slow to punish great Affronts and his Power in those Acts of Grace is very great and illustrious He is God and not Man there is more Compassion and more real Pity in him than in the most compassionate or tender hearted Man that we ever knew He is God and not Man he whom we have offended and who can destroy us begins first to treat about a Reconciliation with us This is not the manner and way of Men who think that those who have offended them are to make the first advances towards a repairing of the Breach There is no Attribute in the displaying of which the Great God glories so much as in this of Mercy and 't is by this that he would be known Exod. 34.6 7. 6. That his Anger is but for a moment is because he would make a difference between the righteous and the wicked The Afflictions that he sends upon the Righteous are to prepare them for Heaven and Glory But those Scourges that he uses to the Wicked and Impenitent are but the beginning of their Sorrows the flashes of those Flames that will consume them for ever The distresses of the Righteous are short and so are the Prosperities of the Wicked The Righteous are weeping here but they shall rejoyce hereafter The Wicked have now their Heaven such as it is and hereafter they go to an Eternal Hell and there must they weep and wail when the Good and Holy shall have all their Tears wiped away The one shall find him to be a loving Father and to have been
haste I am cut off from before thine eyes And we should with all imaginable care be fortified against it This grace of Patience is that for which we shall all of us have very much occasion during the manifold evils of this miserable World for this we shall have occasion as we are Men for as such we are born to trouble and much more shall we need it if we be true Christians for as such we must expect more trouble from the corruption of our Hearts from the World and from the Devil for if he sees us going to that Heaven from whence he is for ever excluded his rage will prompt him to give us a continual molestation in our way thither That we may therefore be prepared to resist his subtle and violent assaults and to bear those long and sore Tryals that may be our lot let us have before our eyes these things 1. If when God is angry with us we are impatient we shall provoke him to further wrath and cause double the him to blows of his Arm which are at the present heavy enough for us to bear If the first corrections bring us not to a malleable and a tender frame He will if he design our good be forced to send upon us many more our unruliness and impatience will add more pain and smart to the Rods that are upon us and put a greater edge upon our trouble and so that which at the first was but a single stroke will multiply to many more and by this we shall make the evil of our affliction which is design'd for our good to become our sin and so carry that inconvenience to our Souls which with a quiet and submissive frame would but hurt our Bodies We lose by this means all the comfortable blessings of a sanctified and a well-improved Cross and make that yoak to gall us which otherwise might lye with ease upon our necks 2. Let us remember that we are no way injured when we are under long afflictions and that whatever come of us God is always very just He will not lay upon man more than right Job 34.23 An earthly Parent in the warmth and heat of anger may in too severe a manner correct the follies of his Child but that God that knows our frame what is fit for him to do and what we are able to bear will proportion his corrections to the necessities of our ase and not suffer our troubles to stay a day longer than is needful to accomplish those excellent ends for which they were design'd He may in his anger pull us down and make us desolate but we know not what a comely structure he intends to build from these ruins it may be that the darkness that affrights us is to usher in an eternal and a glorious day His ways are far above our ways So much greatness wisdom and goodness as there is in him should produce in our hearts patience and resignation tho' we know not what a period he intends to put to his present dark and unsearcheable designs Tho' we are pained he is faithful still and tho' he do not gratify our curiosity nor suffer our blind eyes to pierce into the depths of his Counsels yet let us hold this for a certain truth That the Lord is righteous and just in all his ways He may say to us as Christ said to Peter What I do thou knowest not but thou shalt know hereafter Joh. 13.7 His Justice should silence our murmuring complaints and his faithfulness our discouragements and faintings He never afflicts us but with reason he never does it but with a design of our final good The Sword that wounds us brings a Balsom with it it opens a passage to let out our Corruptions and then it heals and closes up the wound again Isa 30.18 Therefore will the Lord wait that he may he gracious unto you and therefore will he be exalted that he may have mercy upon you for the Lord is a God of judgment Blessed are all they that wait for him 3. That we may bear his Anger with Patience let us consider what Mercies he has given us and how much worse we might be than now we are he frowns it may be upon us but that frown might have been our final sentence and that anger which now is kindled against us might have been Everlasting Burnings and tho he speak to us by terrible things yet he might have said Depart from me ye cursed The drops that fall upon us might have been a Deluge and a Storm of Wrath and the fiery Furnace whereinto we are thrown to consume our Dross might have been our Hell Why does a living man complain a sinful man that might have been deprived both of Hope and Life long ago Oh how does our Gracious God even in our sorest Trials deal much better with us than we have deserved We multiply our sorrows to a vast account but if we compared them with our sins their number would appear to be very small if we put our Crosses and our Iniquities into the same balance we should quickly see what a mighty difference there is between them It will be a considerable motive to Patience to consider what we have deserved We bewail the loss of the sense of the Love of God and alas we did not value it as we should have done We complain that he has forsaken us but who among us valued his Presence at the rate we might have valued it We say that he does not hear our Prayers that he is deaf to our Request and how often did we pray as if we prayed not how often did he seek to enter into our hearts and we gave him a repulse How often did he call and invite us to come to him and we did not obey his call Have we reason then to be impatient that he is a stranger to us when we remember how he would have dwelt with us but we shut him out Tho it was our ignorance that betrayed us to it and we knew not what we did We reckon up our nights of darkness how long they are and how dismal but we forget how he has given us many a bright and clear day many an hour of Peace and Joy for one of Grief and Trouble We have deserved to be miserable all the days of our Lives for every day we sin we have many healthful seasons as well as times of Sickness whereas he might have made our passage uneasie and troublesome in the deep waters from the womb unto the grave Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth Job 11.6 We suffer justly for our sins if God should enquire into the multitude the heinousness and all the aggravations of our sins we should have a greater multitude of Crosses Let us cease then to be impatient for he deals in great Tenderness and Mercy with us Our troubles have been it may be sharp and long but they might have been more stinging
more bitter and more violent and drawn out to a more formidable length but now because it is not so he hath visited in his anger yet he knoweth it not in great extremity Job 35.15 He has not stirr'd up all his wrath nor amaz'd us with all the Thunder of his Power let us not be like the Israelites Psal 106.7 who provoked him and remembred not the multitude of his Mercies 4. Consider that he uses no other methods with you when he is angry with you than what he has us'd with his dearest servants heretofore and this may tend to compose your Spirits under long and sore Tryals are you better than Moses than Job than Heman than David and Asaph and many other excellent and holy Men with whom he was displeased and who felt his Wrath though it was but for a moment Are we more dutiful and obedient than they were do we not merit the Chastisements of our Heavenly Father as much as they did yea and much more If we have the spirit and the priviledge of Children we ought not to murmur though we have our share in the discipline of the Family Would we have the Course of Providence inverted and changed for us Can we imagine that we shall be always spared when so many great Saints have smarted under the displeasure of God for their sin We are apt to think there is no sorrow like to our sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted us Lam. 1.12 but we do not wisely inquire in this matter for if we trace the steps of holy men of old we shall find that innumerable and very grievous Calamities were their portion as well as ours We have heard of the distresses and of the patience of Job of the pains of his Body and of the troubles of his Soul and when either our Bodies or our Souls are more afflicted than his was then it will be soon enough for us to begin to murmur and if we do it not till then we shall be as remarkable for our patience as he was Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing hapned to you 1 Pet. 4.12 1 Pet. 5.9 All these things are accomplished in your brethren which are in the world and this is duly to be thought upon for there is nothing of which Satan makes a greater use to perplex us in our hour of temptation than of the length and the sharpness of our trials as if therefore God were our Enemy because he does afflict or that we are no Children because we are afflicted so very long thus will the Evil Spirit suggest and say If thou wert a friend of God who is so compassionate and so flow to wrath would he follow thee with breach upon breach with one stroak after another and let his hand be heavy upon thee day and night He supports comforts and refreshes all his Servants but thou hast no refreshment nothing but anguish and vexation therefore thou art none of his but by Faith we must quench this fiery Dart and know that the fruit of our affliction may be very sweet though for the present 't is very bitter and that we are under the Conduct of that Wisdom which can order even this Cross for good and whatever mists that envious Spirit may raise before our eyes let us still remember that his anger is but for a moment that others whom we are sure he lov'd have undergone the like troubles and his own dear Son was still a Son when a man of sorrows and that his Afflictions were of a great length from the Manger to the Cross And if God will have us to be so far conformable to this blessed Person so that we have no rest from trial till we are quiet in the Grave we should not distrust his goodness nor murmur as it 5. Let us compare our present Sufferings and Afflictions with that Happiness which is to come His Anger is but for a moment but his love will be for ever He frowns for a moment but he will shew them his pleased Face for ever He corrects them and they weep for a moment but he will embrace them and they shall rejoice for ever Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning And do we not find our hearts begin to spring within us when we consider that we are in pain for a moment but we shall be at case for ever Is not this good news to those that fear God and yet are afflicted Lift up your heads ye Mourners ye Prisoners of hope 't is but for a little season Let not your hearts faint I know you will say Oh I could bear any thing but the wrath of God he is angry with my Soul he denies an answer to my Prayers he speaks not to me one comfortable word I look up to his Heavens and they are as Brass I run to his Ordinances and hear his Word in the Assemblies of his People but whilst others are wet with the dew of Heaven I remain dry and neglected as I was I seem to be as the mountains of Gilboa there is no dew nor rain falls upon me I seem to be under the Curse of God and because I have formerly not improv'd the means of Grace he seems to say of me as of the barren Figtree never let fruit grow upon thee more and can you tell me whither I shall go and what I shall do in such a case as this You must still in humble submission wait upon the Lord he stays from your present help upon a very gracious Design He bottles your tears and is acquainted with your griefs and that anger that now bows you to the ground shall in a little while be removed and your faith and your hope will not be in vain There are thousands of Joys prepared to meet you when you are a little more purified and prepared for them Isa 54. 7,8 For a small moment have I forsaken thee but with great mercies will I gather thee In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer Nothing can be less than a moment 't is the least part of time and yet so small a thing as that is are all our troubles here to that endless Eternity which is to come So if your outward afflictions and your spiritual fears should last for Life as none can give you assurance to the contrary yet all this Life is but as a moment as nothing to that state of Blessedness that comes afterward Nor are the degrees of your sorrows here proportionable to the degrees of your approaching glory For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 This great Apostle calls his afflictions very light and yet there was never any that suffered more troubles from the malice of the world
souls were driven in Chariots of Fire to their Father's House Whether there be Musick in the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres as some of the Philosophers imagined we know not but 't is very likely that the separated soul of the Patient and Triumphant Christian will have those Angels that rejoiced at its Conversion that wait to carry it to its blessed Home to present it to the Throne of God with joyful Praises and united Hallelujahs Thus we should admire and imitate the Patience of the Saints whose Life was begun with darkness and sorrow but ended with Light and Pleasure began with a Combat but concluded with Victory And then shall the Soul that a few moments before was disconsolate have cause to say in that day Isa 12.1 2. O Lord I will praise thee tho thou wast angry with me thine anger if turned away and thou comfortest me Behold God is my salvation the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song he also is become my salvation CHAP. IV. Of the Great Love of Christ in suffering the wrath of God in his Soul which is the more to be admired in that he bore it for us and not for the fallen Angels and because now he is from his own experience more qualified to relieve us under all our temptations Inf. 3. HOW great cause have we to value Jesus Christ who by suffering the wrath of God in his own person has procured this priviledge for Believers That the Anger of God towards them shall be only for a moment Had it not been for his spotless satisfaction the Divine Justice would have perpetually flam'd out against us and he would not only have been angry with us now but for ever He has delivered us from the wrath to come That which is easy to us upon our Faith was purchased by him at a very dear Price he shed his own Blood to obtain Peace and Mercy for us Oh how great was the Burden of that heavy Cross which he bore for us how terrible and amazing was that wrath which he felt in his bitter and his doleful agonies when he saw not one Smile in his Father's face when it was with him an hour of thick darkness and when under the smart of what he felt and the view of what he was to feel he said My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death And when the agonies of his Soul did affect his Body and made it even in a cold Season to sweat as it were drops of Blood What a gloomy time was that when he fell upon his face and in a sorrowful posture with strong Cries and Tears prayed O my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me What flaming wrath was that which scorcht him when he uttered those dreadful words My God my God why hast thou forsaken me The Angel told Mary That a Sword should pierce through her Son Luk. 2.35 to see what injurious usage her Soul met withal but how much sharper was the Sword that pierc'd the Soul of Christ himself The wrath that he bore would have totally overwelm'd and destroyed Angels and Men had they joyned their strength together There was none but he that was able to sustain such a Combat and to bear such a Load Oh where had we guilty Creatures been had not he dyed for us God would have been our Enemy and Hell our Portion His Holiness would not allow him to be gracious to us without a Satisfaction and there was none that was able to make it but his own dearly beloved Son and this excellent Person freely did it And what cause have we to admire the breadth and length and depth and height of this Love which passes Knowledg Eph. 3.18 Angels in Heaven wonder at it it was so great in it self and accomplished in such a painful and a costly way and we may justly be fill'd with a wondring joy for we are more concern'd and our Sin and Guilt makes us to need it more than they do There was nothing in us to move him to begin or to finish the blessed work of our Redemption nothing but misery He saw us lost and he came to find us He saw us perishing his bowels earned within him and his own Pity and Compassion made him to come and save us What punishment had we deserved for our manifold transgressions And he came and bore the punishment that was our due and discharg'd that debt which we were never able to pay How kind was he that thought not his own Life nor his own Blood too much for us Who ever expos'd his Person and his Life for an Enemy and yet he dyed for us when we were so as marvellous an Act of Mercy as if a Prince's Son should lay his Head upon the block to save one that had rebell'd against the Crown and Government of his own Father What does he require from us for all that he has done he asks nothing but our Love and shall we not give him our best Affections our highest thoughts and our hearts which he has so dearly bought have even any of those things to which we give our love done so much for us as he has done He has the best Title and will prove our truest Friend in the latter end had it not been for him we could never have prayed to God with hope nor liv'd without a fearful expectation of Vengeance We were Children of wrath and must but for him have been the Heirs of wrath too Who would not love such a Benefactor Who would not give him all who gave himself for us It is by his death that God is appeas'd and that his Anger is but for a Moment to those who receive his Son God hath smelt a sweet favour in this Sacrifice and is highly pleased with it and is pleas'd with us upon this account He does not now follow us with wrath but invites us to himself in mercy he has sheath'd his flaming Sword and is ready to embrace us in his Arms and though he sees nothing in us to excite his goodness yet every time he looks upon our blessed Lord he sees one who has entirely pleased him who has done his will and who is the beloved of his Soul and it 's for his sake that his anger towards us is so long delayed and that when it comes it is but for a Moment Let us love this Redeemer with all our hearts remembring that terrible sentence of our Apostle If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha i. e. Cursed till he come again 1 Cor. 16.22 There are two things that should engage us to love him for his bearing the wrath of God 1. That he bore it for us and not for the fallen Angels 2. That from his own experience he is able to help us under all our temptations and when we are under the sense of God's displeasure 1. Christ bore not the wrath of God for the fallen Angels they fell
intentions to ruin and destroy but God with a design in all his Corrections to purify and reform and to do us good in the latter end 2 Sam 24.13 14. God came to David and told him Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy Land Or wilt thou flee three Months before thine enemies while they pursue thee or that there be three days pestilence in thy land Now advise and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me And David said unto Gad I am in a great strait let us fall now into the hand of the Lord for his mercies are great and let me not fall into the hand of man Inf. 4. What a good Master is God whose anger is but for a moment other Masters may be hasty and froward and hard to please but he is patient and slow to wrath he is never angry till we disobey his voice and by our Laziness in his work force him to it and even then his nature enclines him to moderate our stripes and he adds no more than what are necessary to promote our good he treats us not as slaves but exercises toward us a mild and a favourable Government He threatens a long while before he punishes the clouds gather blackness to give us notice of a coming Storm and the Thunder of his wrath as well as that of nature doth roar before it falls he threatens and advises and perswades and uses several affectionate expostulations with us before we feel the Rod and when in vindicating his own right he seems to be very Just he ceases not at the same time to be very Good we frequently provoke him and he is most ready to forgive he seeks not advantages against us nor waits for our halting it grieves him when we sin and he is only angry that we may repent he delights in peace and not in war in the manifestations of his Mercy and Love more than in the terrible discoveries of his wrath He whets his Sword before he strikes that in the preparations of his Judgments we may see what we may expect and seek to prevent them He summons us to surrender our selves before he begins to make us by sharper methods to be sensible of our follies and whilst his Rod is in his hand he stays to see if we will even then return and he is unwilling to punish even when he is forced to do it as a tender Judge does with sorrow and regret pronounce Sentence upon a Malefactor Hos 11.8 How shall I give thee up O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel Psal 78.38 Many a time he turned his anger away He recall'd or order'd his anger to return as one expresses it as if he were unresolved what to do he recalled it as a man does his Servant several times when he is sending him upon an unwelcome Message or as a tender-hearted Prince trembles when he is to sign a Writ for the death of a Rebel that had been before his Favourite he blots out his name again and flings away the Pen He singles out here and there some of his Servants when he might punish all for their sins he makes one smart to be a warning to the rest and according to the Doctrine of the Schoolmen He recompences good works far above their merit but he punishes Crimes far below their demerit He makes his Mercy to triumph over Judgment he punishes with regret and he retains a great deal of his wrath when he corrects but he keeps no measure when he rewards and the miseries of the miserable are not greater than the joy and happiness of the blessed Oh! who would not serve so gracious and so good a Master as God is and who is long before he is angry and who is soon appeased again Are the cruel commands of Satan the slavery of the World the defilement of Sin to be preferred to the gentle and the pure Commands of God How many Curse their folly in adhearing to these but none repent that they have been employed in his service His most Aged Servants find the greatest Honour and delight in having served him very long and would not quit their experienced and kind Master for all the World They know that his Corrections are short but his Love is Everlasting his wrath is for a moment but their Heaven will be for ever Inf. 5. The Enemies of the Church of God have no Reason to insult over such as are afflicted in it for tho God for their sins is angry yet his anger is but for a moment Thus they treated David Psal 41.1 All that hate me whisper against me an evil disease say they cleaveth to him and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more And Psal 42.3 My tears have been my meat day and night while they say continually unto me Where is thy God They thought him entirely forsaken and abandon'd for ever putting these Questions to him What is now become of thy God in whom thou wast wont to boast Where is he now whom thou didst once call thy refuge and thy hiding-place Where is his power and his goodness that he leaves thee to such a deep and violent affliction In allusion to that of Shimei 2 Sam. 16.6 7 8 Thus said Shimei when he cursed Come out thou bloody man and thou man of Belial The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul in whose stead thou hast reigned and the Lord hath delivered the Kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy Son Behold thou art taken in thy mischiefs because thou art a bloody man This bold Man put a wicked interpretation on the Providence of God and because David met with so many troubles and such interruption in his Affairs ere the Kingdom was well setled in his hand he thought that God was against him but he lived to sit with prosperity on the Throne for many years together and Shimei had leisure enough wherein to repent of his foolish and extravagant reproaches of so good a King Thus the Barbarians thought that Paul had been a Murderer because a Viper fixed upon his hand and that vengeance had pursued him for some great offence till he shook it off and taught them to see how ill-grounded their opinion was and that the God they thought his Enemy did assist him to work Miracles When you see any greatly afflicted and groaning under a sense of the wrath of God you ought rather to tremble than to rejoyce to weep than to laugh to consider how holy and how just God is seeing he will not spare even his own for all his Elect shall at one time or other taste the bitterness of sin You that were never serious have reason to humble your selves and to think what may you expect when his Children are Corrected after so severe a manner If his own Family suffer such afflictions what has he then in store for his open Enemies If the righteous scarcely be saved where shall
and my Father any more I have lost all my Fervor and all my Confidence and all my hope in Prayer I go round the streets to seek him that was once my beloved Help me all ye Servants of the Lord to find my God again but for my former undervaluing of his Presence he is now departed and I find him not Woe Woe is me what have I done Woe is me that I have lost him whom to lose is Hell 3. All this will be attended with great anguish of Spirit and with great Tribulation Job 16.12 13 I was at ease but he hath broken me asunder he hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces and set me up for his mark c. Then all our Sins are brought fresh into our minds with a new and a cutting remembrance as if they had all been committed but as Yesterday They rank themselves in order every one of them being set before us give us a new stab and a wound to encrease the sore and the pain of our former wounds They present themselves with all their hideous Aggravations against what Mercy what Goodness what checks of Conscience and what Warnings and what motions of the Blessed Spirit they were committed And who can bear so terrible a fight as this Job 13.26 Thou writest bitter things against me and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth i.e. 1. Always to think upon them 2. To feel pain and smart in that Remembrance 3. To be astonisht with my guilt and fears Then all our thoughts of God himself are uneasy We can think of nothing but his Greatness his Majesty his Justice and Holiness How does it overwhelm us to think what a powerful God we have against us It troubles us to think that he is displeased and yet we know that he is justly so If God were for me says the troubled soul I would bear any pains and wait and hope but He who only can help me is gone away He who alone could speak peace seems to take no notice of the sadness of my case My Sins have taken my God away and what have I more And when we are set on fire with the sense of his Wrath the more we think the more we are distressed every thought returns with sad tidings and pours oyl into the flame And what that anguish is which we feel when we continually think of a displeased God There is nothing on Earth that does resemble neither are any words capable of expressing it We do then smell the Fire and Brimstone of the Infernal pit then a man may say with David The sorrows of death compass me and the paint of hell gat hold upon me Psal 116.3 And I think that these Spiritual terrours are of the same kind with those which they feel who arc now in Hell only they differ in the degree and in the duration For a Sinner under the sense of God's displeasure and in terror for his Sin is as if he were in a burning Oven or in scalding Oyl he is every way beset and every way tormented Trouble of Conscience indeed is a slighter thing but the sense of wrath kindled there is vastly terrible 't is the suburbs of destruction 't is the noisom smell of the bottomless Pit Job 6.4 The Arrows of the Almighty are within me the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit The Terrors of God do set themselves against me whatsoever he thought of which way soever he turned himself he saw nothing but what filled him with amazement Ps 88.16 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me thy terrors have cut me off 4. That which these troubled Souls are afflicted with is the fear they have thut this displeasure will be Eternal this is implied in that Is his mercy clean gone will he be favourable no more Ps 77.7 So the Church Lam. 3.18 My strength and my hope it perisht from the Lord. So Psal 88.5 I am free among the dead like the slain that lie in the Grave whom thou remembrest no more And that sickness is grievous to us when we have no hope of being better That wrath is not to be born which we think to be forerunner of eternal wrath and thus does the troubled soul argue God has withdrawn himself and it may be will never return again I have lost him for the present and Oh! What will become of me should I lose such a God for ever I have now no beams of light and what if I go hence into outer darkness What if my lot and portion should fall among those that are abhorred of the Lord Have I once tasted how good he was and must lose henceforth all the pleasant sense of his Mercy Must not Christ be my Saviour nor Heaven my home after all this Oh! what shall do where shall I appear should he say at last Depart from me for I know thee not Shall I be placed at the left hand of Christ shall I after all that I have read and heard after all my profession strivings and my prayers be shut out of that Kingdom when others shall enter in How shall I bear so great a disappointment How shall I dwell with everlasting burnings III. If you have not yet been under the apprehension of Gods displeasure take warning by those that are so dare not to venture upon any sin when you behold their grief and their sorrows for their Iniquities You see their tears you hear their lamentable groans you see that nothing in this world is refreshing or comfortable to them and made you â—hug the Serpent that has stung them and made them to cry out in the bitterness of their Souls Oh stop where you are go no further lest you fall into the depths lest the Fire that scorches them begin to seize on you lest the God whom they account their Enemy begin also to frown on you learn obedience by their Stroaks lest you also be made to feel the smarting Rod. You see how those that once were as chearful as pleasant and as little afraid as you are now cast down and troubled and perplexed and cannot be merry as they used to be The sense of God's displeasure has untuned their Harps that they cannot sing the Songs of Zion You see how their Pleasure and their Hope is shipwrackt beware lest you run upon the same Rock for the doing so after the sight of their example will make you to be guilty of a double Crime first of doing ill and then in doing it after such a warning as their sorrows gave you Job says he was set up as a mark ch 7.20 And so are others in the like case They now receive the shots of that Justice which they have provoked but if their punishment do not make us to humble our selves and to repent we may be set in their place and it will render the Wounds we shall then receive more poisonous and malignant for not having taken and improved the warning that was given us by
looked for some to take pity but there was none and for comforters but I found none they gave me also gall for my meat and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink Psal 69.20 Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease and with the contempt of the proud Ps 123.4 But above all abhor the thought of the least inward delight from their miseries Obad. 12. Thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger neither should'st thou have rejoyced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction neither shouldst thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress Job 19.28 Ye should say why persecute we him seeing the root of the matter is in him Roughness and severity is not the way to help such as are troubled and cast down and he had need be learned that speaks a word in season to the weary Isa 50.4 The rarity of such a one is expressed Job 33.23 If there be an Interpreter one among a thousand to shew unto man his uprightness Those that under the Characters of Ambassadors of the Gospel of Peace do nothing but thunder out the Law to a wounded and a troubled Soul shew they are unlike to the Jesus whom they would seem to represent and they shew that they have in such matters very little skill and no experience at all neither do such do as they would be done by in the like case There is a sort of balsome in compassionate and gentle words tho' they do not fully perform a Cure upon our wounds yet they make the pain and the smart less whereas a rough and sour carriage does exasperate and heighten them and is but the pouring of oyl into the flame CHAP. VII Shewing what is to be done by those that think God is angry with them And first of Prayer as a principal help against their trouble And some Objections of tempted persons answered I Am now to make application to those who are under an apprehension of God's Anger There are no people in the World whose case does require a greater pity and to whose relief we should be more forward to contribute all that we are able While we are at liberty their poor Souls are under the bondage of an overwhelming fear That God whom we serve with hope is terrible to them in those Ordinances and that Sabbath which yield sweetness and refreshment to us they find no delight because the Comforter that should uphold their Souls is departed from them if on a journey we saw any person wounded and mourning under his bleeding wounds and crying out for help the compassion that is fixed in humane Nature would move us to assist him and not to pass by and suffer him to groan under the smart of so deplorable a condition and much more should we be ready to help our fellow creatures in a Case that is far more sad and dreadful such as is this now before us There are a great many at this very time who are complaining that they have no hope no prospect of deliverance from their present miseries and afflictions that tell us They are cast off by God that he has forsaken them that their Sins are set in order before them and that they are afraid the God whom they once thought their own God will be favourable no more Oh! how little do we know what we do when we sin It is easie for a moment it yields us a little uperticial transient delight but it leaves a woful sting and a lasting bitterness behind Oh! what would such poor creatures give that they had never sinned or that they had never finned so wilfully so frequently against that God whom they once experienced to be very good and gracious but whom they now find to be very severe and very terrible They cannot look below but they think that Hell is opening its mouth to swallow them up they cannot look above but they see the great Creator of Heaven and Earth to be as an Enemy to them And who can stand before thoughts so cutting and overwhelming as these are Now this being a condition which I was in my self not long ago and from which the Mighty Grace of God has been pleased to save me I desire to give all the help I can to such dejected and trembling Souls and none among us but perhaps may at one time or other fall into such depths as these therefore I hope the following directions may be of some use or other I beg of you that are at ease now to regard these things for if you fall so low the anguish and bitterness of your spirits will nor allow you to give such a distinct and careful attention to what shall be spoken to you then as you now may First If you are under the sense of God's Anger for your sin pray earnestly to him to turn his Wrath away We usually deprecate War and Famine and the Plague and those other mischiefs which by the evils they bring upon our bodies are very formidable to us but this sense of the Divine Displeasure has something in it that is more formidable for it brings an unspeakable load of trouble on the Soul and wounds that part of our selves which is capable of having either a very pure and noble joy or a very piercing grief and sadness A man that is sunk under a burthen that is too heavy for him to bear cannot but groan to be at ease Thus Psal 6.1 2 3. O Lord rebuke me not in thy wrath neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weak O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed My soul is also sore vexed but thou O Lord how long Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake These are the breathings of one sensible of a great and a violent distress and tell us that even our weakness and our helpless condition is an argument that we may plead with God As here Have mercy upon me for I am weak q. d. Thy Goodness thy Glory and Power will be rendred more illustrious in giving some relief to one so desolate and lo low as I am But I know what poor trembling Souls will be ready to reply and Object 1. Alas I cannot pray the Spirit that should warm my Soul and kindle my Desires does not move upon me as he used to do I grieved and vexed him heretofore and now he has left me to grieve and to vex alone I am so troubled that I know not what to speak and when I endeavour to do it I find no Fervour no Life at all my Prayers are grown very troublesome and uneasie to me Answ I grant you this is a case sad enough it is sad for creatures so miserable and so full of wants as we are not to be able to pour out our Supplications before the Lord and it is more sad when
even when he was in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity to pray if perhaps the thoughts of his heart might be forgiven him Acts 8.22 If you think your selves wicked there is nothing more your Duty than to beg the Grace of God to strive to knock to call upon him whilst he may be found but beware that you do not think that some failings even in some considerable Duties are a sign of your total Apostacy Unbelief is in the best but not indeed in its reigning Power Strive as much as you can and then bewall your weakness and implore the help of God and he will be favourable to you Obj. 3. 'T is true I know 't is my Duty to pray and I have prayed for several Months and for several Years and I have still the same Diseases and the same Fears that I ever had I have no less pain in my Body no less disquietness in my Soul than I had the first moment that I began to pray He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out he hath made my chain heavy also when I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayer Lam. 3.8 I am just like Saul when he enquired of the Lord 1 Sam. 28.6 The Lord answered him not neither by dreams nor by Vrim nor by Prophets He would have no Communication with him take no notice of what he did Even in such a case am I I enquire after him in his Ordinances but have no news of his Gracious Presence there In Tears I pour out my Soul day and night and pray but my Prayers that I send up to Heaven bring to my poor weary Soul no tidings of Comfort or of Peace back again mine eyes fail with looking up my heart faints and I can hold out no longer in a Duty wherein I find no delight and which brings me no advantage why should I wait upon the Lord any longer Answ This I think to be one of the greatest Temptations wherewith Satan does assault troubled Souls He knows well that if they once quit their hold of God they fall into his hands they lengthen out his Chain and whet his Malice and come within his reach And there is no Duty which the Devil hates more than Prayer for it has many a time defeated his Designs and made his Kingdom shake Therefore I earnestly desire you as you love your Souls as you would not dishonour God nor gratify the Devil that you would never give it over tho you do but chatter like a Crane yet 't is better than to be altogether silent tho you do but mourn after God 't is better than to resolve to let him go Tho you can but say Lord he Merciful to me a sinner Tho you can but smite upon your breast and look up to Heaven tho you can but creep in his ways 't is better than to leave them tho you can but speak a word or two in Prayer 't is much better than not to pray at all Oh what a terrible thing is it to leave calling upon God to give our selves for lost to say it is vain when nothing is too hard to do for Almighty Power and for Infinite Goodness and woe unto us when we quit the Rock of Ages and commit our selves unto the Waves what sorrows do we then meet withal and how low do we sink How intolerable is it to have the rebukes of our Conscience the upbraidings of Satan the guilt of Sin the fear of Hell and to have no God to whom we can go with hope do not suffer the greatness of your Evils to deprive you of that support which is to be found in the performance of this Duty tho you have not a present answer to what you desire yet it no way follows that your Prayers are not heard God knows better than you what will be the most proper season in which to bestow the Mercy that you think to be most necessary His delays in this kind are no sign of his abhorrence He may suffer us to fall into very great Agonies that so like our Lord in the Garden we may pray more earnestly and our Request are not vain tho we have no dawnings of a near and immediate deliverance The Prayers of the Primitive Church for Kings and all in Authority were answered many years afterwards when Constantine was converted to the Faith Beware of fainting under the hand of God and yet when we can look upon him only as an Enemy 't is almost impossible not to faint Under smart and sore troubles we must frequently look up to God and beg his strength and seeing in such a case we cannot perform any long or very regular duties we must often renew tho it be the very same desires Psal 142.4 5. Epb. 6.18 And to this purpose consider 1. There is none besides God himself can help you and this should cause you to persevere in Prayer His hand alone can heal the Wounds 'T is common for the troubled Soul to say Oh what would I give for one Beam of Hope I would give all the world if I had it for one pleasant Sight of the Face of God It is not so to be obtained not by bare wishes nor by the purchase of any thing that is so low and contemptible as is all that which is in the world When the Heavens are brass none can cause the Rain to fall when the Sun is set not all the artificial Fires which the skill of man can make will yield so large and so pleasant a light unto this Earth as he did his return chases the darkness and brings to us the welcome day In a distrust of your own weakness have recourse to this God and say with David Psal 51.12 17. It must be the Act of a Power that is Omnipotent to give you comfort not all the Angels in Heaven nor all the men on earth can help you unless he be pleased to do it As you contribute nothing to your first Regeneration as the thing created does nothing to bring it self into Being only receives from the Creator's Power and Goodness what he is pleased to give expect not overmuch from the most knowing Ministers or from your dearest friends they are but Cisterns which can yield no water to quench your thirst unless they be filled with Water by the Clouds of Heaven As to the satisfaction and the quiet of a Troubled soul all men are vanity and it is an uncommunicable Prerogative of the Divine Nature certainly and infallibly to relieve the miserable Isa 57.19 Other friends either know not your wants or by their own Poverty or their distance are not in a capacity to supply them But God is always near always full of Goodness and is acquainted with whatsoever we need or do expect If all the world were your Friends and he your Enemy the Gaiety of their Looks the Pleasure of their Smiles would not take away the Terror of his Frowns the threatning Cloud would
so he hath Bowels of Compassion What Mercy may we not expect from so gracious a Mediator that took our Nature on him that he might be Gracious Let us therefore go to God by Christ who has satisfied his Justice by his Death and who without him is to us Sinners as a consuming fire Let us go boldly to his Throne in the name of Jesus and we shall find that the God of whom we were afraid will become our Friend and we shall experience him to be better to us than we ever thought he would have been Our unbelieving hearts whilst they are such will be full of darkness and of trouble but upon our Faith the Storm will cease and the Morning will begin to dawn upon us and instead of that wrath which we feared and had deserved we shall find there is Mercy with the Lord and plenteous Redemption Psal 130. The first thing that a convinced awakened sinner thinks of is his own danger and how he may avoid the Wrath of God and what it is that he must do in order to it now it is not to be accomplished by pompous ceremonious Services not by external mortifications nor by offering the fruity of his Body for the sin of his own Soul but by Faith in Jesus Christ and his Death by the means of which God is become propitious and favourable to us And the first view that as one says an humble Soul is to take of Christ is of his being a Saviour as made a Sin and a Curse and obeying to the death And Christ must be considered not only with respect to the Excellencies of his person but as cloathed with his Garments of Blood and the Qualifications of a Mediator and a Reconciler and this renders him the fit object of a Sinners Faith If we think of God without thinking of Christ he is vastly terrible and amazing to us but in and through him those otherwise-overwhelming apprehensions become very pleasant and comfortable to us Let us honour the Love that he hath shewed in him with admiring thoughts and never have low nor mean apprehensions of his Grace Christ is near unto God and pitiful to us able to help us and most willing to do so for those that come unto him he will in no wise cast out He will not upbraid us for our former follies he will not encrease our grief but when he sees us once lying at his feet and washing them with the tears of an unfeigned humiliation he will raise us up and bid us be of good cheer V. Faith will remove the troubles that we have from the sense of God's displeasure by conveying to us that life and strength from Christ which will enable us to subdue all our spiritual Enemies Phil. 4.13 It will bring him to us and when he is in our Vessel let the Waves threaten us with never so formidable a noise we are sure not to be cast away And all the Spectres that afright us will vanish if we do but hear him once say as to his Disciples It is I be not afraid This Grace will unite us to Christ and communicate to us of his Power in the several measures that we need and without his assistance long and sore afflictions will tire our Spirits and destroy our Hope He is necessary for us for he has a perfect knowledg of our Enemies of their Force their Policies and their Designs He has by his own Combat learn'd to Fight and by his Experience can teach us to get the Victory neither the multitude nor violence nor obstinacy of our Enemies can hinder the Success and the glory of his Triumph Col. 1.11 He prayeth that they might be strengthned with all might because as we have to do with divers Enemies and are sick of divers Infirmities we have need to receive not one or two kinds of strength but many different ones * Vide Daille in loc For as in nature you see the strength of Bodies is different one resisting one thing and yielding to another one has the virtue to repulse the force of one Element but not to guard it self from another So in a manner is it in the Souls of Men such a Man will free himself from the temptation of one sin that will not be able to defend himself from another such a Man will resist the temptations of prosperity whom adversity will overthrow such an one will bear troubles for a while whom the length or tediousness of them will overcome and if one of our Spiritual Enemies succeed against us we are undone for ever Therefore as the Apostle says we have need to have recourse to Christ who can furnish us with skill and strength to defeat whatsoever stands in the way of our Peace or our Salvation To have one on our side that has returned from the Field of Battel as a Conqueror is a mighty encouragement and privilege Such is our Lord he is a Victorious and a Triumphant Saviour he will not leave his Conquests incompleat for he goes on Conquering and to Conquer and the glory of his enterprizes has not fill'd him with disdain or contempt of the poor and needy for he that is the King of Zion is as I said before a meek and lowly King By Faith in Christ we obtain his Spirit which by opening our eyes will shew us that Fountain of Living-waters where we may both quench our thirst and wash away our filth This Spirit will take away the sting of guilt and sweeten the Cross that was very bitter to us and when our Lord is come to help us when we know that he is afflicted in our affliction that yoak which gall'd us before will become as an Ornament about our Necks and when we have the pardon of our sins and the hope of God's acceptance that affliction that we thought a burthen too heavy for us to bear will become light and easie to us Out of the devourer shall come forth sweetness From those very fears that overwhelmed us shall spring glorious hopes and those hearts which a slavish fear of the Wrath had contracted shall be enlarged with a sense of his Goodness and his Love and we shall not look upon him as an Enemy but as a Friend not as a Judge but as a Father Isa 33.14 The inhabitants shall not say I am sick the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquities Alas when God leaves us the smallest danger terrifies us the least Dart of Satan makes an impression on our spirits the least trouble sinks such low such inconsiderable creatures are we But if the Lord be with us if Christ be on our side neither the Law nor Sin nor Death can hinder us from bidding a defiance to all that is against us 2 Cor. 15. 56 57. VI. Faith will give us relief under the apprehensions of God's displeasure or our Sin as it will shew us the period and conclusion of those miseries which we now are groaning under our
Sense will tell us that our Troubles are tedious and very long but our Faith will rectify our Judgment and shew us that tho' we have been in heaviness yet it is but for a season our Sense makes us think our night of weeping very long but Faith sets the morning before our eyes And indeed when that comes the time of sorrow will appear to have been very short our Weeping will bear no proportion with our Joy nor our Groans with our Hallelujahs The luster of our Crown and the glories of our Triumph will make us to forget the Blood and Sweat and Labour of the Combat tho' whil'st here below we thought it hard Faith will wipe away our Tears and cause us to take a further prospect and to see where they now are that were mourners once as well as we Job is no more wondred at upon a Dunghil by his Friends but shining with glory in the Highest Heaven Heman is no more distracted with terrors but infinitely pleased with the sight and enjoyment of his God There is Asaph also singing praises to him tho' he thought and was afraid that his Mercies were clean gone and that he would be favourable no more Faith will solace your drooping spirits by causing you frequently to remember that tho' God is angry yet it is but for a moment and that tho' you have now four Grapes yet they are only to prepare you for a better relish of the Joys above it is this that sets our feet upon a Rock and produces in our fainting Souls a secret support and hope that tho' it be night with us for the present yet that it will not always be so Rev. 3.21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my father on his throne The dangers and distresses on the way will make us better to like our home All the years of our Life tho' spent in sore afflictions and anxieties will be but a very little space when we are Landed at our haven of Joy and Immortality CHAP. IX Of the direct Acts of Faith as the most suitable to a distressed Soul as also of waiting upon God With several considerations to enforce it And that a Person in great Affliction ought to hope that it may be better with him THird General Look forward to Jesus Christ when you find things perplex'd and troubled in your own souls and indeed in the direct Acts of Faith we have nobler objects to converse withal than when we look and pore upon our guilty selves when we look into our troubled hearts we can see nothing besides confusion and disorder there but we may at the same time discern an alsufficient fulness in God and Christ to relieve our wants It is a long and a tedious work to consider by the several steps by which we are to proceed in such a Case whether we have believed or not our Duty is at this very instant to believe i. e. under a penitent sense of what we have done amiss to look unto Christ for help We must carefully distinguish between Justification and Sanctification between those habits and those holy actions that are the effects of Faith and Faith it self Our Sanctification is full of imperfection but that Righteousness of Christ wherein alone we are to trust for acceptance with God is compleat and perfect These are things to be considered by people under spiritual distress but if you be under the disease of Melancholly to any great degree I am sensible that neither this nor any other direction will be altogether available It is such a stubborn and obstinate disease that it is not to be overcome by rational methods and perswasion no more than a broken Bone can be set again by words and talk 'T is only God that is fully acquainted with the Nature and Violence of this worst of Distempers 't is his Power and his Grace alone that can chase it away and all those things that depend upon consideration and that may succeed in other Cases have not the same tendency to good in this because it is our disease always to pore and think and it is our misery that we cannot think to any purpose I beseech you to remember that the foundation of all our Peace and Comfort is Christ alone and Faith in him Mortification Self-denial and other Graces are the superstructure that is laid upon it but truly all that we can do in great and deep affliction and sore distresses of Soul is only to look up to Christ as a poor wounded bleeding Man does look and cry to one that passes on the Road for help and our Saviour and our Physician is so compassionate that he will regard us tho' we are able to say little more than this Have mercy on us thou son of David Under the prospect of our great infirmities and of the manifold imperfections of our Duties and under the sense of our own nothingness and unworthiness let us humbly betake our selves to Christ he will not disdain nor slight our approaches to him nor leave them unattended with some manifestations of reviving Grace and Mercy IV. When you have done all this you must wait till the Lord appear to your relief and help Psal 123.2 Behold as the eyes of servants look unto the hands of their masters and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hands of her mistress so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that he have mercy upon us Tho' his stroaks be very smart yet we are sure that we have deserved them tho' his delays of help be tedious yet we have merited at his hands a much longer delay We are as so many poor Slaves indeed under the bondage of our fears and our troubles but alas we have brought our selves to that slavery and we must look unto God till he set us free again and tho' our Master be angry with us yet he is a Master still and that relation that we have to him that Interest which we have in his Covenant may be somewhat supporting and comfortable to us 't is a more easie thing to bear any trouble that continues for a Week or for a Month and then passes away but this will be the tryal of our Faith if we can maintain our dependance and trust in God when he afflicts us very sore for many Months or Years together If we see no sign of help no prospect of deliverance we are still to wait till the time even the set time to favour us be come and this must be done with patience with a silent and a quiet resignation to his Will it is the product of a calm and a quiet Soul that is satisfied in the Justice of Providence tho' it be severe only with this limitation that you have the freedom and the command of your natural spirits for if they be put into a hurry and confusion by a disease then indeed you can
When the Affliction brings some special Sin to remembrance and when Sin it self deprives us of a Mercy when Intemperance brings Sickness Ambition Disgrace Covetousness and an over-eager Desire of Riches Poverty But then even great Crosses are in Mercy 1. When God does not afflict us only but teaches us at the same time And 2. When we can be thankful for that Comfort which we have lost that is if it be outward for I see not how any person can be thankful for Desertion while it remains upon him for that were to thank God that he is departed or that he has restrained the manifestations of his Love which no man is obliged to do 3. When all our Losses are made up in God and in the Graces of his Spirit CHAP. XI Shewing That present Distress of Conscience is no sign of Reprobation There may be too great Trouble for Sin And when it is excessive former Experiences may be helpful to Afflicted People And that God will not judge Persons that have been good according to what they are in the woful Disease of Melancholly XI JUdge not of your Eternal State by what you now feel you may by the Terrors of the Lord be in Anguish and Tribulation in the very Suburbs of Hell and yet never go thither God may be displeased and yet after a moments sorrow you may find him to be your Gracious and your Everlasting Friend You are now it may be thrown down but his hand and his promise can quickly raise you up again You may conclude your selves through the Power of your dismal thoughts to be Reprobates and yet God may bring you to Salvation at the last You may for many years lye in terror but you cannot you ought not to say that it will be so for ever I my self have been so afflicted in so great Anguish and Perplexity under such dreadful apprehensions of the Wrath of God and of his Power and Greatness as I thought employed against me that I thought my self in Hell knowing that it is not so much a Place as a State I thought that my Soul would be gathered with Sinners and that I should be found at the left hand of Christ I thought I was cut down for ever banished from the Courts and from the Presence of the Lord and should never see Light nor Comfort nor Refreshment any more and yet through the Grace of God you see I am revived and am not now without hope as I once was and from the very Gates of Death from the very door of Destruction I come to tell you That tho God be Just yet he is also Gracious There is mercy with him that he may be feared and that as the Night comes so will the Morning too for tho we have provoked him which was our Folly yet he will not contend for ever which is our Comfort Psal 31.21 22 23 24. Blessed be the Lord for he hath shewed me his marvellous loving-kindness c. For I said in my haste I am cut off from hefore thine eyes nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my Supplications when I cried unto thee O love the Lord all ye his saints Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your hearts all ye that hope in the Lord. When we are in deep and sore Affliction that smarts and makes us groan 't is hard indeed to believe that what makes us so sick will promote our health or what breaks us to pieces will joint our bones again But our sense and present feeling is not to guide our thoughts We feel our selves indeed miserable but we ought to believe that our present Misery may promote our Happiness tho by ways that we do not for the present see we are not to judge of God by the Darkness of his Providences but by the Light of his Word not by his afflicting Strokes only but by his Promise which obliges him to correct us for our Sin but yet not altogether to destroy us XII Remember that it is an evil thing to be over-much troubled even for Sin it self tho this advice does not concern the greatest part of men the most are secure they break the Laws of God and do not tremble they pollute themselves with manifold abominations and are not ashamed they sin with lofty looks and with hardned hearts and do evil with both hands earnestly They take the Name of God in vain they profane his Sabbaths they scorn his Word they defy his Threats they scorn his Messengers and yet few or none strikes upon his Thigh and says What have I done They are daring where they ought to fear and rejoice where they ought to mourn The greatest part of the world are in a deep slumber in misery and in danger but they are insensible they know not that the end of these things will be very bitter and vexatious But I now speak to such whose Consciences are awakened with a sense of the Greatness the Majesty the Justice of God and the Strictness and Holiness of his Law and have at the same time a deep sense of their own Gulit and liableness to Condemnation their thoughts in such troubles are too much apt to sink and to be over-whelmed and indeed the view of all their sins set in order before them is too terrible for them to look upon The burden and the weight of them is too heavy for any mortal men to bear But they should consider That God is not only severe but very good that he is not only angry but reconcilable and willing to be at Peace again This will represent his love to us and it is that and that alone that will melt our Hearts with a kindly grief and keep our sorrow from overflowing the due bounds as it is very prone to do And it does so in several Cases 1 When our sorrow for sin hinders our regular proceeding in the true judgments of things We know that in dark and cloudy seasons we cannot distinctly perceive the several Objects that we clearly discern in fair weather so when our sorrows have raised a mist before our eyes we dim our reason and weaken our faculties and see not things as they really are but as they do appear in a dark and confused manner When we are not able to apprehend things as they are in themselves but as our Afflictions represent them that is a false Medium whereby to form our Judgments when they do make us heighten our troubles and it may be make them greater than they really are and when they make us altogether inattentive to those directions methods and advices that are suggested for our help 2. When our sorrow for sin drives us away from God the sight of our Wounds should make us haste to the Great Physician for a speedy relief When I have throughly beheld my sin the next thought should be Oh what need have I of a God to forgive me of a Saviour to plead my Cause and of the Holy Spirit to renew me
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
be better than a thousand elsewhere What will one day in Heaven be There we shall not live upon things meaner than our selves we shall there have no mean complacencies nor dishonourable cares in the favour and the sight of God we shall have a taste of all excellencies and delights without the least mixture of evil and what transports shall we have when we come to the full view of him the sight of whom even at this distance was so sweet and comfortable to us When after all our doubtings our fears and our sad thoughts we find that we have through many dangers gain'd our Port. Inf. 2. If the favour of God be life O! what a doleful place is hell where this favour never comes Job 10. last vers How black is their darkness and how long and tedious is their night that shall never have the dawn of day Oh! how terrible and how frightful is the second death A death that torments the separated soul A death that banishes it from the presence of the Lord A death that excludes it from all comfortable sight of God! There the Damned see him as a Judge feel his amazing terrors but they would gladly if they could wrap themselves in darkness and never see such a frowning and a dreadful God there is anguish and wo and tribulation and the continual groan and cry of that place God is gone away from us for ever His Face and his Light chears his Saints but it scorches us and puts us all into a flame This is the language of their misery That God will shew them no pity That he is deaf to their cries and has shut up his bowels that once earned over them in Eternal wrath That he once indeed would have been reconciled and they would not and now they shall never have an offer of his favour any more Oh! poor forsaken souls what shall they do that have no God to give them help no Mediator to plead their Cause no Physician to bind up their wounds no kind hand to give them the least comfort nothing but wrath and no love nothing but vengeance and destruction and no mercy with it The Servants of God never taste so much of Hell as when his face is hid it brings upon them desolation terror and the very pangs of death but they have now and then some support some little beams of light but in that doleful place there is nothing else but sorrow and despair Here in all the temptations of his Servants Christ is concerned sympathizes with them and in his due time sends them relief But he will never concern himself with the Damned nor cast one gracious eye upon them they are fallen and he will not raise them up they are perish'd and they must perish they thirst indeed but shall never have a drop of water to cool their tongues What will the poor creatures do when they are overwhelm'd with the wrath of one that is Almighty Oh! how loud will be their Cries and how dreadful their complaints when after millions of years are past they have still as many more to come When they have been long tost upon the lake of fire they will never be nearer to the shore never hear one comfortable word from the mouth of God! Oh! how glad would they be to have one smile of his face one days refreshment but it must not be the gulph is fix'd and the sentence is irrevocable Isa 27.11 He that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour Oh! what can be thought more desolate than to be forsaken of God! to be forsaken of God in whom alone is Life and to be cast into outer darkness And what will be the consternation of the great day when he shall say to the wicked Depart from me c. To hear that voice and that word Depart from me will be their Hell They shall not be able to turn their thoughts from the contemplation of their own miseries nor their eyes from the sight of those objects that will fill them with grief and horror and be themselves abominable for what a despicable deformed â—â—ing even now is an Apostate Angel that is stript of the Life of God! Inf. 3. If Life be in the favour of God then the greatest part of the World is dead for the most are alienated from him by their evil works the most are stupid and insensible in a dead slumber and are his enemies She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 And if this be a symptom and a mark of death How many dead have we among us How many that find time enough for their Games their Sports and their Recreations and find no time wherein to call upon the Lord and to seek his favour How many eat and drink and are merry even when their Souls are in the greatest danger and their Maker is their enemy 'T is a sign that when they are so little sensible of their greatest interest and have so little taste and liking of Divine Joys that they are spiritually dead How much greater is the number of the dead than of the living How many Families are there that are without Prayer without any sense of God at all and in which all the whole Family is dead And in those where there are some alive How many are there yet not quickned How many good Parents are mourning over their dying Children whom they cannot bring to life They see them stepping into the Grave and all their intreaties all their Tears all their Prayers cannot bring them thence And in our Congregations how many are there that have indeed a name to live but are dead Rev. 3.1 that have never yet been in earnest for their Salvation that suffer days and years unconcernedly to rowl over their heads and are never the nearer Heaven at the conclusion of the year than they were at the beginning of it They have indeed it may be risen early and sate up late but all their cares have been as much for the Body as if they had no Soul They are grown crooked with looking downward and are as earthly and as sensual as if they had no Heaven to mind And what an heartless thing is it to the Ministers to find that they spend their labour in speaking to the dead and who in a great measure remain dead still Tho' they do it not without hope that at some time or another their Master will say to them as to the Prophet Ezek. 37.2 3. 4 c. Oh! what a Plague is among us and we feel it not Gray hairs are here and there upon us and we discern it not How many Captives has the Prince of darkness that are no way grieved at their own Captivity How many are strangers to the favour of God that never saw his reconciled face never felt the quickning Influences of his Spirit to this very day And yet rejoyce as if all
a quiet and a blessed soul was this How full of joy in a time of usual amazement and terror With what strength was he furnish'd to fight with his last Enemy God grant that you and I may have such strength and such comfort when it shall be our time to dye 2. That you may know whether you have the Favour of God in which is life you must examine whether you esteem him more than the world There are two Qualifications of this Esteem 1. That it be serious and deliberate 2. That it be prevalent 1. That it be serious It must be the product of many solemn repeated thoughts a viewing of him as invested with many glorious Perfections as he is represented in his Word and as he shines in the face of Jesus Christ a due considering both what he is in himself and what he will be to you This Esteem is not wrought by a hasty glance or a passant view but by deep thoughtfulness attended with calm and sedate reflections on our own guiltiness and his mercy on our own emptiness and miseries and his Alsufficiency and then a ballancing of all things that pretend to a share in our Affections and submitting at length to the juster claim of God Saying after this or the like manner Lord I yield up my self to Thee as Thine own I was a little while dazled with the gay Pleasures of a vain World but now I bid them all farewell that I may come and taste thy Joys I have served Sin and Satan but they have cheated and deceived me they have given me Vexation instead of Rest and Husks instead of Bread therefore now O my Father in Heaven poor Prodigal as I am I return to Thee to live in Thy Family to do Thy Work and never to wander or to be extravagant any more Oh! give me not all my portion in this World but let me have an Inherittance in that which is to come Let others pursue their several projects and obtain what they pursue let them succeed in their Affairs and bathe themselves in the softest pleasures It is God that I seek it is he that I will most value 'T is a sign that a beam of heavenly light hath shined upon your souls if this be your frame 2. Your esteem must be prevalent the worst of Men have some esteem of God as of a Glorious a Powerful a good and happy Being and they think those the safest and the most Honourable persons that enjoy his favour but then there are a thousand trifles that they more esteem and labour after as Riches or Ease or Gain or Applause But can you truly say I would not if I might have all the World without God himself I had rather have him tho in Poverty and Disgrace and trouble than to be compass'd with throngs of flowing joys without his Love If you have this Favour of God you will easily look through all the painted Varnish of the World and see its real vanity God and things Divine will not only gain your hearts but gain them in a Soveraign and a Powerful degree and till we thus prize and value him he is not our God nor is his favour our portion If you have this you will say with David Psal 4.6 Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me It is not outward prosperity or grandeur or the favour of Men or the ease of the flesh that I seek but thy self Thou art my Exaltation my Joy my every Good all that I wish for and all that I desrire 3. If you have this favour of God you will know it by the hatred that you have of sin Where-ever this comes it will banish that it will weaken and expel it and tho it do not altogether destroy it yet it will take away from it all its former amiableness and beauty you will not sin with such boldness as you used to do nay you will be so far from that that you will not dare to commit the least iniquity and if there be fixed in your souls a real and abiding hatred of Sin and if you use all good endeavours against it it 's a most certain mark that you are past from death to life you cannot but remember what bitterness the remembrance of your former iniquities filled your souls withal what consternation did then seize upon your poor spirits when you thought God your Enemy and Hell your Portion What would you then have given for the least beam of that Sun that now shines with his gentle beams upon your heads How welcome was the voice of that Messenger that brought you glad tidings and that assured you there was Mercy and Hope even for you Era you obtained this favour of God you have had many a restless night and many a weary day in a sollicitous enquiry what would become of your immortal souls for ever 4. If you have this favour of God in which is Life you will be satisfied with all his dispensations that will bring you nearer to himself It is an observation not without its Truth That where-ever God gives Grace he will send afflictions to exercise that Grace and those that have the strongest Grace must look for such conflicts such temptations and such assaults from the Devil in their way to Heaven as will put all their Grace to the utmost and the largest stretch None shall come to Heaven without suffering none can tell how many Millions of sufferings he may endure before the day of Salvation dawns upon him but he is a very happy person that is not overwhelmed with these innumerable calamities That whilest he swims as in a Sea of grief can lift up his head and exercise his Faith and say Lord let thy will be done It thou wilt be with me in the fiery Furnace and in the deep Waters I shall not fear tho those Flames be very hot and these Waves roul fast one upon another Tho it is our Duty to deprecate long and severe and heavy Tryals it is a common thing in our Prayers to say Lord if thou wilt save me at last bring any sort of affliction on me I will refuse nothing But alas alas we generally do not know what we say there are those Arrows in God's Quiver which if they should be shot against us would cut us to the very soul and make us quickly to change our language There is that unspeakable weight in his hand when he lays it much upon us that we cannot bear There are those Pains at his disposal and which our sins deserve that are in all things setting aside their duration as the very pains of Hell He is the good Man that does not desire affliction for he will be sure to have it whether he do or not but that can submit to it when it comes upon him that does not make to himself a Cross but takes it up when he finds it lying in the way that can say Lord if I must be poor in
sure a smooth and a near way to rest you have cheated me with vain Delusions too oft but you shall cheat me no more for it is to God that I offer up my heart tho with grief that I loved him no sooner when he is so infinitely good and amiable VI. If you have this favour of God to be Life to you at present then you have felt by experience what a miserable thing it is to be without him Tho as there is a wonderful variety in the Works of God in Nature so there is no less in those of Grace His Favour is not communicated in all respects the same way tho all are redeemed by the Blood of the same Redeemer yet some shall groan under the painful Sense of their Chains and Captivity much longer than others In some the New Birth is produced by his gentle Hand in a little time and others have it not till after many dreadful Pangs and Agonies Some get to Heaven with much fewer Conflicts than others do that are travelling to the same place This Variety is admirable and very wise tho we discern not the reasons of it But yet all that are blessed with the Favour of God cannot without astonishment survey the hideous Darkness and the woful Danger in which they lay before this glorious Sun was pleased to shine Oh! what would have become of me for ever saith such an one if he had suffered me to follow my own Choice and to take my own Course and to have my own Desires when I was running even to the Gates of Hell I now indeed see my sad estate as it then was but oh what would have become of me had he suffered me to continue in my fatal Slumbers on the edge of Ruin If I had dreamed on and had not awaked before the dreadful blow of Death where would then my lot have been How many thousand Miseries was I under and did not perceive my Bondage nor feel my Misery Death was creeping on me Hell was gaping to receive me the Law curst me the Devil led me Captive and I knew it not and in this woful posture did he find me I was polluted and cast out and helpless and in my Blood and then he said unto me Live Ezek. 16. and made the time of my Danger and my Provocation to be a time of Love So great a Change and so happy a Revolution deserves indeed a frequent and thankful Remembrance It does give a mighty pleasure to the Soul to find it self safe when it was even in the Jaws of the roaring Lyon ready to be torn in pieces when the Arm of the Almighty rescued the endangered and the trembling Prey It is not with a greater pleasure that a sick Man who has been long confined with inexpressible Pain and at the very door of the Grave thinks of his present Health and Life A Mariner that hath escaped Shipwrack the Dangers of the Sea and upon a Plank or broken piece of the Ship with great hardship and difficulty is got to Land does not with a greater Calmness look upon the Waves and that Sea that had like to have swallowed him up then such a Sinner looks upon his former Miseries and his present Priviledge his former Enmity to God and his present Reconciliation with him 2. It may be you have experienced that nothing in all the World is so very terrible as his withdrawing from you Have you not found it to be a Punishment much greater than bodily Pain or Sickness or any Temporal Calamity That the loss of your dearest Friend your kindest and most comfortable Relation was much more tolerable than such a loss as this to lose the sense of his Favour after you once enjoyed it has not this loss been to you even as Hell it self or like the departure of Adam out of Paradise after he had once beheld the Beauties and tasted the Pleasure of that amiable Place What Fear what Anxiety and what Consternation did seize upon him when he was to be kept from it never more to see the Tree of Life never more to walk in that most delightful Garden nor to see Angels visiting his sweet Habitation as they once used to do And have you not been possessed with as great a fear when you have thought that God for your Iniquities was turned your Enemy I could bear any other Affliction says the poor deserted Soul but to be forsaken of God is so terrible that I cannot bear it How can I see Frowns in his Face and live I have had many Disappointments and Vexations and Crosses and in all these I could lift up my Head and hope but now I am destroyed on every side and my hope is gone Heretofore when the World had used me ill I could go to the Throne of Grace and my heavenly Father would give my weary Soul pleasant entertainment and speak comfortably to me but now he does not visit and refresh me as he used to do and his blessed Face that I once saw with peace is now hid and covered with a Cloud I have my former worldly Comforts my Friends and my Estate but alas my God is gone and what do these avail I once read his Word with Joy and now it fills me with Gall and Wormwood I once sat under his Shadow with great delight and his Fruit was pleasant to my taste but now I am athirst and have nothing wherewith to quench my thirst I am now scorcht with heat and have no Shelter no cool shady Retirement where I may fly for ease Job 23.8 9. Behold I go forward but he is not there and backward but I cannot perceive him on the left hand where he doth work but I cannot behold him he doth hide himself on the right hand that I cannot see him You will most earnestly pray against so sad a state as this is if you have ever experienced the Favour of God to be your Life Oh Lord hide not thy self from my poor Soul whatever else I loose let me not lose thee and thy Love Do not hold me for thine Enemy nor let thy Terrors fall upon me do not cast me off O my Father tho I have been very disobedient And if God depart your mourning for his absence will be like the mourning of a Mother for the death of an only Son or like the sadness of so many poor Children that bewail a lost Father they are left destitute and can do nothing without his advice and help You will follow your God with Tears and Supplications and say with Christ in great agony but with great Faith My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Why dost thou forget the Work of thine own hands Have mercy on me O Lord for I am weak why dost thou leave me in this doleful Wilderness where no Water is to be a prey to Satan and mine own Fears I have indeed wandered about seeking rest and find none put out thy loving hand and guide me
Gods favour to a soul is matter of great joy to it or these words may denote the promptitude and readiness of Divine Consolations Three things are the usual occasions of joy all which are in this case 1. The remembrance of some danger that we have lately escaped 2. The possession of a present good 3. The solid expectation of some future happiness First The remembrance of a past danger does occasion a more lively sense of joy As past joys renew our grief and make our sorrows more sorrowful so the griefs that are part give us a sweeter and a better tast of joy after long sickness and acute pain 't is very pleasant to be at ease 't is pleasant to rest when we have been tired all the day with hard labour the Laurels of a Soldier flourish with a purer Green when they have been obtained with a mighty difficulty the danger of the Combat brightens the glory of the succeeding Triumph 'T is grateful to the Mariner to stand upon the firm Land and from thence to behold the waves in which he had like to have been thrown away one that has been long in chains rejoyces to find himself at liberty 't is pleasant after a man has been long athirst to be refresht with the fountain of Living waters it renders the joy more accomplished and more satisfying when refreshment comes after long and grievous miseries After long despair the least beam of hope is more reviving a man that has lost his way all night has cause to rejoice at the sight of day As to persons newly converted their faith is full of joy when they compare their former danger and their present safety their former darkness and the shining light that guides their paths so to souls that have been in great anguish and tribulation for sin that have apprehended themselves to be cast out of the presence of the Lord 't is very pleasant to behold his face again 't is pleasant to such as by reason of their sore affliction have been Companions to Owls and Dragons to come into Religious Assemblies and instead of solitary groans and tears to join with the multitudes of those that keep Holiday the soul is then like that of the Returning Prodigal finds it self in the Arms and Embraces of a Loving Father and well treated when it looked as it might justly for rebukes and wrath Thunder and Lightning and Storms make the calm and pleasant weather more grateful to us 't is pleasant after long absence to meet our friend again we find a joy sparkling in our eyes and in our breasts at the sight of them whom we have not seen for many sad and doleful years whom yet we longed to see and that which heightens our pleasure is when a blessing arrives to us that was unexpected that mercy docs fill us with the biggest joy which is extremely suitable to us and which yet we hoped not to receive The Crown sat the easier upon David's head after he had so often thought that he should have fallen by the hands of Saul As life tasts with a better relish when there has been but one step between us and death With what Transports doth a kind mother see her Son coming home whom she gave for lost and dead What a chearful Interview was that which Jacob had with his Son after he had so often thought that he had been torn to pieces as soon as he came near he fell upon his neck and there the revived soul of the poor old man was ready even with excess of pleasure to melt away he never thought to have seen his Joseph his dear Joseph any more he was even with sorrow for his apprehended death going down to the Grave and the news of his Son's welfare made him to be young and live again for at the hearing of it the spirit of Jacob revived and Israel said It is enough Joseph my Son is yet alive I will go and see him before I die Gen. 45.28 And so the Jews having liberty to return from Babylon were so surprized with the favour of their sudden deliverance and the greatness of the mercy that they could hardly think it true it seem'd to be the meer effect of Imagination which during the Interruption of our usual thoughts by sleep put several deceits upon us Psal 126.1 2. When the Lord turned again the Captivity of Zion we were like them that dreamed They were delivered in a manner illustrious and surprizing and it is thus exprest for three Reasons 1. A man does not foresee what he dreams of a man that is apt to be cherished with sound and refreshing sleep does not know whether he shall dream or not So this deliverance arrived to them when they thought not of it 2. As it arrived without any pain to them that were delivered as when we dream we are in repose and are at no trouble and this heightens the glory of a deliverance and the love of the deliverer when the person delivered takes no care about it 3. This deliverance was above all that they could hope for as if a man dreamed of something like it but which he saw not when he was awake for such are the Chymera's which the Imagination then forms and which fall not under the notice of our senses such a thing was never heard or seen before * Monsieu Charles in loc The return of comfort to a Soul that was even expiring in grief and sadness is like the raising of Lazarus to his mourning Sisters they thought that if the Lord had been there he had not died but they did not in the least think that he should be raised again The review of our former miseries does encrease the sense of present happiness the light which the Grace of the Gospel brought into the world and that dissipated the obscurities that compassed it about made the Apostles full of admiration and of wonder when they thought of their former ignorance and error and the light and knowledg that God had given them ever are they wondring at the Riches of his Grace that instead of the corruption in which they were plunged gave them Sanctification Joy and Hope What a surprize was it to the poor Shepherds that were in the field watching their flock by night Luk. 2.9 to see an Angel and the Glory of the Lord shining round about them To see such a Glory when they thought of nothing less nor did expect so great a Grace * Claude Traitte de la Composition d'un Sermon p. 267. but 't is usual with God to bestow the most eminent favours when men do not look for them as Christ came to seek Sinners when they thought not of him and when their minds were filled with other objects they were afraid for great objects when they present themselves suddenly to us usually give us much astonishment for our spirit on these occasions has not the liberty to use its forces and they are most frequently
Evil will not always cover himself with Clouds from his own People His common care has provided for the pleasure of his Creatures fruit to delight their Tasts and Flowers and various Colours their Eyes and their smell Rivers and Trees and Meadows and Groves and all the variety of Nature to recreate and entertain them and if all this Accommodation be made for Rebels he will not fail to entertain his Subjects with joys of a better kind Joy is sown for the Righteous and it will arise in the time of Harvest and that time will shortly come If God have done so much to gratify the senses of his Creatures with suitable satisfactions the Souls of his People that are more Noble shall not be disappointed of such as are Coelestial and Divine for joy is that which with a sweet violence does attract the heart of Man God regards the distressed and has a peculiar pity for those that are in the greatest trouble* as Mothers tend with a peculiar care the weakest Child The World indeed admires flatters waits upon those on whom the Sun shines and who are in a prosperous condition as Rivers run into the Sea where there is no need of Water so it heaps its friendships and kindnesses on those that least need them and forsakes the disgraced †Manton Serm. on 2 Thes 2.17 p. 432. the poor and those that are in want but God when his Servants are in the greatest troubles encouragâ—s them by his Name which is The Father of Mercies and the God of all Consolations he is most mindful of them and visits them most and gives them most of his comfortable presence when they are most afflicted 2 Cor. 1.4 He comforteth us in all our tribulations He will not give them a constant ease they shall not be excused from the common inconveniencies of the Fall from sickness or from death but himself is willing to be their own portion he is in all their own God They shall labour but they shall have rest they shall fight but he will Crown their heads with Victory they shall sow in tears but reap in joy The Waves and the Floods that now overwhelm them shall be turned into Rivers of pleasure for evermore The Vse of Exhortation is in these following Particulars 1. Be very well satisfied that God carry you to Heaven in the way that he thinks most proper It were indeed a thing very desirable to be at ease to travel with his light about us but if we must go through darkness and danger and calamity to Heaven let us be satisfied that his will is done tho we go weeping and groaning thither You 'l think perhaps that he deserves not the name of a Christian that will not suffer God to guide him any way so it be to Salvation but alas how few are there that are satisfied with his methods when his Candle shines upon our Tabernacle we are well enough pleased but when he begins to correct and chasten us for a long season then we murmur and repine and when we meet with difficulties and tears and troubles one upon another then we think he is an hard Master this is our common case and our common folly We can all make the Prayer of Jabez 1 Chron. 4.10 Oh that thou wouldst bless me indeed and inlarge my coast and that thine hand might be with me and that thou wouldst keep me from evil that it may not grieve me But how few can say heartily with our Blessed Lord If the Cup must not pass thy will be done He could bring you to Heaven without a tear or a sigh but if not who can resist his order or blame his Providence He led the Children of Israel forty years wandring to and fro in a great and a terrible Wilderness wherein were fiery Serpents and Scorpions and drought and no water Deut. 8.15 when he could have led them quickly to the Land of Canaan You must not think to come to Heaven without many a sad heart and many weeping eyes through the vally of Bacha must you travel to the Mount of God The Ark that had a Noah in it did not immediately rest it was not in one day that the great waters did abate or fall into their old Channels your passage to glory may be safe tho it be very troublesome and the rods that seem to be the most painful may be most necessary to you for tho the Israelites met with various troubles yet Psal 107.7 He led them forth by the right way that they might go to a City of habitation It may be you shall be shipwrackt into the Haven and tho you be saved yet it shall be so as by fire Through many a sharp Cross and many a bitter Tribulation and in the fire your Comforts and your Ease may suffer loss for a time but it shall be made up again Afflictions ruin none that belong to God and many a Christian shall say at last I had perished if I had not perished I had been undone for ever if I had not been afflicted Out of the ruins of the flesh God raises the glorious structure of the new Creature and from the destruction of our Earthly comforts he causes Heavenly joys to spring let us not find fault with God's Providence for it will turn our water into wine our tears of grief into the most pleasant joys And as at the Marriage of Cana we shall have the best at last Our Afflictions will encrease our Grace and we shall ere long mount up from the Wilderness of this world fraught with Myrrh and Frankincense and all the spices of the Merchants Let us not find fault if we meet with the waters of Marah in our Journey to the Land of Promise * Hall on the Marriage in Cana p. 162. Thirst and bitterness is the portion of Pilgrims 'T is enough for us that we shall have rest at last tho we must not expect that the Providence of God should go out of its ordinary course for us Let us confide in his Goodness his Faithfulness and Loving-kindness his Word and Promise this is the quiet harbour into which we must put our trembling souls these are the Consolations that will make our bitter waters sweet Submit therefore to God to him pour out your hearts tho you be long afflicted and with one wave upon another 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 2. LEt us with whom it was once Night improve that Morning-joy that now shines upon us and that briefly in these particulars 1. Let us be continual admirers of God's Grace and mercy to us He has prevented us with his Goodness when he saw nothing in us but impatience and unbelief when we were like Jonas in the belly of Hell his Bowels earned over us and his Power brought us safe to Land What did we to hasten