Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	heart_n	let_v	lord_n	11,278	5	4.0773	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57597	Shlohavot, or, The burning of London in the year 1666 commemorated and improved in a CX discourses, meditations, and contemplations, divided into four parts treating of I. The sins, or spiritual causes procuring that judgment, II. The natural causes of fire, morally applied, III. The most remarkable passages and circumstances of that dreadful fire, IV. Councels and comfort unto such as are sufferers by the said judgment / by Samuel Rolle ...	Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Preliminary discourses.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Physical contemplations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Sixty one meditations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Twenty seven meditations.	1667 (1667)	Wing R1877; Wing R1882_PARTIAL; Wing R1884_PARTIAL; ESTC R21820	301,379	534

upon them never lie down and die whilst you have wherewithall to live yea and to live nobly A stock of well-grounded spiritual comforts or a well-bottomed hope of glory will maintain a man at a great rate though he have little else yea like a Prince if it be well improved Have you not known men live chearfully and joyfully upon the expectance of great things in reversion though they have had but little in possession One would think the assurance or what is next to it of a Crown and Kingdome after a short time of suffering should raise and revive us more than the present fruition of a great Lordship being all that ever we look for He that upon Scripture-grounds believes himself to be an heir of heaven let him but reflect upon what he believes and that alone will be a heaven to him upon earth But do I not hear some say they want a stock of spiritual comforts or grounds of comfort they have no upper Springs to fetch water from none of those Rivers which make glad the City of God and therefore it is that their hearts fail● them in an evil day Yea doubtless therefore it is that their hearts do faile them because they either have not an interest in God or if they have they know it not Now as that holy man said to his friend touching assurance verily assurance is to be had and what have we been doing all this while so say I to you verily an interest in God is to be had and see that you labour for it It was a great fault and oversight not to look after it whilst we had a confluence of other good things but now other things are taken away it were utter madness to neglect it From this time forward make it thy business to get an interest in eternal mercies the sure mercies of David and to know that thine interest and then live upon the comfort of it and then thou that never hadst it before though God have cast thee as it were from the throne to the dunghil even upon that dunghill shalt thou live better than ever thou didst in all thy life before Doubtless a man may live more happily upon a great deale of assurance having but a small pittance of other things than upon great abundance of worldly enjoyments having little or no assurance O Lord my heart deceives me if the consolations of God be small with me or in my accompt if I could not live more contentedly upon bread and water with calling and election made sure than they who have their portion in this life do when their Corn and Wine increase Oh why do I press no harder after that which I take my self to have so great a value for That is the only thing that makes me fear least my heart should in this case deceive me For it is not that God hath been wanting to incourage the endeavours of men in pursuite of spiritual and eternal mercies so that we should have cause to fear our labour would be in vain for hath he not declared he is a rewarder of all them that seek him diligently and that to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek glory he will give eternal life Rom. ● And what more could have been said I see then there are three sorts of men Some have matter and ground-work for spiritual joy but will not take pains to improve it they have as it were the breast in their mouths but will not draw it because the milk is hard to come by that is they have good evidences for heaven but will not trouble themselves to clear them up and to be ever and anon reviewing and reading them over Lord if I be one of them give me to see how much I stand and have stood in my own light how much I have lessened my comforts by grudging my paines how I might have doubled and trebled my joyes if the fault had not been my own others there are that content themselves with a portion in this life seeing and knowing themselves as yet to have no interest in better things Lord how desperately do they adventure how great a hazard do they run If death should come and finde them provided only for this present World what would become of them And yet there is a sort of men more desperate than these if more can be and they are those who are destitute of this World 's good things and yet neither have an interest in spiritual comforts nor yet regard to have any God hath taken the World from them and possibly will never give it them again do what they can and yet they look not after that better portion that can never be taken away from them To such I may say not only what will they do in their latter end but what will they do at present what shift can they make so much as for the present can men live of nothing without either heaven or earth God or the creature comforts for either soul or body where are they but in hell who are neither in heaven nor yet upon the earth in the World I mean Surely such men care not what becomes of them I cannot better compare them to any thing than to a ship turned adrift in a mighty storm whose Pilot steeres her no longer but exposeth her to the mercy of winds and waves and rocks and sands and it is a thousand to one if ever she get safe to harbour Lord of all sorts of men let me be none of this last Let me secure one World at least and if but one let it be the World to come The more thou abridgest me of earthly comforts the more insatiable let me be in my desires of those that are heavenly The more hungry thou keepest me as to a supply of earthly things the more thirsty let me be after those rivers of pleasure which are at thy right hand for ever more O Lord if I want a ground-work for spiritual joy a root of peace within my self let me want it no longer if I have a foundation for joy within me but know it not oh thou who hast given me to have it give me also to know it and when I once know it give me often to review and recollect it to ruminate and chew the cud upon it that I may enjoy the sweetness of that whereof I am really possest that I may eat the fruit of the Vineyard which thou hast planted within me Lord trust me with a stock of spiritual comforts with plenty of good hope thorough grace kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth and let thy barner over me be love and give me to sit under the shaddow of thy favour with delight and if ever I envy those pittiful worldlings that have more of this than heart can wish but no more of any World but this if ever I be willing to change conditions with them all things considered though they be wealthy honourable

will do more hurt than good They that will be rich be it after great losses fall into temptation and a snare 1 Tim. 6.9 It is not for us to say we will be rich then of all times when God hath said in effect that he will have us poor though wait upon his providence we may and must for a convenient subsistance O Lord thou hast given us fair warning not to set our hearts upon this world or flie too fast after that which flies so fast away from us Sin and the world are two enemies we are not bound to love yea we are bound not to love the first at all the last much Seeing it is the pleasure of God to take the world from us let us take off our hearts from it If God withdraw spiritual mercies it is to make us pursue them more eagerly but if he withdraw temporal it is that we should prosecute them more indifferently It being one of thy designs O Lord in taking part of this world from us to make us mind this less and the next more far be it from us upon that account to minde this world more and that which is to come less or to rob our general calling to recruit our particular when we should rather borrow time from our particular callings which thou hast diminished to add to our general O Lord teach us neither to deal with a slack hand which thou hast said tends to poverty not yet to be so hot upon it as if we were resolved by the fire of our zeal for the world certainly to repair what thou hast impaired by the fire of thine anger but give us rather to study how contentedly and comfortably we may live for less than how we may regain and repossess as much as ever DISCOURSE XXVI Of chusing rather to continue under affliction than to escape by sin IT is the greatest misery that attends a suffering condition that it tempts men to seek a deliverance by sin Agur gives this reason why he deprecated poverty Prov. 30.9 Lest saith he I be poor and steal and take the name of the Lord in vain Even Theft its self is a taking of Gods name in vain as being a practical denying of Gods alsufficience to provide for us without the interposition of our sin and thereunto are men tempted by extream poverty It were easie to recount many indirect courses which are taken by men and women utterly to defend themselves against want Some betake themselves to unlawful trades no less than prostituting their own bodies or the bodies of others therewith to provide for their backs and bellies some have other trades as bad as that if so bad can be others use lawful callings unlawfully vending bad commodities taking unconscionable rates pinching those poor people that work to them Some go the way of open violence as by robbery extortion oppression others the no less dishonest way of secret fraud and cousenage Some are tempted to break not because they cannot pay their debts and live but because they cannot live so as they were wont to do if they should pay their debts and therefore they will rather defraud their Creditors than their Genius Some if God take away from them but some part of what he hath given them resolve to lend him nothing in that sense as they who give to the poor are said to lend to the Lord not but that they are more able than some others who are careful to maintain good works and to be very charitable but because they are not so able as they have been as who should say if God impair his wonted bounty towards them though much of his bounty be still extended towards them howbeit not so much as formerly they will put an imbargo upon all their charity nothing shall 〈◊〉 out to the poor if there come not into them so much as formerly It sounds like taking some kind of revenge upon God himself I wish the words of David Psal 10.9 were not applicable to many where speaking of a wicked man he saith He lieth in wait to catch the poor he doth catch the poor when he draweth him into his net Are there not many that work upon the necessities of poor men and grinde their faces when they have them at an advantage These are some of the ill methods and artifices whereby too many attempt to make up their losses But better it were to be alwaies poor than to grow rich by such waies as these Where sin is made use of as the cure of Affliction the remedy is worse than the disease and it is as our Proverb speaks Out of the Frying-pan into the Fire Deliverance obtained by sin is like Jacob's blessing procured by lying which was many waies imbittered to him For none of all the Patriarchs had so many crosses as he Sin is a worse labyrinth than affliction worse to stay in and worse to get out of So David found it when he would have concealed his shame in the matter of Bathshebah by making Uriah drunk that would not do his business neither did he see how he could effect his design without killing him and when that was done he was in a worse case than ever for then watered he his couch with his tears then were his bones broken So Peter thought to have secured himself by denying his master but that denying cost him dearer than it is probable his owning of Christ at that time would have done All that men truly get by sin they may put in their eyes as we say and not see the worse What had become of Job if he had followed the wicked counsel which his wife gave him whereby to put an end to his troubles saying Curse God and die Let those that are tempted to repair their losses by indirect means think but of three Texts The first is Prov. 21.6 The getting of creasure by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death The next is Prov. 22.16 He that oppresseth the poor to encrease his riches shall surely come to want The last is Jer. 17.11 As the Partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not so he that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his daies and at his end shall be a fool But as for those that chuse rather to suffer than to sin God taketh a particular care of them witness Daniel preserved in the Lions den and the three children in the fiery furnace They that sin under sufferings what do they but take in more lading in a storm whereas the usual and best way is to cast out part of that lading which they had taken in before O Lord I desire to depend upon this that thou knowest how to deliver the righteous out of temptations and that without their unrighteousness Let not the lot of the wicked so long rest upon the backs of thy servants as to make them put forth their hands to wickedness Cause us to

violence his soul bateth Hath not God himself taught us these things and is it not therefore that the Gemiles are said to do by nature the things of the Law and that they that have not the Law are a Law to themselves and do show the work of the Law written in their hearts Rom. 1. Is it not because love and mercy are agreeable to Gods nature the Scripture saith God is love that he hath commended them to us and made us to see a beauty in them and to apprehend that God is therewithall delighted and that with the mercifull he will shew himself mercifull Is it not therefore that God hath called his mercy his glory and told us that mercy rejoyceth against judgment James 2.13 Much of our disquietment under affliction proceedeth from misconceivings of God's nature and of his heart towards us and for that we think we see a sword in the hand of an enemy when it is only a Rod in the hand of a father Therefore it is excellent advice that we should acquaint our selves with God in order to being at peace Job 32.21 O Lord I know it is necessary I should be sometimes chastned and better by thy hand than by any other Thou knowest how to do it in mercy and in measure Parents may correct their children for their pleasure but thou chastnesty hine for their profit I shall count my losses a fruit of thy love if thou wilt but tell me that I am therefore chastned of the Lord that I may not be condemned with the World DISCOURSE XIV Of drawing the Waters of Comfort under affliction out of the Wells of Gods Promises AS full of love and goodness as the nature of God is yet guilty Man is loath to lie at pure mercy and to stand to Gods meer courtesie therefore in Heb 6.18 we read of a further provision which God hath made for the comfort of his people viz. by his promise and oath both vou●hsafed to Abraham Gen. 22.16 and to other believers in and with him that by those two immutable things the heires of promise might have strong consolation The end of divine promises is that God who was and had been otherwise free to do or not to do such good things for us might as it were enter into bond which he could no otherwise do and might give us the security of his truth and faithfulness as well as that other of his mercy and goodness God knowing that we could no waies bind him that is oblige him in point of justice or as indispensible objects of his mercy which in our selves we were not to show kindness to us hath bound himself by his own voluntary promises and engaged his truth which cannot faile on behalf of his power and wisdome and other attributes that they shall be so and so imploied for us which otherwise we could at most but have hoped but may be now assured of as we are that it is impossible for God to lie Now as there are promises for divers other purposes so not a few to support and comfort us under various sufferings and afflictions I may recite but the heads of promises relateing to adversity and it may be not all of them neither There are promises of God's supporting his people under affliction sanctifying it to them vouchsafing them his gracious presence in it and delivering them out of it in due time And what more can we desire than to be seasonably delivered out of trouble and mean time to be upheld in it bettered by it and to have God with us as he was with the three Children in the fiery Furnace I shall quote but a few promises of this nature and the rather because they deserve to want comfort who wil not search the Scripture for it that thorough patience and comfort of the Scripture they might have hope If men had no Bibles nor could come by none I would not do them that wrong as to faile of quoting any one such promise that I could call to mind but now one instance of each sort may serve the turn As for the promise of support under affliction it is as plain as words can make it in 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithfull who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able but will with the temptation make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it Then as for the presence of God with his people in their afflictions read Isa 43.2 When thou passest thorough the waters I will be with thee c. And Heb. 13.5 He hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee That their afflictions shall be sanctified is secured to Gods people by those words Rom. 8.28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God And lastly as for deliverance out of trouble which some do but ought not most of all to thirst after there are many texts that give us to expect it as namely Psal 103.9 The Lord will not alwayes chide neither will he keep his anger for ever Lam. 3.31 32. The Lord will not cast off for ever but though he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his ●●ercies Isa 57.16 I will not contend for ever neither will I be alwayes wrath for the spirit should failt before me and the souls which I have made God who is conscious to himself that he cannot lie may well expect that these and many more promises of like nature which he hath made should contribute much to our support and comfort sith each of them would do so if stedfastly believed O Lord here are many deep Wells of living water let me not want the bucket of faith to draw out of them Could I but as stedfastly believe them as thou wilt certainly perform them to them that do would not my soul be refreshed with such promises well nigh as much as it could well be with their respective performances Performances may be something sweeter but can be nothing surer than are divine promises DISCOURSE XV. Of fetching comfort from the usual proceedings of God with his people in and under affliction AFter all that hath been spoken both from the nature and promises of God to comfort us our weak faith more shame for it seems to implore some further relief from experience Experience is a good crutch to a lame faith which were it otherwise then lame might stand and walk without it Since the Apostle tells us that experience worketh hope we will not reject its assistance Let experience then tell us how God is wont to carry himself towards his people in and under their afflictions First hear what the Scripture saith to that Isaiah 63.9 In all their affliction he was afflicted and the Angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pitty he redeemed them and he bare them and carried them all the dayes of old See also Psal 112.4 To the upright there ariseth light

else how was Christ heard and delivered as to the cup which he beg'd might pass from him Luke 22.42 Which nevertheless he was made to drink unless his being strengthened to undergoe it as the next verse tells us that then there appeared an Angel from heaven strengthening him as also his being inabled to triumph over principallities upon the Cross as is said Cor. 2.15 might be interpreted an eminent Deliverance vouchsafed him in and upon the Cross I am mistaken if the Apostle Paul in Rom. 7.25 doth not give thanks to God thorough Jesus Christ for delivering him as to the body of Death which yet he carryed about with him and therefore was not delivered from but under it as the foregoing words do shew O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Death And in 1 Cor. 10.13 the Apostle saith God is faithful who will with the temptation also make a way to escape or to be delivered that ye may be able to beat it seeming thereby to insinuate that Deliverance and Temptation may stand together and do so when a man is not tempted above what he is able but together with the temptation hath assistance to bear it Were not the Israelites delivered in the red Sea Jonas in the great deep and Whales belly Daniel in the Lions den the three children in the fiery furnace I say were they not first truly delivered in each of these as afterwards from and out of them To be kept under water from drowning and in the midst of fire from being burnt is Deliverance with a witness Had the bush that did burn and was not consumed been presently quencht or snatcht out of the fire it had not been so eminently delivered as it was Deliverances under great troubles though least observed by many are of all others most oblervable and Emphaticall what more admirable promise than that Isa 43.2 When thou passest thorough the rivers they shall not overflow thee when thou walkest thorough the fire thou halt not be burnt neither shall the flame kindle upon thee No place can be more pertinent than that is to prove there is such a thing as Deliverance under trouble the notion is worth our pursuing because it is full of Comfort it opens as it were a new spring of consolation to those that are under trouble which many did overlook before as Hagar did those wells of water which were nearest to her Many people have no more joy and comfort than they have hopes of having their losses repaired in kind and their temporal troubles removed and God knows whether that may ever be when they themselves despair of it their hearts faile within them he that thinks himself utterly undone and that it will not be worth while for him to live if London be not suddenly rebuilt trading speedily restored when these things appear unlikely will be at his wits ends but he that knows and believes that God who is onely wise can make him and his happy though London should still lye in ashes and trade not revive in many years to come that God can work a Deliverance for him in and under all publick calamities and in despight of all and every of them he I say will in patience possesse his soul St. Pauls words 1 Cor. 1.4 are much to be heeded where he saith Blessed be God who comforteth us in all our Tribulations he doth not say who delivereth us out of all but who comforteth us in all our Tribulations and what is that but a Deliverance under trouble when God doth comfort us in it If there be such a thing as Deliverance under trouble many may and will rejoyce in the hopes of that who are past all hope though I think that should not be neither of ever seeing an end of their present troubles They look upon Deliverance out of the present calamities to be at so great a distance that they think the steed will starve whilst the grass grows and their carkasses will fall in the wilderness ere the time come for entring into Canaan But now by virtue of the notion I am speaking of though I should grant men of misgiving minds there are as great unlikelyhoods as they can suppose that they should ever re-enjoy such houses trades estates conveniencies as formerly or any thing comparable thereunto yet may they live in a dayly expectation of a comfortable Deliverance with and under those calamities which are like to continue upon them that God together with their temptations will make a way for their escape men so perswaded will be able to say with Habakkuk though the fig-tree blossome not and the labour of the Olive faile yet will or may they rejoyce in the Lord and joy in the God of their Salvation When Paul praved that the Messenger of Sathan which buffetted him might depart God gave him no assurance of that at least-wise for the present but yet told him that which satisfied him though that evil messenger were likely to continue namely that his Grace should be sufficient for him The Israelites knew that their captivity in Babylon would certainly last seventy years Therefore it was not thehopes of a speedy Deliverance from thence that did bear up the hearts of believers amongst them but the hopes they had that God would be good to them in and under their captivity and show them mercy in a strange land If the Israelites knew as it is like they did that they must wander no lesse than sorry years in the wilderness ere they came to Canaan it was the Mercy and Deliverance which they did expect in the wilderness not out of it during all that time that did support them as hoping that in that howling desert God would be no wilderness or Land of Darkness to them If God spread a table for his people in the wilderness if he give them water out of the Rock and Manna from heaven are not those things to be reckoned Deliverances namely from the evils that in such a place they might expect though Quailes should be with-held Though the famine were not removed yet seeing Elijah was sed the mean time though but by Ravens it must be acknowledged that he was delivered in and under famine If to the righteous there arise light in darkness as is promise there shall is not that Deliverance Though Paul and Silas were in prison and their feet in the stocks yet if they were so chearful there as to sing praises to God at midnight Acts 16.25 was not that a grea● Deliverance Surely Paul and others of whom he speakes were greatly delivered even under chastisement sorrow poverty and a kind of Death yea Deaths often or else he could ever say as he doth 2 Cor. 6.9.10 As dying and behold we live as sorrowfull yet alwaies rejoycing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing yet possessing all things as if he had but the shadowes of evill but the reallity and substance of good things He is delivered from

I have spoken to the great ends of life and the attainableness of them as well by persons of low as of high degree But alas how few in comparison of the lump of mankind or of Men called Christians have yet attained those end for which they live viz. have laid up a good foundation for eternity c. and they are yet fewer who are able to say they have done it For some may have attained thereunto and yet not know it How unsafely do they die who die before they have attained the ends for which they did live and how uncomfortably must they also die who die before they know they have attained them Therefore I say it is a great mercy to the greatest part of Men and Women to be reprieved from Death and from the Grave David as good a Man as he was beg'd hard for this Psal 39.13 O spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more yet was his condition at that time very afflicted for he saith vers 10. Remove thy stroke from me I am consumed by the blow of thine hand vers 11. when thou dost correct man for iniquity thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth Which he seems to speak of as his own case at that time when he cried out O spare me before I go hence Is it not with most people in the World as with idle Boyes in a School at a time when their Master is absent when it is almost time to give over they have scarce lookt into their books or done any thing they came for but played all the while How necessary is it for such Men to live a little longer How sad would it be with them if God should say to them as to that secure fool This night shall thy soul be required of thee were they sensible of their own concernment would not such men prize a little time in the World as those poor Levellers did that were shot at Burford about ten years since Oh that they might live but one day or but one hour longer to enjoy those Ordinances of God which they had formerly despised or as she that in horrour cried out upon her death-bed Call time again call time again If life be necessary for thee as if thou hast not yet attained the ends of life I am sure it is more necessary for thee than any worldly thing by how much it is more necessary that thou shouldst be saved than that thou shouldst be rich or honourable I say if life be more necessary for thee than riches and honour and any thing of this World as it is because upon that moment eternity depends then hast thou cause to look upon it as a great mercy and to be very thankfull for it May it not be said of some men that are dead gone that if they had died but one year or one moneth sooner they had been damned The last year or the last moneth was more to them than all their life before for that they were born I mean born again not long before they died He that can cause the earth to bring forth in one day and a Nation to be born at once Isa 66.8 How great a change can he make in the souls of men in a very short time Yea I remember an excellent Divine of our own hath a passage to this purpose viz. That one day spent in serious meditation of God and Christ the joyes of Heaven the torments of Hell the evil of sin the excellency of grace the vanity of the creature the necessity of regeveration and such like things might contribute more to the conversion and salvation of a sinner than all that hath been done by him in all the time past of his life though possibly he hath lived many years in the world We shall never know what the worth of life and of time is till we come to improve it to those high ends and purposes for which God hath chiefly given it as namely unto making our calling and election sure c. but when we have done finding how great a pleasure a little time hath done us of what unspeakable use and advantage it hath been to us we shall reckon our selves more bound to God for it than for any other temporal enjoyment we shall think a little time to speak in the language of our Proverb to have been worth a Kings ransome Consider life as an estate of hope as Salomon saith Eccles 9.4 To all the living there is hope and death to the wicked as a hopeless state Job 27.8 For what is the hope of the hypocrite though he have gained when God taketh away his soul and then tell me if it be not a great mercy but to live But on the base heart of man that will not suffer him to know how great a mercy life is because it will not serve him to improve it A life so spent as multitudes of people do spend theirs will prove a curse rather than a blessing as having done little in it but treasured up wrath against the day of wrath Nor is it ever to be expected that they will bless God for life who have cause to curse the time that they have lived though all thorough their own default He that would comfort himself in the thoughts of his being yet alive and take it for a great mercy that his life though little else is left him for a prey let him sit down and confider what earnings he may make of that time which is left him in the world be it little or much If from henceforth he shall set his face towards Zion set out in the waies of godliness give up his name to Christ engage in the work he came into the world about enter upon the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom set himself to seek the Lord with all his heart or at leastwise repaire to the pool of Bethesdah and wait there for cure follow on to know the Lord that he may know him strive to enter in at the straight gate dig for wisdom as for silver and for knowledge as for hidden treasure make it his business that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord I say whosoever shall do so and persevere in so doing will finde so happy a product of that work whereunto he hath consecrated and devoted the remainder of his life as will make him prize and value one day so spent more than many daies and moneths ●n which all the comfort of his life as he accounted it came in by eating and drinking and company-keeping by hunting hawking di●ing carding and such like divertisements He will look upon that time as spent in damning his soul as much as in him lay but the other in saving it and therefore he must needs value this more than that One was a time of running into debt the other of getting old scores paid off or blotted out and therefore must

morning and evening be as it were your medicinal times in which to give them something for their souls health next their heart in a morning next their rest at night Be ever and anon physicking them for wormes that is take heed of suffering them to be humoursome troublesome and hard to please Make them pay respect to your persons that they may reverence your counsel Give them those representations of God as may cause them as well to thirst after him to love and delight in him as to fear and stand in awe of him and those characters of Religion as may cause them to look upon all its ways as pleasantness all its paths as peace as an easie Yoak and a light burthen Teach them to be humble and then God will teach them Psal 25.9 Sin as little as may be for their sakes as well as your own lest God should lay up your iniquity for your children as it is Job 11.19 And whereas in many things we do all offend begge we earnestly of God that our Children may fare the better for our prayers and not the worse for our sins And now Lord that I have been writing what Parents should do for their Children's souls I dare not say with that young man in the Gospel all these things have I done but only that all these things I desire to do for and in reference to my Children by the assistance of thy grace As Peter said to Christ Lord thou knowest I love thee so can I appeale and say Lord thou knowest I love my Children's souls and am more transported with desires it might be well with them than that they might prosper upon all other accounts The only riches that I insist upon for them and Lord turn not away that prayer of thy servant which comes swiming to thee in melting teares and may it also in the blood of thy Son I say Lord the only riches I insist upon for my children whateser others do for theirs is that they may be rich in faith and heires of the Kigndome which thou hast promised to them that love thee James 2.5 DISCOURSE XIII Of that comfort under trouble which may be drawn from the consideration of Gods nature I Honour the wisdome of David who when God gave him his election of one evil out of three which he would made choice of that which might seem to come more immediately from God viz. the Plague saying Let us fal now into the hand of the Lord 2 Sam. 24.15 and let me not fall into the hand of Man and the reason he gives is because his that is Gods mercies are great or many It is a great relief in and under troubles to look upon our selves as in Gods hands and upon the nature of that God in whose hands we are as far better than is the nature of any even the best natured of men They misconstrue David that think he intimates as if men were not alwaies in the hands of God in every kind of affliction that befalls them be it sword or famine by siege for all he meaneth is that as to some troubles we do not fall into the hand of men but of God as namely under the plague which is an Arrow shot from God's bow not from Man's Men are called God's hand Psal 17.14 From Men which are thy hand so that when under the rage of men we are in the hand of God but we may be in the hand of God and not of men By the way what furious creatures are wicked men that David should be more afraid of Gods punishing him by their hand than by plague or famine That under all our troubles we are in Gods hand is clear Be also convinced that that is to be in a good hand that you are in a good hand when in the hand of God and that will comfort you exceedingly If the nature and disposition of God be very good transcendently good that is kind and gracious and mercifull as the scripture tells us in sundry places it is Exod. 34.6 Nehem. 9.17 31. Jer. 3.12 Joel 2.13 With an hundred more in the old Testament besides the new then must we needs be in a good hand when we are in Gods hand Is a Childe safe in the hand of his tender mother even when she hath a Rod in her other hand and are not Gods Children well in the hand of their heavenly Father who hath said to his Church though a Mother may forget her Childe yet will not I forget thee Isa 49.15 I have graven thee upon the palmes of my hands c. Methinks that heathen Poet spake divinely who speaking of the love of God to man understand him but of good men if of a love of complacency but of others also if of a love of benevolence Charior est illis homo quam sibi Man is more dear to them meaning to the Gods which plural number is the only thing in that saying that discovers the Author to have been a heathen and not an eminent Christian than he is to himself or God hath more love for men than they have for themselves That text Heb. 10.31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God if rightly understood no wayes contradicteth what I have said for it is meant of so falling into the hands of God as they must do who have trodden under foot the Son of God counted his blood an unholy thing and done despight to the spirit of Grace vers 29. for that is to fall not under the meer correcting but the revenging and consuming hand of God as he hath said vengeance is his vers 30. he will pour out fiery indignation upon the adversaries v. 27. meaning such Apostates as after illumination turn enemies to Christ and his truth But what is that to others It is ill for the rejecters and opposers of Christ to fall into the hand of God God out of Christ especially to them that set themselves against Christ is wrath But it is terrible But it is well for the accepters and receivers of Christ to fall into Gods hand for God in and thorough Christ is unspeakably gracious He is partly an Infidel that would have more assurance of the sweet nature and disposition of God than Scripture and experience but if the weakness of such men may be condiscended to I can presently call in sound reason for a witness Who shed abroad all that love and kindness and compassion and tenderness in the hearts of men and women fathers and mothers that is there found who taught men to know that love and pitty and mercy are real excellencies and perfections but hatred and cruelty are odious and detestable things the fruits of sin and weakness that what we call good nature doth as much excell that we call ill nature as light doth excell darkness who hath given us to understand that to do good and to show mercy are sacrifices acceptable to God but fury and

and is ready to say Is there any sorrow like to mine But it is otherwise at this day God having cast multitudes both of persons and families at one and the same time into one and the same furnace that none might say others were corrected but with rods but we with scorpions Now this being so there are the more to pitty you the fewer to insult over you though when all this is said I honour them that say from their hearts They wish they had suffered more than they did if more could have been if it had been the will of God that none might have been sufferers but they But seeing such was the good will and pleasure of God that thousands should be involved in the same calamity with our selves and many of them our betters who is not ashamed yea who is not afraid to contend with God for what hath befallen himself who seeth not reason to stand before God like a sheep dumb before the shearer Who would not lay his mouth in the dust if there may yet be hope What art thou and what was thy fathers house that the destroying Angel shall passe over thee and thy doors be as it were sprinkled when he entred into the houses of so many not only Egyptians but Israelites If our betters have been equal shaters in this calamity as who is so proud as not to think so how can we but think of those words Jer. 49.12 Behold they whose judgment was not to drink of the cup have drunken and art thou he that shalt altogether go unpunished To have escaped had been a miracle of mercy but to have been involved with so many that deserved it less was no wonder at all Lord as for all those whose houses and substance this Fire hath consumed give them much more to admire that their persons did escape the common calamity of the Plague than that their possessions were taken away by the common calamity of the Fire and as for those who have escaped both Plague and Fire they and their dwellings let them be ravished with the remembrance of thy distinguisting goodness and so answer the law of thy kindness that thou maist not reserve them to a greater judgment than either that of the Plague or that other of the late dismall Fire DISCOURSE XVII Of the lightness of all temporal afflictions IT is well I have Scripture to back me else I foresee I might possibly have been esteemed both hard-hearted and heretical for saying that all temporal afflictions are but light Whereas some would oppose their experience to such an assertion I may comply with that and yet do the Scripture right All your experience can contend for is only this that some temporal afflictions and this in particular absolutely and in themselves considered are not light but heavie as Job speaks like the sands of the sea That I can afford to grant I but yet those very afflictions relatively considered and compared with miseries of another nature namely with internal and eternal torments give me leave to say are but as so many flea-bitings Say who dare that utmost poverty is comparable either to the pains of hell or pangs of conscience Who is so desperate as to be willing to exchange meer beggery or famine its self with either of those Doth not Salomon say and is it not most true That the spirit meaning the conscience of a man if that be sound and in peace can bear his infirmities but a wounded spirit who can bear That is none can bear If Job sitting upon the dunghill can then and there say he knows that his redeemer liveth and he shall one day see him with these eyes he that thinks him half so miserable whilst he can so say as one that sits upon a throne and mean time seeth the hand-writing of God upon the wall as Belteshazzar did telling him that he is weighed and found too light or cries out with Spira and others in the like case that he is damned he is damned or but as David sometimes did that God hath forgotten to be gracious to him and shut up his loving kindness towards him in displeasure I say he that thinks the latter of these though upon a Throne the less misetable of the two knows not what he saith not whereof he affirms Should he be translated from a dunghill to a throne with such different circumstances as these oh how would he long to be upon his dunghill again with such language in his mouth and heart as was that of Job I know my redeemer lives If thy affliction be but temporal and external fear to say no sorrow like to thine no not that of a wounded conscience lest God hear it and be angry and should either exchange thy other misery for a wounded conscience or add that to all the rest that by woful experience thou maist learn neither to overvalue the one nor to undervalue the other And do the pangs of a wounded conscience far exceed the miseries of an impoverished condition what then do the pains of hell which far exceed the pangs of conscience The worm that never dies by which is meant a gnawing conscience is but one part of the torments of hell Besides that there is the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone the smoak whereof ascendeth continually What is it to have fire consume our dwellings in comparison of dwelling our selves with consuming fire and with everstasting burnings who believes hell to be what it is and doth not think one year or moneth in the torments of that place to be more unsufferable than all the vexations of a long and afflicted life were it not less misery to be as Lazarus that beggar full of sores and craving of the crumbs that fell from the rich mans table and glad of dogs to lick his fores yea to be so for many years together than for the space of one year to be as Dives in hell carnestly begging for a little water to cool his tongue tormented in flames and could by no means obtain it Add the circumstance of eternity to the greatness of hell torments and see if all the troubles of this life do not even vanish before it and appear as nothing If then thou art convinced as I hope thou art there is a hell and hast reason to believe that multitudes are there for all are there that have lived and died in their sins let me suppose thee the greatest susterer this fire hath made if there be any one greater than any of the rest and when that is done compare thy condition with that of the damned in hell and then say if thy affliction when laid in the ballance be not found altogether lighter than vanity If God will assure thee that thou shalt flie from the wrath to come all that hath yet befaln thee may be born It is not for want of pitty and commiseration towards you that I write this I hope my bowels yearn towards you but I would justifie

the mean time he would turn the world round You want not a place to stand in if that may enable you to turn and wind the world If then our condition be not all misery why should our posture be all mourning If we receive good things at the hands of God why should we not also receive evil Children can brook correction from their parents because they have all things else from them Out of the mouth of the most high proceedeth not good as well as evil Is it God that taketh away and is it not God that leaves also Job 2.10 and should we not therefore bless the name of the Lord Doth God create darkness and doth he not form light also Isa 45.7 See how God makes the scales to play one against another judgment in the one mercy in the other that it is hard to say which weighs heaviest Is it not of the Lords mercies that we are not utterly consumed because his compassions fail not Are we stung with the fiery serpents of misery may we not receive some cure by looking up to the brazen serpents of mercy if I may so call them How can we chuse but call to mind those words of God by his Prophet I will correct thee it measure yet will I not make a full end of thee Jer. 30.11 O Lord if thou hadst mixed no mercy with our misery what could we do more than utterly despond and cast away all our hopes and comfort Thou hast mixed thy dispensations let us also mixe our affections hope with our fear rejoycing with our trembling thanksgiving with our lamentations There is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again and that the tender branch thereof will not cease if the root thereof be yet in the earth and the stock thereof in the ground Job 14.7 Thorough the sent of water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant v. 9. Thou hast left us a remnant to escape and given us a naile in the place of the great City that the Lord might lighter our eyes and give us a little reviving in our troubles Thou hast said concerning London as thou spakest to Daniel in vision Dan. 4.14 Hew down the tree cut off its branches shake off his leaves and scatter his fruit c. nevertheless leave the stump of its root in the carth and let it be wet with the dew of Heaven c. Lord I desire much more to wonder that any thing of London is left than that the greatest part of it is consumed DISCOURSE XXI Of the Discommodities of Prosperity and Benefits of Affliction PRosperity hath its evils and inconveniences as wel as Adversity yea deadly inconveniencies as some use that Epithite For saith Salomon Prov. 1.32 The prosperity of fools shall dastroy them And in Eccles 5.13 he saith he had seen a sore evil under the Sun viz. Riches kept for the owners thereof to their burt Most men are in love with prosperity and therefore cannot or will not see the discommodities of it as our Proverb saith Love is blinde But how often doth it prove a kinde of luscious poison which not only swels and puffs up them that have it but also frets eats into them like some deadly corosive inwardly taken James speaking to those that had more wealth than they knew what to do with saith The rust of their gold should eat their flesh as it were sire Jam. 5.5 Why went the young man from Christ so sorrowfully Luke 18.23 Mat. 19.22 was it not because he had great possessions as Matthew phraseth it or as Luke for that he was very rich Thereupon saith Christ A rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of God and it is easier for a camel to go thorough the eye of a needle and Timothy must charge those that are rich not to be high minded nor yet to trust in uncertain riches implying they are apt to both How hard is it for those that have an arm of flesh not to make flesh their arm and so to incur the curse Jer. 17.5 How hard it is to be so good a Steward of a great estate as may enable a man to give up his account with joy How many that have resolved to be rich yea and have been as good as their resolution have pierced themselves thorough with divers sorrows yea been drowned in perdition 1 Tim. 6.9 When Jesurun waxed sat he kicked he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation Deut. 32.15 What Salomon saith Prov. 3.23 30. Look not upon the Wine when it is red when it giveth its colour in the cup when it moves its self aright at the last it biteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder may too often be applied to prosperity which looks and tastes like sparkling wine but oft times proves a stinging serpent I doubt not but the time will come when many rich men will wish they had begd their bread rather than to have had so heavie an account to give for abused prosperity Few men have received that hurt by their povertie that others have done by their plentie as for one that is starved to death there are hundreds killed with surfeiting upon meates or drinks Yea adversity hath its conveniencies and its good things as well as prosperity its mixture of discommodities and evil things As one said he had received some hurt by his graces which innate corruption had abused to pride and some good by his sins which God had taken occasion to humble him by for so I understand him So have many received hurt by their prosperity and good by their adversity been losers by the forrner been gainers by the latter Many may take up the words of Themistocles and say They had perished if they had not perished They had been undone in one sense if they had not been undone in another or say as a Philosopher I have read of They never made a better voyage than at that time when they suffered shipwrack Solomon knew what he said Eccles 7.3 Sorrow is better than laughter for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better Sweet things are commonly known to turn to choller which is a bitter humour and bitter things to cleanse and sweeten the blood If then I may be better by my affliction and might have been worse for my prosperity why should I think my self undone for the loss of that which might have been my undoing why should I stand and wonder at that passage James 1.10 Let the rich man rejoyce in that he is made low Had not Manasses more cause to bless God for those Iron fetters wherewith he was bound by his enemies the Assyrians than for his crown of Gold 2 Chron. 33.12 When he was in affliction he besought the Lord c. Prosperity had been his worst enemy and afterwards affliction under God became his greatest friend did most befriend him for it brought him

when he called him to it Are we better than Moses then Aaron the Saint of the Lord than David than Hezekiah than Job yea than Christ himself who had all learn'd to stoop to God in very difficult cases Can we be too good to do it if they were not When God told Moses he should go up to Pisgah and take a view of Canaan but that he should never enter into it Deut. 3.27 We finde not one word that he replyed after he had once made his request and God had said speak no more of this matter When God had by fire consumed Nadab and Abihu the two Sons of Aaron Moses did but say to him The Lord will be sanctified in them that come nigh to him and be glorified before all the people and Aaron held his peace Levit. 10.3 When old Eli had received a dreadfull message from God by a Child for so Samuel then was 1 Sam. 3.18 How meekly did he resent it saying It is the Lord let him do as seemeth him good When David was flying from the face of his rebellious Son Absalom and taking leave of the Ark of God 2 Sam. 15.26 If the Lord say I have no delight in thee behold here am I let him do to me what seemeth him good At another time when David was even consumed by the blow of Gods hand Psal 39.10 he saith I was dumb and opened not my mouth because thou didst it vers 9. And as for Hezekiah though a King also as well as David yet see how his spirit buckled to God when the Prophet brought him word that God had taken away the fee-simple of all he had from his children who should be Eunuches to the King of Babylon Isa 39.7 And left him but his life in it Good is the Word of the Lord saith he which thou hast spoken vers 8. As for Job who had been the greatest of all the Men of the East when he had lost all but a vexatious Wife prompting him to curse God vet cried he out Blessed be the Name of the Lord Job 1.21 Behold a greater instance of patience and submission than any of these both for that his person was more excellent and his sufferings far greater having been a Man of sorrowes all his time Isa 53.7 He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a Sheep before the Shearer is dumb so he opened not his mouth When he was reviled he reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2.23 Was not this written for our imitation vers 21. Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example Did he who is God equal with the father submit even to the painfull and shamefull and cursed death of the cross and shall we think our selves too good to stoop to lesser sufferings and humiliations he that can submit to God may be happy in any condition he that cannot will be happy in no condition this World can afford him in which all our roses are full of prickles and all our wayes strowed and hedged up with thornes more or less Yea not only the Church militant upon Earth but even the Church triumphant in heaven could not be free from misery if the will of glorious Saints were not melted into the will of God Abraham would be ever and anon grieving to think of Dives and others in his case if his will were not perfectly conformed to the will of God Many things fall out in this life which we would not for a World should be if we could and might prevent them but when the pleasure of God is once declared by events even in those cases ought we to sit down satisfied Abraham would not have sacrificed Isaac for the whole World but that God made as if he would have him so to do and then he yielded presently If blinde fortune did govern the World whose heart would it not break to think of so famous a City in a few dayes laid in ashes but sith it was the will of God it should be so who ordereth all things according to the counsel of his will let all the Earth be silent before him let us be still and know that he is God Who should rule the World but he that made it and that upholds it by the Word of his Power He can do us no wrong if he would such is his essential holiness which also makes it impossible for him to lie he would do us no wrong if he could such is his infinite justice He can do nothing but what is consistent with infinite wisdome patience goodness mercy and every perfection and how unreasonable is it not to submit to that which is consistent with all of these so doubtless was the burning of our renowned City as ghastly a spectacle as it is to behold else it had never come to pass O Lord I am sensible that I have need of line upon line precept upon precept and example upon example to teach me this hard lesson of submission to thee though the object of that submission seem to be only my condition in this life for I no where finde that thou requirest me and others to be willing to perish everlastingly Thou knowest how much thy glory and the comfort of thy poor Creatures are concerned in it that we should know how to resign up our selves to thee inable us to be contented with whatsoever thy will hath been or shall be concerning us and then be pleased to do with us as to this World what thou wilt DISCOURSE XXIV Of taking occasion by this to study the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly things IF a glorious City turned into a ruinous heap in four dayes time when no visible enemy was at hand to do it if the reducing hundreds of Families to almost beggery that liv'd in good fashion in less than one week before by an unexpected meanes and in a way not possible to be foreseen if knocking a Nation out of joynt all of a sudden like a body that had been tortured upon a Rack be not loud Sermons of the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly things surely there will be none such till that time shall come that St. Peter speaks of 2 Pet. 3.10 When the Heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the Elements shall melt with servent heat the Earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up What a Comment was this providence upon that Text Psal 39.5 Verily every Man at his best state is altogether vanity How did it evince the Psalmist to speak right Psal 62.9 Not only when he saith Men of low degree are vanity which most people do believe but also when he saith Men of high degree are a lie to be laid in the ballance they are altogether lighter than vanity which few assent unto If things are called vanity as most properly they are from