unto Gods will and then whatsoever thy sinns have been whatsoever thy tentations distractions feares or doubtings be if thou wilt beleeve the Lord will graciously accept of thee for his sonns sake The Lord stands not upon thy sinns nor thy unworthynesse as I have formerly said he bids thee beleeve therefore tho thou beest unworthy of Gods favor and mercy yea beleeve because God commands thee and he is worthy to be obeyed By beleeving Christ and his righteousnesse become thine and having Christ neither sin nor the law shall be able to hurt thee for faith reprives us from the law and puts us under grace Therefore beleeve else never looke to have any sound joy or true peace to thy soul the heart is filled with joy and peace in beleeving Rom. 15.13 Where there is doubting of Gods love or our own salvation there can bee neither joy nor peace but anxiety trouble vexation and griefe Faith pacifies and quiets all For being justified by faith we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ and rejoyce under the bope of the glory of God neither do we so onely but also we rejoyce in tribulations Rom. 5.1 2 3. True faith tho never so little is able to keepe thy soul from sinking under any affliction be it never so great or grievous When Peter was strong in faith he could cast himself into the Sea but his heart and faith failing he began to sink little and weak faith will be able to keep us from drowning but not from beginning to sink When Peters faith was weakest Christ was nearest at hand to helpe him Christ who never did nor will reject the weakest beleever put forth his hand and saved Peter but yet withall reproved him for doubting O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt Mat. 14.31 Doubt not therefore but beleeve And be perswaded that if the Lord intended not to shew mercy unto thee he would never haue given thee an eye to see thy sinnes a heart to grieve and mourn for them or a tongue to desire the pardon and forgivenesse of them Therefore assure thy selfe that a grieved spirit a sorrowfull heart a wounded conscience is no sure argument of a forlorn condition or of the want of the love of God Vse 2 Againe is it so is this the best way for us to bee patient and cheerfull in affliction to bee perswaded of Gods love Labor wee then to get our hearts setled in this perswasion and thou shalt finde the anguish of thy affliction much alaied thou shalt feel the smart of it much abated Holy Job was brought to a low and pittyfull condition when he desired to he let alone whiles he might swallow his spittle Job 7.19 Yet even then Job wondred at the goodnesse and favor of God that he would think him worthy the melting and trying What is man that thou dost magnifie him and that thou settest thine heart upon him And dost visit him every morning and triest him every moment Job 7.17 18. Being then undoubtedly perswaded that when God comes neer thee with affliction he is neer thee in affection that when he corrects thee he loves thee for until the heart of man be thorowly perswaded hereof hee shall never take comfort in nor pick any good out of his affliction Imagine with me a man who hath every day his full feed of the best and what outward comfort he will call for what true content can hee take in these things when hee knows that hee is under the displeasure of his Prince and so in danger every day of being cast into prison whereas if through the rage and malice of some of his enemies hee were cast into prison if he were perswaded of the Kings love hee would rest contented knowing and beleeving that the King will honor him for his reproach and ere it be long set him free againe Even so it is with every one that is perswaded of Gods love in his affliction Therefore as at all times so especially in the time of affliction Gods children should live by faith Affliction is like to do us little good if it be not tempered with faith As that meate which we take into our stomack concocteth not if the native heat be defective and wanting even so that affliction which is administred unto us will profit us little if faith be wanting unto us Faith stilleth the heart even in our sorest and greatest afflictions perswading us of Gods love in correcting us and that the Lord intendeth our great good by this affliction which lyeth upon us the love and care which parents have of their childrens good and wellfare doth not wholy consist in providing of meat drink and apparel for them but partly in correcting of them for their good and partly in providing of physick for them when they are any way distempered Even so almighty God our mercifull and loving father doth no lesse love us when he corrects afflicts us which as you have heard is the physicking of our soules then when he provideth outward necessaries for us and this faith doth perswade the heart of For faith judgeth not of things by sense or outward appearance but as the truth is in Jesus Christ justifying the Lord in all his waies alway magnifying the wise and holy proceedings of our good God as the only best and most profitable for us It is only the apprehension of some losse the feare of some evill or the sense of Gods wrath and displeasure in our affliction which makes the heart so sad and the spirits so lumpish in the time of affliction then set thy faith on work and it will blow over all these clouds it will answer all carnall doubts and reasonings and so settle the heart in a constant perswasion of Gods love that we shall rejoyce and be thankfull for our afflictions because we know and beleeve that God in afflicting of us loves us And to put the matter out of all doubting I will lay down a few but sure and certain evidences of Gods love in correcting of us Dost thou desire to know whether God in afflicting of thee loveth thee whether his stripes bee the blowes of an enemy or the chastisement of a loving father thou mayest know it by these tokens First when God gives thee a heart to be contented and a minde to be willing to beare whatsoever he shall lay upon thee and to want whatsoever thou seest the Lord is not willing thou shouldst injoy Hee that doth not rest content with the love and favor of God in the want of outward yea the best of outward things doth not rightly prize the love of God in that the want of other things doth more affect him and take up his minde then the consideration of Gods love and he more discontented in the missing of the one then contented with the possession of the other He that cannot be content to part with any earthly benefit when God shall call for it it is to
Lord assuring us that there is hope in Israel that there is balme in Gilead to asswage all griefs to cure all sores The Word of God teacheth us how to construe God aright in all his dealings with us and to wait for promised salvation which in due time shall come when it shall be most for Gods glory and best for us How easily would afflictions batter down our confidence and over-turn our faith if it were not continually supported and strengthned by the Word Satan will be ready to buzze into our eares that God in wrath afflicteth us that those are most beloved which are least afflicted but the sheep of Christ will not know nor follow the voice of a stranger that is they will not subscribe nor yeeld to any temptation which tendeth to the withdrawing of their hearts and hopes from God but set their seal to the Word of and so through comfort of the Scriptures rest in hope For the more plenteously the Word of God in the love and evidence thereof doth dwell in any man and enable him to prove all things the more stedfastly will he hold that which is good and stand immoveable in the mids of all afflictions and temptations that shall assault him Though thy bones should be vexed and dryed like a pot-sheard and turned into the drought of Summer though thou wert powred out like water all thy bones out of joynt and thy heart melted like wax in the middest of thy bowels though Gods arrows should stick fast in thee and his hand presse thee sore though there should be no soundnesse in thy flesh nothing but stinch and corruption yea though innumerable evils should compasse thee about and thou not able to look up though fearfulnesse trembling should come upon thee and horror be ready to over-whelme thee yet if thou wilt have recourse unto the Word of God and beleeve what is there promised thou mayest with joy draw waters to refresh thy soul out of the wells of salvation Isa 12.3 If thou desirest sound and solid comfort such as will give true content to thy soul thou must pick it out of the Scripture Thou shalt never be truly satisfied unlesse it be with the breasts of her consolation Isa 66.11 Thou must suck sweetnesse out of the Word to uphold thee It is my comfort in my trouble saies David for thy promise hath quickned mee Psalme 119.50 When affliction commeth whether wilt thou run for comfort to thy honors thy revenews thy possessions thy friends I may say of them in this respect as Job speaks to his friends Miserable comforters are ye all Job 16.2 Thou maiest as well fetch water out of thy brick-walls as draw sound comfort from those outward things which are worse then vanitie for they are vexation of spirit Eccl. 1.14 These outward things can afford thee no comfort for they are nothing Prov. 23.5 He is a very simple and silly Arithmetician who knows not that of nothing comes nothing If thou placest thy comfort or puttest thy confidence in the best of earthly things thou buildest upon the sands every little blast and tempest will overthrow thy building The ground of all our comfort the onely anchor to stay our souls in any spirituall tempest the only staffe we have to rest upon in the time of afflictions are those sweet and precious promises made known unto us in the word What ever other carnall comforts men may for a while rejoyce in they will prove but a flame of stubble or as a blaze of thorns which can yeeld no solid or abiding light unto the soul A man may as soon drink up the water of the sea with spunges or remove mountaines with one of his fingers as be able by vain sports youthfull recreations and pastimes songs and musick though hee adde to these the consideration of his honors greatnesse and riches to alay those sorrows and paines which sinne and affliction may bring upon him All these vanities will but respite them for a little time that they may return the fiercer I say it again solid and lasting comfort must be fetcht out of the word or no where if thou expect comfort from other things thou wilt be deceived Every toy and trifle a bable a thing of nothing will cut the throat of thy comfort if thou joyest especially in earthly things Haman was second to a mighty Monarch and wanted nothing that the world might afford a subject In the 5. of Ester at the 11. you may read how he boasted of the glory of his riches and all the things wherein the King had promoted him and how he had set him above the Princes c. One would think that this mans condition was farre enough from vexation or discontent No no the want of a cap and a knee from poore Mordecai sitting at the Kings gate did so perplexe and vexe this proud Courtier that all hee had could avail him nothing as he professed vers 13. Ahab you know was King of Israel and therefore had the world at will yet the want of a little vineyard of Naboths which lay full in Ahabs eye because Naboth would neither sell it unto him nor yet exchange with him for a better it is said 1. Kings 21.4 That Ahab came into his house heavie and in displeasure because of the word which Naboth had spoken unto him he throwes himself down upon his bed turned his face and would eat no bread Surely a poore triall for a rich man for a King to bee so much troubled about Yet so it is and shall be with all those that set more by their outward glory their gardens and pleasures then by the Word of God If they set their hearts upon these outward things as they fail as fail they will being subject unto corruption so their heart fails them and they are all a mort halfe dead for want of comfort Whereas that soul that can truely say as did Jeremiah Chap. 15. vers 15. Thy word was unto mee the joy and rejoycing of mine heart Whatsoever affliction can befall him he shall be sure to have comfort by him yea within him Delight thy selfe therefore in the Word of God Now barrell up whiles these cunduits of comforts be full and the pipes do runne Learn Wisedome of the men of the world to take that oportunity which the Lord doth now afford thee Make hay whiles the Sunne shines The seasons you know are not alwayes faire After a long calme oft times there follows blustring stormes As goodly gleams as these of ours are now clouded in other places And little do wee know how soon the Sunne may goe down over the Prophets when night shall bee unto us for a vision and darknesse for a divination Mic. 3.6 When Agabus had signified by the Spirit that there should bee a great famine throughout the world Then the Disciples purposed to send succour unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea which thing they also did Acts. 11.29 30. Wee now blessed
from the Kingdom It would fill a volume to set down the manifold afflictions which are recorded of GODS children I will therefore speak but of one or two moe which I cannot omit because their examples will tend much to our satisfaction if we will compare our tryals and afflictions with theirs and consider how farre theirs have exceeded ours One would think that if any upon earth should scape scot free as they say and be without afflictions the Virgin Mary the mother of our Lord might she being a woman so freely beloved of God Luke 1.28 and so neere unto Christ But if God would have the mother to be exercised because a sinner yet mee thinks her sonne being the onely begotten of the Father without sinne and one in whom the Father was well pleased Mat. 3.17 should go untouched No no it might not be both these drunk deep of afflictions as I shall make it evident unto you First concerning Mary let us consider what old Simeon said unto her Luk. 2.35 A sword shall pierce through thy Soul Shee under-went not onely out-ward and bodily afflictions but also in-ward and spirituall tryalls even such as pierced her very Soul A sorrowfull spirit drieth up the bones saith Solomon Pro. 17.22 And Prov. 18.14 the spirit of a man will sustaine his infirmities but a wounded spirit who can bear it It was not then any pinching poverty nor the rough handling of the Romane exactors who forced her being bigge with child to take a painefull journey to Bethlehem nor the poore entertainment which she and her tender babe found in the Inne nor Herods blood-thirsty rage which made her with her tender little one to flie into Egrpt where being a stranger no doubt she indured adversity her bellie full nor the fear of Archelaus after her return nor her long deferred hopes all the while that Christ lived a private life though Hope deferred bee the fainting of the heart Prov. 13.12 nor yet the malice or hatred of those bloody people the high Priests the Scribes and Pharisees who not only opposed her son but blasphemed his person and doctrine no nor the paines and torments of his bitter passion of which she was an eye witnesse and spectator none of all these were the sword that pierced her Soul though these were great burthens for a poore woman to bear and the last more grievous then all the rest How did Jacob take on when hee beheld but the bloody coat of his sonne Joseph Jacob rent his cloths and put on sack-cloth about his loynes and sorrowed for his son a long season Gen. 37.34 How did David lament the death of his trayterous son Absolom though hee heard but the report of his slaughter 2. Kings 18.33 O Absolom my son O my son Absolom would God I had died for thee O Absolom my sonne my sonne And reade wee not that Agar went aside at her childs fainting her mothers heart not enduring to behold the death of an Ismael Gen. 21.16 How then thinke we was Mary affected at the sight of so many and so great miseries which befell her son And yet all these as I take it were but the beginnings and occasions of greater internall heart-breakings and spirituall agonies with which her soul conflicted For what perplexed thoughts may we think did assault her soul nay what did not when she saw every thing directly to thwart and crosse her preconceived hopes grounded upon the warrant and truth of Divine Oracles Might not Mary have thus complained What is this he that should be the Saviour and Redeemer of Israel the horn of Salvation unto them to be thus maligned and crucified And yet while he lived there was some hope though no likelyhood that God might work miraculously for his advancement and by means unknown make good his promises but now that he is done to death that shamefull and accursed death of the crosse what hope is left I thought that he should have restored the Kingdom again to Israel But alas how can that bee he being now dead and laid in his grave Surely Mary had sunk under this burthen her faith her patience had failed her had she not with Abraham the father of the faithfull above hope beleeved under hope not regarding the outward miserable condition of her sonne but fastning the eye of her faith upon the Lord true of his Word and just of his promise yet for all her faith and patience behold and see if any sorrow were like unto Mary her sorrow The mourning of a mother for her sonne her only sonne the sonne of her hopes her hearts delight nay that son in whom shee expected that all the kindreds and nations of the world should be blessed and yet now dying dying a most ignominious shamefull accursed death now perishing without hope of recovery Loe here was the sword that pierced her soul thorow and thorow wherupon the Fathers dispute the case whether Mary were not a Martyr and they conclude that she was more then a martyr because in martyrs the more fervent their love is to Christ the more it lesseneth the paines of their sufferings but Maries love the more intense and the greater it was towards her son the more it augmented her sorrows But let us leave the mother and last of all take a view of her sonne his sufferings Who though he were the prince of our salvation yet was he consecrated by afflictions Heb. 2.10 Was he not in this world reputed as an abject amongst men lived he not in penurie in povertie Mat. 8.20 The foxes have holes and the birds of the heaven nests but he had not whereon to rest his head How was he reviled and rayled upon by those foul-mouth'dJewes who called him a Wine-bibber a Pot-companion a friend of Publicans and sinners a Conjurer one that wrought by the helpe of Belzebub was he not buffeted spit on whipped crowned with thornes last of all despitefully crucifyed Besides all these hee did inwardly sustaine farre more heavy crosses then that which was laid upon his shoulders though the weight of that made him to faint with wearinesse for he was all his life time assaulted by Satan and towards his end brought into such an agony as it wrung even drops of blood from his forehead before his death his soul was heavy unto the death through those feares and terrors which had seazed upon him conflicting with the wrath of God and undergoing the curse with greatest extremity all which made him as one rejected and given over of the Lord in a most heavy and dolefull manner to cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Matt. 27.46 If then Job an upright and just man one that feared God and eschewed evill If David a man after Gods own heart one that walked before the Lord in truth and righteousnes and uprightnesse of heart with God 1. King 3.6 If Mary the mother of our Lord a woman so freely beloved of God And to conclude if