means of much spiritual improvement and advantage to them 3. It puts several suitable Graces upon exercise and by being exercised they grow It tries their Faith and improves it Faith is in such a case as this necessarily called forth into act if there be the principle and as it acts it grows becomes more and more strong and lively Their Patience is exercised by it and perfected and that has a great influence upon their universal perfection Let patience have it's perfect work that you may be perfect Jam. 1 2 3 4. There will be an universal languor as if he should have said upon your Spirits if you be impatient if you cannot suffer as patience is an ability for suffering if you can by no means endure without tempestuous agitations or sullen despondencies of Spirit But if Patience have it's perfect Work that will infer an universal healthfulness and good habit into your whole Soul Their Love to God is in such a case eminently tried and improved Blessed is the man that endures Temptation tentative affliction is there meant as above vers 2. For when he is tryed he shall receive the Crown of Life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him Jam. 1. 12. Which implies their love to him is the great thing put upon trial in that case And it is a great trial of Love to God a very improvable opportunity of discerning it's sincerity when upon a long affliction you can appeal to God and say Thou knowest I love thee tho' thou smite and kill I will still love thee No discontentful motion no repining thought shall ever be allowed a place in my breast there may be sighs but no murmurings groans but no tumults nothing of displeasure against thy Holy Pleasure 4. It occasions such to live much upon the borders of Eternity Under affliction we look not to the things that are seen and Temporal but to the things that are unseen and Eternal which make us count our affliction tho' long but momentany 2 Cor. 4.17 18 And those Souls will prosper and flourish that have so unspeakably more to do with the other World than with this 'T is in this way that the afflictions of this present state do work for us the far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory ver 17. as they direct our eye forward while we look ver 18. not to the things which are seen which are but temporal but to the things which are unseen and eternal Life and Spirit strength and vigour enter q. d. at our eye which is prompted by the horrour of frightful spectacles in this scene of things to look to another where all things appear lightsome pleasant and glorious There are other considerations whereby you might argue to your selves not only the consistency but the great suitableness of an afflicted state in this World with Gods Favour Kindness and Compassion towards you As that when he is more highly provok'd he threatens not to afflict as the heaviest of penalties Why should they be smitten any more Isa. 1. 5. I will no more punish your Daughters c. Hos. 4. 14. Ephraim is joined to Idols let him alone ver 17. That his Covenant obliges him to it as to them who are on stricter terms in Covenant with him Christs own seed being signifi'd by Davids as by David is manifestly Christ himself Psal. 89 Where you may see how and after what tenour his Covenant runs ver 30. 31 32 33 34. According whereto he himself elsewhere acknowledges that in very faithfulness God had afflicted him Psal. 119. 75. That in experience we are apt to grow remiss secure and negligent when all things are externally well with us And let us but appeal to our selves how much a wakeful temper of Spirit under affliction is better than carelesness and vanity of Mind accompany'd with fleshly ease and pleasure That we can our selves easily apprehend that it may not only consist with the tenderness of a Parent to have the wound of a Child search'd tho' with much pain but proceed from it That in heaven our judgment of things will be right and incorrupt where we shall apprehend no cause of complaint that through many sicknesses diseases and death it self our way was made for us thither And if that shall then be a true judgment the thing it self must be as true now But these I hastily hint and pass to some further use 2. We may next collect that since it is out of doubt the Devil may have some hand in our outward affliction we are concern'd to take so much the more care that he may not have his end upon us by it An hand he may have and we cannot determine how far but whether it be more or less great care we are concern'd to take how to frustrate his design He has the most mischievous ends that can be and designs worse things to us than the affliction which is the means whatsoever that be He would fain engage us in a controversie with God would have us contend with him murmur fret blaspheme and curse God and therewith send out our last and dying breath That was his design upon Job Let us labour to frustrate it as he did Divers of the Antients Justin Martyr Jerome Cyprian and Austin speak much to this purpose how great a design the Devil drives in being the Author of sicknesses and diseases to men that he might make them apply themselves to him and divert from God as that wicked Prince did whom by the Prophet we find so tharply reprov'd for it as if there were no God in Israel that he went to the God of Eâ—rom some Daemon or other as we have reason to think The last mentioned of those Authors speaks of it as just matter of Excommunication when those that bear the name of Christians shall in such cases use means bearing no natural proportion or accommodateness to the end charms spells c. for ease or cure of maladies wherein no relief could reasonably be expected but from the Devils agency who may be officious enough if especially he have first hurt to heal too that by practising upon their bodies he may entangle their souls and according to his wont of running counter to God who wounds that he may the more effectually heal and save by a present temporary cure wound mortally and finally destroy He hath not left the world no not the Christian world quite ignorant of his methods in these kinds of training men by gradual steps into things first that seem innocent and then into such familiarities whether their real distress or their curiosity were the first handle he took hold of them by or the Engine by which he drew them till at length it comes to express covenanting If the matter come not so far 't is rare to come off from the least tamperings without a scratch He that is born of God keeps himself that the evil one may not touch him I John 5. 18. as
knowing he designs to touch mortally and if he touch to kill If it proceed so far as a solemn league how tragical consequences doth story abound with That of Count Matiscon pluckt away by the Devil from among divers persons of quality whom he was entertaining and at noon-day whirl'd in the air three times about the City in open view of the people to whom he in vain cried for help reported by some Historians and that of an infamous Magician of Saltzburg and divers others are instances both very extraordinary and very monitory But as to a future ruine which he finally aims to involve men in with himself he hath not faster hold of any than those that have learnt to ridicule every thing of this kind and who have put so much Sadducism into their Creed consisting of so many negatives or things they believe not that they scarce leave enough positive to admit that name as to think there is no such creature perhaps as being conscious there can be no worse than themselves But how near is he to them that think him out of the Universe 3. Since it is possible the Devil may bind even those that belong to God with some kind of bodily affliction or other it is the more to be apprehended how much worse bonds they are in which he binds those that do not belong to him Oh! that you would be serious here How many such sad cases are there amongst even them as may be feared that are called Christians concerning which it may be said here is a soul that Satan hath bound not eighteen but it may be thirty forty fifty years Oh! when shall this soul be releast that Satan hath so long bound 4. As from the Devils malice to the bodies of men we may collect his greater malice to their Souls So we may judg proportionably of Christs compassions that as they incline him to give them all sutable relief in their bodily afflictions as far as can consist with those measures which infinite wisdom hath pitcht upon for the government of this present world and as shall fall in with the design of his office of a Redeemer and Saviour to us So they much more incline him to relieve embondag'd souls for this doth most directly fall in with his design and is the proper business of his office the other may be only collateral to it and as it were to be done on the by He came not into this world to procure that men might not be sick or pained or be presently restored to health and ease But he came and died that souls might live to procure for them pardon reconciliation with God all needful assisting influences of grace and eternal life Of these therefore they may be most assured if they duly apply themselves And some encouragement to expect so much they may draw even from this instance This infirm woman in order to bodily cure did apply her self to him She came after him as others did for this purpose and did in a sort put herself in the way of his healing influence Now if any of you find your souls are yet held by the Devil in worse bonds apply your selves to the merciful compassionate Jesus there is hope in the case Oh! will you not say so much to him for a soul in bondage Lord loose this poor soul of mine that Satan hath bound for so many sad years Do but labour to know you are bound to feel your bonds Whatsoever there is of prevailing sin in you it is a bond by which the Devil holds your souls The wicked are held in the cords of their own iniquities Prov. 5. 22. And sins are said to be the works of Satan from which it is the design of the Redeemer to loose us The Son of God was for this purpose manifested that he might destroy we read it is that he might dissolve the works of the Devil q. d. that he might release and unbind souls that the Devil as yet holds in fast bonds And you may find you are so bound when upon self-reflexion you take notice you are ordinarily restrained from what you should do against the light and conviction of your own minds and judgments i. e. you find if you reflect a conviction hath taken place in your consciences you ought to love God but there is with you no such motion of soul no inclination towards him you ought in a stated course to pray and pour out your soul to him but you are bound you cannot offer at it you have no liberty for it your terrene inclination or love to vanity plucks you back you ought to walk in the ways of God but you are fetterred you cannot move a foot you ought to do the works of God but you are manacled you cannot stir and an hand Are you so bound and will you not know it What! never feel your bonds When once they are felt you will soon begin to cry and supplicate And if once you shall be brought seriously and incessantly to supplicate it may be hop't the release will follow Was our Lord so compassionate towards infirm bodies in the days of his flesh in this world and do we think he above is less compassionate to souls Can it be thought heaven hath altered him to your disadvantage Is he less kind benign and less apt to do good now he is inthroned in glory Why should you not believe he will give release unto your captiv'd embondaged souls if you implore his help and mercy with seriousness and insist upon it and do not give him over Say to him Jesus thou Son of God have mercy on me for do you not know it is his office The Spirit of the Lord was upon him to proclaim liberty to the captives and opening of Prisons to them that are bound Isa. 61. 1. What! will you be bound all your days and never lift up a cry to the great Redeemer and Saviour of Souls to give you release How deservedly should these bonds end with you in the chains wherein the Devils themselves shall for ever be bound with you 5. We may collect there is an awful regard due to the Sabbath-day When our Lord justifies the cure now wrought on their Sabbath only on this account that it was an act of mercy towards a daughter of Abraham by the exception of such a case he strengthens the general rule and intimates so holy a day should not upon light occasions be otherwise imploy'd than for the proper end of it's appointment Tho' our day be not the same the business of it in great part is by the reason given in the fourth Commandment which being plac't among the rest of those ten words so many ways remarkably distinguisht from the other laws given the Jews and signifying that these were intended not to them alone but to mankind and given upon a reason common to man the words also not necessarily signifying more than there should be a seventh day kept as sacred to
we should suppose that he may some way or other perniciously agitate the humours in humane Bodies 't is no harder a supposition than that he should so variously from the images in the fancy by which he tempts for herin surely he comes nearer us and is more inward to us 7ly Nor is it less supposable that God should in some instances permit the Devils to follow their inclinations in afflicting his people than wicked men to follow theirs which in the general carry them to the same thing when he knows how to turn the one to after-advantage as well as the other But we have no ground to think notwithstanding all this that the wisdom and goodness of Providence will ordinarily permit that this Agency of the Devil in the mentioned cases should be altogether in a contra-natural way but only by so moving and acting with natural causes that he may be also obviated through the ordinary blessing of God by natural means and causes too Much less is it reasonable that diseases should be themselves reckon'd very Devils as was the opinion of the Gnosticks of old wherein they much concurred with the Manichees and whom together with them the more honest-minded Pagan Plotinus so copiously confutes though that that was more anciently a common Opinion the Septuagints rendring the word that signifies Plague by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in several places of Scripture seems to intimate But the commonness of such an Opinion in a dark time signifies nothing to sway ours this way or that But whatsoever hand the Devil may be supposed to have in their afflictions or sicknesses that belong to God we are in the 2d place sure That our Lord Jesus has a most kind hand whensoever it is in their release which though it were here in a more extraordinary and immediate way and besides the course of nature the disparity in this case signifies nothing to the lessening of the favour towards those whom he vouchsafes to relieve in other cases for the influence that he has in ordinary cases is as truly divine If the cure of a diseased person be wrought by his blessing upon ordinary natural means his cooperating with nature is less amazing but not less effectual or less kind as also the efflux from God is for his own part as real when he works with second causes as without them and as immediately reaches the effect in both the senses of immediateness whereof so much noise is made in the Schools And we must further know our Lord Christ is now the universal Regent of all Nature even as he is the Christ the world being devolv'd into his hands and all power being given to him both in Heaven and Earth He is Lord of all When therefore any of you are sick it is by his disposal if you are recovered out of that sickness Nor is his Agency less or lower whether it be by blessing a Medicine or working a Miracle His power and love are the same either way And know there is an honour and acknowledgment due from Christians to their great crucifi'd Lord who hath founded a dominion over this world in his blood who died and revived and rose again that he might be Lord of living and dead Therefore you are to reckon you are beholden to Christ for all your recoveries and all your refreshings that you meet with amidst the many infirmities and frailties of this your present mortal state And if the release be by death as the case is which we now have specially to do with that universal power of his over all lives must be understood immediately to reach to that case too It is he that measures lives that lengthens them out and cuts them shorter at his own pleasure And as to those that are more peculiarly his own it is a more peculiar and favourable superintendency that he has over that affair even of their very dying Their death is precious in his sight He with a most gentle tender hand unties the knot of Man releases and receives the dislodging Soul Lord Jesus receive my Spirit as dying Stephen speaks But 3ly We are to consider how far our Lord Jesus his compassion concerns him in such cases or wherein that may move him to interpose in them so as in this case he did And here two things are to be asserted 1st That his compassion has not supream and principal influence in this Case 2ly That yet it hath real influence That it hath not supream or principal influence in such Cases And this doth really require to be more principally insisted on as of greater importance to narrow terrene minds that are apt to measure all things by themselves and in reference to their own little Sphear and compass and to themselves only in their present State as they are inhabitants of this Minute Spot of Earth as if all things ought to bend and yield to their present convenience and accommodation here whereupon they wonder when they are sick and in pain God doth not presently relieve and ease them and think they should do so for any Friend or Neighbour if it were in their Power Know therefore 't was not from compassion as the solitary or as the chief inducement that our Lord did work this release for this Daughter of Abraham That cannot be supposed For he can never be understood to make a creature and the advantages of a Creature his Supream end That would have been to invert the order of things to dethrone God and deifie man and had been it self a real sort of that Idolatry which was one among the many horrid evils which he purposely came to redress and give remedy to in this apostate degenerate World He had a greater inducement i. e. That he might diffuse the Glory of God among the Children of Men and that he might give evidence thereby to the Truth of his own Mission and prove most convincingly that he was the Messiah the Son of God the very Person that was anointed and sent about that great undertaking to recover Gods rights in this lapsed World to bring about a reconciliation between God and Men. And upon this account when he wrought cures upon mens Bodies it was out of an higher compassion to their Souls And tho' even this it self of saving Mens Souls was not his highest design but the Glory of God as we shall see further by and by yet it being truly design'd by him and more principally than their bodily ease and relief this was an apt means to this his lower end For whereas in order to this he was to manifest himself a Divine Saviour 't was requisite he should give a joint and an equal demonstration of the two things which his being so implies his Godlike Power and Love The former alone it did not serve his purpose to shew which he might have shewn as much by inflicting plagues on mens bodies as working cures by striking them with blindness lameness c. as by giving them
sight and soundness But it was necessary to his end his Miracles should be beneficent and that he should as it is elsewhere said in the Evangelical Story he did go about doing good and not make men afraid of him by shewing the Power of a God in destructive strokes and judgments but which became a Saviour express a divine good-will towards men and thereby make his way into their Hearts bring them to understand and own a Saviour and as such to fall in and comply with his kind design towards them And this as it serv'd to exalt God in the World chiefly induc'd him to work this present cure If his compassion towards a poor afflicted woman labouring under bodily infirmity were his principal inducement if therefore she must be presently cured out of hand even on the Sabbath day because she had been now bound eighteen years Why I pray you was she to have been bound eighteen years or why bound at all His Divine Knowledge of the case and power to have redrest or prevented it had as well serv'd his compassionate inclination long before Or why was not such a course formerly set on foot and continued in the world that men might be cured of Blindness Deafness Lameness Feavers Dropsies or whatsoever other Maladies easily and by speaking a word in any former time Why was it deferr'd to this time Or why hath not such a course been kept afoot ever since his ascension Hath Heaven render'd him less merciful and compassionate Is it so unkind and ill-natur'd a place 'T is true that his apology for the cure he now wrought to this Ruler of the Synagogue seems to have no higher reference nor was he bound unseasonably to declare his utmost end and design to a prejudic'd malicious Enemy That was to speak it self to shine by it's own light and by such means and methods as these gradually to make it 's own way into less-obstructed minds insensibly sliding in upon them which might better be done time being given at leisure to consider things by the real evidence which his works carry'd with them than by industrious and often-repeated verbal Commentaries and Expositions He sometimes spake it out expresly as he thought fit to competent and more prepared hearers that his great design was to make himself and his errand be understood who he was and what he came into the World for that he was the Son of God the promised Messiah and that his business was to save them that were lost and to restore Gods interest in an Apostate lost world whose rights were to be cared for in the first place He redeemed us to God by his blood Rev. 5. 9. Or for the glory of God as he summ'd it up in the case of Lazarus when he was told of his being sick Jon. 11. 4. This sickness is not unto death i. e. it was not to terminate in a continuing death but for the Glory of God that the Son of man might be Glorifi'd the same account which this Evangelist gives of all these his great works and why they were recorded that we might believe that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God c. chap. 20. 30. And otherwise was it so considerable a thing that a man well got out of this fearful gulf as Lazarus now was should be fetcht back again that so mighty a wonder should be wrought that the inclosure of the grave should be torn open and the released Soul should be again drawn down as a bird escaped caught back into it's former confinement to converse a while longer amidst the impurities of a world lying in wickedness and with shadows in a world the fashion whereof passes away No Miracles were not so cheap things We may observe the great and wise God hath for great and weighty reasons been always very sparing in making very observable innovations upon Nature or any considerable changes in the ordinary course and method of Natural Causes and their Operations as a thing less suitable to a state of probation wherein men were to be held in this world And hath only been wont to do it where the inconvenience was to be ballanced by preponderating greater reasons which might as much require that he should depart from the fixed rule sometimes as other reasons might that he should not do it often It was equally necessary that miracles should not be common as that there should be any wrought at all and in great part for the same reason For if they were common they must lose the only design for which they could be at all useful If God should do in this kind what is not necessary he should the less effect by it that which is Inasmuch as they are only useful as they are strange and in the natural way unaccountable But there is nothing so great in this kind but ceases to be thought strange if it be common Otherwise is not the forming of the eye in itself as great a thing as to give sight to the blind Or the framing such a world as this as great a thing as the most stupendous miracle that ever was wrought in it It was indeed necessary somewhat extraordinary should at first be done to demonstrate that man Jesus of Nazareth to be the Son of God which it was impossible should otherwise be known When that was fully done it was not necessary there should still be a repetition of miracles from age to age to prove the former were wrought or the truth of the narratives which reported them That was sufficiently to be known in the ordinary way as other matters of fact are or other history about which there is no doubt made among men And the history of these things has greater advantages to recommend it to the certain belief of after time than most that ever were writ besides upon many accounts It was indeed most becoming the Majesty Wisdom and Goodness of God taken together to do what might answer the real necessities of men whom he was designing to save but not to indulge their curiosity nor their unaccountable dulness sloth or prejudice whereby they may be unapt to enquire about or receive plain things Therefore miracles were to be done as rarities sometimes not at all times and at such a time and upon such an occasion most of all to notifie and signalize the Redeemer at his first appearance to draw mens eyes upon him that they might take notice of him and demean themselves towards him accordingly This was to be done sufficiently once for all And the great stupidity of the world made a matter which needed some supernatural evidence need so much in that kind Except you see signs and wonders you will not believe And if he did so far comply with the necessity of degenerate humanity as to give once some signal convictive evidence that he was the Christ the divine Wisdom would take care it should not be so often done as to become trivial and insignificant to it 's proper
end the importance whereof was such as that it ought to transcend any regard to the welfare of mens bodies but not to exclude it which we now come briefly to shew in the next place viz. 2. That tho' compassion towards an infirm creature under bodily distemper was not the principal inducement unto this cure it was a real one Our Lord doth really compassionate the frailties of those that relate to him while they dwell in mortal flesh He himself bears our sicknesses He has a tenderness towards them even while he doth not think it fit actually to release and set them free which makes way to what was proposed in the last place to be insisted on as preparatory to the intended use 4. That in what way soever our Lord Jesus works a release for them that are most specially his own from their bodily distempers he doth it in mercy to them He lets their affliction continue upon them in mercy greater mercy indeed than would be in an unseasonable deliverance But when he sees it a fit season to give them a release that is an unquestionable mercy too tho' it be not in such a way as appears such to vulgar eyes It is more easily apprehensible to be from compassion if he relieves a poor pained weak languishing sickly creature by giving renewed strength and ease and health in this world But when the release is by death as in the case we have under our farther present consideration it is hard to perswade that this is done in mercy that there is compassion in this case There is 't is true in this a manifest disparity but not a disadvantageous one Is it a less thing to release an holy soul from the body than from bodily distempers It can only be so in the opinion of such blind moles of the earth as the children of men are now generally become But let the case be considered according to it's true and real import Why a recovery from sickness is but an adjournment of death 't is but death defer'd a while When there is a release wrought in such a way as this in which hers was wrought whom God hath lately taken from amongst us here is a cure not only of one bodily distemper but of all not only of actual diseasedness but of the possibility of ever being diseased more here is a cure wrought not only of infirmity but of death for the Saints conquer death by suffering it Yea a cure not of death only but of mortality of any liableness to death so as it can never touch them more Yea further not only of bodily diseases but of Spiritual too far worse and more grievous than all bodily diseases whatsoever a cure of blindness of mind deadness and hardness of heart of all indispositions towards God his ways and presence towards the most spiritual duties and the best and most excellent of our enjoyments The body of Sin and the mortal body are both put off together The imprisoned soul is set free and enters upon a state of everlasting liberty is releast from the bands of death of whatsoever kind and in the highest fullest sense shall reign in life thorough Jesus Christ. What is the decease of a Saint but a translation out of a valley of death a Golgotha a place of Skulls a region where death reigns into the region of perfect and everlasting life It is not to be called death simply or absolutely but with diminution 't is death only in a certain respect when in an higher and much more considerable respect When in an higher and much more considerable respect it is a birth rather a dying out of one world and a being born at the same time into another a much more lightsome a purer and more glorious world The soul is cured in a moment of whatsoever was grievous or afflicting to it and the body put into a certain way of cure of being made from an earthly mean mortal thing heavenly spiritual incorruptible and immortal from a vile a glorious body like Christs own and by that power by which he can subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 21. And now for Use. I. Learn That there is no inconsistency in the case that the same person should be at once the subject of long continued bodily affliction and of divine compassion These are reconcilable things sickly languishings under which one may be ready to fail and compassions that fail not This is a common Theme but the due consideration of it is too little common Let it now be considered with impartial equity and with deep seriousness Do you think the all-comprehending mind of the Son of God now first began to pity this daughter of Abraham While he was not yet ascended this attribution is given him Otherwise no doubt than as a false complement Lord thou knowest all things Since his ascension we are assured he hath a feeling of our infirmities so as to be toucht with them a continuing sympathy remembring the inconveniences of that state he had past thorough as she once non ignara mali c. and is always ready therefore to do the part of a faithful and merciful high Priest Before his descent we must with equal reason suppose him to have an entire prospect of the sad case of wretched mortals in this miserable world of ours What else made him descend And after that he was descended this mark could not but lye still before the eye of his divine mind to which all his works were known from the beginning of the world Yet the cure is defer'd the release is not given till the appointed season When it is the case of any of you to be afflicted with long sickness and to feel the tediousness of a lingering disease count upon it that it may be so as 't is like it hath been with divers of you Do not then permit the matter to the censure of an incompetent partial Judge If you consult flesh and blood if sense be to pronounce in the case and give judgment how hard will it be to perswade that you are not neglected in your languishings that your groans and faintings are unpity'd tho' you are so plainly told that whom the Lord loves he chastens Are you not ready to say how can this stand with being at the same time the object of divine pity If he pity me would he let me lye and languish thus in so miserable a plight day after day and year after year Yes these things very well agree and I would fain shortly evince to you that they do Why 1. His Compassion may sufficiently be Evidenc'd in another kind and by another sort of instances Sure it will speak compassion if he frequently visit his frail infirm creatures and by his visitation preserve their spirits if he support them if he refresh them this is grace My grace shall be sufficient for thee saith he to the great Apostle when he refused to release him from that thorn in the
flesh that messenger of Satan that did buffet him 2. Besides compassion may appear by this kind of dispensation it self It may not only carry that with it but in it which may shew good will If long continued affliction may be supposed to proceed from compassion it doth much more consist with it It may proceed from compassion and bear the relation to it of an effect to the cause We find it expresly so said in Scripture and who can so truly speak Gods mind as himself He afflicts in very faithfulness and as many as the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives Prov. 3. 12. quoted Heb. 12. 5 6. Rev. 3. Affliction must be the effect of his real and most sincere good will and compassion tho' of long continuance if it be apt and intended to do you good in higher and in greater regards than those wherein you suffer or if the good your affliction does you or is fitly design'd to do you be of a nobler and more excellent kind than that whereof it deprives you it must be understood not only to be consistent with kindness and good will but to be produc'd of it For the same principle that intends the end must also intend the proper means that serve to effect it Now the kind of this good is thus to be estimated You read Psal. 103. 5. As a father pities his children so the Lord pities them that fear him As a father The relation he is in to them is that of a father to his children But we must understand under what notion he is so related and we are told Heb. 12. 9 10. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence Shall we not then much rather be in subjection to the father of our spirits and live For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness We have here an account where the relation terminates and see both the object of his more special kindness and good will which accompany the relation and the end of it He is the father of their spirits whence therefore we may collect the object of that love which goes with the relation must be their spirits also the end of it is their spiritual advantage to make them partakers of his own holiness His holiness is a lofty word and carries the matter high Understanding it soberly as we may be sure it was meant it must signifie the holiness which he hath himself imprest and the impression whereof is the lively resemblance and image of his own And is not this a good of a nobler and more excellent kind than we can lose by a sickness better than the case of this vile flesh that was made out of dust and tends thither The object is their spirits for there the kindness that belongs to the relation must terminate where the relation terminates How much more shall we not be subject to the father of our spirits and live The father of our spirits is there contradistinguisht from the fathers of our flesh God is not the father of our flesh but the father of our spirits He is the Creator of our flesh too our flesh is his creature but not his off-spring There must be a similitude and likeness of nature between a father and a child which there is not necessarily between a maker and the thing made In respect of our spiritual part we are his off-spring and he is so a father to us both as the Souls of men in common bear his natural Image and if they be regenerate as they bear his holy Image too And the case may be so that the suffering of our flesh is necessary for the advantage of our spirits Our flesh may suffer so as that the spirit shall be the better for it and then pity it self compassion it self must not only permit but cause and produce such a course of dispensation as whereby that end shall be attained the making us partakers of his himself so the Apostle speaks of his own case Though our outward man perish yet our inward man is renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4. 15. Though our outward man perish We are compass'd about with Deaths that are continually beating down the Walls of this outward man they are beating upon it and are likely to infer it's perishing and if it perish let it perish I am not follicitous q. d. about that If it must come down let it come down in the midst of all these outward assaults our inward man is renewed day by day gathers a fresh and increasing strength and vigour whilst this outward man is tending to dissolution and dust And several ways such continued afflictions upon the outward man may make for the advantage of the inward man in the best kind 1. As they withdraw and take off the Mind and Heart from this World a debasing and defiling thing and which transforms the Soul that converses too much with it into a Dunghil fills it with ill favour But what doth all this World signifie to a sickly pained Person 2. As it engages them to be much in Prayer Nothing is more sutable than that an afflicted Life be a Life of much Prayer Is any man afflicted let him pray Jam. 5. 13. Much affliction hath a natural aptitude to incline men this way In their affliction they with seek me early Hos. 5. 15. It is dictate of nature even when Grace as yet hath no possession but which through Gods blessing may by this means help to introduce it For it urges the Soul Godward who is the God of all Grace obliges it to converse with him whereby somewhat better may be gained than is sought In their afflictions they will be submissive and lye at my feet saith God they will seek me early from whom otherwise I should never hear it may be all their Life long Oh! that you would understand the matter so when God afflicts in such kinds so as his hand touches your very bone and flesh this is the design of it to make you pray to bring you upon your knees to put you into a supplicating posture if he can upon any terms hear from you tho' you seek him but for bodily ease and refreshing it may be a means of the greatest advantage to you e're God have done with you when once he has brought you by this means to treat when he has got you into a more tractable disposition there is hope in the case If thus he open your ear to Discipline and be to you an interpreter one of a thousand to shew you his Righteousness he may seal instruction to you and save your Soul from going down to the Pit having found a ransom for you Job 33. 15. c. But for those that have a real Interest in God and Union with Christ that which occasions much Prayer is likely to be the