measure God by ourselves, and our own affections which is the ground of our mistake in this business. We mind the things that please our flesh, our fenfes, our appetite, our fancy; but God minds the things that concern our fouls, and their true happiness. The faints are much dearer to God, and much more beloved of him, than they are to themselves; and therefore he will not give them what is fweet, but what is meet; he will give them what makes for their real and eternal happiness, whether they would have it or not. He loves them with a ftrong and powerful love, and will not deny them any thing that is truly good for them, though they cry out under it; nor allow them any thing that is really hurtful, though they cry after it. So will a wife father upon earth do by his children, to the best of his skill and power; much more will God then, qui plufquam patrium amorem gerit in fuos, whofe bowels are infinitely larger and ftronger than thofe of a father. Now then, labour to converfe with the faithfulness of God in the time of afflictions, which is by ftudying the covenant and the promises of it, and your prefent condition, and comparing them together, and obferving how confonant and agreeable they are, each interpreting other. As alfo by perfuading your hearts of the confiftency of afflictions with divine love and favour; and by studying to reconcile the hand and heart of God together. But efpecially converfe with it practically, by a holy establishment and fettlement of heart under all afflictions. For, whereas afflictions in themselves are apt to beget a fearful nefs, defpondency, or at least fluctuation in the foul, the lively fenfe of God's faithfulness in in

D 3

Aicting

ficting them, will fettle and fuftain it: it is a firm and confiftent thing upon which the shaking foul may settle fafely, and enter itself boldly.

4. Converfe with the holiness and unspotted purity of God. He is angry and fins not; he corrects for fin, without fin. Fury is not in me, faith the Lord, Ifa. xxvii. 4. There is no paffionate malicious temper in the pure and holy God; no revengful appetite to feed up the blood of his creature. He is of purer eyes than to behold the least iniquity; and of a purer nature, than any way to mifcarry in any of his dealings, or difpenfations. Converse then with this infinite holiness of God: keep up pure, equitable, honourable thoughts of him in your hearts. Take heed of fancying to yourselves a God guilty of paffion or partiality, or carried away with fuch weak and mixed affections as we ourselves are. But more practically, converfe with God's holinefs in the time of afflictions, by laying even little fins greatly to heart: little fins, compared with infinite holiness and purity, ought to be matter of great and ferious forrow to a fenfible foul. Again take heed of the least mifcarriages under affliction, of departing from God in the leaft. This I know is the great duty and care of every tender-hearted Christian at all times. But I conceive we ought more especially to prefs it upon our hearts in the time of affliction, because we are then most apt to indulge fome kind of humane paffions, which we call natural affections as if we had a licence to care, and fear, and grieve, and complain, not only in an extraordinary, but even in an irregular manner. Oh let the fense of God's infinite purity and perfect holiness, check

and

and awe thofe very natural affections, be they what they will, if they offer to exceed their bounds, and overflow their banks. But this I touched upon before under another head, amongst the reafons of the doctrine. Therefore.

5. Converse with the almighty power of God. That God is infinite and almighty in power, I need not undertake to demonftrate. No man hath read a leaf in fcripture, nor indeed turned over one leaf in the book of the creatures, that hath not learnt this. I need not fure turn you to any particular mighty work of God: they that inftance in his letting loose the virtues of the creatures, in the cafe of the univerfal deluge, or binding up their influences, as in the case of the three captive Jews; Daniel and Janah; when he kept the fire from burning, and forbid the lions to eat one, and the fifh to digeft another prophet whom he had eaten, do make but a poor guess at almightiness, but a faint effay to defcribe it. The creation of the least creature out of nothing, is an higher argument of divine power, than the command of the greatest that is already created. Eye God duly in the notion of a creator; yea, of a creator of your own fouls and bodies, and you have enough to fill you with everlasting admiration, as David was filled, Pfal. cxxxix. 14. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. But it is not enough to eye and acknowledge, or admire; we muft yet do more, if we will rightly converfe with the almightiness of God, viz. by the acts of reverence and dependence.

1. Reverence that almighty and glorious God in your hearts, who can bring quidlibet ex quolibet, any thing out of any thing, yea, out of nothing; yea

any

any thing to nothing in a moment. Reverence that power of God; that can pour contempt upon princes; that can bring Job the greatest of all the men of the east, to lie in the afhes, and make his bed in the dunghil; that can fend home Naomi empty, who went out full and flourishing. Hath he done fo by you, debased you when you were high, tumbled you down from the clouds, and rolled you in the duft, emptied you when you were full, withered you when fresh and flourishing? Let not God lofe the glory of his almighty power: reverence that glorious hand of God.

2. Reft upon the fame almighty God who can alfo bring up the fame Fob from the dunghil, and fet him with princes, and fill empty Naomi with a famous offspring, throwing into her lap one of the ancestors of the Meffiah, according to the flesh. The fame power that caused your fun to go down at mid-day, when you least fufpected, can alfo cause it to rise at midnight, when you leaft hope. Dwell not upon creature probabilities or improbabilities: but lift up thyfelf believing foul, and be affured, that God can do what he will, and he will do what is good for them that love him, according to the dictates of unfearchable wisdom and goodness. Thou that art rolled in the duft, yet arise and roll thyself upon those almighty arms that brought thee thither, and are able to advance thee; as I have seen a child thrown off by his father, and thrown down to the ground in a feeming displeasure, yet clinging to the fame hand, and would not let it go, till at length he rofe up again by it: a fit emblem of a child of God, whom his heavenly father seems as if he had caft

off.

off. The wounding hand of God is apt to amaze indeed, and to beget confternation and astonishment. But remember, the fame hand that wounds, can also heal; he that breaks us, can also make up all our breaches: let this beget confidence and dependence. God never wounds deeper, than that he can eafily bind up the wound again; never throws his people fo'low, as that they should be out of his reach. Take heed therefore of unfeemly defpondencies; caft not away your confidence, which shall have a recompence, if ye maintain it: A recompence, I fay; for that God that can recover the setting fun, and exalt it in its beauty and brightness, and doth fo every morning; that can clothe the forlorn and naked trees with leaves, and fruits; that can recover the verdure of the withering grafs, and doth fo every year; he can also cause light to arise to them that fit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, Ifa. ix. 2.

He that could give unto Amaziah much more than that which he parted with at his command, 2 Chron. xxv. 9. that could turn again the captivity of Job, and give him double for what he had taken from him, Job lxii. 10. he can furely make his people glad according to the days wherein he hath afflicted them, and the years wherein they have feen evil, Pfal. xc. 15. He can recompence and reftore to his penitent people the fruits which the locufts and the caterpillers have confumed, according to his promife, Joel ii. 25. He can recompence to his people the comforts of health and liberty, which fickness hath confumed; the comforts of friends and relations, which the grave hath devoured. He that hath made the Springs dry, Jer.

li. 36.