yet it is a calm day within; in the foul there is peace and tranquillity.

Laftly, and indeed everlastingly too, we are to converfe with the infinite, felf-fufficient fulness of God, in a day of the greatest extremity: that is, as if I fhould fay, not with any one fingle attribute, but with the very God-head of God, the immenfe perfection of God, the whole of the deity. Oh how feasonably doth this bleffed object prefent itself to the foul in a time of afflictions, loffes, mortalities, perfecutions, when we are most emptied of creature enjoyments, and the emptiness of them doth moft appear! for upon these two doth our converfing with God much depend. I need not tell you how apt we are to live befide God when we have our fill of creature delights; whilst we can entertain our hearts with a created sweetness, we foolishly forget and neglect the fupreme good. And fo fond and unreafonable is this affection, that no warnings, no precepts will ferve the turn; God is forced to break that off from us, from which we would not be broken. Sure I am, the bleffed and bountiful God envies not his fervants any of their creaturecomforts or delights; but he loves them, as I faid before, with a strong and powerful love, and will not suffer them to live fo much to their lofs, as they do, when they spend noble affections upon tranfitory things, in the everlafting enjoyment of which they could never be happy. Now afflictions are a negative, if we speak properly, even as fin is; and when ever we are afflicted in any kind; we are emptied of fome created good, as poverty is nothing but the abfence of riches: fickF

nefs

nefs the want of ease, of order, of health in the conftitution: reftraint is the lofs of liberty, &c. So then it appears, that in a time of affliction, God is emptying us of creature-enjoyments: for indeed affliction itself is little or nothing else but fuch an emptying or deprivation. And that then the emptiness of the creature doth most appear, I fuppofe all will grant. The fick perfon looks upon his decayed ftrength, and withering members, and is feelingly convinced of the truth of the fcripture, All flesh is grass. Another cafts about his eyes with Sampson, and fees heaps upon heaps, and cries out like one that feels the weight of his own words, Childhood and youth are vanity: or alas! how foon is the defire of one's eyes taken away with aftroke! Another fees his goods carried away before his face ; and his houfe on fire before his eyes, and then cries out, that he hath a real proof of the vanity of thofe things, which Solomon had long ago obferved, Pro. xxiii. 5. Riches take themfelves wings and fly away as an eagle towards heaven. Whilst we fee the creatures ftand, we will not believe but they are ftable; whilft we fee them fair and flourifhing, we cannot rightly lay to heart the withering nature of them: but when we fee them cut down, we then conclude, they were but flowers; when we see them flitting, we conclude they are fhadows; when God pours them out upon the ground, we are then convinced that they were unstable as water: to fhew us what the best of our creature-enjoyments are, God is forced to take them quite away, that they be no more.

Now

Now then in fuch a cafe, at fuch a time, converfe with the infinite, felf-fufficient fulness of God. Oh now it is seasonable; now it is your duty; nay now it will be your greatest policy! If that chanel, that creature-chanel be ftopped, in which your affections were wont to run too freely; turn the ftream of them into their proper chanel in which they may run freely, and never meet with obstruction, or ever over-flow. Let your foul grow up into acquaintance and union with God by creature-breaches and disappointment. More particularly, converse with the selffufficient fulness of God.

1. By the act of creature-denial. The eying of an infinite, abfolute, uncreated fulness in a right manner, takes off the foul from all created objects, earthly things: even as the beholding the fun in its glory, dazzles the eye to all things below. God becomes fo great in the eye of the foul, that it cannot fee the poor motes of worldly comforts. Give a foul a feeling tafte of the infinite sweetness and fulness of the fountain, and its thirst after the poor puddles of the world is prefently abated, if not perfectly quenched, according to that of our Saviour, John iv. 14. Whosoever fhall drink of the water that I fhall give him, fhall never thirst; that is, after any other thing. Like unto which is that gofpel promife, Ifa. xlix. 10. they shall not thirft, who do enjoy thefe fprings of water. When this fountain is opened to the eye of the foul, and the foul begins to tafte of it, it longs to drink deeper of that indeed, but as for all other waters, waters of the cistern, the soul looks upon them not being, or at leaft as being bitter, waters of

F

2

Marab

Marah in comparifon; we do then truly converfe with the infinite, felf-fufficient fulness of God, when we look upon all created good with a noble difdain, are content to part with it; or if we ftill enjoy it, are refolved to enjoy it only in God, and fo look upon it, and love it, only as a beam from the father of lights; as a drop of the infinite fountain of all perfections. Tell me, is it not a poor and low thing that many profeffors do, who acknowledge and magnify the uncreated goodness, the fulness of God; and yet at the fame time covet and court the creature with all eagerness; and their worldliness is apparently too hard for their religion? Methinks I hear God fpeaking to fuch feeming friends, as Delilah to Sampfon, Judg. xvi. 15. How can ye fay, you love me, when your heart is not with me? To these mens hearts, methinks our Saviour's doctrine fhould ftrike cold, Matt. vi. 21. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be alfo: and those words of his beloved apoftle, John ii. 15. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Let a man pretend and profefs what he will; and in words magnify the fulness and fufficiency of God as much as he will; if in the mean time his foul be bound up in the creature, fuch a man's religion is vain: nay indeed his profeffion of God becomes a real reproaching him, and a blafphemy against reafon itself. Let your low esteem of all created good in comparifon of the fupreme good, your readiness to quit your title to every creaturecomfort, and in the mean time, your care to live befide it, witness the true and honourable esteem, the true and feeling fenfe that you have in your

hearts

hearts of the infinite and felf-fufficient fulness of God. For, however men may make a shift to cheat themselves, God is not truly great in the foul, till all other things become as nothing, neither doth the foul rightly converse with his infinite fulnefs, fo long as any thing ftands in oppofition to it, or competition with it.

2. Converfe with the felf-fufficient fulness of God by the grace of faith; I mean by that act of it, whereby we do intereft ourselves, and as it were wrap up our own fouls in this fulness, and make it our own. And herein there is no danger of an humble foul's being too bold or venturous: for the proclamation is full, and the invitation free, Ifa. Iv. 1. John vii. 37. Rev. xxii. 17. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. What Seneca fays of the foul in regard of the divine original of it, may fure be better faid of a godly foul, in refpect of the divine nature, and qualities of it, illum divina delectant, nec ut alienis intereft fed ut fuis; it doth not converse with things divine, as with another's, but as its own. And indeed we cannot truly and comfortably converfe with the infinite perfection and fulness of God, if we have. no title to it but then we converse with God,. when we converse with our own God, not another's when the foul is able to fay, all this fulness of power, wisdom, goodness, is all mine in my head Chrift Jefus, for in him all this fulness dwells, Col. ii. 9. and he dwelleth in me; in him are hid all these treasures, Col. ii. 3. and my life plfo is bid with Chrift in God, as theirs was in Col. iii. 3. You fee then, that a foul cannot converfe with the infinite fulness and felf-fufficiency