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DIRECT. V. Labour to bear with patience whatever load of trouble the Lord appoints for you.

WE

E will perhaps observe some who are strangers to religion contentedly enduring very painful evils; and this they may do by virtue of a natural hardiness and resolution which some are endued with, or upon the account of arguments furnished by human prudence. This is only patience as a moral virtue which some attain to. But it is patience as a spiritual grace, or a fruit of the Spirit which we must aim at under our trials; that we may bear them contentedly, from divine principles, to divine ends. Now this grace of patience we must earnestly beg from God under heavy afflictions, for it is only he that must work it in us; and therefore he is called the God of patience, Rom. xv. 5. And in order to your attaining of this grace, I shall lay before you the following considerations, which may be useful through the Lord's blessing for that end.

1st, Consider the patience of our Lord Jesus Christ under sufferings inexpressibly greater than yours.— "When it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and to put him to grief; how patiently did he bear all?" according to that remarkable word Isa. liii. 7. "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." Now, Christ suffered as an example of patience, though it was not his chief end; and surely all the members of the body should study to imitate the head in patience. Did your blessed Saviour patiently endure such agonies and pressures of wrath for you; and will you decline to undergo some short pains or sickness in obedience to his command?

2dly, Consider God's sovereignty over you. He is the great potter, and you are his clay: and, why may he not do with you what he pleaseth? If your children offend you, you scourge them, and perhaps do it some

times without reason; yet how ill do you take it, when they refuse to submit? How will you drive and spur your horses under you, and may be sometimes unreasonably! Yet they bear all quietly, and make no resist ance. Shall they take blows from their master; and will not you from your Maker, that has far more power. over you? If any challenge you for cruelty to your children or beasts, you take it not well, because you think you may do w what you will with your own, and no man hath right to quarrel you: But, hath not God a greater property in you, than you in your children or cattle? And will you not patiently submit to your wise and absolute Sovereign?

3dly, Consider thy sin as the meritorious cause of all thy afflictions, however heavy they be.. If thou hast right thoughts of thy sins and the aggravations thereof, thy mind may be composed to a patient submission to God's hand: If sin be heavy on thee, all thy afflictions will be light. Luther gives us this as a reason why he slighted the rage of the Pope and emperor, and all his outward troubles; they are all little to me, because sin is so weighty on me. Hence it was that Paul complained not at all of his sufferings, for as great as they were; but he cried out much of his sins, Rom. vii. 24. "Owretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death " Sense of sin doth swallow up the sense of affliction, as the ocean doth little brooks. For, with whom shouldst thou quarrel, but thyself, when thou bringest troubles on thyself. This consideration should bring thee to resolve and say with the prophet, Micah vii. 9. "I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him,"

4thly, Consider how sharp soever the pains are you are called to bear, yet they fall infinitely short of what you have justly deserved at God's hands. It is of his infinite mercy that death and everlasting destruction hath not been your portion long since; and that you are not now roaring under the extremity of his indignation

in the bottomless pit, together with the devil and his angels. And consequently, whatsoever falls short of this, is truly a great mercy; and so far from being ground of quarrelling, that the greatest sufferer on this side hell, hath just cause to admire God's clemency in dealing more favourably with him than he hath deserved.

5thly Compare thy case with others that have been or presently are in distress. Do not say there is none so hardly dealt with as thou art, for thou knowest not the affliction of others. Consider duly the trials of that eminent saint Job, in all the circumstances thereof, and see if you can say, that your sorrow is ever so great as his sorrow was. Again, compare your case with that of the damned in hell, who lie and fry in endless and ceaseless flames, so that they have no rest day nor night, but the smoke of their torment ascends for ever: and think what a blessing it is, that you are yet in a state of salvation, and not delivered over to these everlasting burnings, which were the due demerits of your sins, and to which you might long ago have been justly condemned, had it not been for the patience and long suffering of Almighty God, waiting to be gracious to guilty sinners. When you consider these things, instead of being dissatisfied with the divine dispensations, you have cause to bless God, that matters are not worse with you; and that you are kept out of hell to this day, where thousands no more guilty than you, are presently roaring in desperation.

Unto these considerations I shall subjoin some few helps or advices in order to the attaining of patience under sore troubles. 1. Labour to get pardon of sin and peace with God secured to thy soul, and this will enable you to bear the heaviest cross with patience. Hence it was that Luther cried, "Smite, Lord, as thou wilt, I take all in good part, seeing my sins are pardoned; O pardon of sin is the crowning blessing, there fore I will bear any thing, I will swallow np quarrelling into admiring; welcome the pruning knife, see

ing there is no fear of the bloody axe to fell me down."

2. Labour to see God's hand in thy affliction. Do not, like the dog, snarl at the stone, but look up to the hand that throws it. And surely a view of the hand of a holy God may serve to calm all the boisterous waves of thy corruption, so did it with David, Psalm xxxix. 9. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it." When he looked to the instruments and second causes of his afflictions, his heart waxed hot, and the fire of his inward passion began to burn and break out; but when he once espied God's hand and seal to the warrant for his correction, he became silent, and patiently submitted to the divine will.

3. Get a humble and self-denied frame of spirit, that you may have low thoughts of yourself, and of all your attainments whatsoever. A proud man cannot think of submitting to the divine will, but will break before he bow. Hence we see a vast difference betwixt a proud Pharoah and an humble Eli, under the rod: the one says, who is the Lord, that I should obey him? but the other saith, it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.

4. Get love to Jesus Christ. Love is an enduring principle, 1 Cor. xiii. 7. it endureth all things. It makes the soul, like the kindly child, draw nearer to Christ, the more it is beaten.

5. Interpret God's ways and dealings with you always in the best sense. And, Lastly, Be earnest in prayer, that God may conquer your rebellious, will, and subdue these mutinous risings of heart within you a gainst himself.

DIRECT. VI. Beware of envying wicked men, when you see them in health and prosperity.

THE

HE Psalmist, when he was chastened every morning, and in great adversity, was liable to this,

evil, Psal. lxxiii. 3. "I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." Corrupt nature 'doth strongly incline us to this sinful disposition, especially in the day of sore affliction; for "the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy," Jam. iv. 5. But did we rightly consider the state of wicked men, we would see greater ground to pity than envy them in the most prosperous condition; Why? "the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." Prov. i. 32. It makes them forget God, and turn hardened and secure in sin, which hastens their ruin. Who would envy a malefactor's going up a ladder and being mounted above the rest of the people, when it is only for a little, and in order to his being turned over and hanged? This is just the case of wicked men, who are mounted up high in prosperity; for it is so, only that they may be cast down deeper into destruction. Observe that word, Psal. xxxvii. 1, 2. "Fret not thyself because of evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity; for they shall soon be cut down like grass," &c. And that word, Psalm xcii. 7. "When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed for ever." It would be a brutish thing to envy an ox of his high and sweet pasture, when he is only thereby fitted for the day of slaughter. Who would have envied the beasts of old, the garlands and ribbons with which the heathens adorned them, when they went to be sacrificed? These external ornaments of health, wealth, pleasures and preferments, wherewith wicked men are endowed, cannot make their bitter state happy, nor change their natures to the better. Whatever appearance these things make in the eyes of the world, they are but like a noisome dunghill, covered with scarlet, as vile and loathsome in God's sight as ever. How quickly is the beauty of earthly things blasted! "The triumphing of the wicked is short, Job xx. 5. They live in pleasures on the earth for a while; but God sets them in slippery places, from whence they soon slide

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