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Pang of love did David go into the prefence of God under the fenfe of his mercies! his melting mercies! when he thus poured out his whole foul in a stream of love to his God, 2 Sam. vii. 19, 20, Is this the manner of men, O Lord God? And "what can David fay more unto thee?" An expreffion that turns up the very bottom of his heart.

3. Thirdly, Profperity and comfortable providences do ufually become cautions against fin, when they meet with a fanctified foul. This is the natural inference of a gracious foul from them: hath God pleafed me, then hath he obliged me to take more care to please him: O let me not grieve him, that hath comforted me! So Ezra ix. 13. "After fuch a deliverance as "this, fhould we again break thy commandments!" What! break his commandments who hath broken our bonds! God forbid !

It was an excellent refolution of a Christian once, who receiving an eminent mercy at the fame time he felt himself under the power of a special corruption; "Well, (faith he) now will "I go forth in the ftrength of this mercy, to mortify and fub

due that corruption." I will not measure every Chriftian by the eminent workings of grace in fome one; but furely fo far I may fafely go, that fincerity knows not how to fin, becaufe grace hath abounded, any more than it dare fin, that grace may abound.

4. Fourthly, A truly gracious foul will not be fatisfied with all the profperity and comforts in the world for his portion: Not thine, Lord, but thee, is the voice of grace. When providence had been more than ordinarily bountiful in outward things to Luther, he began to be afraid of its meaning, and earnestly protefted, God fhould not put him off fo "The Lord is my * portion, faith my foul," Lam. iii. 24. and the foul can best tell what it hath made its choice, and whereon it hath beftowed its chief delights and expectations.

Au unfound heart will accept these for its portion: if the world be fure to him, and his designs fail not there, he can be content to leave God, and foul, and heaven, and bell at hazard; but fo cannot the upright. Thefe things in fubordination; but peither thefe, nor any thing under the fun, in comparifon with, or oppofition to God.

CHA P. V

Shewing what probation adverfity makes of the fincerity or un

foundness of our hearts.

SECT. I.

HAT adverfity is a furnace to try of what metal our

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hearts are, none can doubt, that hath either ftudied the fcaptures, or observed his own heart under afflictions.

When the drofs and ruft of hypocrify and corruption had almost eaten out the heart of religion among the Jews, then faith God, "I will melt them, and try them; for what fhall I do "for the daughter of my people?" Jer ix. 7. Here affliction is the furnace, and the people are the metal caft into it, and the end of it is trial. I will melt them, and try them; what other courfe fhall I take with them? If I let them alone, their lufts, like the ruft and canker in metals, will eat them out. Profperity multiplies profeffors, and adverfity bring them to the teft; then hirelings quickly become chauglings. The guilded Potcherd glifters till it come to fcouring. The devil thought Job had been fuch a one, and moves that he may be tried this way; being confident he would be found but drofs in the trial, Job i. 11. But though the furnace of affliction discovered fome drofs in him (as it will in the best of men) yet he came forth as gold.

In this furnace also grace is manifefted: it is faid, Rev. xiii. 10. Here is the faith and patience of the faints;" ie. here is the trial and difcovery of it in these days of adverfity. It was a weighty faying of Tertullian to the perfecutors of the church in his days, Probatio innocentiae noftrae, eft iniquitas veftra; Your wickednefs is the trial of our innocency. Conflantius, the father of Conftantine, made an exploratory decree, that all who would not renounce the Christian faith, fhould lose their places of honour and profit. This prefently feparated the drofs from the gold, which was his defign; for many renounced Chriflianity, and thereupon were renounced by him; and thofe that held their integrity, were received into favour.

In time of profperity, hypocrify lies covered in the heart like nefts in the green bushes; but when the winter of adver

* Tertul. in Apol.

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fity hath made them bare, every body may fee them without fearching.

But to fall into closer particulars; it will be neceffary to enquire what effects of adverfity are common to both the found and the unfound; and then what are proper to either in this clofe trial by adverfity.

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IT will be expedient to the defign I manage in this difcourfe, to fhew in the first place what are the common effects of adversity to both the godly and ungodly; for in fome things they differ not, but as it is with the one, fo alfo with the other: As,

1. First, Both the godly and ungodly may fear adverfity before it comes : to be fure a wicked man cannot, and it is evident many godly men do not, come up to the height of that rule, James i. 2. "To account it all joy when they fall into di"verse temptations," or trials by adverfity.

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It is faid, Ifa. xxxiii. 14. "The finners in Zion are afraid; trembling furprizeth the hypocrite;" namely, under the apprehenfion of approaching calamities; and it is true alfo, the faints in Zion may be afraid: "My flefh trembleth for fear of "thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments," said holy David, Pfal. cxix. 120. and Job iii. 23. "The thing which I greatly "feared (faith that upright foul) is come upon me." There is a vast difference betwixt a faint's first meeting with afflictions, and his parting with them; he entertains them fometimes with trembling; he parts with them rejoicing, fmiling on them, and bleffing them in the name of the Lord. So that by this the upright, and the false heart, are not difcriminated; even fanctified nature declines fuffering and troubles.

2. Secondly, Both the godly and ungodly may entertain afAlictions with regret and unwillingness when they come. Affictions and troubles are wormwood and gall, Lam. iii. 19. And that goes not down pleasantly with flesh and blood, Heb. xii. 11. No affliction for the prefent feemeth joyous, but "grievous;" he means to God's own people; they are in hea vinefs through manifold temptations or trials by the rod, 1 Pet. i. 6.

When God gives the cup of affliction into the hands of the wicked, how do they reluctate and loath it? How do their ftomachs rife at it? And though the portion of the faints cup be much sweeter than theirs, (for that bitter ingredient of God's vindictive wrath is not in it), yet even they fhrink from it, and loth they are to taste it.

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3. Thirdly, Both the one and other may be impatient and fretful in adversity; it is the very nature of flesh and blood to be fo. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters caft forth mire and dirt," Ifa. Ivii. 20. It is an allufion to the unstable and ftormy ocean: you know there is naturally an estuation and working in the fea, whether it be incenfed by the wind or no; but if a violent wind blow upon the unquiet ocean, O what a raging and foaming is there! what abundance of trash and filth doth it at fuch times caft out!

Now, though grace make a great difference betwixt one and another, yet I dare not fay, but even a gracious heart may be very unquiet and tumultuous in the day of affliction. Sanctified fouls have their passions and lufts which are too little mortified; even as fweat-briar and holy-thiftles have their prickles, as well as the worthlefs bramble. Jonah was a good man, yet his foul was fadly distempered by adverfe providences; Jonah iv. y. "Yea, (faith he, and that to his God) I do well to be angry, 46 even unto death."

4. Fourthly, Both the one and the other may be weary of the rod, and think the day of adversity a tedious day, wishing it were once at an end. Babylon shall be weary of the evil that God will bring upon it, Jer. li. ult. And O that none of Zion's children were weary of adverfity too! How fad a moan doth Job make of his long continued affliction, Job xvi. 6, 7. "Though I speak, my grief is not affuaged; and though I "forbear, what am I eased? But now he hath made me "weary."

And if you look into Psalm vi. 3, 6. you may see another ftrong Christian even tired in the way of affliction: "My foul (faith David in that place) is fore vexed, but thou, O Lord, "how long? I am weary with my groaning."

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5. Fifthly, Both the one and the other may be driven to their knees by adversity. "Lord, in trouble have they vifited thee; "they have poured out a prayer when thy chaftening was up

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on them," Ifa. xxvi. 16. Not that a godly perion will pray no longer than the rod is at his back; O no, he cannot live without prayer long, how few calls foever he hath to that duty by the rod; but when the rod is on his back, he will be more frequently and more fervently upon his knees; indeed many graceless hearts are like childrens tops, which will go no longer than they are whipt; they cannot find their knees and their tongues, till God find a rod to excite them. A dangerous fymptom. The fame affliction may put a gracious, and a grace

lefs foul to their knees; but though in the external matter of duty, and in the external call or occafion of duty, they feem to agree, yet is there a vast difference in the principles, manner, and ends of thefe their duties; as will evidently appear in its proper place in our following difcourfe.

But by what hath been faid in this fection, you may see how in fome things the holy upright foul acts too like the unfanctified, and in other things how much the hypocrite may act like a faint; he may be externally humbled, fo was Ahab; he may pray under the rod, Mal. ii. 3. yea, and requeft others to pray for him, fo did Simon, Acts viii. 24.

SECT. III.

BUT though the found and unfound heart differ not in fome external carriages under the rod, yet there are effects of adverfity which are proper to either, and will difcriminate them. To which end let us firft fee what effects adverfity is usually followed withal in unfound and carnal hearts; and we shall find among others, these five fymptoms of a naughty heart appearing under croffes and afflictions.

1. First, A graceless heart is not quickly and easily brought to fee the hand of God in thofe troubles that befal it, and be duly affected with it; Ifa. xxvi. 1. "Lord, when thy hand is "lifted up, they will not fee:" when it has fmitten, or is lifted up to fmite, they fhut their eyes; it is the malice of this man, or the negligence of that, or the unfaithfulness of another, that hath brought all this trouble upon mc. Thus the creature is the horizon that terminates their fight, and beyond that they ufually fee nothing. Sometimes indeed the hand of God is fo immediately manifefted, and convincingly difcovered in afflic tions, that they cannot avoid the fight of it; and then they may, in their way, pour out a prayer before him; but ordina rily they impute all to fecond caufes, and overlook the first caufe of their troubles.

2. Secondly, Nor is it ufual with thefe men under the rod to retire into their closets, and fearch their hearts there, to find out the particular caufe and provocation of their affliction : "No man repented him of his wickedness, faying, What have "I done?" Jer. viii. 6. What curfed thing is there with me, that hath this incenfed the anger of God against me! God vi fits their iniquities with afflictions, but they vifit not their own hearts by felf-examinations. God judges them, but they judge not themselves: He fhews their iniquities in a clear glass, but none faith, What have I done? This phrafe, What have I

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