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be taken in their lying contradictions. And I may add for a fourth, viz. those that are afflicted, that they may remember the great good that they have gained by former afflictions, that so they may be the more silent and quiet under present troubles.

5. To quiet and silence your souls under the sorest afflictions and sharpest trials; consider, that your choicest, your chiefest treasure is safe, 1 Tim. i. 5. your God is safe, your Christ is safe, your portion is safe, 2 Tim. iv. 8. your crown is safe, your inheritance is safe, your royal palace is safe, and your jewels, your graces are safe; therefore hold your peace.

I have read a story of a man that had a suit, and when his cause was to be heard, he applied himself to three friends, to see what they would do for him. One answered, He would bring him as far on his journey as he could; the second promised him, That he would go with him to his journey's end; the third engaged himself to go with him before the judge, and to speak for him, and not to leave him till his cause was heard and determined. These three are a man's riches, his friends, and his graces; his riches will help him to comfortable accommodations while they stay with him, but they often take leave of a man, before his soul takes leave of his body; his friends will go with him to the grave, and then leave him; but his graces will accompany him before God, 1 Tim. vi. 18, 19. they will not leave him, nor forsake

him, they will to the grave, to glory with him.

In that very famous battle at Leuctrum, where the Thebans got a signal victory, their captain Epaminondas, a little before his death, demanded whether his buckler were taken by the enemy; and when he understood that it was safe, and that they had not so much as laid their hands on it, he died most willingly, chearfully, and quietly. Well, Christians, your shield of faith is safe, your portion is safe, your royal robe is safe, your kingdom is safe, your heaven is safe, your happiness and blessedness is safe; and therefore under all your afflictions and troubles, in patience possess your own souls. But,

6. If you would be silent and quiet under your sorest troubles and trials, then set yourselves in good earnest upon the mortification of your lusts*. It is unmortified lust which is the sting of every trouble, and which makes every sweet bitter, and every bitter more bitter; sin unmortified adds weight to every burden, it puts gall to our wormwood, it adds chain to chain; it makes the bed uneasy, the chamber a prison, relations troublesome, and every thing vexatious to the soul, James iv. 1. From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ?" So say I, From whence comes all this mut

* Austin saith, if thou kill not sin till it die of itself, sin hath killed thee, and not thou thy sin.

tering, murmuring, fretting, and vexing? &c. Come they not hence, even from your unmortified lusts? come they not from your unmortified pride, and unmortified self-love, and unmortified unbelief, and unmortified passions? &c. Surely they do. Oh! therefore, as ever you would be silent under the afflicting hand of God, labour for more and more of the grace of the spirit, by which you may mortify the lusts of the flesh, Rom. viii. 13. It is not your strongest resolutions, or purposes, without the grace of the spirit, that can overmaster a lust. It was the blood of the sacrifice, and the oil, that cleansed the leper in the law and that by them was meant the blood of Christ, and the grace of his Spirit, is agreed on all hands, Lev. xiv. 14, 15, 16. It was a touch of Christ's garment that cured the woman of her bloody issue, Mark v. 25, 26, 27. Philosophy (saith Lactantius) may hide a sin, but it cannot quench it; it may cover a sin, but it cannot cut off a sin; like a black patch instead of a plaister, it may cover some deformities in nature, but it cures them not; neither is it the Papists purgatories, watchings, whippings, &c. nor St Francis his kissing or licking of lepers sores, which will cleanse the fretting leprosy of sin; in the strength of Christ, and in the power of the spirit, set roundly upon the mortifying of every lust. Oh! hug none, indulge none, but resolvedly set upon the ruin of all. One leak in a ship will sink it; one wound strikes Goliath dead, as well as three

and twenty did Cæsar; one Delilah may do Sampson as much spite and mischief, as all the Philistines; one broken wheel spoils the whole clock; one vein's bleeding will let out all the vitals, as well as more; one fly will spoil a whole box of ointment; one bitter herb all the pottage; by eating one apple, Adam lost Paradise; one lick of honey endangered Jonathan's life; one Achan was a trouble to all Israel; one Jonah raises a storm, and becomes lading too heavy for a whole ship. So one unmortified lust will be able to raise very strange and strong storms and tempests in the soul, in the days of affliction and therefore, as you would have a blessed calm and quietness in your own spirits under your sharpest trials, set thoroughly upon the work of mortification. Gideon had seventy sons, Judges viii. 30, 31, chap. ix. 17. and but one bastard, and yet that bastard destroyed all his seventy sons. Ah Christian! thou dost not know what a world of mischief one unmortified lust may do; and therefore let nothing satisfy thee but the death of all thy lusts.

7. If you would be silent under your greatest afflictions, your sharpest trials, then make this consideration your daily companion, viz. That all the afflictions that come upon you, come upon you by and through that covenant of grace that God hath made with you, Jer. xxxii. 36.-ult. God hath engaged himself to keep you from the evils, snares, and temptations of the world; in the covenant of grace

God hath engaged himself to purge away your sins, to brighten and increase your graces, to crucify your hearts to the world, and to prepare you, and preserve you to his heavenly kingdom; and by afflictions he effects all this, and that according to his covenant too, Psal. lxxxix. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. "If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments." In these words you have a supposition that the saints may fall both into sins of commission, and sins of omission; in the following words you have Gods gracious promise, Then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes. God engages himself by promise and covenant, not only to chide and check, but also to correct his people for their sins. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. Afflictions are fruits of God's faithfulness, to which the covenant binds him; God would be unfaithful, if first or last, more or less, he did not afflict his people; afflictions are part of that gracious covenant which God hath made with his people; afflictions are mercies, yea covenant-mercies, Psal. cxix. 75. Hence it is that God is called the terrible God, keeping covenant and mercy, Neh. i. 5. because by his covenant of mercy he is bound to afflict and chastise his people. God by covenant is bound to preserve his people, and not to suffer them to perish; and happy are they that are preserved, All the afflictions that come upon

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