it; but walk heavenwards in purity, and long to be there, where you shall know what it means; for you shall see him as he is.

Now to that blessed Trinity be praise for ever.

SERMON II.

PREFACE.

I WILL return to my place, (saith the Lord by his prophet,) till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me early. Hos. v. 15. The Father of mercies hides himself from his children, not to lose them, but that they may seek him, and may learn, having found him, to keep closer by him than formerly. He threatens them, to keep them from punishment; if his threattening work submission, it is well; if not, he punishes them gently, to save them from destruction. He seeks no more, but that they acknowledge their offence, and seek his face. Wonderful clemency! for who can forbear to confess multitudes of offences that know themselves? And who can choose but seek thy face, that ever saw thy face, and that know thee? In their affliction they will seek me early. He that prays not till affliction comes and forces him to it, is very slothful; but he that prays not in affliction, is altogether senseless. Certainly they that at this time are not more than ordinarily fervent in prayer, or do not at least desire and strive to be so, cannot well think that there is any spiritual life within them. Sure it is high time to stir up ourselves to prayers and tears. All may bear arms in that kind of service. Weak women may be strong in prayer; and those tears, wherein they usually abound upon other occasions, cannot be so well spent as this way. Let them not run out in howlings and impatience, but bring them, by bewailing sins, private as well as public, to

quench this public fire. And ye men, yea, ye men of courage, account it no disparagement thus to weep. We read often of David's tears, which was no stain to his valour. That cloud that hangs over us, which the frequent vapours of our sins have made, except it dissolve and fall down again in these sweet showers of godly tears, is certainly reserved to be the matter of a dreadful storm. Be instant every one in secret for the averting of this wrath, and let us now again unite the cries of our hearts for this purpose to our compassionate God, in the name and mediation of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

JOB XXXIV. 31, 32:

Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more. That which I see not, teach thou me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more.

THE great sin, and the great misery of man is, the forgetting of God; and the great end and use of his works and of his word is, to teach us the right remembrance and consideration of him in all estates. These words do particularly instruct us in the application of our thoughts towards him in the time of affliction. The shortness and the various signification of the words used in the original, gives occasion to some other readings and another sense of them. But this we have in our translation, being not only very profitable, but very congruous both to the words of the primitive text, and to the contexture of the discourse; I shall keep to it, without dividing your thoughts by the mentioning of any other. Neither will I lead you so far about as to speak of the great dispute of this book, and the question about which it is held. He that speaks here, though the youngest of the company, yet, as a wise and calm-spirited man, closes all with a discourse of excellent temper, and full of grave, useful instructions, amongst which this is one :

Surely it is meet to be said, or spoke, to God. This speaking to God, though it may be vocal, yet it is not necessarily nor chiefly so, but is always mainly, and may often be, only mental; without this, the words of the mouth, how well chosen and well expressed soever they be, are to God of no account or signification at all. But if the heart speak, even when there is not a word in the mouth, it is that he hearkens to, and regards that speech, though made by a voice that none hears but he, and is a language that none understands but he.

But it is a rare, unfrequented thing, this communing of the heart with God, speaking its thoughts to him concerning itself, and concerning him and his dealing with it, and the purposes and intentions it hath towards him; which is the speech here recommended, and is that divine exercise of meditation, and soliloquy of the soul with itself, and with God, hearkening what the Lord God speaks to us, within us, and our hearts echoing and resounding his words, as Psalm xxvii. 8, 9, and opening to him our thoughts of them, and of ourselves. Though they stand open, and he sees them all, even when we tell him not of them, yet because he loves us, he loves to hear them of our own speaking; let me hear thy voice, for it is sweet; as a father delights in the little stammering, lisping language of his beloved child. And if the reflex affection of children be in us, we will love also to speak with our Father, and to tell him all our mind (wapnoia), and to be often with him in the entertainments of our secret thoughts.

But the most of men are little within; either they wear out their hours in vain discourse with others, or possibly vainer discourses with themselves; even those that are not of the worst sort, and possibly that have their times of secret prayer, yet do not so delight to think of God and to speak with him, as they do to be conversant in other affairs and companies, and discourses, in which there is a great deal of froth and emptiness. Men think by talking of many things, to

be refreshed, and yet when they have done, find that it is nothing; and that they had much better have been alone, or have said nothing. Our thoughts and speeches in most things run to waste, yea are defiled, as water spilt on the ground, is both lost, cannot be gathered up again, and it is polluted, mingled with dust. But no word spoken to God, from the serious sense of a holy heart, is lost; he receives it, and returns it into our bosom with advantage: a soul that delights to speak to him, will find that he also delights to speak to it. And this communication certainly is the sweetest and happiest choice, to speak little with men, and much with God. One short word, such as this here, spoken to God, in a darted thought, eases the heart more when it is afflicted, than the largest discourses and complainings to the greatest and most powerful of men, or the kindest and most friendly. It gives not only ease but joy to say to God, I have sinned, yet I am thine; or as here, I have borne chastisement, I will no more offend. The time of affliction is peculiarly a time of speaking to God, and such speech as this is peculiarly befitting such a time. And this is one great recommendation of affliction, that it is a time of wiser and more sober thoughts; a time of the returning of the mind inwards and upwards. A high place, fulness and pleasure draw the mind more outwards; great light and white colours disgregate the sight of the eye, and the very thoughts of the mind too. And men find that the night is a fitter season for deep thoughts. It is better, says Solomon, to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting: those blacks made the mind more serious. It is a rare thing to find much retirement unto God, much humility and brokenness of spirit, true purity and spiritualness of heart in the affluences and great prosperities of the world. It is no easy thing to carry a very full cup even, and to digest well the fatness of a great estate and great place. They are not to be envied that have them; even though they be of the better sort of men, it is a thousand to one but that

they shall be losers by the gains and advancements of this world; suffering proportionably great abatement of their best advantages by their prosperity. The generality of men, while they are at ease, do securely neglect God, and little mind either to speak to him, or to hear him speak to them. God complains thus of his own people, I spoke to them in their prosperity, and they would not hear. The noises of coach-wheels, of their pleasures, and of their great affairs, so fill their ears, that the still voice, wherein God is, cannot be heard; I will bring her into the wilderness, and there I will speak to her heart, says God of his church. There the heart is more at quiet to hear God, and to speak to him, and is disposed to speak in the style here prescribed, humbly and repentingly.

I have borne chastisement. The speaking thus unto God under affliction signifies, that our affliction is from his hand, and to the acknowledgment of this truth, the very natural consciences of men do incline them. Though trouble be the general lot of mankind, yet it doth not come on him by an improvidential fatality. Though man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards, (Job v. 7,) yet it comes not out of the dust. It is no less true, and in itself no less clear, that all the good we enjoy, and all the evil we suffer, comes from the same hand; but we are naturally more sensible of evil than of good, and therefore do more readily reflect upon the original and causes of it. Our distresses lead us unto the notice of the righteous God inflicting them, and our own unrighteous ways procuring them, and provoking him so to do, and therefore it is meet to speak in this submissive, humble language to him. It is by all means necessary to speak to him; he is the party we have to deal withal, or to speak to, even in those afflictions whereof men are the intervenient, visible causes. They are, indeed, but instrumental causes, the rod and staff, (Heb. xii. 6,) in his hand that smite us; therefore our business is with him, in whose supreme hand alone the mitigations and increases, the continuance, and the ending of our troubles lie. Who