GOD'S ANGER, AND MAN'S COMFORT.  
TWO SERMONS, Preached and Published BY THO. adam's  
LONDON, Printed by Tho Maxey, for SAMUEL MAN, at the sign of the SWAN in Paul's churchyard, 1652.   

TO The Most HONOURABLE, and CHARITABLE BENEFACTORS,  
Whom God hath honoured for his Almoners, And, Sanctified to be his Dispensers of the fruits of Charity and Mercy To me, In this my necessitous and decrepit Old age, I humbly PRESENT This Testimony of my thankfulness: WITH My incessant Apprecations to the Father of all Mercies, to reward them for it in this life, and to crown their Souls with everlasting Joy and Glory, in the life to come, Through JESUS CHRIST our Lord.  
Amen.  
THO. adam's.   

GOD'S ANGER.  PSALM 80. ver. 4. 
O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry with thy people that prayeth?  
IT hath been said of war, that it is Malum, an evil, but it may be Necessarium, a necessary evil. It is good sometimes to hunt the wolf, though it is better to fodder the Sheep. They speak of a drowning man, Etiam ad Novaculam, that he will rather take hold of a knife, then of nothing. A very coward will catch the edge of a naked sword, to save his life; though it cut his fingers. Man being cast out of Paradise, and that Paradise guarded with a sword in the hand of a Cherub, durst not attempt a reentry, because he was guilty. But Commonwealths that have lost any part of their Territories, or just privileges, by foreign invasion, and hostile violence, may justly venture upon the sword, and fairly hope for a recovery, because they are innocent; & hanc picem amolire gladio. Irene signifies Peace; Yet the Turk could sacrifice his beauteous Irene to the God of war. If war in itself were utterly unlawful, God would never have accepted this Title, The Lord of hosts. Yet in this stile he takes such delight, that he is oftener called the God of hosts in the former Testament, then by any other Title. In those two prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, it is given him no less than an hundred and thirty times.  
All creatures are mustered, and trained, put into garrison, or brought forth into the field by his command. Which way can we look besides his Armies? If upward into heaven, there is a band of soldiers; even a 
a Luk. 2. 13.  multitude of the heavenly host praising God. If to the lower heavens, there are a band of soldiers: it 
b Gen. 2. 1.  was universa militia coeli, to which those Idolaters burned incense. On the earth, not only men are martialled to his service; so Israel was called the host of the living God: but even the brute Creatures are ranged in arrays. So God did levy a band of flies against the Egyptians; and a band of frogs that marched into their bedchambers. He 
c Pro. 30. 37.  hath troops of locusts, and armies of caterpillars. Not only the chariots and horsemen of heaven, to defend his Prophet, but even the basest, the most indocible, and despicable creatures, wherewith to confound his enemies. If Goliath stalk forth to defile the God of Israel, he shall be confuted with a pebble. If Herod swells up to a God, God will set his vermin upon him, and all the King's guard cannot save him from them. You have heard of r●●s that could not be beaten off, till they had destroyed that covetous Prelate, and of a fly that killed Pope Adrian. God hath more ways to punish, than he hath creatures.  
This Lord God of hosts is not properly a title of Creation, but of providence. All creatures have their existence from God, as their Maker: and so have they also their order from him, as their governor. It refers not so much to their being, as to their martialling; not to their natural, but militant estate: Nor only as creatures do they owe him for their making, but as they are soldiers, for their managing. Their order is Warlike, and they serve under the colours of the Almighty. So that here, God would be respected, not as a Creator; but as a general. His anger therefore seems so much the more fearful, as it is presented to us under so great a Title; The Lord God of hosts is angry. They talk of Tamburlaine, that he could daunt his enemies, with the very look of his countenance: oh than what terror dwells in the countenance of an offended God? The reprobates shall call to the rocks to hide them 
d Rev. 6. 16.  from the wrath of the Lamb: If Ira Agni, the wrath of the Lamb doth so affright them, how terrible is Ira Leonis, the wrath of the lion? It may justly trouble us all to hear, that the Lord God of hosts is angry: in the sense whereof the Prophet breaks forth here into this expostulation; O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry with thy people that prayeth? Wherein we have these five propositions, or inferencies naturally arising out of the text.  
1. That God may be angry; for that is manifestly employed in the Text; He is angry.  
2. That his anger may last a great while: O Lord, how long wilt thou be angry?  
3. That his anger may extend to the whole nation: how long wilt thou be angry with the people, all the people  
4. That his anger may fall upon his own people, even his peculiar and chosen flock; How long wilt thou be angry with thy people?  
5. That his anger may dwell upon them in their devotions, and not be removed by their very prayers. How long wilt thou be angry with the people that prayeth? Yea, against their prayer?  
Now God is never angry without a cause: he is no froward God, of no tetchy and pettish nature: a cause there must be, or he would neverbe angry. There can be no cause but sin; we never read that God was angry for any thing else. Some he hath corrected without respect unto sin, as he did Job: but he was never angry with any man, but for the sin of that man. It is the sin of the people that hath thus grieved God, and it is the anger of God that hath thus grieved the people. Sin must be supposed to run along with his anger throughout the text, as the eclipctic line does thorough the zodiac.  
1. If it were not for sin, God would not be angry.  
2. If it were not for the continuance of sin, he would not be so long angry.  
3. If it were not for the universality of sin, he would not be angry with the whole people.  
4. If it were not for the unnatural ingratitude of sin, he would not be angry with his own people.  
5. If it were not for the base hypocrisy of sin, he would not be angry with his people that prayeth.  
Thus than the argument lies fair and plain before us.  
1 It is sin that makes God angry.  
2 It is the continuance of sin that makes him long angry.  
3 It is the generalty of sin that makes him angry with the whole people.  
4. It is the unthankfulness of sin, or the sin of unthankfulness, that makes him angry with his own people.  
5. Lastly, it is the hypocrisy of sin, or the sin of hypocrisy, that makes him so long angry with his people that prayeth.  
1. We provoke him by our rebellions, and he is angry.  
2. We continue our provocations against him, and he is long angry.  
3. We provoke him universally, and so he is angry with us all; not with some offenders here and there, but with the whole people.  
4. We provoke him by our unkindness; for whom he hath done so much good, and upon whom he hath heaped so many blessings; and so he is angry with his own people.  
5. Lastly, we provoke him by our dissimulations; approaching to him with our lips, and keeping back our hearts: we pray unto him, and yet live against him: we call upon his Name, and rebel against his will: and so he is angry, and long angry, and long angry with the whole people, and long angry with his own people, and long angry with his people that prayeth.  
1. God may be angry, and sin is the cause of his anger; that's the first Proposition. Man may be angry without sin, not without perturbation: God is angry without either perturbation or sin. His anger is in his nature, not by anthropopathy, but properly; being his corrective Justice, or vindicative Justice. Iratus videtur, quia tunquam iratus operatur. Our anger is an impotent passion: His a most clear, free, and just operation. By this affection in ourselves, we may guess at the perfection that is in God. The dissolute securitans think that God doth but smile at the absurdities of men; that ludit in humanis: that their drunkenness and adulteries rather make him merry then angry. Like some carnal father, that laughs at the ridiculous behaviour of his children 〈◊〉 to whom their wanton speeches and actions are but a pleasure; and in which he rather encourageth, than chides. 
e Psal. 2. 4.  Indeed, God is said to Laugh; He that sits in heaven laughs them to scorn: but woe be to the men at whose fooleries God laughs. It is a dissembling falsehood in man, to smile and betray, as Judas began his treachery with a kiss: Such are likened to those bottled windy drinks, that laugh in a man's face, and cut his throat. But this laughter in God, argues not so much what he does, as what they suffer; when by frustrating their sinful purposes, he exposeth them to contempt and scorn. Dei ridere, est hominem ludibrio exponere. If a little ant creeping out of a molehill, should march forth, and proffer to wrestle a fall with a giant, there were yet some proportion in this challenge: but there is none of a finite power to an infinite. Audacious sinners, that dare provoke the Lord of hosts! What are all the Armies and Forces of Tyrants, to oppose the omnipotent God? 
f Rev. 19 18.  He will make a feast of them, for the fowls of the air, whom he invites to the flesh of Captains, and to the flesh of Kings. Let earth and hell conspire, let there be a confederate band of men and devils; how easily can he command the one to their dust, the other to their chains? What power have they of either motion or being, but from him against whom they fight? Our God is a consuming fire; and he will consume them not only in anger, but in laughter. The Catastrophe of all rebellion is but the Sarcasmos or bitter scorn of God.  
There is no less difference between God's anger and his favour, then between death and life; death in the most dismal horror; and life in the most comfortable sweetness of it. 
g Psa 30. 5.  In his favour there is life: death in his anger; 
h Ps. 90. 9  for when thou art angry, all our days are gone. There is great light given to contraries by their comparison: look first a little upon the favour of God: 
i Ps. 36. 7.  Oh how excellent is thy loving kindness, O Lord? Thy Saints shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou wilt make them to drink of the river of thy pleasures. What follows upon his favour, but satisfaction, and peace, and joy, and eternal life? When the deluge of water had defaced that great book of Nature, Noah had a copy of every kind of Creature with him in that famous Library, the ark: out of which they were reprinted to the world. So he that hath the favour of God in the ark of the Covenant, hath the original copy of all blessings: if they could all have perished, yet so they might be restored. God is the best storehouse, the best treasury: O happy men that have their estates laid up there! Though friends, goods, and life forsake us, yet if God's gracious countenance shine upon us, that will be life, and goods, and friends unto us. These benefits and comforts flow from his favour.  
But alas, how terrible is his anger? He hath scourged some in very mercy, till they have smarted under his rod. Job complains, that the terrors of God do fight against him. And David says, 
Job. 6. 4. Ps. 88 15. 16.  From my youth up thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind. If he will do thus much in love, what shall be the judgements of his wrath! If he hath drawn blood of his dear ones, what shall be the plague of wilful sinners! If this be the rod of his children, what are the scorpions provided for his enemies! what comfort can any find in all the prosperous fortunes upon earth, with whom God is angry in Heaven? If that mighty Pagan could apprehend this, he would find small safety in his guard of janissaries, and less pleasure in his brutish seaglios. It is a vain conceit of that Potentate, who refusing the name of Pius, would be called Foelix; Happy, not Godly. But there can be no felicity without God's blessing, and he will not bless, where he is not blessed. But Sylla, surnamed Foelix, accounted it not the least part of his fortunes, that Metellus surnamed Pius was his friend. Piety is the best friend to Felicity, though Felicity doth not always befriend Piety.  
That is but a wretched prosperity, upon which God looks in anger. If the Sun were wanting, it would be night, for all the stars: If God frown upon a man; for all the glittering honours of this world, he sits, in the shadow of death. Let him be never so rich in lands and waters; yet his springs have lost their sweetness, his vines their fruitfulness, his gold hath lost the colour, his precious stones their value and lustre: I mean, the virtue and comfort of all these are gone away with the favour of God. If our house were paved with a floor of gold, and walled with pearls and Diamonds, and yet the roof wide open to the violence of heaven, would these shelter us from storms and tempest? Would we be so lodged in cold winter nights? Or were our house roofed with Cedar, and the walls hung with arras, yet if the floor be rotten, and under it a bottomless pit, could we sleep in quiet? There can be no safety when God is angry: his wrath may come thundering from heaven, and suddenly sink rebellious sinners into hell; and then where is all their honour? When their mortal part lies in the dishonourable dust, and their immortal part suffers in unextinguishable fire.  
Thus terrible is the anger of God: now what is he angry withal, but sin? That is the perpetual makebate betwixt God and us; the fuel of the fire of his indignation. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God. For this cause 
Isa. 59 2.  he looks upon us as a stranger, yea as an enemy. But they rebelled, and vexed his holy spirit: therefore 
Isa. 63. 10,  he was turned to be their Enemy, and he fought against them. But they rebelled: man's occasion of offending God, is but a But, a nothing, no cause at all: God's occasion of being angry with men, is a therefore, a cause sufficient, and that cause is sin. Search the holy Book all over, and you shall never find God angry but for sin. Nor doth the flame of his wrath break out upon every sin; but when sin grows impudent and past shame. We were wont to say, that veritas non quae rit angulos: but now, vit●um non quaerit angulos: It doth that in a bravery, with which the false Prophet was threatened, that he should do in fear; 
a 1 King. 22. 25▪  it runs from Chamber to Chamber, from house to house, not to hide itself, but to boast itself. We so provoke the Lord, that we do not only anger him, but are angry with him. If the winds do not blow, and the rain fall, as we would have it; if any thing falls out cross to our desires, we even vex at God himself; as if he were bound to wait upon our humours. No marvel if God be angry with us, when we dare be angry with him: by murmuring at his actions, and calling his providence into question. 
b Jon. 4. 4.  dost thou well to be angry, O man? No, it is exceeding ill, and dangerous. We may tremble to think that the pot should fall out with the potter, and man be angry with his Maker. It is the meretricious and shameless forehead of sin that angers God: And in this anger we here find him, but let us not so leave him: and yet the next point tells us that his wrath is not suddenly pacified:  
2. He may be long angry: that's the second Proposition. Usque quò Domine? It is not for a fit, like some flash of powder, but may burn long. 
c Psal. 79 5.  How long, O Lord, wilt thou be angry? for ever? And shall thy jealousy burn like fire? 
d 2 Sam. 21. 1.  He visits his own Israel with a long dearth: During all those three years of drought and scarctiy, God's Altar smoked with daily sacrifices, and Heaven was solicited with continual prayers; yet still he was angry: and why may not David complain, in this psalm, of that famine? We are not at the first sensible of common evils: in war, Dearth, or Pestilence, we think only of shifting for ourselves, or finding out convenient refuges, (like Foxes in a storm, that run to the next boroughs) and study not how to remove the public Judgements. But the continuance of an affliction sends us to God, and calls upon us to ask for a reckoning. An evil that is suddenly gone, is as suddenly forgotten: as men strucken in their sleep, cannot quickly find themselves: so the blow doth rather astonish us, then teach us. But when the burden lies long upon us, we will at last complain of the weight, and seek to ease ourselves.  
Indeed, there be some sinners more insensible, more insensate than beasts: if we find the hungriest ox feeding in the meadow, and cannot with many pricks of the goad make him remove from his place, we wonder at his stupidity. Yet the insatiate world-affecters, though God not only affright them with menaces, but even afflict them with many scourges, cannot be gotten from their covetous practices. So long as they can by any means grow wealthy, they will not believe that God is angry with them. As if there were none 
e Psa. 73. 7.  that have more than heart could wish; yet live all this while in the sphere of God's Indignation. We can read God's wrath in a storm, not in a calm yet 〈◊〉 may be most angry, when he lest expresseth it. 
f Ezek. 16. 42.  My jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be no more angry with thee: Oh that is the height of his displeasure 〈◊〉 
g Jer. 14. 13.  The Prophet speaks of a true Peace: True, were a needless epithet, if there were not a false peace in carnal hearts. How fondly doth the secure sinner flatter himself, in the conceit of his own happiness? All is well at home: he quarrels not with himself, for he denies himself no sensual pleasure. God quarrels not with him, he feels no checks of a chiding conscience, he sees no frowns of an angry Judge: nothing but prosperity shines upon him. He sees no difference in the face of heaven, whatsoever he does, or says: the same entertainment is given to his blasphemies, as to his prayers. Sure, he thinks himself in God's books above other men. And so he is indeed; in God's book of debts, in God's book of arrearages, in his book of judgements: so he is far in God's books. He owes such men a payment, and they shall have it. Alas, this is not the sinner's peace, but stupidity: not the maker's favour, but his fury. All this while he is very angry, though he suspends the execution of his wrath. Thus long sin lies like a sleeping bandog at the door of their hearts: They look upon the cur as if he would never wake: or if he did, yet as if hewere so chained, & clogged, & muzzled, that he could never hurt them. But when once God rouseth him, then have at their throats: then they shall feel what it is to have lived so long in the anger of a God: When the Almighty shall put himself into the fearful forms of vengeance, and the everlasting gulf of fire shall open to receive them into intolerable burnings; the merciless devils seizing on their guilty souls, and afflicting them with incessant torments.  
It is some favour, when we have the respite to cry, How long, Lord, wilt thou be angry with us? He is not throughly angry with us, when he suffers us to breathe forth this expostulation. There is some hope of remedy, when we once complain of our sickness. It is not change of climate, but change of diet, that recovers us: when we grow to forbear the surfeits of sin, there is a fair possibility of comfort. Yet God may be long angry, and long continue sensible testimonies of his anger. 
h Ps 92. 10.  Forty years long was I grieved with this Generation. He had smitten Israel with divers punishments, and threatened them with with more grievous calamities; that 
i Ps. 9 17. 21.  every man should eat the flesh of his own arm; Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh; and they both against Judah: And yet he had not done with them, his anger was not turned away, but his hand was stretched out still. David's pestilence of three days, was a storm soon blown over, though it were bitter for the time: God's displeasure hath dwelled longer upon us.  
But how then doth the Prophet say, that he retaineth not anger? Well enough: for he never retaineth it on● moment longer, than we retain the cause of it: So soon as ever we cease sinning against him, he ceaseth to be angry with us. After David's humiliation and sacrifice, the angel struck not one blow more with the sword of pestilence. He measures out the length of his anger by the continuance of our rebellions. So that if we expostulate with him, Lord how long wilt thou be angry with us? He replies, O ye sons of men, how long will you be rebellious against me? Let us not look that the Lord should begin first; that his pardon should prevent our repentance. There is great reason, he that hath done the offence, should be first in making the peace. Every day we expect comfort from God, and every day God expects conversion from us. Every week we look for some abatement in the bills, and every week God looks for some abatement of our sins, for some amendment of our lives. So long as we continue guilty, it is in vain to cry, O Lord, how long wilt thou be angry? Our hard hearts are not yet broken with remorse: alas, what should be done to break them? 
l Psa. 29. 5.  The voice of the Lord breaketh the Cedars: he 
m Psa. 18. 7.  breaketh the mountains: he breaketh 
n Isa 64. 1.  the heavens, he 
o 1 Kin. 19 11.  breaketh the stones; and yet his word cannot break our hearts. But if he cannot break us with the rod of Affliction, he will break us with a rod of iron, and 
p Psa. 2 9  dash us in pieces like a potter's vessel.  
God is long patient before he grows angry; why should he not be long angry before he be appeased? He is not easily provoked, why should he be so easily pacified? yet so propense to mercy is our gracious Father, that the fire which was long a kindling, is soon quenched: His anger, that is not blown into a flame without many and long continued sins, is yet put out with a few penitent tears. When our houses are burning, it were but foolish to cry out, we are undone, alas the fire rageth; and we all the while forbear to cast on water. The Usque quo of God's anger waits for the Quousque of our repentance. He will not give over-striking, till we fall a-weeping: and we may do well to weep before him, for (sure) we did ill to sin against him. His anger doth now long offend us, but our wickednesses did far longer offend him. We have provoked him many years; and shall not his wrath burn many days? Still it flameth: let us make haste to bring our buckets of water, filled at the cisterns of our eyes, and derived from the fountain of our hearts, to quench it. Let no hands be wanting to this business: for if some bring in the water of tears, whiles others cast in the fuel of sins, this fire will burn still. But from the higehst to the lowest let us come in with repentance: and that all of us, even the whole people: for so far God's wrath extendeth.  
3. He may be angry with the whole people; which is the third proposition. He hath been angry with a whole family, with a whole Army, with a whole City, with a whole Country, with the whole earth. With a whole family: so he cursed the house of 
q 1 Kin. 14. 10. 11  Jeroboam: that him that dyeth in the City, the dogs shall eat, and him that dyeth in the field, shall the fowls of the air eat. 
r Ps. 37. 36.  With a whole army; so he slew of Sennacheribi host in one night 185 thousand. With a whole city; so the city of Jericho was cursed with an universal desolation, never to be re-edified without the ruin of the builder. 
Josh. 6. 17. 21.  With a whole country; So Saul was charged to destroy Amalek; man and woman, infant and suckling, 
1 Sam. 15 3.  sheep and oxen, and all that belonged to them. With the whole earth; whenit was become corrupt, 
Gen. 6. 12.  he drowned it with a flood. Yet observe how God hath qualified his wrath; with his hand of favour snatching some out of his hand of anger. When he 
1 Kin. 14. 13. Josh. 6. 17.  cursed the whole Family of Jeroboam, he excepted Abijah. When he doomed to death, the whole City of Jericho, he excepted the family of Rahab. When his wrath burned Sodom, he excepted the family of Lot. When his anger drowned the whole world in a deluge, yet his mercy excepted Noah, and his octonary household. But his anger is very grievous, when it extends to the whole people. Through the 
Isa. 9 19  wrath of the Lord of hosts, the land is darkened, &c.  
What makes him thus universally angry with us, but the universality of our sins against him? when the passengers ask: Wherefore hath the Lord done thus to this great City? Answer is made, Because 
Jer. 22. 8. 9  they forsook the Covenant of the Lord, and worshipped other Gods. To such a fearful height may the sins of the children bring the mother, that that Church which now enjoys such abundance of truth and peace, may be poisoned with heresy, and wounded with schism, and suffer an utter direliction. The whole people is guilty of sin, and why for their sins may not God be angry with the whole people? Yea, and long angry too: for it will be very long before that fault will be amended, which hath so long been committed.  
God came to low conditions in the behalf of Sodom: Abraham brought him down to ten. He came to lower conditions in the behalf of 
Gen. 18. 32.  Jerusalem; he brought himself down to one: See 
Jer. 5. 1.  if you can find a man, if there be any that seeketh the truth in the whole city, and I will pardon it. O how epidemical is that wickedness, where not one escapeth the corruption? We have found the Lord angry enough with a whole people, for the sin of one man. Lord, hath one man sinned, and wilt thou be wroth with the whole Congregation? 
Num. 16. 22.  No, God's vengeance, when it is the hottest, makes difference of offenders: and knows to distinguish betwixt the heads of a faction, and the train. Though neither be faultless, yet the one is plagued, the other pardoned. Depart from the tents of these wicked men, lest you be consumed in their sins. So soon as the innocent are severed, the guilty perish. One Achan sins, all Israel suffers. One David sins in pride, seventy thousand 
Josh 7. 11.  of his subjects suffer in the plague. One Saul slew the Gibeonites, three years' dearth lies upon the 
2 Sam. 21. 1.  Israelites for it. The blood of those Canaanites shed against Covenant, almost forty years before, by the than King, is now called for of the whole people. They had all sins enough, but God fixeth his eye of anger upon this. Every sin hath a tongue, but that of blood outcries them all: And if Justice do not revenge the murder of one, God will require it of the whole nation. When seven of Saul's sons were hanged up, God was entreated 
2 Sam. 21 14  for the land. Then shall the clouds drop fatness, and the earth run forth into plenty: Then do the valleys stand thick with corn, land the 
Psa. 65. 12.  little hills rejoice on every side. Some drops of blood shed in Justice, procure large showers from heaven. A few carcases laid in their graves, are a rich compost to the earth. There can be no peace, where blood cries unheard, unregarded: but when it is expiated by the blood of the offenders, there will be a cessation of Judgements. Phinehas executed judgement, and the pl●gue 
Pal. 106 30.  ceased. One contrary is ever cured by another: take away the cause, and the effect will cease. Prayer is very powerful, but doing of Justice more available. The whole Congregation were at their prayers, and those prayers were steeped in tears; yet still the plague raged, and God's anger continued. But when Phinehas had run those two adulterers through with his Javelin, in the 
Nam. 25. 8.  act of their sin; the plague was stayed. So blessed a thing is it for any nation, that Justice is impartially executed.  
Thus the universality of sin calls for the universality of repentance, or else it will provoke God's anger to strike us with universal judgements. If the whole people be guilty, the whole people must fall to deprecation. Such was the Nivites repentance, every man turning from 
Jon. 3. 8.  his evil ways. We have sinned, even the whole nation: and as if we had not sins enough of our own, we borrow of our neighbours. What nation under heaven do we trade withal, from whom the sins of that Nation are not brought hither? And those are merchandizes that might be well spared. Are we all in the transgression, and do we lay the burden of repentance upon some few? If we expostulate with God, Lord hath one man sinned, and wilt thou be wrath with the whole Congregation? May he not more 
Num. 16. 22.  justly expostulate with us; Hath the whole Congregation sinned, and is it enough for one man to repent? Is the whole garment foul, and must only the skirts be washed? Is the whole building ruinous, and do we think it a sufficient reparation to patch up one corner of it? No, the plaster of our repentance must be fully as large as the orifice of our wickedness; or we cannot be healed. But still God will be angry with us, yea though we were his own people: For,  
4. God may be angry with his own people; which is the fourth proposition. 
a Psa. 89. 33  I will visit their sins with a rod, and their iniquity with scourges; but my mercy I will not utterly take from them. Though he do not take his mercy from them, yet he may be angry with them. He is our father, and never did Father in sweeter terms entertain the dearest treasures of his blood, than God doth us, when he vouchsafes to call us His people: yet did you never see a father angry with his child? Indeed there is great difference between that wrath of God which is toward his own people, and that which 
b Col. 3. 6.  comes upon the children of disobedience. They differ three ways.  
1. In respect of continuance: his anger upon reprobates is eternal; not extinguished with their bloods, but pursuing them from earth to hell. To his people it is but temporary, it lasts but a moment: 
c Psal. 30. 5.  weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. 
d Psal: 103. 9  He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger for ever. When he was very angry with his Idolatrous Israel, 
e Exo. 32. 11.  Moses does but put him in mind that they were his own people, and he was pacified. 
f Isa. 54. 8.  For a moment in a little wrath, he hides his face from us. 
g Mic. 7. 8.  rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; for though I fall, I shall rise again. But for the wicked, 
h John 3. 36.  his wrath abideth on them.  
2. In respect of the measure: It is milder towards his own people, then to others. For the unrighteous, he proportions his Judgements, not to their strengths, but to their deserts: For his own people, he proportions his corrections, not to their deserts, but to their strengths. For the former, he minds not what they can bear by their powers, but what they have deserved by their sins. For the other, he considers not what their sins deserve, but what their Spirits can sustain. His most bitter wrath to his own people, is always sweetened with his mercy. 
i Pia 99 8.  Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions. He brings a scourge in one hand, and a pardon in the other: and while he draws blood of the flesh, he forgives the soul.  
3. In regard of the end. 
l Rom. 9 22.  The wicked are the vessels of wrath: and as their sin makes them fit for God's anger, so his anger makes them sit for destruction. But for his own people; 
m 1 Cor. 11. 32  They are chastened of the Lord, that they might not be condemned with the world. Whether he inflict upon them punishments for sin, or suffer them to fall into sin for punishments, yet all shall work to their good. 
n Heb. 12. 11.  his corrections are but medicines, bringing forth the quiet fruit of righteousness. He lets them fall into some heinous crime, but it is to waken their repentance. Small spots upon a garment are not minded; we seldom are so curious as to wash out them. But when a great spot comes, a foul stain, we then scour and elense it, to get out that; and so we get out all the little spots too. Sins of a lesser size never trouble us; we mind not the washing out of them with our sorrowful tears: But when a great sin comes, and disquiets the conscience, than repentance, that old laundress is called for: and in that lardar we wash out both the great offence, and all the rest. So God suffers us to fall into some gross and grievous sin, as a father suffers his little child to burn his finger in the flame, that his whole body may not fall into the fire.  
All these differences are expressed by the Prophet, Isaiah. 1. Forth time▪ 
o Isa. 28. 24  Doth the ploughman plough all the day to sow? God doth not continue ploughing all day long furrows upon our backs, but when he hath broken up the fallow grounds of our hearts, he thensowes in the seed of his comforts. 2. For the measure; 
r Isa. 27 7.  Hath he plagued Israel, as he hath plagued the enemies of Israel? He sinites his Israel in the branches, and in the bunches; cuts down some of her superfluous boughs, and plucks off clusters of her rotten grapes: But the wicked he smites at the very root. 3. For the end; 
s Isa. 27. 9  The furnace of his wrath shall but purge away our dross, and make us pure metal, fit for the stamp of his own Image.  
Yet for all this, God hath been grievously angry with his own people: Yea, their sins anger him most of all; because together with wickedness, there is unkindness. As dearly as he loves them, their sins may provoke him. Our interest in God is so far from excusing our iniquities, that it aggravates them. Of all others, the transgression of his own people shall not pass unpunished. The nearer we are to him, the nearer do our offences touch him; as a man more takes to heart a discourtesy done by a friend, than a great injury by a stranger. Pagans may blaspheme, and bezzle, and defile the marriage-bed, and yet God let them alone: but he will not endure these sins in his own people. The more he loves us, the greater should our love be to him: now love and unkindness cannot stand together. If we revolt from our Maker, as Absolom thought Hushai had renounced David, may he not justly expostulate with us, Is this thy kindness to thy friend? there is no such irksome disobedience, as where God looks for service. 
t John 1. 11.  He came unto his own, and his own received him not: O, that could not choose but trouble him. As Demades said to Philip King of Macedon, and at a time when he well deserved it; Cùm fortuna tibi Agamemnonis personam imposuerit, nonne pudet te Thirsitem agere? When fortune hath made thee an Agamemnon, art thou not ashamed to play Thirsites? When God hath honoured us for his own people, with the noble name of Christians is it not a shame for us to play the Pagans? Happy are the people that be in such a case, yea blessed are the people that have the Lord for their God. Yet that people may so far anger him, that he will take away not only their temporal, but even their spiritual happiness. Those seven Churches of Asia were God's own people: yet the Gospel was not fastened to their territories; as the old Romans pinioned their goddess Victoria, or their apish posterity do the Catholic faith, to their own infallible chair. But as they had a time to breathe, so a time to expire: and so hath my fourth proposition. There is but one gradation more.  
5. God may be angry with his people that prayeth. Wherein we have two main observations. First, The wonder, that God will be angry at our prayers. Secondly, the answer, which resolves the wonder; showing why our very prayers may anger him. Either of these is backed with three circumstances. 1. For the wonder, that God is angry with his people that prayeth.  
1. All the other conclusions are easily granted: God may be angry, and angry very long, and angry with the whole people, and angry with his own people; all this because of their sins: But that he should be angry at their prayers, this is the wonder. He hath commanded us to pray, and will he be offended with us for doing his command? Angry against our prayer! He hath commended to us Prayer, as the only means to assuage his anger: and yet is he angry at our Prayer? 
a Psa. 106. 30.  Phinehas prayed, and his anger was pacified: 
b Num. 16. 15.  Aaron prayed, and the plague ceased: and will he now be angry with the people that prayeth? He is a God that heareth prayer: 
c Psal. 65. 2.  O thou that hearest prayer, to thee shall all all flesh come: and does he now reject prayer? He hath so styled his own house; Oratorium, the house of prayer: and to them that pray unto him in his house, he hath promised peace; 
d Hag. 2. 9  In this house will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. Peace and wrath are contraries: how should prayer procure peace, when God is angry at prayer? Prayer is so noble, that under it is comprehended the whole worship of God: 
e Rom. 10. 13.  Whosoever calleth on the name of the Lord, shall be saved: and yet will God be angry at the prayer of his people? It is a great honour that God will vouchsafe to speak unto man: but a far greater honour, that man is allowed to speak unto God: the very Angels stand in admiration of it: and yet what comfort is there in that, when God is angry at the prayer of his people? What blessing is there, which our prayers cannot infeoff us in? We send up Prayer to God with the same confidence, that Adoniah sent Bathsheba to Solomon, 
f 1 Kin. 2. 17.  the King will deny thee nothing: and will God be angry at prayer? It is the only means we have to pacify him, Prayer: and shall our Prayer anger him? Alas, what hope is left us, when God is angry at Prayer? This hath often turned away his wrath, and does it now incense his wrath? If we should not pray, he would then be angry: and when we do pray, is he angry too? What, neither way pleased? What is the reason why there is so much empty cask in God's cellar, but for want of prayer? 
g Jam. 4. 2.  Ye have not, because ye ask not: and shall not prayer obtain favour? 
h Josh. 7. 8.  Oh Lord, what shall I say (it was the complaint of Joshua) when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies? So, what shall we say, what shall we do, when God turneth back our prayers? Why is it called the throne of Grace, before which we present our prayers; if that throne send forth nothing but beams of wrath? We look for grace, and a favourable audience of our petitions; but alas, what shall become of us, when God is angry at our very prayers?  
2. How wonderful is the power of prayer? 
i Exo. 32. 10.  Let me alone, saith God to Moses: who would look for such a word from God to man, as let me alone? As yet Moses had said nothing: before he opens his mouth, God prevents his importunity, as foreseeing the holy violence of prayer▪ Moses stood trembling before the Majesty of his Maker, as fearing his dire revenge: and, yet that Maker doth (after a sort) solicit Moses for leave to revenge; let me alone. As it was afterwards said of Christ, concerning some places, that he could do no miracles there, because of their unbelief: So one would think, that God could do no Judgements here, because of Moses his faith. Let me alone; why, what can resist God? Yes, Prayer can resist him. Such is his mercy, that he hath (as it were) obliged his power, to the faith of our Prayer. He enables us to resist himself: Seipsum vincit. The servant prayer of the faithful, can bind the hands of the Almighty. What is there that God can do, which Prayer cannot do? O mighty, I had almost said, Almighty Prayer! What a hand is that which can hold omnipotence? What wings are those that can overtake infiniteness▪ Yet alas, we may now mourn over Prayer, as David did over Jonathan; 
l 2 Sam. 1. 25.  How are the mighty fallen! Prayer hath lost her force with God, when God is angry with prayer. Her wings are clipped, that she cannot mount: Her bow is broken; she cannot shoot an arrow that reaches the mark. 
m Lam. 1. 1.  She is become a widow, as it was lamented over Jerusalem, desolate and solitary, that was a Princess among the Provinces, and a Queen among the nations. She sits weeping in the dust, and hath almost forgot the use of speech. She mourns not so much for Mary's abstulerunt Dominum, for she knows where to find him; as that our sins Abstulerunt Domini favorem, and she knows not how to pacify him: And how should she, when God is angry with his people that prayeth? Where is the strength of this Samson? What is become of that power, which was wont to command heaven and earth? The visible heavens have been opened by prayer: 
n Jam. 5. 18.  so Elias brought down rain. The invisible heavens have been opened by prayer▪ so the penitent malefactor got from the cross into Paradise. 
o Act. 7. 56.  So stephen saw the heavens opened, and the son of man standing at the right hand of God, Omnia vincentem vincit. It was wont to be an especial favourite of God; but now (alas) it is cast out of favour, for God is angry with prayer. 
r Lam. 3. 44.  Thou hast covered thyself with a thick cloud, that our prayer should not pass thorough. This is a woeful condition of our souls, when the Lord is angry at our prayers: when he will not hear them, not answer them, it is a cause of sadness in us; but much more, when he is angry with them. 
s Eze. 8. 18.  Therefore will I deal in fury: though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them. This is fury indeed: Before, the ancients of Israel had said, The Lord seeth us not, he hath forsaken the earth: There they deny God eyes, and here he denies them ears. A burning wrath; as the original hath it; How long wilt thou smoke against the prayer of thy people?  
3. And of thy people: this increaseth the wonder. For God to stop his ears against the prayers of the Heathen, to reject the petitions of Idolaters, to despise a devotion done before painted blocks and Images, is no marvel. For they dishonour him in their prayers; and God will be angry with any thing that eclipseth his glory. But he does not use to slight those that serve him, and continue in his holy worship. It is strange that he should be angry at the prayer of his own people: Angry with them whom he hath chosen; angry with them long, and angry with them at their very prayers. This must be some extraordinary wrath: and so you have all the circumstances that may advance the wonder.  
Now for the Answer that takes off this admiration; and satisfies us with some reasons, why God may be angry with his people that prayeth. God is never angry at his people without a cause: and it must be a great cause that makes him angry with them in their devotions: whereof we have three considerations.  
1. There may be infirmities enough in our very Prayers, to make them unacceptable. As if they be, 1. Exanimes, without life and soul: when the heart knows not what the tongue utters. 2. Or perfunctory; for God will none of those prayers, that come out of feigned lips. 3. Or Tentativaes; for they that will petere tentando, tempt God in prayer, shall go without. 4. Or fluctuantes, of a wild and wandering discourse, ranging up and down; which the Apostle calls, beating the air: as huntsmen beat the bushes, or Saul sought his father's asses. Such prayers will not stumble upon the kingdom of Heaven. 5. Or if they be Praeproperae, run over in haste: as some use to chop up their prayers, and think long till they have done. But they that pray in such haste, shall be heard at leisure. 6. Or sine fiducia: the faithless man had as good hold his peace, as pray. He may babble, but prays not: he prays infectually, and receives not. He may lift up his hands, but he does not lift up his heart. Only the prayer of the righteous availeth, and only the believer is righteous. But the formal devotion of a faithless man, is not worth that crust of bread which he asks. 7. Or sine humilitate: so the Pharisees prayer was not properly Supplicatio, but superlatio. A presumptuous Prayer profanes the Name of God, in stead of Adoring it. All, or any of these defects may mar the success of our Prayers.  
2. But such is the mercy of our God, that he will wink at many infirmities in our devotions: and does not reject the Prayer of an honest heart, because of some weakness in the petitioner. It must be a greater cause than all this, that makes God angry at our prayers. In general, it is sin. 
t Joh. 9 31.  We know that God heareth not sinners: but if a man doth his will, him he heareth. 
u Ps. 66. 18.  If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear my prayer. They be our sins that block up the passage of our prayers. It is not the vast distance between Heaven and earth, not the thick clouds, not the threefold regions, nor the sevenfold orbs, nor the firmament of stars, but only our sins, that hinder the ascent of our prayers. When you make many prayers, I will not hear you; Why? 
a Isa. 5. 15.  Because your hands are full of blood. God will none of those petitions, that are presented to him with bloody hands. Our prayers are our bills of exchange; and they are allowed in Heaven, when they come from pious and humble hearts: But if we be broken in our religion, and bankrupts of grace, God will protest our bills, he will not be won with our prayers. Thus sin is the general cause.  
3. In particular, it is the hypocrisy of sin, or the sin of hypocrisy, that makes God so angry with our prayers. When we honour him with the prostration of our bodies, and solicit him with the petitions of our lips, and yet still dishonour him in our sinful lives, is not this hypocrisy? When we speak before him in the Temple as suppliants, and sin against him abroad like rebels, is not this hypocrisy? Like the outlaw, that sues to the King for a pardon, and yet resolves to live in rebellion. We will not part with our beloved sins, and yet beg the removal of Judgements; will not this dissimulation make God angry with our very prayers? If we shall, Judas-like, kiss his Throne with the Devotion of our lips, and betray his Honour with the wicked works of our hands, should he not be angry at our prayers? We make as if we did lift up our hands unto him, but indeed we stretch out our hands against him: if this be prayer, it is such a one as deserves anger. Fear can make the devil himself fall to his prayers; 
b Lu. 8. 28.  I beseech thee, torment me not. Another request he made, which Christ granted; but it was in wrath, not in favour. The pride of our hearts, the covetousness of our hands, the blasphemy of our mouths, the uncleanness of our lusts, the wickedness of our lives; these make God angry with our prayers. If we could be throughly angry at our sins, God would cease to be angry at our prayers. But so long as we run on in those sinful courses upon earth, let us look for no favourable audience from heaven. Do good, and continue it: then pray for good, and have it. It hath been said, loquere ut te videam, speak that I may see thee: so saith God to man; Operare ut te audiam, work that I may hear thee. If we dishonour God's Name by our oaths and blasphemies, and upon every trivial occasion toss it in our profane mouths; in vain we pray, Sanctificetur Nomen tuum, Hallowed be thy Name. If we hear the Gospel preached, and receive no instruction by it, nor give any regard or obedience to it; in vain we pray, Adveniat regnum tuum, thy kingdom come. If the current of our affections and actions runs cross to the will of God; in vain we pray, Fiat voluntas tua, Thy will be done. If we extort the bread of the poor out of their hands, or seek to live by violence or oppression; in vain we pray, Panem nostrum da nobis quotidianum, Give us this day our daily bread: For this is to attempt to have it whether God will or no: he does not give it, but we snatch it. Whiles we are indulgent to our darling sins, and will not part with the dear delight of our bloods, in vain we pray, Dimitte nobis debita nostra, Forgive us our trespasses. Whiles we seek to revenge our wrongs upon others, and bear malice in our hairs; our Sicut nos dimittimus, As we forgive them that trespass against us, doth but beg for vengeance upon our own heads. All the while that we listen to the suggestions of Satan, and like the allurements of the world, and awaken our own lusts to tempt ourselves; it is but a mockery to pray, In tentationem ne nos inducas, lead us not into temptation. While we seek that which is evil, and study that which is evil, and run with greediness into evil; in vain we pray, Liber a nos à malo, Deliver us from evil. We do but flatter God, and compliment with him, when we conclude with Tuum est regnam, potentia, & gloria; Thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory; for it is our own glory we seeks after, not his. All this cannot keep him from being angry with our prayers. So long as his people rebelleth, he will be angry with his people that prayeth. For some Use.  
If God be angry with them that pray, what will he be with them that do not pray? With them that break his laws, and never cry him mercy, with them that live in wickedness, and never ask him forgiveness? The ungodly call not 
Psa. 14 4.  upon the Lord: will he not be much more angry with them? God is not in all their thoughts: but 
Psal. 10. 4.  they are in the thoughts of God. He thinks on them with indignation, and will remember them to their cost. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem: yes, he will 
Psa. 1 37. 7.  remember them in the day of their destruction.  
If God be sometimes angry at our prayers, how will he brook our curses? If he beat back our petitions, how will he take vengeance on our blasphemies? Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing 
Jam. 3. 10.  and cursing: but God will not accept of a blessing, from a mouth that is so used to cursing. If he may be so angry with a people that prayeth, what will his wrath do to a people that sweareth? Think this, ye that (if it were possible) would swear God out of his Throne, and the Judge of all the world out of his tribunal: your very prayers are abominable: your blasphemous breaths have put a stink into all your sacrifices. That tongue is fit for nothing but flames, which so flameth with oaths and execrations. Your prayers cannot be heard, by reason of your sins: but your blasphemies shall be heard and plagued, notwithstanding your prayers. If the Instrument gives a harsh sound, there is trouble in stead of inusick: a jarring organ grates the ears, rather than delights them. Our sinews have put all our Instruments out of tune, and for them God is angry at our very prayers.  
There is no way to take off his anger, but by turning from our wickedness. If we break off our sins, he will leave a blessing behind 
Joel 2. 14.  him, even a meat-offering, and a drink-offering to the Lord: he will both give, and take our sacrifice. Let us do thus, and prove him, whether 
Mal. 3. 10.  he will not open the windows of heaven. Our repentance and righteousness shall open heaven, so that our prayers may go up for a blessing, and a blessing shall come down upon our prayers. Prayer is vox fidei, as John Baptist was vox Christi: if we mourn, and do not pray, our faith hath lost her voice: and prayer without faith, is John without Christ, a voice without a word. Faith is the soul, and repentance is the life of Prayer; and a prayer without them, hath neither life nor soul. If we believe not, we are yet in our sins: if we repent not, our sins are yet in us: and so long as this state continueth, no wonder if God be angry with his People that prayeth. But first will I wash mine hands in innocency, and 
Psal. 26. 6.  then will I compass thine Altar. Then shall my Prayer be set before thee as incense; and the 
Ps. 141. 2.  lifting up of my hands like the Evening sacrifice. When with the sword of severe and impartial repentance, we have cut the throat of our sins, and done execution upon our own lusts: then let us solicit heaven with our Prayers: then Pray, and speed: then come, and welcome: no Anger, but all mercy then. Then the Courtiers about the King in Heaven, make room for prayer. Then the Prince himself will take prayer into his own hand, and with a gracious mediation present it to his Father. Then mittimus preces & lacrymas ad Deum legatos. Then is that Court of Audience ready to receive and answer 
Cypr.  our ambassadors, which be our Prayers and Tears. Then Saint John sees twelve gates in heaven, all open, and all day open, to entertain such suitors.  
This is our refuge, and that a sure one. Although the Enemy begirts a City with never so straight a siege, and stop up all the passages; yet he cannot block up the passage to Heaven: So long as that is open, and God in league with us, there may be relief and succour had from thence by prayer. Faith is a better engineer than was Daedalus; and yet he could make a shift to frame wings; with which he made an escape over those high walls, wherein he was imprisoned. Restat iter coelo, tentabimus ire. Let Pharaoh be behind, the red sea before, the high rocks and mountains on every side; yet Israel can find a way for all that. When there is no other way to escape danger, a Christian can go by heaven, and avoid all by prayer. As it is the heaviest malediction, Let his prayer be turned into sin: so it is a happy blessing, when our sin 
Psal. 109. 7.  is turned into prayer; when sin is so done away, that prayer may take place. Then shall Jacob's ladder be never empty of Angels; our prayers ascending to heaven, and God's blessings descending upon us. Then shall prayer disburden our hearts of all sorrows, and God shall fill them with his sweet comforts. Then shalt we sing with cheerful voices; Blessed be the Lord, that hath not turned away our prayer from him, nor his mercy 
Psal. 66. 20.  from us. Amen.  
FINIS.   

MAN'S COMFORT.  PSALM 94. 19 
In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.  
HEaven is a place of infinite glory and joy; yet is there little joy or glory in the way thither. The passage rather lies through much tribulation: 
Act. 14. 22.  so trouble some a gallery leads to so happy a bedchamber. There is not a soul in the cluster of mankind exempted from sorrow; much less shall those grapes escape pressing, which God hath reserved for his own cup. All that will live godly in Christ, shall suffer persecution. Not all that 
2 Tim. 3. 12.  live, but all that live godly: nor all that live godly in respect of outward form, but th' it live godly in Christ. Paul, his attorney, pleads their afflictions with an Oportet: and lest some should look for a dispensation, he backs it with an Omnis. The Saints that have overcome the hill, be singing above: we that are climbing up, must be groaning all the way. The Anthems inthe up per choir, the Church Triumphant, are all Hymns of joy: the militant part must be content with sad tunes in this valley of tears. Not that the blessedness of Immortality is no more perfect, but that it needs a foil of perplexity to set it off. Not that the joy of heaven is no more sweet, but that it needs the sourness of the world to give it a taste. Not that the peace and plenty of Canaan, required the wants and molestations of this wilderness to commend it. But so it pleaseth the Almighty King, who of his own free grace doth give the preferment, to interpose the conditions: that the sorrow and ingloriousness of this world, should be the thoroughfare to the glories and joys of his kingdom. For if it pleased him to consecrate the Prince and captain of our salvation through sufferings; what priveledg can the common soldiers and subjects expect? Deus Filium habuit unum sine peccato, nullum sine flagell●. we that hold our inheritance in Capite, have no other title to it then Christ had before us; by suffering.  
When we consider David and his troubles, we say. Ecce dolores viri, behold the sorrows of a man. But when we consider the son of David, and his passion; we say, Ecce vir dolorum, Behold the man of sorrows. Indeed, if the one balance were full of sorrows, and the other quite empty of comforts, there were an unequal poise. They that do not find some joy in their sorrows, some comfort in their dejections, in this world, are in a fearful danger of missing both in the next. But as it is said in case of bodily sickness; If the patient and the disease join, then in vain is the Physician: if the disease and the Physician conspire, than woe be to the patient: but if the patient and the Physician accord, than vanisheth the disease. So we may observe in spiritual distempers: if the soul and sorrow desperately combine, than the Spirit departs, the Physician is grieved: if God and sorrow join▪ in anger, in anguish; the former justly, the other sharply, than woe to the soul, for that cannot be comforted: but if the soul by faith, and God by grace, unite themselves, than away flies sorrow, for that is expelled. Here David's soul joins itself with the spirit of consolation; and sorrow loseth the day, the end is comfort. In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.  
Here is a twofold Army, one marching against another: Seditio, and Sedatio: an insurrection, and a debellation; a tumult, and the appeasing of it: a band of thoughts assaulting, and an Host of comforts repelling, resisting, protecting. There is a multitude of those thoughts, and no less is the number of these comforts. Those troublous thoughts have got into the citadel of the heart, Apud me, within me: and these consolatory forces have entered as far, even into the soul; They delight my soul. Those thoughts fight under the colours of flesh and blood, but these comforts under the Banner of God; They are My thoughts, but Thy comforts: the cogitations of man, the consolations of Jesus Christ.  
1. Look upon the adversary power; In the multitude of my thoughts within me. 1. O that they were some external grievances, a foreign war, no domestic, intestine, civil broils; not turbulent thoughts. 2. Or if they be thoughts, rebellious, heart-breaking cogitations; yet that there were but some few of them, that they might be sooner suppressed; not so numerous, not a multitude of thoughts. 3. Or if they must be thoughts, and a multitude; yet that they had chosen some other place to rise in, not my Heart, the Fort, or Court, or Bedchamber of my spirit; that they had not presumed unto so bold approaches, as to mutiny Apud me, within my heart, nearer and closer to me then mine own bowels. But now, to be Thoughts, of so tumultuous a nature: Multitudes, of so mighty a number: Within me, of so fearful a danger; without vent, composition, or quiet; here is a full anxiety.  
2. View the defensive forces; and in the midst of this conspiracy make room for preservation; Thy comforts delight my soul. 1. They are comforts: against litigions and unquiet thoughts, a work of peace; Comforts. 2. They are not scant & niggardly; but against amultitude of thoughts, many Comforts; and every one able to quell a whole rout of distractions. 3. They are thy comforts; not proceeding men or Angels, but immediately from the Spirit of consolation: against My sorrows, Thy comforts. 4. They do not only pitch then tents about me, or like a subsidiary guard, environ me: but they take up their residence in the heart of my heart, In my soul. These refresh more than the other can offend: against the thoughts in my heart, thy comforts delight my soul.  
Thus if we be not entered into Aceldama, a field of blood; yet we are got into Meribah, a field of strife; or the mountains of ●ether, a field of division: not unlike that of Rebecca's womb, where 
Cant. 2. 17.  Jacob strove with Esau for the victory. We have seen both the Armies; now let us martial them into their proper ranks, setting both the squadrons in their due stations and postures; and than observe the success or event of the battle. And because the malignant Host is first entered into the ground of my text, consider with me, 1. The rebels or mutineers, Thoughts. 2. The number of them; no less than a multitude, many thoughts. 3. The Captain, whose colours they bear; a disquieted mind; My thoughts. 4. The field where the battle is fought; in the heart; Apud me, within me.  
In the other Army we find. 1. Quanta, how puissant they are; Comforts. 2. Quota, how many they are, indefinitely set down; Abundant comfort. 3. Cujus, whose they are▪ The Lords, he is their general; Thy comforts. 4. Quid operantur, what they do: they delight the soul. In the nature of them; being Comforts, there is tranquillity: in the number of them, being many comforts, there is sufficiency: in the owner of them, being Thy comforts, there is omnipotency: in the effect of them, delighting the soul, there is security. There is no fear in them, for they come for peace; they are Comforts. There is no weakness in them, for they come in troops, they are many comforts. There is no disorder in them, for the God of wisdom is their Captain, and leads their forces, they are Thy comforts. There is no trouble in them, for they evangelise joy, They delight the soul.  
1. The rebels are thoughts. Man is an abridgement of the world, and is not exceeded by it, but in quantity, his pieces be not pauciora, sed minora. If all the veins of our bodies were extended to rivers, our sinews to mines, our muscles to mountains, our bones to quarries of stone, our eyes to the bigness of the sun and Moon, and all other parts to the proportion of such things as correspond to them in the world; man might stride over the sea, as the Hebrews feigned of Adam; the air would be too little for him to move in, and the whole firmament but enough for this star; yea indeed, this little world would be the great one, and that great world appear but the little one. There is nothing in the world for which we may not find some answerable part in man: but there is something in man for which we can find no answerable part in the world: I need not say Part; for the whole world is not able to give any representation. Man hath a soul, made after the Image of God: of this the world can yield no resemblance. The world produceth innumerable creatures; man yet in more abundance. Our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are borne giants; that can reach from east to west, from earth to heaven. These can survey the whole earth, bestride the ocean, comprehend the vast air, and span the very firmament.  
How capable, how active is the soul of man! It is even comprehensive of universality, and hath virtutem ad infinita: nature hath set no limits to the thoughts of the soul. It can pass by her nimble wings from earth to heaven in a moment it can be all things, comprehend all things, know that which is, and conceive of that which never was, never shall be. The heart is but a little house, and hath but three chambers, yet there is room enough for a world of guests. God, the Creator of all, made this soul in a Cottage of clay, and this soul is a kind of Creator too: for though it dwell in a close prison, it can produce creatures, Thoughts: and any one of these creatures can move with the Heavens, move faster than the Heavens; over take the Sun, and overgo the Sun; contemplate that which the Sun never saw, even the dreadful abyss of hell, and a glimpse of the glory of Heaven. So various and innumerable are the thoughts of man, that he had need of an astrolobe, to mark in what height and elevation they are; and so either to advance them, or stoop them, as they deserve.  
There be three sorts of actions proceeding from the soul: some internal and imma●eriall, as the pure acts of our wits and wills; some external and material, as the mere acts of our sense others mixed, between both, and bordering upon both the former; which Saint Augustine says, the Greeks call {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, the Latins Perturbationes. As the heart inspireth one and the same strength and life into all the parts of the body, for the better discharge of their diverse functions; though all the parts do not receive it in the same degree. The stomach by the virtue it receiveth, is made able to digest: the liver, to concoct the nutriment into blood: the spleen like a sponge, by sucking up the melancholy spirits, to purge the vital parts. So the soul breeds all these creatures, gives life to all these thoughts; yet according to their several acts and offices, they have several names. If they be sensitive, we call them passions: if sensual, lusts: if fantastical, Imaginations: if reasonable, arguments: if reflective, conscience: as they are evil, the suggestions of Satan: as good, the motions of the holy Ghost. As the world produceth vipers, and serpents, and venomous creatures, worms and caterpillars, that would devour their parent: so the soul breeds noxious and mutinous thoughts, that are like an earthquake in her bowels; and whiles they maintain civil broils and factions, one against another, she feels the smart of all.  
Some thoughts be the darts of Satan; and these Non nocent, sinon placent: we cannot keep thieves from looking in at our widows, we need not give them entertainment with open doors. As the hermit said, he could not hinder the birds from flying over his head; but he could keep them from building their nests in his hair. Wash thy heart from iniquity, that thou Mayst be saved: how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within 
Jer. 4. 14.  thee? They may be passengers, they must not be sojourners: God hath made a Statute against such inmates: it is an unblessed hospitality that gives them lodging: he is no friend to the King that harbours these Seminaries. Other thoughts are the motions of God's spirit; and these must not only be guests, but familiar friends: salutation is not here enough, but glad entertainment, welcome, and indulgence. Let no man like himself the better for some good thoughts: the praise and benefit of these motions is not in the receipt, but in the retention. Easy occasions will fright away good thoughts from a carnal heart: like children, which if a bird do but fly in their way, cast their eye from their book. But David's thoughts here were anxious, commotive thoughts; otherwise they stood not in such need of comforts. It is likely that they were either Timoris, fearful thoughts; or Doloris, sorrowful thoughts: Thoughts of fear for what might be, or thoughts of sorrow for what already was.  
The thoughts of fear are troublesome enough as the ill affections of the spleen do mingle themselves with every infirmity of the body: no less doth fear insinuate itself into every passion of the mind. David might find this complication in his thoughts: I will please Saul with my harp: but then fear replies, he will strike me through with his Javelin. He will give me his own daughter in marriage: but fear says again, How if this prove a fatal dowry, if this match be my snare! I will refuge myself with Achish at Gath: yet what trust is there in Infidels? I will lie hidden in Keilah, or Hachilah; but fear suggests, How if the Ziphites discover me? What shall I do? whither shall I go? where shall I rest? These were thoughts that stood in great need of comfort.  
The thoughts of sorrow are yet more distractive; and such were this royal Prophets: as our vulgar reads; In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart. What was the cause of those griefs: The slipping of his foot, his errors, his deviations, his sins. Other sorrows may disquiet the soul: none but these have the promise to be comforted. As in martyrdom, it is not the sword or torture; not what we suffer, but why, that makes us martyrs. So in our sorrows, it is not how deep they penetrate, or how sharply they cruciate, but wherefore, that approves their goodness. If our sins be the why of our sorrows, we are blessed. Blessed are they that thus mourn, for they shall be comforted. vain 
Mat. 5. 4.  are the sighs and groans that proceed only from the thought of worldly losses. A medicine that cureth the eyes, we say, was made for the eyes, and for nothing else. We lose our wealth, and sorrow for it; will sorrow recover it? 
Chrys.  we are despised or abused, and grieve for it I: will grief right us? We bury our friends, and mourn for them; will mourning restore them to us? we are crossed by our unruly children, and weep for it: will weeping rectify them? We are anguished in our bodies with pains and sickness, and are sorry for it: will sorrow heal us, nay will it not rather hurt us? All our thoughts, and cares, and griefs, and tears can do us no good, no relief in these calamities: sorrow was not made for these things. But we sin, and offend the Lord; and we are sorrowful for it; here is the disease for which sorrow is the proper remedy: penitent sorrow shall take away sin. Quamvis peccavit David, quod silent reges: tamen poenitentiam egit, 
Chrys. Hom. 2. Ad pop. Antioch  flevit, jejunavit, quod non solent reges: saith Saint Ambrose, who wrote him an apology. While the ground of our lesson is our sin, the choicest descant on it must be our sorrow. Our thoughts and griefs may be many; but if they be not spent upon our sins, we shall not be comforted.  
2. The number of them is a multitude: we may say of sorrows, as it is said of shrewd turns; they seldom come single. Like a volley of folding waves, one tumbling upon the neck of another; all threatning to overwhelm us: Undae super advenit unda. It is too scant a name which Leah gave her son, calling him Gad, a troop cometh: 
Gen. 30. 11.  and but enough, what the demoniac answered Christ: My name is Legion, for we are many. If they were a multitude, and not sorrows; 
Mark 5. 9  the more the merrier: if they were sorrows, and not a multitude, than the fewer the better cheer. But to be disquieting thoughts, and a multitude, makes up a terrible agony. Many are the troubles of the righteous: great or many, 
Psal. 34. 19  a great many, a great deal too many; but for the comfort of the deliverance. When Jobs afflictions began, they came in troops and hurries. so thick that he could scarce take breath: one messenger pressing in with his-woeful relation, before the other could have ended his sad tale: While he was yet speaking. How did that fugitive Prophet amplify and aggravate his dangers? 
Job 1. 16.  Thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed me about: all thy waves and billows passed over me. 
Jonah 2. 3.  It was no shallow river, but the sea: not near the shore, but in the midst of the sea: nor was he floating on the waves, but plunged into the deep or bottom; the floods compassing, the billows overwhelming, to keep him down. I need not travel for exemplifications.  
Let him be our instance, that spoke what he felt, and felt what he spoke; sorrows enough to break any heart, but that which God had framed according to his own. His son Amnon ravisheth his own sister, and is murdered by his own brother: that murder is seconded with Treason, that Treason with an incestuous constupration: the insurrection of his own son hath driven him from his house, from his throne, from the ark of God all this went near him: that son is slain by his servant, and that went nearer him. In what a miserable perplexity may we think the heart of this good King all the while? Here was thought upon thought, thought against thought; how at once to spare the son of David, and to save the Father of Absolom: fear against hope, north against south, wind against tide, Arma armis contraria, fluctibus undae; a multitude of thoughts, able to rend the heart in pieces, but for that recollection of mercy, Thy comforts delight my soul.  
Not seldom fares it thus with us; Thought calls to thought, jealousy to fear, fear to sorrow, sorrow to despair; and these furies leap upon the heart as a stage, beginning to act their tragical parts. Man hath more wheels moving in him then a clock: only the difference is, that the wheels of a clock move all one way; whereas his faculties, like the epicycles, have a rapt motion: his sensitive appetite gives him one motion, his fantasy another, his reason a third, and his imperious, impetuous will crosseth them all, driving the chariot of his affections with the fury of Jehu: he desires, and thinks, and chooseth, argues, consents, and dislikes, and makes more business than time itself. There are not so many hours in a year, as there may be thoughts in an hour. The Philosopher that 
Plura machinatur cor meum uno momento, quam in omnes homines perficere possunt uno anno Hugo l. 3 de Anima.  had shamed himself by weakly disputing with Adrian the Emperor, thus excused himself to his friend; Would you have me contend with him, that commands thirty Legions? Alas, what can quiet that soul, which is distracted with such legions and multitudes of thoughts, and throngs of sorrows?  
3. The captain of this troublesome rout is himself; My thoughts. From what suggestion soever our thoughts come, we call them our own: Whosoever begot the babe, the mother calls it her own child. Indeed, the praise and propriety of good motions we ascribe only to God, without whom we cannot so much as think a good thought: as the channel may gather filth of itself, but it cannot have a drop of pure water but from the fountain. Bad suggestions, though they proceed from Satan, we call them our own, because they are bred in the womb of our natural corruption: stubble is blown by the wind into the fire, and being inflamed, it becomes fire. The devil tempted David to sin; yet he calls it his sin; not Satan's, but his own; I will be sorry for my sin. However Epictetus could say, when evil happens to a man, one of the vulgar would blame others, a young Philosopher would blame himself; but one that had dived into the depth of nature, would blame neither the one, nor the other: Yet a Christian hath learned to blame himself; as knowing that all his sorrows proceed from his sins.  
My thoughts: thus easy is it with God to make a man become his own punisher. Under whose regiment are all these troubles? Under myself, My thoughts. As God threatens Tyre, that ancient and glorious City; that her own feet shall carry her a far off to sojourn: Our own 
Isa. 23. 7.  feet shall carry us, our own creatures torment us: like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust. When David had numbered the people, his own heart smote him: God finds the rod within us, wherewith to scourge us. As some vapour engendered in the caverns of the earth, struggles for vent; and being barred of free passage, causeth an earthquake in the foundations that bred it. Or as some fiery exhalation wrapped up in the bowels of a thick cloud, breaks through that watery resistance, and deliverers itself to the world with a dreadful noise. So the griefs and perturbations begotten by our own lusts, become terrors within us, and rend our very hearts, till they get vent by confession and repentance: thus do we muster up forces against our own peace. We pray, Lord deliver us from our enemies; and in that number we do wrap up our unthought of selves: for we are our own enemies. Turn thine hand upon mine enemies: for thou canst do it with the turning of an hand: Deliver me from the evil man: who is that? saith S. 
Psal. 81. 14.  Augustine: he is not far to seek: libera me ab homine malo, that is, à meipso: deliver me from the evil man, that is, from myself: I am the aptestto beget destruction upon mine own soul: no enemy could hurt us, if we were our own friends.  
But we must not extend it so far upon this holy King: they were thoughts indeed, and thoughts of sorrow, but of godly sorrow: and he calls them his own, to show his near acquaintance with them, My sorrows. He was not a stranger to his own soul, his heart was not dead flesh. Satan had given him a fall, and he felt not that: sin had given him diverse falls, and he felt not them, neither: at last God undertakes him, wrestles with him, and he gives him a fall too: he felt that, yea and that made him feel all the rest. Now is he sensible of every pang and stitch: the least thorn makes him smart, and he cries out of the multitude of his sorrows. There be some that can drown their griefs in wine and music, as they did in Hinnom, the cry of the Infants with the noise of the Instruments: as if they would forget that they are the owners of their own thoughts, because they trouble them. Many deal with their souls, as some old women do with looking glasses: they turn the wrong side toward them, that they might not see the furrows of their own faces. They are loath to think of a reckoning, lest they should despair of making even the arrearages. Men have the courage to dare to sin, but they dare not look on their souls as they are polluted with sin. I have heard of a melancholy man, that would not believe he had a head, till his Physician made him a hat of lead, and put it on: which with the weight enforced him to cry, O his head. So men lost in sensual pleasures, scarce remember that they have a soul within them, until miseries, like talents of lead, or quarries of stone, with their heavy pressure squeeze out a confession.  
Nothings be so near as a man and his soul: Tot a domus duo sunt; the whole household is but two: yea, why should they be called two? we may say in a right sense, Mens cujusque is est quisque: every man's soul is himself. If there be any division, sin made it: a just punishment, at qui nollet cum Deo uniri, non pos●it in semetipso non dividi. All these quarrels and brawls may thank sin: that is the makebate betwixt God and us, betwixt us and ourselves. But that man and his soul be grievously fallen out, that will not speak one to another: when he shall pass a whole day, and not ask his soul how she does? this were too much betwixt man and wife: when he shall he down in his bed, as the beast doth in his litter, without bidding his soul good-night: when he shall have fouled and besmeared his soul with the nasty aspersions of lusts, and not sweep out the dust before he shut the door, not wash his soul with tears, before his eyelids be closed down with slumber: yea, when he shall have wounded his soul with blasphemies and uncharitable injuries, and then throw it down in a deluge of drink, as it were weltering in the own gore, without calling for repentance, the chirurgeon to dress it. What madness and self-hatred is this? When the soul may not have leave to think over her own thoughts; to reflect upon herself, to search her own bruises, to survey the multitude of her sorrows, and feel in what need she stands of comforts? That, Plerisque notus, ignotus moriatur sibi? But the children of God have learned to commune with their own hearts, to examine every thought, and to weigh every desire in the balance of the Sanctuary. Whether they find themselves pensive or joyful, they will search the cause: As Rebecca said, when she felt the children struggle in her womb, Why am I thus? Whether fear or hope, joy or pain have invaded 
Gen. 25. 22.  my thoughts, let me ask my soul the reason, Why am I thus? The Fathers were excellent good at this: they had their confessions and Soliloquies, familiar conferences with their own hearts; that when a man reads them, he would think they kept no other company but themselves. Conference with others may make us wise or learned, but conference with ourselves is the way to make us holy. Tell thy conscience of all suggestions, as the chaste wife (after some peremptory denials to her impudent Tempter) professed to tell her husband of those solicitations: such and such be my thoughts, thus and thus they haunt me, what shall I do with them? Indifferency is no less than self-treachery, in matters of such consequence, that come so near me, as to be Apud me.  
4. Within me, for this is the field where the skirmish is fought; within me. It is unhappy when soldiers march over the palaces of peace and seats of Justice, where the Senators of counsel use to sit. If there must be war, yet let it be in foreign Countries: or if it will be in our own land, yet let it proceed no further than the borders: but when it is gotten into the chief City, though it be subdued, it will cost a dear victory. As Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated his victory over the Romans, with a great loss of his own side; replied; yes, but if we have such another victory, we are undone. There is no penitent heart, that hath felt the bitterness of these combats, remembering what sighs and sorrows, what groans and tears it cost him to make his peace, but would be loath to be put to the charges of such another conquest. Durius ejicitur, quam non admittitur hostis: sin may be kept out with ease, but will not be driven out save with woeful expenses.  
Within me: not before me, as the host of the Philistines lay before Saul; not behind me, as the chariots of Egypt came thundering behind Israel: nor above me, as Fabius Maximus on the mountain above Hannibal; Imminet nubes, a cloud hangs over me: not round about me, as the Syrians compassed Dothan to take Elisha: but within me. Without were fightings, within 
2 Cor. 7. 5.  were fears: and those fears within, were worse than those fightings without. There are external calamities able enough to shake the most fortified soul: but Summus dolour ab intus. Saint Paul reckons up twelve of his inflicted sufferings, nine dangers, eight continued passions: yet as if all these were scarce worth putting into the catalogue, he adds; Besides the things that are without, 
2 Cor. 11. 28  he had an inward trouble: the care of the Churches, seeking the lost, rebuking the proud, comforting the dejected: here was the pain.  
Within me. There may be Bellum intestinum, a kind of unkind battle; where victi victoresque invicem dolent: the soul bespeaking her affections, as Jocasta did her quarrelling sons,  
Bellageri placuit, nullos habitura triumphos.  
According to our saviour's prediction; A man's foes shall be they of his own household. Intra me 
Matth. 10. 36. Aug.  est, quod contra me est: that is within me, which is against me. We say, he wants an enemy that fights with himself: and because he fights with himself, he wants no enemy: Sibi pessimus hostis. With external assaults we may grapple, threatened mischiefs we may prevent; from persecutors too potent for us, we may hide us: but who shall keep us from ourselves? Nescis temeraria, nescis quem fugias, ideoque fugis: Whithersoever we remove, we carry our sorrows with us. Outward afflictions are a war, turbulent affections a worse war: both against us, but this later is within us. He needs no other misery, that is troubled within himself. Ask not the anger of heaven, nor the trouble of earth, nor the dangers of the sea, nor the malice of hell, against him whom the anguish of his own thoughts have beaten down. He will say to all other miserable complainers, you are happy. Outward things may go cross with us, and yet the peace of the soul remain sound: but a wounded spirit who can bear? who can cure? As man's heart is the first that lives, and the last that die: so it is the first that Satan assaults, and the last that he gives over. Yea, were there never a devil, the heart hath an ill spirit of its own to vex it. As some Boroughs of this Land plead a privilege, that they can hang and draw within themselves: man's heart is such a corporation; it can execute itself within itself, without any foreign Judge or executioner. If we look no further than among the multitude of our thoughts; might we not make a shift to think ourselves to hell? If we had neither hands, nor eyes, nor feet, would not our hearts find the way thither!  
Within me. The proper seat and lodging of these troublesome inmates, the thoughts of sorrow, is the heart: whithersoever they wander, there they centre. Vagabonds taken roguing out of their own precincts, are sent with a passport to the Town where they were borne▪ there they must be kept. Extravagant thoughts may rove up and down, but back again they must to the heart: the house that hatched them, must harbour them, must answer for them. As all faculties of sense have their several seats: seeing is confined to the the eyes, hearing to the ears, feeling to the flesh and sinews: so these perturbations are limited to the heart. The local seat of the sensitive apprehension is the brain; of the sensitive affection, the heart. In the former is softness and moisture, fit to receive intelligible forms: in the other are fiery spirits, fittest for passionate and affectionate thoughts. My spirit is overwhelmed, and my heart within me is desolate: In such a distress, let sense 
Psalm 143. 4.  inform reason, reason speak to will, will to conscience, conscience to faith, faith to Christ, and Christ to his Father; and they will both send the holy Ghost to comfort us. If there be a fire in the heart of a City, all the suburbs will come in to quench it. This fire may burn within, but it will break out. It is as easy to stifle thunder in the cloud, or fire in powder, as sorrow in the heart. It will have eruption, either by the voice in cries, or by the eyes in tears, or by the speaking silence of the look in a dejected heaviness. The seat of sorrow is the soul; but it will overflow the boundaries. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? None ask their eyes why they weep, or their voices 
Psalm 43. 5.  why they lament, or their hands why they wring themselves: but Anima, quare tam tristis? O my soul, why art thou disquieted within me?  
We see now the full advancement of the misery; The thoughts of sorrow, an Army of those thoughts, the combination of that army, the terror of that combination: how miserably must the Country suffer where these rebels march? who can tell the taking of that heart, which feels this combustion within itself? These be our enemies, where are our friends? The day is like to be fatally disastrous, if we have no defensive forces. Yes, the Lord shall fight for us, and 
Exo. 14. 4.  we will hold our peace: as Moses comforted Israel when the choice was hard; whether to trust the fury of the sea before them, or of the Egyptians behind them; Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord; Thy comforts delight my soul. Now are the white ensigns of mercy displayed against these bloody streamers: never to a handful of men almost famished in a fort, did the tidings of fresh aid to raise the siege, arrive more welcome. Lord, if thou hadst been here, 
John 11. 21.  my brother had not died. Though this multitude of oppressors overlay my heart, yet Lord, if thou comest, my soul shall not perish. Let your patience sit out the success of the battle; and though I wish you not such conflicts; yet if they do come, may you never fail of such comforts. Thy comforts delight my soul.  
1. Quanta, They are no less than comforts: not presumptions, nor promises, nor mere hopes, but solid and sensible comforts. God made comfort on purpose for sorrow: as mercy would want a subject to exercise upon, but for misery. The blessed Angels are not said to be comforted (as we use the word) because they never knew what heaviness meant: they are conserved, they are confirmed, not (properly) comforted. There may be joy without any antecedent sorrow; as the angelical spirits ever were, and ever shall be filled with unspeakable joy. But comfort is the proper physic for trouble; this happy nature was not ordained but for sorrow. There be some that ducunt in bonis dies suos, that have their ways strawed with roses and violets; who move only the paces of pleasure: these have no need of Comfort. What Physician ministers cordials to the strong and healthful constitution? It is the broad thoroughfare of the world, which the devil is so studious to smooth, that he leaves not a pebble in the way to offend them: as if he were that tutelar Angel, who hath a charge to look to them, that they dash not their foot against a stone. If they sigh, he sings to them: if they sleep, he sits 
Psal. 91. 12.  by them; whispering to all troubles, (as the the Spouse to the daughters of Jerusalem) I charge you, O ye transgressions of his heart, waken 
Cant. 8. 4.  him not till he please: Let there be no noise of fear, no alarm of repentance, no susurration of conscience to molest him: peace, peace, lie down in peace, with thy warm sins cleaving to thy bosom. The Prophet gives you their character; They lie upon beds of ivory, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and calves out of 
Amos 6. 4.  the stall; they chant to the sound of viols, and dance to Instruments, and drink wine in bowls; what should these men do with comforts? Joy, and nothing else but the voice of joy resounds in their habitations. It is poor afflicted Joseph, not they, that needs comfort.  
Consolation then is made for sorrow; and not for every sorrow neither. Some is produced by no other cause but temporal losses, pains or injuries: so Esau may mourn long enough without recovery of his father's blessing. Worldly sorrow bringeth death, not delight to the soul. Many weep, as Rachel did in Ramah, for her children, 
Matth. 2. 18.  because they were not: but they neither are, nor ever will be comforted. There are tears that got sinful Esau nothing, and there be tears that got sinful Mary salvation. If the sorrow that swells our bosom with sighs, and is ready to burst our hearts, be spent upon our sins, it shall be sure of comforts. Are we full of grief within, and find no vent but by the groans and tears of repentance? God may let us bleed for a while, till we be throughly humbled: but then, like the woman, the pangs of whose travel be over, the son of joy shall be borne in our souls, even that son which the blessed Virgin bore from her womb; Filius dilectionis, Filius delectationis, Jesus Christ.  
2. Quota, there is a plurality of them; many Comforts. What should encounter with sorrow, but comfort? Comfort therefore it is for the nature. What should oppose a multitude, but a multitude? Many comforts therefore they are for their number. Are we troubled with the wants and miseries of this life? we have a comfort for that: The Lord is my portion: He is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing. Do we sink under the burden of our transgressions? we have a comfort for that: Mary Magdalen heard it, to quiet all her storms; Thy sins are forgiven thee. Are we haunted with temptations, hurried with persecutions? we have a comfort for this; I will be with thee in trouble, saith the Lord. Let your Christian experience supply here my defects of remonstrance: I will sum up these comforts in a word: The Lord is gracious, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. 
Joel 2. 13.  We read of certain Fair havens near Candie: here be five fountains of comfort, like 
Acts 27 8.  those fair havens; as welcome for harbour and road of a sea-beaten conscience, as ever the bosom of mother was to the tender Infant. Drink at the first fountain, The Lord is gracious, free in his favours: if your thirst be not satisfied, go to the second; He is merciful, he hath bowels of commiseration: if not yet, press to the next; He is slow to anger, hard to conceive it, not willing to retain it: wish we more? He is of great kindness, in the number and measure of his blessings: There is yet another well of comfort behind; Repenting him of the evil: full often doth he turn aside his blows, and is easily entreated to have the rod pulled out of his hands. David, to encounter with the giant, took five smooth stones out of the brook: here is the 
1 Sam. 17. 40.  brook, and these the five smooth stones: let them not lie in the channel unused, but put them in your vessels, bear them in your hearts: whensoever you are defied and assaulted by that monstrous Philistim, Satan; one of these comforts, like David's stone, shall sink into his forehead, and confound him.  
How happily do these comforts meet with those sorrows! we are troubled with the sense of our sins, and of God's judgement upon them: how should his Justice acquit us? yet there is comfort; the Lord is gracious, and cannot deny himself. But we are unworthy of this grace, because we have turned it into wantonness: yet there is comfort: he is merciful, and showeth most pity where is most need. But we have multiplied offences, and continued in our sins to our grey hairs: yet there is comfort: He is slow to anger, evermore blessed for his long sufferance. But our iniquities be not of an ordinary quality, they are heinous and intolerable: yet there is comfort, for he is of great kindness; our wickedness cannot be so great as his kindness: of that there is no comprehension. But we are out of his favour, because he hath smitten us, our bodies with sore diseases, our souls with agonies, our families with privations: yet their is comfort, he will repent of the evil. In the hour of death, when the senses are past working, the understanding asleep, the body in a cold and benumbed sweat, these comforts never leave us, Return unto thy rest, O my soul. 
Psalm 1. 16. 7.   
Our comforts vie number with our sorrows, and win the game. The mercies of God passed over in a gross sum, breed no admiration; but cast up the particulars, and then arithmetic is too dull an art to number them. As many dusts as a man's hand can hold, is but his handful of so many dusts: but tell them one by one, and they exceed all numeration. It was but a crown which King Solomon wore: but weigh the gold, tell the precious stones, value the richness of it; what was it then? Jerusalem was but a city: but go round about it, mark the towers, tell the bulwarks, observe the magnificent buildings: so consider the infinite variety of these comforts! Come, and I will tell you what God hath done for 
Psal. 66. 76.  my soul: I never felt that sorrow, for which he gave me not a sovereign comfort. Sennacherib invaded 
2 Chron. 32. 8.  Israel with a mighty host; yet the undaunted courage of Hezekiah found more with him, than could be against him: and Sennacherib found it so too, to his cost, when he lost almost two hundred thousand of his army in one night. The prophet's servant rising early in the morning, sees the City besieged with a fearful host of foot, horse, chariots: his eyes could meet with nothing but woods of pikes, walls of harness, and lustre of metals, and he runs in with this affrighting news to his Master, Alas, what shall we do? Quiet Elisha sits in his 
2 Kings 6. 16.  chamber as secure, as if all these had been the guard of Israel, sent for his safe protection; Fear not. This was an hard precept: as well might he have bidden him not to see what he saw, as not to fear seeing so dreadful a spectacle. But the task is easy, if the next words find belief; They that be with us, are more than they that be with them. If the eyes of our faith be as open as those of our sense, to see Angels as well as Syrians, to perceive comforts as well as sorrows, we cannot be appalled with the most unequal number of enemies. Many, O Lord, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done for us, they cannot be reckoned. O God, what is man, that then 
Psalm 40. 5.  art so mindful of him? Yea, O man, what is God; that thou art so unmindful of him? All the works of God are excellent, and aught to be had in remembrance: alas, that we should ever forget any of these works, that are of mercy and comfort which he hath done for our souls: For he alone hath done them: that is the next point.  
3. Cujus, whose they are; Thy comforts. Troubles may be of our own begetting: but true comforts come only from that infinite fountain, the God of consolation; for so he hath styled himself. The eagle at her highest flight will not lose the sight of her young ones: if she perceive any danger approaching, down she comes amain to their defence. Christ is indeed ascended up on high; yet he hath a favourable eye to his servants below: no Soul can breathe out threataings against them, without a Quid me perfequeris? Nec timeas hostem fortem, qui Ducem habes fortiorem: Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: There is none that fighteth for us, but only thou O God. Cujusquam est rem publicam movere, 
Psalm 68 1.  Dei solius quietare. Our own hearts can distract themselves, there is nothing to settle them, but what the God of peace puts in. Who can reconcile a man fallen out with himself? yea, fallen from himself? None but the God of comfort: who when the earth was void, without form, darkness on the face of the deep; day and night, land & water undistinguished, could reduce all this misshapen chaos of the world to form and order: when father, mother, brethren, kindred, friends, neighbours, and a man's own heart forsakes him, than God takes him up. The structure of Jericho was not more pleasant, than the waters were unwholesome, and thereby the soil corrupt: Elisha cures them with a cruse-full of salt: Our hearts are full of thoughts, but they be noxious: yet if God throw into those fountains a handful of saving grace, we shall be whole. Our sorrows too often would break our hearts, but (O God) for thy comforts: it is thou only that canst make these weak vessels hold such scalding liquours, and not burst.  
There is combustion of these thoughts within us, till God part the fray, and pacify the tumult: as when scholars are loud in brawls, the very sight of their master husheth them. When my heart, like the sea in a storm, is troubled; the winds raging, the waves roaring; Thy comforts, like Christ's command, turns all into a calm. I thought on thee in the night season, and received comfort. In the night, the region of fear: in darkness, the opportunity of despair: in solitariness, the full advantage of sorrow: upon an unsleeping bed, the field of troublous thoughts: yet I did but think on thee, and before I came to meditate, to pray, to send up my soul unto thee, in that first thought I received comfort. O how short do all worldly things come of this sufficiency? If the heart be wounded with sorrow, in vain is all the Chirurgery of nature. Gold is no restorative, riches no cordial, yea they may be a corrosive: we say to wine, thy spirits are dull; to laughter, thou art mad: music grates the ear, and physic loathes the palate: company is tedious, and solitude dangerous: alas, what hope can there be, till the God of comfort comes? Saul's evil spirit will not leave him, till he be dispossessed by David's harp: we find as much ease, when we rest our hearts upon temporal things, as he that laid him down to rest upon the cold earth, with a pitcher under his head: and finding the pillow too hard, he rose and stopped it with feathers, thinking that then it would be wondrous easy. So be all temporary things to the soul, even when they are filled with the choicest mirth, nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit: not only vanity in their entertainment, but vexation in their farewell. Yet, O Lord, Thy comforts  
4. Delight the soul; which is the last circumstance, the effect of all. All God's war is for peace: Pacem habet voluntas, bellum necessitas. we should never have felt such a conflict, if God had not intended us such a conquest. Sin disquiets the heart; yet through his grace, this disquiet breeds repentance, repentance procureth forgiveness, forgiveness restoreth peace, and peace delights the soul. The sharpness of the trouble advanceth the sweetness of the joy: as Christ's sufferings abound, so his comforts superabound. Every penitent tear that falls from the eye, springs up a flower of comfort. Look how full the vessels were of water, so full doth our Saviour render 
John 2. 7.  them of wine. In hell are all sorrows without any comforts: in heaven are all comforts, without any sorrows: on earth, good and bad, sweet and sour, miseries and mercies, sorrows and comforts are blended together. If here were nothing but sorrows, earth would be thought hell; if nothing but comforts, it would be thought heaven. But that we may know it to be, as indeed it is, neither heaven nor hell, but between both, and the way to either; we have a vicissitude of troubles and delights. That as of old they painted King Solomon; because learned men were divided in their opinions of him; some casting him to hell, others advancing him to heaven: therefore a third moderate sort painted him half in heaven, and half in hell: so the Christian, in regard of his sorrows, seems half confounded; and in respect of his comforts, half saved. But as indeed, Solomon after all his errors found mercy; so the Christian after all his sorrows shall find comfort. His beginning may seem troublesome, his proceeding not delightsome, but his later end is peace. mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end 
Psalm 47. 37.  of that man is peace. His heart was troubled, his soul shall be delighted.  
As the grievances of the soul be most dangerous in respect of their nature, so they are also abundant in their number. Therefore let our care be to seek out that great elixir, that most sovereign and universal Antidote and cordial.  
One soul complains; I have obloquies, reproaches, calamniations cast upon me; which 
1.  render me contemptible to good societies. Morality would thus argue with the heart. Be these imputations, thus charged upon me, true or false? If true, let the integrity of thy future conversation so convince thy associates, that they shall both suspect those reports, and rest assured of thy constant goodness.  
But the Divine grace applies a more virtual medicine to thy conscience, which shall revive, either thy patience, or thy repentance. The soul shall argue with itself: If these imputations be true, here is work for my repentance; I will weep in secret for my sins. If false, let them not trouble me: It is the slanderers sin, not mine: neither am I bound to father another's bastard. But still upon this calumny, the world condemns me: but thy faith and patience assures thee, that thou shalt not be condemned with the world. Yea, there is yet a higher degree of honour belonging to thy patience. Have not the best men been traduced? Was not the best of men, God and man blasphemed? yea even upon the cross, he was jeered when he died, by some of them for whom he died. Thus do the comforts of God requite thee; that in all this thou art (in thy measure) conformable to the sufferings of Christ. So dost thou allay all these furious tempests with one breath of faithful ejaculation; Thy comforts delight my soul.  
Another complains; I am fallen from an affluent estate, to deep indigence. I have kept 
2.  hospitality, to entertain friends: and made charity the Porch of my house, to relieve the needy ones. The vessel of my means is now drawn out to the bottom, there is not sufficient provision left for my own family.  
Inquire of thy heart, whether this decay did not come by thy own riot, or through the vainglorious affectation of an abundant hospitality. If this, or that, or any other habitual sin, were the cause of it, begin with mortification there. First, mourn for thy sins: then faithfully depend upon thy creator's providence, and thou canst not fail of convenient sustenance.  
But it may be, that this is not the complainants case: he is not taken with a tabe or wasting of his substance; like a scarce sensible consumption of his bodily vitals. But his fall is with a precipice; from a sublime pinnacle of honour, to a deep puddle of penury. Such was Jobs condition, so did he fall; from being rich and happy in the Adverb, to be poor and miserable even to a Proverb. He had not only abundance of good about him; but Omnia bene, all went well with him. Yet how suddenly did he fall from this abundant prosperity, to the depth of miserable poverty! Did he now follow the suggestions of that corrupt nature, which lay in his bosom, and whispered to him on his pillow; Curse God and die? No, but he apprehended the inspiration of grace; bless God, and live. So his last days were better than his first. That infinite mercy did so crown his patience with triumph, that his temporal estate was doubled. Yea, but what posterity had he left to enjoy it after him? Yes, for even the number of his children was doubled too. For besides those seven Sons and three Daughters, which were now with his Father in Heaven; he had also seven Sons and three Daughters with himself upon Earth. Piety and Patience cannot be cast down so low, but that the hand of mercy can raise it up again. In the multitude of all my losses and crosses, O Lord thy Comforts have delighted my soul.  
But another, that hath heard all this sad Story, and seen the comfortable end sent 
3  of the Lord, is not satisfied, because himself is not redressed. Like a coward in wars that looks for the victory, before he gives one stroke in the battle. What merchant looks to be landed in the place of traffic, before he hath past his adventure upon the seas? Still saith such a repiner; I am in distress, and want even necessaries. But still, thou, and we all, must suffer much more, before it can be said of us, Here is the faith and patience of the Saints. Still O my soul, wait thou upon the Lord, thy most faithful Creator: he will in his good pleasure, open his hand, and fill thee with plenteousness. Be thou penitent before him, patient under him, confident in him, and thou shalt have a bundant cause to be thankful to him: Thy end shall be peace, and comfort in Jesus Christ.  
Yea, even now, in this dead low waters of fugitive fortunes, my soul confesseth, that I have the highest wealth. For Christ's righteousness is my riches, his merits is my inexhaustible exchequer, his blood hath filled my veins with most lively vigour. My treasure is in heaven, where no violence can take it from me. Still and for ever, O God, thy comforts delight my soul.  
It is another's complaint; I am shut up in a close prison, where I can neither converse with others 
4.  abroad, nor let in others to communicate with me, in this my confined home. The sparrow on the housetop hath more freedom than I; For that, though wanting a mate, hath an open air to fly in, and may so invite company to solace her, I have no society, but my disconsolate thoughts: no friend, to ask me so much, as how I do?  
Yet is thy soul at liberty: no barricadoed walls, no iron-gates or grates, no dark dungeons can imprison that. The Jail is a strong prison to thy body, and thy body is but (in a metaphorical phrase) a prison to thy soul; Thy body may not walk abroad, thy soul can. Spite of all thy cruel creditors, and some unmerciful jailers; she can break Prison: She hath wings that can mount her through clouds and mountains, through orbs and constellations, and (like to Enoch) walk with God, in a heavenly contemplation of his infinite goodness. My ears cannot hear those airy Choristers, singing their creator's praise in the groves: my soul, in speculation, can hear the Anthems of Angels in heaven. I may not hear the hosannas of the Church militant in our material Temples below: I may conceive, that my soul hears the hallelujahs of the Church triumphant above. I may not walk in the green pastures, and flowery meadows on earth: my soul may move in the glorious and melodious galleries of heaven. Thus O Lord, though in my strictest confinement here below, thou hast given me large liberty above. Still I will glorify thee for all thy mercies, for thy comforts delight my soul.  
Another's complaint is; I am vexed with a 
5.  multitude of troubles. Not the law of the sword, but the sword of the law hath disquieted me. Let thy soul ask thy conscience this question: who did first break the peace? If thou hast first overwhelmed that truth, which should be apparent, thou art thine own enemy: For truth smothered in wet straw, will at length overcome the dankness of that suppression, and set on fire the smotherers. Thou hast forsaken the truth, and art therefore forsaken of peace.  
There be two chief preservers of the soul, under the Almighty Creator of it; Truth and Peace. How invaluable are they together; Parted, how miserable! truth is the precious stone: Peace, the gold, wherein it is both set and preserved. Truth is the glorious light of the Sun; Peace, a clear and serene heaven. Peace is a most beautiful body, whilst it contains Truth, that more lovely soul. Truth brings down heaven to us, Peace bears us up to heaven. Both are sisters, the daughters of one Father, God himself.  
Do thou first recover truth: by continual labour seek it, with prayers and tears beg it, with the expense of much sorrow buy it, and then peace will come in to the bargain: God's comfort shall again delight thy soul.  
Another complains; I am cast out of 
6.  doors: I have no harbour but the hedges; nor lodging, but the fruitless ground. Poverty hath sent out her excommunication against me: all that have an estate, are forewarned to shun my company.  
Consider, when had Jacob so sweet a night's rest, as when the pillow he laid his head upon was a hard stone? Then was that ladder set by him, by which his soul might climb up to heaven in a vision, whereof before he had but the speculation. The Angels were dancing those measures, and singing those raptures about him, which did in a manner angelify him. His body lay on the bare earth, his soul with those spiritual wings of faith and love, was mounted above the clouds, above the orbs, even conversant in the highest heavens.  
When had Elias more excellent provision then when his breakfast was brought him in the morning, and his supper in the evening, by a raven? The messenger was homely, but the diet was heavenly. It came from the table of that great King, whose hospitality feeds, not only men; but even the fouls of the air, the beasts upon earth, and the fishes in the sea. The prophet's lodging was but a Field-bed, yet even then and there, the lions were a guard about him, the tutelar Angels did round him, and the Divine providence preserved him.  
If we be destitute of other lodging, and be driven to the common earth, yet we have a house over our heads, not made with hands, but an eternal mansion in the heavens. There is also a canopy for us, a roof arched over with the two Poles, and set with innumerable glistering stars. Yea; there is an omnipotent love that protects us; a material heaven encompassing us, and a spiritual heaven within us, the peace of a good conscience, assuring us, of our eternal salvation through Christ Jesus. This is a softer lodging than the cabins of merchants, or the hamaches of seafarers; yea then the most curious beds that the harbingers can provide for Princes. O how sweetly doth the Christian rest, when he hears that voice from the Oracle of goodness; My grace is sufficient for thee, My comforts shall delight thy soul.  
But another's complaint is; I am perplexed 
7.  with sickness: I am a mark against which pain shoots his arrows: I wast away with languishments, as ice is dissolved by heat into water. Rest patient; this consumption shall be consumed. Death, that universal executioner of mankind, shall be executed. Time shall cut off Death, and Eternity shall make an end of Time. Death shall have no grave left for his monument, or trophy of his victories: and the Angel hath sworn, that time shall be no more. Thy sickness may outlast thy Physician, but thy soul shall outlive thy sickness, and nothing shall outlive thy soul.  
But the pangs of my body are so violent, that they assault me with distraction. Fear not: they may beleaguer thee with distrust, but never overcome that faith, which thou puttest in this God of consolation. He is a most faithful Creator, and will servare depositum, keep that soul safe, with which the believer hath entrusted him. The breaches of the body are the souls windows, and afford her a more clear prospect into heaven, enkindling her with an ardent desire to be with God in glory. Jobs abundant sores would have bred in him a continuity of sorrows; but for that antidote of faith, and saving cordial of hope, that his eyes should see his Redeemer in blessedness.  
The smiling sun flatters the traveller out of his cloak, whereas the robustious wind causeth him to wrap it the closer about him. God forbid that Christian Religion should be but a cloak: yet the outward profession of it is somewhat loosened by wanton healths; and sickness wins it more inwardly to the heart. Experienced merchants tell us, that in the hottest countries, they find most comfort in the hottest drinks. A wonder to us that live in the cold climates: but that the sun's adventitions heat so sucks out the radical moisture and spirits, that it leaves the heart feeble, and destitute of the natural comforts. It is a maxim in Philosophy, that one heat avocates another: the greater, the less. The heat of the Sun draws forth the heat of the heart, and leaves it fainting. Poor Lazarus with his scraps and scabs, was yet in a better condition than the rich man with his Princely Wardrobe, and his costly Viands. Continued health hath maintained wanton desires and delights upon earth: but sickness hath sent many souls up to Heaven. Yea Lord, even with sickness afflict my body, so that thy Heavenly Comforts do delight my soul.  
It is a general complaint; Afflictions environ me. In my short pilgrimage, through the sharp 
8.  wilderness of this world, on the one side the Thorns wound me, the Briers and Brambles scratch me on the other. This is not only the deserved penalty of sinful nature; Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards, But even a kind of fatality inseparable to militant grace; All that will live godly in Christ, shall suffer persecution. 
2 Tim. 3. 12  That is a rare path upon earth, which hath never a rub: and a calm passage by water, that escapes all molestation. But more,  
Be there not some Afflictions, that conduce much to our preservation? We have found, that the falling into one grievous sin, the worst of all dangers, hath brought us to repentance, one of the best preservatives. I have heard some Seamen report by experience, that in a tempest, some raging billow hath swept a man from off the Decks into the main Ocean: yet another wave on the other side, hath tossed him up into the ship again: so that he was only drenched; but not drowned. The violent pressure of one Affliction hath sunk a man to distrust in God: another with a more furious storm hath left him destitute of all earthly succour: He now resolves, the world hath forsaken me, I will never look for relief from it. But my God hath not forsaken me, he never will forsake them that trust in him through Jesus Christ. To him I fly, upon him I rely: he will not suffer me to perish. Still, O Lord, in all my extremities Thy comforts delight my soul.  
Not offering to number man's grievances, which be innumerable; there is yet the last, and it may prove the best, complaint remaining.  
I am perplexed with the woeful consideration 
9  of my sins; those bitter things which God writes against me, the irksome recollection of my transgressions. I can argue with Philosophers, consult with Politicians, hear the ingenious fancies of Poets, reason in domestic concernments, enjoy the company of moral and harmless friends with delight. I can pray with confidence to be heard, and satisfied; I do hope with some assurance of salvation; I sleep upon a peaceful pillow, Thus far I am in a calm and serene hemisphere, and quiet be all my thoughts.  
But after all this Sunshine, there ariseth a tempest. When I do recollect, or be represented unto my conscience, my innumerable, incomparable, intolerable sins; the remembrance of them is so frightful, the burden of them is so unsupportable, that I dare not even look up unto Heaven. Faith lies fainting, hope is in a swoon, fear stands by the bed side, despair lies gaping at the chamber door, my soul is in an ecstasy. I am weary of all company, but those that speak of mercy. I sit mourning all the day long: Sorrow and solitude are my associates: I do shed some tears, and would weep tears of blood for my sins. I lament because my sorrows are not greater for offending my God.  
Well, yet hear the Physician of souls speaks to thee from Heaven. Weep on, bleed on, this bleeding shall not be unto death. Jesus Christ hath a balsam, that shall not only staunch thy bleeding, but fill the veins of thy soul with comfort. His blood is an Antidote for thine. One drop of that shall satisfy for more sins, than ever thou hast committed.  
Weep on for thy Transgressions: Those floods of tears shall not drown thee. Yea rather, like the waters of that universal Deluge, in that saving ark Christ Jesus, they shall bear up thy soul higher towards Heaven. They shall not drown thee, yea they shall rather save thee from being drowned. This is that Secunda Tabula, after shipwreck; the main plank that shall preserve thee from perishing, emergent repentance.  
There be two most Valiant and Puissant soldiers, that are the Souls Champions, Faith and Repentance. They fight not only against lust and sin, those giants of the world: but even against Principalities and Powers, those infernal spirits of darkness. Faith hath her weapons and Forces, but Repentance hath many disadvantages.  
1. Other soldiers fight standing, she kneeling: They in a posture confronting their enemies, she in humiliation, though not tergiversation from her opposites. They send forth their messengers of death in thundering ordnance: all her thunder is sighs and groans sent up to Heaven for mercies. They let fly their fiery Engines of destruction: she hath only her ejaculations: Her most piercing darts, be broken hearts. Their shafts are winged with fire, her arrows are feathered with water, her own soft tears. They swallow up the hope of victory with insulation: she in an humble prostration expects pity. Yet the God of all power and mercy, whom she beleaguers in Heaven, yields her the conquest. He comes from his impregnable Throne by his most gracious favour, and instead of confounding her as a Rebel, he useth her as a Friend, or Daughter. He takes her up from her knees, he wipes away all her tears, he folds her in his arms, he seals her a pardon of all sins, and assures her of an everlasting Kingdom in Heaven. O victorious Repentance! yea rather, O triumphant goodness! O God, Teipsum vincis, thou even overcomest thyself, that thy Comforts may delight our souls.  
It is reported of Alexander, that when he thought (and did but think so) he had conquered all this world, he fell a-weeping, that there were no more worlds to conquer. But there was remaining another world, a better than ever Alexander discovered. But this was not for an Alexander by force of arms, but for a Mary Magdalen by force of tears, to overcome.  
It is true, that the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence: but the way of Conquest is not through the blood of bodies, but through a flood of tears, gushing out for our sins. This is such a stratagem of war, such a policy of Conquest, as the great Monarchs of the world never understood: Yet even this through faith overcomes the world.  
Faith hath a plot, which she hath taught her daughter Repentance, Concedendo superare, to overcome by yielding. It is a stratagem among wrestlers, that if a man can get himself under his antagonist, he lifts him up, the sooner to cast him down; yea, to give him the greater fall. Repentance stoops as low as she can: she lies, like Joshuah, upon the bare earth, yea wollowes in dust and ashes. She holds herself not worthy to be God's footstool: let him trample upon her, and tread her under his feet, she still holds him by the feet, washeth them with her tears, and wipeth them with the hairs of her head, and kisseth them, though she be spurned by them. Doth this humble prostration provoke fury? No, it rather invites mercy. Parcere prostratis scit nobilis ira Leonis: The lion of the Tribe of Judah, will spare such Lambs of humiliation; and in the pastures of consolation; he will both feed and preserve them. That thunder which dissolves the stubborn mettle, yet spares the yielding purse: When power and policy have spent their spirits, submission is found the only way of Conquest. The fearful thunder of vengeance is resisted by the soft wool of repentance.  
2. Yet hath this blessed grace another disadvantage. Faith, the chief of all the Forces, may be sometimes benighted, through the conglomeration of the clouds condensed by our sins. Hope may be eclipsed, by the interposition of the earth, our worldly imaginations, betwixt us and that great luminary of heaven, the Sun of righteousness; The century of watchful conscience, may be overcome with security. Sin is a subtle enemy, and his father, the devil will show him the opportunity. Now is the time of invasion: seize on them, and cut all their throats. What shall repentance now do, when faith, the great Lady general droops; and Hope, her Lieutenant general is fainting? when the whole century is overcome with slumber?  
Yes, there is a watchman in the tower of the soul, that doth seldom sleep; holy Fear. He wakens conscience, conscience calls up faith, faith rouzeth hope, hope cries aloud to repentance, repentance troops all the spiritual forces, the martial music gives the alarm, the soldiers are in battle-array, the enemies fly, the mind is at peace, because God's comforts have delighted the soul.  
3. One disadvantage more makes dangerous work for repentance. The troops of faith are routed, one wing of hope is cut off. Yet this conquering Queen of the viragineses, or maiden-graces, always bears up the Rear, and never appears till the day be almost lost. When those great Commanders, Innocency and righteousness are foiled, and beaten, and have their Queen the soul, in danger to be taken and slain by sin and Satan, her old adversaries; Then this Virgo, Virago, that all this while lay in expectation of the event; this martial Maid, victorious Repentance comes in with her Reserve, sets upon the conquerors with her fresh forces, rescues the Queen, our soul, puts the great general Satan to flight, and does impartial execution upon all his soldiers, which be our sins.  
Thus one grace begets another, by a supernatural generation, till they increase in number and measure, by the Divine inspiration. Faith calls up repentance, repentance brings in pardon and forgiveness, pardon leads in comfort, and thus, O my God, Thy comforts delight my soul.  
4. When God, by the preaching of his law, hath broken up the fallow ground of our hearts, and by the applying of his Gospel hath sown the seed of eternal life in those furrows, he looks that we should bestow our labour in the watering of this plantation. The ground is his, for he made it: the seed is his, for he gives it: the harvest is his, and he owns it. Yet such is the bounty of his goodness, that he gives his farmers the fruits of it. The rent of that great landlord's glory being truly paid, the product is ours, even the comfort and salvation of our poor souls. All our pains is, but to hook up the weeds, that would hinder the growth of the corn, and due the furrows with our tears, that it may spring up with cheerfulness. But when the reaping-time comes, the whole crop is ours: and we come home singing with joy and thankfulness; Thy comforts have delighted our souls. When those glorious reapers, the Angels shall bear up our souls to heaven, like sheaves into the barn, we shall sing harvest-home, & glorify our infinite good God, and our sweetSaviour JesusChrist.  
To conclude, crosses are but the pursuivants to fetch in repentance: and afflictions, but God's letters, missive formortification. When we are fallen into some heinous transgressions, we may better say then in our other trouble, this will cost hot water: For so it will indeed: it will cost the hot waters of our tears from our eyes, or it will cost the warm blood of our hearts. Our godly sorrow for our sins, is like the Pool of Bethesda: when that Angel from heaven, gracious repentance hath troubled the waters, the lazarous soul does but step into them, and is cured. For all our spiritual diseases, this is the remedy, upon which we may safely write, Probatum est.  
We have made ourselves sick by sinning: God is the Physician, and he prescribes: Affliction is the Apothecary, and he prepares: the Medicine is Repentance, and that infallibly cures. It is a broken heart that makes us whole. God loves a true heart, and a clean heart, and an honest heart, and an humble heart: yea and he loves a broken heart too. The broken and contrite heart, O God thou wilt not despise. It is true, that we 
Psa. 54. 17  are bound to love him with our whole heart: but if it be broken with penitential sorrow for sin, he will heal the fracture, redintegrate the heart, and reaccept it wholly to himself. A contrite heart, broken in pieces with sorrow, and pickled up in brinish tears, is a sacrifice that God will not reject.  
Whosoever hath such a heart, let him make much of it: It is a dish for the king of kings. Sin, Repentance and Pardon, are like to the three vernal months of the year, March, April, and May. Sin comes in like March blustering, stormy, and full of bold violence. Repentance succeeds like April, showering, weeping, and full of tears. Pardon follows like May, springing, singing, full of joys, and flowers. If our hands have been full of March, with the tempests of unrighteousness: our eyes must be full of April, with the sorrow of repentance: & then our hearts shall be full of May, in the true joy of forgiveness.  
His soul; as there be no comforts like those of God; so there is nothing to which comforts are so welcome, as to the soul. The pleasure which the body takes, is but the body, yea scarce the very shadow of pleasure: the soul of pleasure is the pleasure of the soul. There be many things pleasing to the body, wherein the sanctified soul takes no delight, especially in the day of trouble. In calamity, good nourishments are comfortable, good words are comfortable, good friends are comfortable, the Physician is comfortable, the Divine comfortable, a good spouse specially comfortable: but in respect of these comforts, which pass all understanding, we may say of the rest, as Job did to his visitant friends, Miserable comforters are ye all. But blessed are the souls upon whom this Sun of comfort shineth: and happy are those showers of fears and sorrows, that shall be dried up with such beams of comforts: and blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. To whom, with the Son, and Holy Ghost, 
2 Cor. 1. 3.  be all praise and glory, for ever and ever.  
Amen.  
FINIS.