2. Another gracious qualification, clearing the soul's title to God's special protection in the worst and most dangerous times, is true humiliation for our own and other men's sins : " Go, set a " mark, saith God, upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and " cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof," Ezek. ix. 4. These that thus mourn, when others laugh, shall laugh when others mourn. Lot was the only mourner in Sodom, and he was the only person exempted from destruction in the ruin and overthrow thereof 2 Pet. ii. 7. That is a sweet and blessed privilege mentioned in Isa. Ixvi. 10. " Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, " and be glad with her, all ye that love her ; rejoice for joy *' with her, all ye that mourn for her ; that ye may suck and be *' satisfied with the breasts of her consolations, that ye may milk out, *' and be delighted with the abundance of her glory." Be content- ed, Christians, to bear your part in Sion's groans and sorrows ; you
THE KIGHTEOUS MAIj's EEFUGE. 413
may live to bear your part in her triumphs and songs of dehverance : It is an argument of the true publicness and tenderness of your spirits for the present, and as sweet a sign as can appear upon your souls, that you are reserved for better days,
3. Righteousness in doing, and meekness in suffering the will of God, is another mark or note, distinguishing and describing those persons whom God will preserve in the evil day. You have both these together in Zeph. ii. 3. "- Seek ye the Lord, all ye "meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgments; seek " righteousness, seek meekness : it may be ye shall be hid in the " day of the Lord's anger.'"* The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers, 1 Pet. iii. 12. If righteousness brings you into danger, the righteous God will take care of you in that danger, and bring you out of it. Oh ! it is a singular comfort^ when a man can say. It was not my sin, but my duty, that brought me into trouble ; this affliction met me in the path and way of my duty ; it is for thy sake, O Lord, that I am in trouble ; as the martyr that held up the bible at the stake, say- ing, This hath brought me hither.
To conclude : Manage all your sufferings for Christ, with christian meekness : As righteousness must bring you into them, so meekness must carry you through them ; if you avenge yourselves, you take the cause out of God's hand into your own ; but the meek Christian leaves it to the Lord, and shall never have cause to repent of his so doing. If thou have an upright heart with God, a ten- der and mournful heart for sin, and thou suffer with meekness for righteousness sake, thou art one of those souls to whom that sweet voice is directed in my text, —
Come my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee ; hide thyself, as it were, Jor a little moment, until the mdignatio7i be overpast.
A succinct and seasonable Discourse of the Occasions, Causes, Nature, Rise, Growth, and Remedies of men- tal EimoRS.
A HE reverend author of the ensuing treatises, having in them explained and defended several gospel-truths, unto which di- vers things in the writings of the reverend Dr. Crisp, deceased, do
seem very opposite ; whereas some of us, who subscribed a paper, the design whereof was only to testify, that we beheved certain writings of the doctor's never before published, were faithfully trans- cribed by his son, the pubhsher of them, which paper is now, by the bookseller, prefixed to the whole volume ; containing a large preface which we never saw till after the publication, together M^th all the doctor's former works that were published many years before; and are hereupon by some weak people misunderstood, as if, by that certificate, we intended an approbation of all that is contained in that volume. We declare we had no such intention : As the paper we subscribed hath no word in it that gives any such intima- tion : But we are well pleased these later writings are published (in reference whereto we only certified our belief, which we fix- edly retain of the publisher's fidelity) as they contain many passages in them that may, in some measure, remedy the hard and hurtful construction that many expressions were more liable to in the Jbr~ mer ; whereof the doctor seemed apprehensive himself, when, in the beginning of his discourse on Tit. ii. 11, 12. he speaks thus : " [Beloved, I am jealous of you with an holy jealousy," 1 Cor. xi. 2, 3. " Lest after the first wooing of you in Christ's name, " that ye might be espoused unto him ; I say, I am jealous, and *' fear, lest as the serpent beguiled Eve, through his subtilty, name- " ly, bewitching her to a presumptuous, hcentious adventuring on " God's gentleness, while she tasted the forbidden fruit ; so your " minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in him, *' namely, by presuming too much upon him, and adventuring to " continue in sin, in hope that grace may abound. For the pre- " venting of which dangerous miscarriage, which hath been the '' dangerous lot of many thousands, I thought good to step in " with this text, wliich I am persuaded will prove a seasonable *' warning to some at least."] And this pious caution of the author herein, lest he should be misunderstood, gives us some grounds to believe that he intended them not in the^more exceptionable sense. It is best if an unwary reader receives hurt, that he receives his healing also from the same hand. And whereas a paper was printed upon this occasion soon after the publication of the doctor's works^ we willingly adopt so much of it as is requisite to our present pur- pose ; which is to this effect :
' Some who subscribed this certificate, saw only the paper itself,
* to which subscription was desired ; never having perused the ' works of Dr. Crisp. The certificate only concerned the son, not
* the father ; and certified only concerning the son. That they
* who should subscribe it, believed him in this to deal truly ; that
* he was not a Falsarius ; that he would not say that was his fa-
* therms, which was not so ; a paper so sober, so modest, was (taken « bu itself J scarce refusable by a friend.
* The son's preface, some that subscribed this certificate saw not, ' nor had any notice, or the least imagination of its contents ;
* otherwise, the part of a friend had certainly been done as well in « advising against much of the preface, as in subscribing the certi-
* For the works of this reverend person themselves, as it no way < concerned the subscribing this certificate, to know what they
* were ; so from the opinion that went of the author among many
* good men, that he was a learned, pious, good man, it was supposed
* they were likely to have in them, many good and useful things ;
* to which it was only needful to think them his, not to think them
' We may, in some respect, judge of books as of men ; i. e. rec-