I remember my fault this day, may many a gracious soul say. Ah ! how faithless and distrustful have I been, notwithstanding the great security God hath given to my faith, both in his word and works ! O my soul, thou hast greatly sinned therein, and dishonoured thy Fa- ther ! I have been worse to my Father than my children are to me. They trouble not their thoughts with what they shall eat or drink, or put on, but trust to my care and provision for that ; yet I cannot trust
^50 A NEW COMPASS FOR SEAMEK ; OR,
mv Father, though I have ten thousand thiies more reason so to Jo, than they have to trust me, Matth. vii. SI. Surely, unless T were jealous of my Father's aifcction, I could not be so dubious of his pro- vision for me. Ah ! I should rather wonder that I have so much, than repine that I have no more. I should rather have been trou- bled that I have done no more for God, than that I have received no more from God. I have not proclaimed it to the world by my conversation, that I have found a sufficiency in him alone, as the saints have done, Hab. iii. 17, 18. How have I debased the faith- fulness and all-sufficiency of God, and magnified these earthly trifles, by my anxiety about them ? Had I had more faith, a light purse would not have made such an heavy heart. Lord, how often hast tliou convinced me of this folly, and put me to the blush, when thou hast confuted my unbelief! so that I have resolved never to distrust thee more, and yet new exigencies renew this corruption. How con- tradictory also hath my heart and my prayers been ? I pray for them conditionally, and with submission to thy will ; I dare not say to thee, I must have them ; yet this hath been the language of my heart and life. O convince me of this folly !
V ARTETY of curious fish are caught Out of the sea, and to our tables brought ; We pick the choicest bits, and then we say. We are sufficed ; come, now take av/ay. The table''s voided, you have done ; but fain I would persuade to have it brought again. The sweetest bit of all remains behind, Which, through your want of skill, you could not find. A bit for faith, have you not found it ? Then IVe made but half a meal ; come, taste again. Hast thou considered, O my soul ! that hand Which feeds those multitudes in sea and land f A double mercy in it thou shouldst see ; It fed them first, and then with them fed thee. Food in the waters we should think were scant For such a multitude, yet none do want. What numVous flocks of birds about me fly ? When saw I one, through want, fall down, and die '^ They gather what his hand to them doth bring, Tho** but a worm, and at that feast can sing. How full a table doth my Father keep ? Blush then my naughty heart, repent, and weep ; How faithless and distrustful hast thou been, Altho' his care and love thou oft hast seen ? Thus in a single dish you have a feast, Your first and second course, the last the best.
KAVIGATIOX SPIRITUALIZED. S51
Sea-waters drained through the earth, are sweet ; So are tK afflictions which God's people meet.
X HE waters of the sea, in themselves, are brac]\ish and unplea- sant, yet being exhaled by the sun, and condensed into clouds, they fall down into pleasant showers ; or if drained through the earth, their property is thereby altered, and that which was so salt in the sea, becomes exceeding sweet and pleasant in the springs. This we find by constant experience, the sweetest crystal spring came from the sea, Eccl. i. 7.
Afflictions in themselves are evil, Amos ii. 6. very bitter and un- pleasant. See Heb. xii. 11. Yet not morally and intrinsically evil, as sin is ; for if so, the holy God would never own it for his own act as he doth, Mic. iii. S. but always disclaimeth sin, James i. 3. Besides, if it were so evil, it could, in no case or respect, be the ob- ject of our election and desire, as in some cases it ought to be, Heb. xi. 25. but it is evil, as it is the fruit of sin, and grievous unto sense, Heb. xii. 11. But though it be thus brackish and unpleasant in itself, yet, passing through Christ and the covenant, it loses that ungrateful property, and becomes j^lcasant in the fruits and effects thereof unto believers.
Yea, such are the blessed fruits thereof, that they are to account it all joy when they fall into divers afflictions. Jam. i. 2. David could bless God that he was afflicted, and many a saint hath done the like. A good woman once compared her afflictions to her children : * For, ' (saith she) they put me in pain in bearing them ; yet as I know not * which child, so neither which affliction I could be without.'
Sometimes the Lord sanctifies afflictions to discover the corruption that is in the heart, Deut. viii. 2. it is a furnace to shew the dross. Ah ! when a sharp affliction comes, then the pride, impatience, and unbelief of the heart appear : Matnra vexatio proclit seipsam. When the water is stirred, then the mud and filthy sediment that lay at the bottom rise. Little, saith the afflicted soul, did I think there had been in me that pride, self-love, distrust of God, carnal fear, and un- belief, as I now find. O where is my patience, my faith, my glory in tribulation ? I could not have imaoined the siorht of death would have so appalled me, the loss of outward things have so pierced me. Now what a blessed thing is this to have the heart thus discovered.
Again, sanctified afflictions discover the emptiness and vanity of the creature. Now, the Lord hath stained its pride, and veiled its tempting splendor, by this or that affliction ; and the soul sees what an empty, shallow, deceitful thing it is. The world (as one liath
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truly observed) is then only great in our eyes, when we are full of sense and self: but now affliction makes us more spiritual, and then it is nothing. It drives them nearer to God, makes them see the necessity of the life of faith, with multitudes of other benefits.
But yet these sweet fruits of afflictions do not naturally, and of their own accord, spring from it ; no, we may as well look for grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, as for such fruits from affliction, till Christ's sanctifying hand and art have passed upon them.
The reason why they become thus sweet and pleasant (as I noted before) is, because they run now in another channel ; Jesus Christ hath removed them from mount Ebal to Gerizim ; they are no more the effects of vindictive wrath, but paternal chastisement. And, as *Mr. Case well notes, * a teaching affliction is to the saints, the re-:
* suit of all the offices of Jesus Christ. As a king, he chastens ; as
* a prophet, he teacheth, viz. by chastening ; and, as a priest, he
* hath purchased this grace of the Father, that the dry rod might