Consideration 3. And what if by these disappointments, God be carrying on the great design of his eternal love upon thy soul ? This may be the design of these providences ; and if so, sure there is no cause for thy despondencies. There is a double aim of these provi- dences; sometimes they are sent to awaken and rouse the dull de- cayed habits of grace, which under prosperous providences fall asleep by the intermission of acts, and remission of wonted vigour and acti- vity : And should the Lord permit things to run on at this rate, what a deplorable case would this grow to ? ' Let a man live (saith * one) ' but two or three years without affliction, and he is almost good for
* nothing ; he cannot pray, nor meditate, nor keep his heart fixed
* upon spiritual things : But let God smite him in his health, child,
* or estate ; now he can find his tongue and affections again ; now
* he awakes and falls to his duty in earnest ; now God hath twice
* as much honour from him as he had before. Now, saith God, his
* amendment pleaseth me ; this rod was well bestowed : I have dis- ' appointed him to his great benefit and advantage. And thus God ' chides himself friends with his people again.'
And sometimes they prove the blessed occasions to\york grace. " If " they be bound in fetters, and holden in cords of affliction, then " he sheweth them their works, and their transgression that they " have exceeded : He openeth also their ear to discipline, and com- " mandeth that they return from iniquity," Job xxxvi. 8, 9, 10.
And if this be the fruit of it, you will bless God through eternity for these happy disappointments. Then these things perished, that thy soul might not perish.
Consideration 4. Be patient under disappointments ; for if vou meekly submit, and quietly wait upon God, he can quickly repair all that you have lost, and restore it by other providences double to you. Have you not heard, after all Job's deprivations, and the frus- trations of all his earthly hopes, and his admirable patience under allj
404 THE DISAPPOINTED SEAMAN.
what a gracious end the Lord made with him ? And why may not you hope for such a comfortable change of providence towards you, if you also carry it under disappointments as he did ? Certainly sad providences are near their change when the heart is calmed in the will of God, and coiTected home to him.
Consideration 6. And why should it seem so hard and grievous to you, for God to disappoint your hopes and purposes, when you can- not but know, that you have disappointed his expectations from you so often, and that in greater and better things than these ?
He hath looked for fruit (as it is, Isa. v. 4.) for obedience, refor- mation, and renewed care of duty from you many times ; he pro- mised himself, and made account of a good return of his afflictions and mercies, and you promised him as much, and yet have failed his expectation : And is it then strange that you should fail of your hopes, who have failed God so often ?
O then see that you are quiet in the will of God ; fret not at the defeating of your hopes, wreak not your discontent upon innocent instruments, but look to the just and holy, and good will of God in all things. The wife is sometimes angry with the servant for what he hath done, till he tells her that it was his master's order, and then she is quiet.
Has a ship miscamed, is a voyage lost, a relation dead, an estate gone, a friend carried into captivity, whose return was expected with so much delight and comfort.^ ^vhy, if it be so, it is the Lord hath done it, and be thou silent before him. Your repining will not make it better ; sin is no proper cure for affliction. A quiet and submissive spirit is well-pleasing to God, as well as profitable for you. Inference 2. Doth God sometimes disappoint the expectations of men in their employments "^ then never set your hearts immode- rately upon earthly things, nor raise up to yourselves too great ex- pectations from these things. The stronger your expectations, the heavier God's disappointments will be.
There is a double evil in over-reckoning ourselves, and over-acting our confidence about worldly things : it provokes God to disappoint us, and then makes the disappointment much more grievous when it comes.
It provokes a disappointment especially to the godly. The Lord is jealous of their affections, and will not endure that any thing should be a co-rival, or competitor with him for their hearts : yea, it is so usual with God to dash and remove whatever engrosses too much of the heart, that a gracious soul cannot but reckon that com- fort in great danger to be lost, which he finds to be overloved.
If David set his heart upon Absalom, God will not only smite him, but smite David by him, and make him first the instrument of his sor- row, and then the object of it. Jonah did but take a little too much comfort in his gourd, and you know the next news we hear is, that God had prepared a worm to smite it, and cause it to wither away.
THE DISAfPOlMTED SEAMAN. 405
And when your inordinate hopes are crossed, as it is very probable they will be, how will your sorrows be aggravated in proportion to them ? Those things that seemed to promise us most comfort, are the things that give us most sorrow. Strong affections make strong af- flictions. Our sorrows usually rise from what was our hope, and our comforts from that which was the least regarded.
Irrference 3. If it be so, then labour to make sure of things eternal, lest you be eternally disappointed there also. O what a sad case is that man in, whose expectations fail from both worlds ! If your hopes from this world fail, yet you may bear it comfortably, if you fail not in your better hopes; but if these fail too, you are of all men the most miserable. You know by experience how sad it is to have your hopes cut off in these smaller concerns ; to go forth in expectation of a profitable voyage, and to return in a worse case than you went out : it may be you thought to get an estate, but the issue is to lose that little you had. You thought to go to such a place, and there meet with a good market, and possibly yourselves may be carried as slaves, to be sold in the same market. These disappoint- ments are very sad and cutting things, but nothing to an eternal disappointment in your great concern.
For a man to hope he is in Christ, and in a pardoned state, and at last find himself deceived, and that all the sins of his nature, heart, and practice, lie upon him : to hope for admission into heaven, when he is turned out of this world by death, and find the door shut against him; to cry with those poor disappointed wretches. Mat. xxv. 11. " Lord, Lord, open to us ;" and receive such an unexpected return from Christ as they did, " Depart from me, I know you not :" Lord, how intolerable is such a defeat of hope as this ! O ! who can think of it without horror !