Heavy pressures call for strong support, and fainting seasons for rich cordials. Your burden is indeed heavy : yet I must say it is much our own fault our burdens are so heavy as we feel them to be ; for according to the measure of our delight in, and expectation from the creature, is our sorrow and disappointment when we part from it. The highest tides are always followed with the lowest ebbs. We find temperance and patience knit together in the same precept, and intemperance and impatience as inseparably connected in our own ejc- jjerience. It may be we did not suspect ourselves of any sinful excess in the time of their enjoyment ; but it now appears the creature was gotten deeper into our hearts than we imagined, by the pain we feel at parting : Did we not lean too hard upon it, there would not be such shakings as vre feel vdien it is slipt from us.
But, Madam, it is high time to recal your thoughts, and bound your sorrows, whicli the following considerations would greatly assist YOU in.
1. What is the very ground and reason of our excessive sorrows for the loss of earthly comforts r Is it not this. That they are perishing andtransitorij? That is, that you find them to be as God made them. And can we expect that God should alter the laws of nature to please and humour us? It is as natural to our relations to die, as it is for
fio-ioers to wither, or the moon to wane.
2. That there is no such necessary connection betwixt these things and our comfort, that whenever Go*d removes the one, he must needs remove the other with it. Christ and comfort are indeed so united, but nothing beside him is or can be so. I hope you will shortly ex- perience the truth of this conclusion, by the comfort God will give you in the absence of those comforts you have lost. Can you not now have as free access to God as before*.^ Yea, do not these very afflic- tions send you oftener into his presence .? And if God meet you in those duties, (as in days of distress he uses to meet his people,) then It will be evident to you that your joy and comfort lives, though your husband and children be laid in their o^raves.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 85
3. That the removing of your earthly comforts hinders not but that you may still pursue the great end and business of your life, and carry on all your designs for heaven as successfully as ever. Indeed^ jVIadam, had we been sent inio this world to raise estatesj contract relations, and then sit down in the midst of them as our portion, then our design had been utterly dashed and disappointed ; but you know this is not your main end, or great business upon earth, but to honour God by an holy fruitful life here, and make ready for the full enjoyment of him hereafter. And what hinders but you may as prosperously manage and carry on this your design as ever ? You do not think the traveller is disabled for his journey, because he hath fewer clogs and hinderances than before. I think few Christians find much furtherance heavenward by their multiplicity of engagements or enjoyments in this world. Your cares and fears about these things, will now lie in a narrower compass than they did before, and thereby you may have your thoughts more about you, to attend the great concerns of God's glory, and your own salvation.
4. But above all, you will certainly find your relief and consolation to lie in the everlasting covenant of God. Thence it was, that David fetched his support under a much heavier burden and smarter rod than yours : For your relations were such as gave you comfort in their lives, and left you many grounds of hope in their deaths ; but his were taken away in their sins. But though the grounds of his sor- row (blessed be God) are not yours, yet I hope the grounds of his comfort in the text are fully yours.
I confess, I have prepared these things in too much haste and dis- traction of thoughts, which in this juncture was unavoidable; nor have I bestowed much of art or language upon them : And if I had, they would have been never the more effectual to your relief for that. But such as they are, I humbly pi'esent them to you with my hearty prayers, that God would make them a sovere'igm halm, by the blessing of his Spirit on them, to your wounded spirit, and to allother godly families groaning under the like strokes of God with you, and remain,
SijmpatMzwg Friend and Servaiit,
86 THE BALM OF THE COVEXAXT
Although my house he uot so ivith God ; yet he hath made imth me an everlasthig covenant, ordered in all things and sure :Jbr this is all my salvation^ and all my desire, although he make it not to grow,
A HESE are part of David's last words. The last words of dying saints, but especially of dying prophets, are ponderous, memorable, and extraordinarily remarkable ; and such are these acknowledged to be, by all expositors. It is a golden sentence, a divine oracle, fit to be the last words of every dying saint, as well as of David.
They are called his last words, not simply and absolutely, as though he breathed them forth with his last breath ; (for he spake many things afterwards) but either they are the last he spoke as a prophet, by Divine inspiration, or because he had them often in his mouth, to his last and dying day. They were his cpicediuju, his sv/eet swan-like song, in which his soul found singular refreshment, and strong support, amidst the manifold afflictions of his life, and against the fears of his approaching death.
The whole chapter is designed for a coronis or honourable close of the life of David, and gives us an account both of the worthy ex- pressions that dropped from him, and of the renowned worthies that were employed by him. But all the heroic atchievements recorded to the honour of their memories, in the following part of the chap- ter, are trivial and inglorious things, compared with this one divine sentence recorded in my text ; in which we have two things to con- sider, viz.
1. The preface, which is exceeding solemn.
2. The speech itself, which is exceeding weighty.
1. In the preface, we have both the instrumental and principal efficient cause of this divine sentence distinctly set down, ver. 1. and the efficient, or author of it, ver. 2.
The instrument or organ of its conveyance to us, was David ; de- scribed by his descent or lineage, the smi of Jesse ; by his eminent sta- tion, the man that was raised up on high ; even to the top and cul- minating point of civil and spiritual dignity and honour, both as a king, and as a prophet ; by his divine unction, the anointed qf the God of Jacob ; and lastly, by the flowing sweetnees of his spirit and stile, in the divine psalms that were penned by him, whence he here gets the title of the sweet psalmist of Israel; the pleasant one, in' tl be psalms of Israel, as some read it.