' Qui non est criidanus, non est Chrittianus, saith Luther. The proverb is. Smart makes wit, and vexation gives understanding. I bless God I know several precious souls of whom this world is not worthy, that have found more of God in nfflictions than in any other gracious dispensation. Manasseh got more by his iron chain than ever he got by his golden crown.
* Oculos quos peccatum clauditpcena aperit. Periua<m ntsi perxissem, I had perished, if I had not perished.
* Musk, saith one, when it hath lost its sweetness, if it be put into the sink amongst filth, it recovers it. So doth afflictions recover and revive decayed graces.
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those joys and comforts that have been languishing ? Yes. Oh, then, stand up and declare to all the world that times of affliction have been the times wherein you have seen the face of God, and heard the voice of God, and sucked sweetness from the breasts of God, and fed upon the delicates of God, and drunk deep of the consolations of God, and have been most satisfied and delighted with the presence and in-coraes of God.
When Hezekiah in his greatest affliction laraentingly said, Isa. xxxviii. 9-20, ' I shall go mourning to my grave, I shall not see the Lord in the land of the living. He will cut me off with pining sickness, he will break all my bones. Like a crane, or a swallow, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove ; mine eyes fail with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me.' So now God comes in a way of mercy to him, and prints his love upon his heart: ver. 17, ' Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption ;' or rather, as the Hebrew reads it, 'K'SJ nn'^ < Thou hast loved my soul from the grave, for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.' Ah, says Hezekiah, I have now found that in my afflictions thy affections have been most strongly carried towards me, as towards one whom thou art exceedingly taken with. Oh, now thou hast warmed me with thy love, and visited me with thy grace ; thou hast made my darkness to be light, and turned my sighing into singing, and my mourning into rejoicing. So when Habakkuk's belly trembled, and his lips quivered, and rottenness entered into his bones, and all creature comforts failed, yet then had he such a sweet presence of God with his spirit, as makes him to rejoice in the midst of sorrows : ' Yet,' says he, ' I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation,' chap. iii. 16-18. And thus you see it clear, that in times of affliction God makes sweet manifestations of his love and favour to his children's souls.
VII. Seventhly, Praying times are times wherein the Lord is graciously pleased to give his people some sweet and comfortable assurance of his love and favour towards them,. Prayer crowns God with honour and glory that is due to his name ; and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. Usually the most praying souls are the most assured souls. There is no service wherein souls have such a near, familiar, and friendly intercourse with God, as in this of prayer ; neither is there any service wherein God doth more delight to make known his grace and goodness, his mercy and bounty, his beauty and gloiy, to poor souls, than this of prayer.' The best and the sweetest flowers of paradise, God gives to his people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is porta coeli, clavis paradisi, the gate of heaven, a key to let us into paradise. When John was weeping, in prayer doubtless, the sealed book was open to him. Many Christians have found by experience, praying times to be sealing times, times wherein God hath sealed up to them tlie remission of their sins, and the salvation of their souls. They have found prayer to be a shelter to their souls, a sacrifice to God, a sweet savour to Christ, a scourge to Satan, and an inlet to assurance. God loves to lade the wings of prayer with the choicest and chiefest
^ Nunqrtam abs te absque te reeedo. — Bernard, Epist. 116, 0 Lord, saith he, I never go away frum tlieo without thee. He was a man very much in prayer, as some writers observe.
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