Lim worth a melting and trying every morning, 3'^ea, every moment. It is certain that great prosperity and worldly glory are no sure tokens of God's love, Prov. i. 82, Ps. Ixxiii. 5, Eccles. ix. 1, 2 ; and it is certain that great troubles and afflictions are no sure marks of God's hatred ; and yet many poor Christians, when the waters of affliction rise high, and are ready to overflow them, oh how apt are they to conclude that God hates them, and will revenge himself upon them, and that they have nothing of God or Christ, or the Spirit, or grace in them ! Or, 5, when the Spirit, the Comforter, stands afar off, Lam. i. 16, and withholds those special influences, without which, in a common ordinary way, a Christian cannot divinely, candidly, clearly and impartially transact with God in order to his own peace, comfort and settlement. Or, 6, when either a Christian's evidences are not at band, or else they are so soiled, darkened, blotted and obscured, as that he is not able to read them. Or 7, when a Christian is extremely oppressed with melancholy. Melan- choly is a dark and dusky humour, which disturbs both soul and body, and the cure of it belongs rather to the physician than to the divine. It is a most pestilent humour where it abounds ; one calls it habieum diaholi, the devil's bath ; it is a humour that unfits a man for all sorts of services, but especially those that concern his soul, his spiritual estate, his everlasting condition.' The melancholy person tries the physician, grieves the minister, wounds relations, and makes sport for the devil. There are five sorts of persons that the devil makes his ass to ride in triumph upon, viz., the ignorant person, the unbelieving person, the proud person, the hypocritical person, and the melancholy person. Melancholy is a disease that works strange passions, strange imaginations, and strange conclusions. It unmans a man, it makes a man call good evil, and evil good ; sweet bitter, and bitter sweet ; light darkness, and darkness light. The distemper of the body oftentimes causeth distemper of soul, for the soul followeth the temper of the body, A melancholy spirit is a dumb spirit ; you can get nothing out of him ; and a deaf spirit, you can get nothing into him.^ Now of all the evil spirits we read of in the Gospel, the dumb and the deaf were the worst. Dark- ness, sadness, solitariness, heaviness, mourning, &c., are the only sweet, desirable, and delightful companions of melancholy persons. Melancholy makes every sweet bitter, and every bitter seven times more bitter. The melancholy person is marvellously prone to bid sleep farewell, and joy farewell, and meat farewell, and friends farewell, and ordinances farewell, and duties farewell, and promises farewell, and ministers fare- well, and his calling farewell, and it is well if he be not even ready to bid God farewell too. Melancholy persons are like idols, that have eyes but see not, and tongues but speak not, and ears but hear not. Melan- choly turns truths into fables, and fables into truths ; it turns fancies
• Ps. Ixxxviii ; Job xxxiii. 10. It is an old saying, that Melancholia est vefiicttlum dcBtnomtm In the German proverb, Lutlier 8a}.s if gnes for current, Capttl melancholicum diaboli l'aln<vm, the niehincholy head is tlie devil's batliinp jiliico.
' Mat. ix. 28, 29. It is no more wonder to see a melancholy man doubt and question his spiritual condition, than it is to see a child cry when he is beaten, or to hear a sick man groan, or to hear a drowning man call out for a boat You may silence a melancholy man, when you are not able to comfort him. Whilst Nehuclunlnezzar was under the power of a deep melancholy, he could not tell wliether he was a mau or a beast. Melan- choly is the mother of fearf , doubts, disputes, and discomforts.
Chap. L] a cabinet of jewels. 297
into realities, and realities into fancies. Melancholy is a fire that burns inwards and is hard to quench. Now if a Christian be under the power of natural or accidental melancholy, his work is not now to be a-trying his estate, or a-casting up of his accounts to see what he is worth for another world, but to use all such ways and means as God hath prepared in a natural way for the cure of melancholy ; for as the soul is not cured by natural causes, so the body is not cured by spiritual remedies. Now in the seven ca-ses last mentioned, a Christian's work lies rather in mourning, self-judging, self-loathing, self-abhorring, and in repenting and reforming, and in fresh and frequent exercises of faitii on the Lord Jesus, on his blood, on his promises, and on his free rich sovereign and glorious grace, that is displayed and offered in the gospel, and in a patient waiting upon the Lord in the use of all holy and heavenly helps for deliverance out of his present straits, trials and exercises, than in falling upon tliat great work of casting up his spiritual accounts, and of searcliing into the records of glory, to see whether his name be registered in the book of life or no. O sirs ! when poor Christians are bewildered, their proper work is to cast themselves upon the promises, to trust in the name of the Lord, and to stay themselves upon their God, Isa. 1. 10. Job, in a cloudy stormy day, resolves to trust in the Lord, though he should slay him. Job xiii. 15 ; and so must you. And oh that this rule were more seriously minded, and effectually observed by all doubting, trembling, and staoforerinor Christians. But,
The thirteenth maxwi or consideration.