360 SERMONS ON THE SACRAMENTS.
and careless respects for Christ till the sense of our misery awaken us. Comfort is a relative word, and implieth distress ; so doth also justifi- cation, and supposeth accusation, or a sense of condemnation deserved.
2. That wliich scorcheth poor distressed souls is a sense of God's wrath. Observe how fit^y God's wrath is set forth by the scorching of the sun — a glorious creature, and very useful, whose influences upon the world are usually very benign and comfortable ; yet, to accomplish the purposes of nature, he sometimes ariseth with a burning heat. God s goodness is exceeding great and large ; yet this good God hath his wrath, which is set forth to us by the notions of a consuming fire, Heb. xii. 29, and a burning oven, Mai. iv. 1. The wrath of the living God is a dreadful thing, which consumeth and drieth up all without recovery, unless we get a shelter from it. It was typed out by the fire wherein the sacrifices were burnt; and the sense of it is a scorching thing indeed, which drinketh up our blood and spirits, Job vi. 4. Now, because this sense may be increased in us either by sharp afflictions, or heigiitened by Satan's temptations through the permission of God, sometimes the heat and sweltering which the soul feeleth upon these occasions is expressed by the burning of the sun, Cant. i. 6 ; compare also Mat. xiii. 6, ' When the sun was up they were scorched, because they had no root, but withered away ; ' and ver. 21, ' When tribulation or I)ersecution ariseth because of the word.' This may awaken a sense of wrath, when God externally a})peareth as an enemy. So heightened by Satan's temptations, which are called fiery darts, Eph. vi. 16. Hi.«< fiery darts are not only boiling lusts, but despairing fears, when the conscience is filled with horror and trouble.
3. Scorched souls can find no shelter nor refreshing shadow among the creatures, but only by coming to the spiritual apple-tree, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Alas ! the creatures carry no suitableness nor proportion with our grief ; no more than a good meal or a nosegay of flowers to the trouble of a condemned man, or a rich shoe can give ease to a gouty loot. If our trouble were outward want, riches would satisfy it; but when the wrath of God scorcheth the conscience, what will riches, or honours, or pleasures do? Ps. xxxix. 11, 'When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, his beauty consumeth as a moth.' Trouble of conscience will not be got off by carnal means. Greatness and beauty and wealth will be no cure or plaster for this fear. In- deed, in a light conviction, we may divert conscience and stupify it by carnal enjoyments, and quench our thirst at the next ditch ; but it is but a palliate cure ; our wound is skinned over, and breaketh out again in a greater sore. The evil is but put oti", not put away ; as those, Amos vi. 3, that did drink wnne in bowls, and did put far away the evil day. When they do not make a sure peace with God, but all their tlioughts are to put judgment out of their mind, they may harden their hearts, but they cannot qinet their hearts ; for the virtue of this opium will be soon spent, and the trouble will return more ragingly. God can soon blast the shadow of this gourd, as he did Jonah's ; or else he may give you over to a stupid conscience ; and a lethargy is a very dangerous disease.
4. Christ is a complete and comfortable shadow, the only screen be- tween us and wrath. Observe how fitly Christ's interposing between
SERMONS ON THE SACRAMENTS. 361
ns and the wrath of God is set forth by the shadow of a tree interposed between us and the heat of the sun. In him alone we find refreshing, ease, and comfort: Mat. iii. 17, ' This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' God is appeased in Christ towards us ; he is the shadow which we have against the wrath of God, even Jesus, who hatli delivered us from wrath to come, 1 Thes. i. 10. He hath drunk hell dry. To redeem us from the curse of the law he was made a curse for us, Gal. iii. 13. He hath borne the wrath of God in his own person that we might have the blessing, the gift of the Spirit. So he is a shadow against the fiery darts of Satan ; nothing will guard us, and help us to quench them, but the shield of faith, Eph. vi. 16. This faith in Christ we hold up as a shield against his violent and piercing temptations, and so quench that heat and pain and horror which other- wise these temptations would kindle in our hearts. We answer his bitter accusations by Christ's righteousness. Then, for the ti'oubles and afflictions of the world he is still our shadow : John xvi. 33, ' In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have rest.' A storm rattling upon the tiles doth not much dismay you when you sit warm under the covert and protection of a strong roof. God promiseth his people, Isa. xxv. 4, to be ' a shelter from the storm, and a shadow from the heat ; ' and Isa. iv. 5, ' The Lord will create upon the assem- V)lies of Mount Sion a cloud and a smoke by day, and a shining of a flaming fire by night.' It is an allusion to the Israelites in the wilder- ness ; he shadowed them by dny with a cloud, and lighted and heated them with a fiery pillar by night. As we travel to our heavenly rest, we need light and we need shelter ; we have both from Christ.