[1.] If this be known, we must get it removed ; for we must lift up pure hands, without wrath and doubting, 1 Tim. ii. 8 ; and a pet against providence is the worse kind of wrath, for then we are angry with God himself. Now passion })utteth strange fire into our censers.
[2.] If we are blinded for the present, and there be failings in our addresses to God, he will pardon them, but loveth the plainness of his people's hearts.
[3.] By praying, the distemper may be cured ; for when we own God as our supreme and most holy and just judge, the tempest ceaseth, and our thoughts are appeased, and we reduced to a better frame.
Use 1. To direct us what to do when we have many estuations of mind. Go, open the case to God. The apostle giveth this direction : Phil. iv. 6, 7, ' Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made unto God, And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.' As in an earthquake, when the imprisoned wind once gets a vent, the heaving and shaking ceaseth ; such a quieting force there is in prayer.
2. It persuadeth us not only to pray, but to deal sincerely with God, and open our hearts to him. Tell him your griefs, wants, fears, temptations, what reasonings are apt to arise in your minds against his providence; let God know all. He knoweth it already, but let him know it from you. Give an account of yourself to God, but with that humility which becometh a creature subject to him, and hath given up himself to be ordered and disposed by him according to his own plea- sure. Tell him how you came to reconcile his attributes and his pro-
SERMON UPON JOB X. 2. 65
vidence ; you dare not quit the sense of your integrity, but you linow not the meaning of his dispensations. Such plain dealing God liketli better than arting and parting it in prayer.
Doct. 2. From his deprecation of condemnation observe, it is grievous to a child of God to be condemned as a wicked man,
1. They are apt to fear it in great pressures, when God pursueth with multiplied and redoubled strokes ; for these reasons —
[1.] Providence seemeth to mark them out for his enemies when he spendeth the arrows of his indignation upon them. Affliction is an act of judication. The apostle saith, 'We are judged when we are chastened of the Lord,' 1 Cor. xi. 32 ; and again, 1 Peter iv. 17,' That judgment beginneth at the house of God.' God will prove himself impartially just in correcting the sins of his own; therefore he covereth himself with frowns, and seemeth to condemn us as an angry judge, rather than to correct us as a loving father. They are indeed acts of his holy justice, correcting and humbling them for sin. So far the best must own it: Ps. cxix. 75, 'I know, 0 Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that in faithfulness thou hast afflicted me.' But then the vindictive wrath, according to strict justice, must be deprecated: Ps. cxliii. 2, ' Enter not into judgment with thy servant' And the providence must be expounded aright. We are not condemned when we are judged, but judged that we may not be condemned. The dis- pensation is medicinal, not vindictive ; to promote our humiliation and sanctification, not to procure our ruin and destruction.
[2.] The world is apt to make this interpretation of great afflictions: Acts xxviii. 4, 'This man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, vengeance suffereth not to live ; ' and Luke xiii. the first five verses, they thought those greater sinners than others whom these dismal accidents befell, and so turn matters of warning into matters of censure. Nay, of Christ himself : Isa. liii. 4, ' He hath borne our grief, and carried our sorrows ; yet we did esteem him smitten, and stricken of God, and afiiicted.' As if these afflictions befell him for his own evil deserts, and out of a disaffection to him, as one pursued by God's justice. The like conceit had Job's friends of him : Job vi. 4, ' If thy children have sinned against him, and he hath cast them away for their transgres- sion.' And in many other places. Therefore this arrow sticketh fast in their sides ; by it they are pierced, and hit in their main confidence.
[3.] Conscience may have many misgivings because of afflictions : 1 Kings xvii. 18, ' 0 thou man of God ! art thou come to call mysin to remembrance, and to slay my son ? ' Affliction reviveth the guilt : Job xiii. 26, 'Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the sins of my youth.' They sat so close to his conscience that he could not get rid of them. Such suspicions and fears are revived in their hearts. It were well if it were only to humble us for the demerit. So we ought to judge ourselves as deserving condemnation. But to question the truth of God's grant, as if he did retract it, and make our pardon void by these afflictions, this should not be ; or to conclude that he has a purpose to ruin us and condemn us for ever, this is downright despair.