I will give you two things for the description of such a season as I judge to be manifestly calamitous: —
1. When it exceeds the hounds of affliction, or when the dispensa- tions of God's anger in it cannot be reduced to the head of affliction. Ezek. xxi. 9, 10, 13, " Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord ; say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished : it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glit- ter: should we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree. Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod?" The i'od comprises all affliction ; but God will bring a siuord, — a judgment that shall not be reducible to the head of afflic- tion ; it shall contemn it. Now, I say, let it be what it will, when a calamity doth befall a people, or the church of God, that cannot be reduced to the head of affliction, but that every one shall find there is anger, judgment, wrath in it ; then it is a distressing time.
2. When judgments fall promiscuously upon all sorts of persons, and make no distinction, then I take it to be a distressing time ; for they strip men of the comforts they cherish in their own minds. Job ix. 22, 23, " This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked." " WThat ! doth God always do so? cloth he never make a distinction about judgments?" Yes, sometimes; but " if the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the inno- cent." When God brings a scourge, or a sword that shall slay pro- miscuously, that shall seize upon, destroy, and devour the innocent, so that they shall not escape, he will be as one that standeth by rejoicing to see how they carry themselves under their trial.
Now, this is enough to give satisfaction as to what I intend by a dis- tressing, calamitous time : — it cannot be reduced to the head of afflic- tion ; and it slayeth suddenly and promiscuously the perfect and the
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wicked ; and, it may be, " the good figs shall go first into captivity/' I am not much otherwise minded ; and God may have mercy for them in that dispensation. I shall now show you these two things: — I. How we shall live by faith, — how we should deport ourselves; what faith will do in such a season, — what our duty is under the approach of these calamitous, distressing times that are coming upon us. II. I shall show you how faith doth and will carry it under other perplexities that we have upon us, that we either feel or fear : —
I. Faith will guide and act the soul, under the approach of these distressing calamities, in these following; things : — -
] . It will give the soul a reverential fear of God in his judg- ments. So it did unto the saints of old, Heb. xi. 7, " By faith Noah, being warned of God;" suKa^SBig, — " moved with a reverential fear." There is no man that is not stout-hearted and far from righteousness, but is, upon God's warning, moved with a reverential fear of God in his judgments. It was so with David, Ps. cxix. 120, " My flesh trem- bleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments." He was not afraid as to outward judgments, but under them his flesh trem- bled with a reverential fear of God. And so was it with the prophet Habakkuk, upon the vision he had of the approach of the Chaldeans, chap. iii. 16, " When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice : rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble : when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops." He had a reverential fear of God in his judgments working upon him. Ac- cording to my best observation of things in this state wherein we are, the generality of people may be distributed under these three heads : —
(1.) There are some that are, indeed, really afraid of approaching judgments ; they do not know how soon they will reach unto them- selves, their persons, their families, their relations, their estates, — all that they have laboured for, and exerted their utmost care and in- dustry about in the world ; the flood flies at the door, ready to carry all before it; they fear every day. Some men die, also, for fear of dying ; they are poor for fear of poverty ; — they will part with nothing, because they fear they must part with all. A strange contradiction of spirit ! Now this is not the work of faith. So far as it prevails upon any of our spirits, God will rebuke us for it, Isa. li. 12, 13, " Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass ; and forget- test the Lord thy maker, and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor?" (chap. viii. 13,) " and hast not sanctified the Lord in thy heart, nor made him thy fear?" Who art thou? God hates this sinful fear; it is an abomination unto him. This is nothing but the fear of self; we will keep all warm about us,