rifications; yet because their hearts were science; there is mercy in the affliction. An affliction comes to prevent falling into sin; there is mercy in an affliction. Jacob had his thigh hurt in wrestling,-there was the affliction; but when he saw God's face, and received a blessing from the angel, Gen. xxxii. 30, there was mercy in the affliction. In every cloud a child of God may see a rainbow of mercy shining. As the limner mixeth dark shadows and bright colours together, so our heavenly Father mingles the dark and bright together, crosses and blessings; and is not this a great happiness, for God thus to chequer his providences, and mingle goodness with severity? 6. If God be our Father, then he will correct us in measure, Jer. xxx. 11, “I will correct thee in measure;" and that two ways: 1st, It shall be in measure, for the kind; God will not lay upon us more than we are able to bear, 1 Cor. x. 13. He knows our frame, Ps. ciii. 14. He knows we are not steel or marble, therefore will deal gently; he will not over-afflict; as the physician that knows the temper of the body, will not give physic too strong for the body; nor will he give one drachm or scruple too much. God hath not only the title of a father, but the bowels of a father; he will not lay too heavy burthens on his children, lest their spirits fail before him.darts, God will bruise Satan shortly under 2dly, He will correct in measure for the dura- the saints' feet, Rom. xvi. 20. As for his tion; he will not let the affliction lie on too accusing, Christ is advocate for the saints, long, Ps. cxxv. 3, “The rod of the wicked and answers all bills of indictment brought shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous." in against them. God will make all Satan's It may be there, and not rest, Isa. lvii. 16, temptations promote the good of his children. "I will not contend for ever. "Our heavenly 1st, As they set them more a-praying, 2 Cor. Father will love for ever, but he will not con- xii. 8. Temptation is a medicine for security. tend for ever. The torments of the damned 2dly, As they are a means to humble them, are for ever, Rev. xiv. 11, “The smoke of 2 Cor. xii. 7, Lest I should be exalted above their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." measure, there was given me a thorn in the The wicked shall drink a sea of wrath, but flesh. The thorn in the flesh was a temptaGod's children only taste of the cup of afflic- tion; this thorn was to prick the bladder of tion, and their heavenly Father will say, pride. 3dly, As they establish them more in transeat calix,—let this cup pass away from grace; a tree shaken by the wind is more them, Isa. xxxv. 10. A sting a-wing. settled and rooted; the blowing of a tempta. tion doth but settle a child of God more in grace. Thus the evil one, Satan, shall not prevail against the children of God. 8. If God be our Father, the evil one shall not prevail against us. Satan is called 'the evil one,' emphatically; he is the grand enemy of the saints; and that both in a military sense, as he fights against them with his temptations,-and in a forensical or law sense, as he is an accuser, and pleads against them; yet neither way shall he prevail against God's children. As for his shooting his fiery 7. If God be our Father, he will intermix mercy with all our afflictions; if he gives us wormwood to drink, he will mix it with honey. In the ark the rod was laid up, and 9. If God be our Father, no real evil shall manna; with our Father's rod there is always befall us, Ps. xci. 10, "There shall no evil some manna. "Asher's shoes were iron and befall thee." It is not said, no trouble: but, brass, but his foot was dipt in oil," Deut. no evil. God's children are privileged perxxxiii. 24. Affliction is the shoe of brass sons; they are privileged from the hurt of that pincheth; but there is mercy in the afflic- every thing, Luke x. 19, "Nothing shall tion,-there is the foot dipt in oil. When by any means hurt you." The hurt and God afflicts the body, he gives peace of con- malignity of the affliction is taken away: affliction to a wicked man hath evil in it; it | father, my head, my head." So pour out thy complaint to God in prayer, "Father, my heart, my heart! my dead heart! quicken it; my hard heart, soften it in Christ's blood! Father, my heart! my heart!" Sure, God, that hears the cry of the ravens, will hear the cry of his children. makes him worse, Rev. xvi. 9, "Men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God." But no evil befalls a child of God; he is bettered by affliction, Heb. xii. 10, "That ye might be made partakers of his holiness." What hurt doth the furnace to the gold? It only makes it purer. What hurt doth afflictions to grace? Only refine and purify it. What a great privilege is this, to be freed, though not from the stroke of affliction, yet from the sting! No evil shall touch a saint; when the dragon hath poisoned the water, they say, the unicorn with his horn doth draw out the poison: Christ hath drawn out the poison of every affliction, that it cannot prejudice a child of God. Again, no evil befalls a child of God, because no condemnation, Rom. viii. 1, "No condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." God doth not condemn them, nor conscience doth not" He shall cover thee with his feathers, and condemn them. Both jury and judge acquit them; then no evil befalls them, for nothing is really an evil but that which damns. 10. If God be our Father, this may make us go with cheerfulness to the throne of grace. Were a man to petition his enemy, there were little hope; but when a child petitions his father, he may work with confidence to speed. The word father works upon God, it toucheth his very bowels. What can a father deny his child? "If a son ask bread will be give him a stone?" Matt. vii. 9. This may embolden us to go to God for pardon of sin, and further degrees of sanctity. We pray to a Father of mercy sitting upon a throne of grace, Luke xi. 13, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Spirit to them that ask him?” This did quicken the church, and add wings to prayer, Isa. lxiii. 15, "Look down from heaven;" v. 16, "Doubtless thou art our Father." Who doth God keep his mercies for, but his children? Three things may cause boldness in prayer: we have a Father to pray to, and the Spirit to help us to pray, and an Advocate to present our prayers. God's children should in all their troubles run to their heavenly Father, as that sick child, 2 Kings iv. 19, “He said unto his 11. If God be our Father, he will stand between us and danger; a father will keep off danger from his child. God calls himself Scutum, a shield; a shield defends the head, guards the vitals: God shields off danger from his children. Acts xviii. 10, "I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee." God is a hiding-place, Ps. xxvii. 5. God preserved Athanasius strangely; he put it into his mind to depart out of the house he was in, the night before the enemy came to search for him. As God hath a breast to feed, so he hath wings to cover his children, Ps. xci. 4, under his wings shalt thou trust." God appoints his holy angels to be a lifeguard about his children, Heb. i. 14. Never was any prince so well guarded as a believer. The angels, 1st. are a numerous guard, 2 Kings vi. 17, "The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." The horses and chariots of fire were the angels of God, to defend the prophet Elisha. 2dly. A strong guard; one angel, in a night, slew a hundred and fourscore, and five thou sand, 2 Kings xix. 32. If one angel slew so many, what would an army of angels have done? 3dly. The angels are a swift guard; they are ready in an instant to help God's children: therefore they are described with wings, to show their swiftness; they fly to our help, Dan. ix. 21, 23, “At the beginning of thy supplication the commandment came forth, and I am come to thee." Here was a swift motion for the angel to come from heaven to earth between the beginning and ending of Daniel's prayer. 4thly. The angels are a watchful guard; not like Saul's guard, asleep when their lord was in danger, 1 Sam. xxvi. 12. The an gels are a vigilant guard, they watch over God's children to defend them, Ps. xxxiv. 7, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him." There is an in D visible guardianship of angels about God's | The saints conquer their own lusts; they children. bind these princes in fetters of iron, Ps. cxlix. 8. Though the children of God may sometimes be foiled, and lose a single battle, yet not the victory. 2d. They conquer the world; the world holds forth her two breasts of profit and pleasure, and many are overcome by it, but the children of God have a world-conquering faith, 1 John v. 4, “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." 3d. They conquer their enemies : how can that be, when they oft take away their lives? (1). They conquer, by not complying with them; the three children would not fall down to the golden image, Dan. iii. 18. They would rather burn than bow; here they were conquerors. He who complies with another's lust, is a captive; he who refuseth to comply, is a conqueror. (2). God's children conquer their enemies by heroic patience. A patient Christian, like the anvil, bears all strokes invincibly; thus the martyrs overcame their enemies by patience. Nay, God's children "are more than conquerors," Rom. viii. 37, "We are more than conquerors." How are God's children more than conquerors? Because they conquer without loss; and because they are crowned after death, which other conquerors are not. 12. If God be our Father, we shall not want any thing that he sees is good for us, Ps. xxxiv. 10, "They that seek the Lord shall T not want any good thing." God is pleased sometimes to keep his children to hard commons, but it is good for them; sheep thrive best on short pasture: God sees too much may not be good plenty breeds surfeit. Luxuriant animi rebus secundis. God sees it good sometimes to diet his children, and keep them short, that they may run the heavenly race the better; it was good for Jacob there was a famine in the land, it was a means to bring him to his son Joseph: so it is that God's children sometimes see the world's emptiness, that they may acquaint themselves more with Christ's fulness. If God see it be good for them to have more of the world they shall have it: God will not let them want any good thing. 13. If God be our Father, all the promises of the Bible belong to us; God's children are called "heirs of promise," Heb. vi. 17. A wicked man can lay claim to nothing in the Bible but the curses; he hath no more to do absolutely with the promises, than a ploughman hath to do with the city charter; the promises are children's bread; the promises are mulctralia Evangelii, the breasts of the gospel milking out consolations; and who are to suck of these breasts but God's children? The promise of pardon is for them, Jer. xxxiii. 8, "I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me." The promise of healing is for them, Isa. lvii. 18. The promise of salvation, Jer. xxiii. 6. The promises are supports of faith; they are God's sealed deed; they are a Christian's cordial. O the heavenly comforts which are distilled from the limbeck of the promises! Saint Chrysostom compares the scripture to a garden, the promises are the fruit-trees that grow in this garden: a child of God may go to any promise in the Bible, and pluck comfort from it: he is an heir of the promise. 14. God makes all his children conquerors: 1st. They conquer themselves; fortior est qui se, quam qui fortissima vincint mænia. 15. If God be our Father he will now and then send us some tokens of his love. God's children live far from home, and meet sometimes with coarse usage from the unkind world; therefore God, to encourage his children, sends them sometimes tokens and pledges of his love. What are these? He gives them a return of prayer, there is a token of love; he quickens and enlargeth their hearts in duty,—there is a token of love; he gives them the first-fruits of his Spirit which are love-tokens, Rom. viii. 23. As God gives the wicked the first-fruits of hell, horror of conscience and despair: so he gives his children the first-fruits of his Spirit, joy and peace, which are foretastes of glory. Some of God's children having received those tokens of love from their heavenly Father, have been so transported, that they have died for joy, as the glass oft breaks with the strength of the wine put into it. 16. If God be our Father, he will indulge and spare us, Mal. iii, 17, "I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." God's sparing his children, imports this, his clemency towards them; he doth not punish them as he might, Ps. ciii. 10, "He hath not dealt with us according to our sins." We oft do that which merits wrath, grieve God's Spirit, relapse into sin; God passeth by much, and spares us; God did not spare his natural Son, Rom. viii. 22. Yet he will spare his adopted sons; God threatened Ephraim, to make him as the chaff driven with the whirlwind, but he soon repented, Hos. xiii. 4, "Yet I am the Lord thy God;" v. 10, "I will be thy king." Here God spared him as a father spares his son. Israel oft provoked God with their complaints, but God used clemency toward them, he oft answered their murmurings with mercies; here he spared them as a father spares his son. flower appears in its orient brightness: 80 the wicked may by misreports darken the honour and repute of the saints; but God will dispel this darkness, and cause their names to shine forth: "He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light." As God did stand up for the honour of Moses, when Aaron and Miriam went about to eclipse his fame, Numb. xii. 8, " Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses!" So will God say one day to the wicked, where fore were ye not afraid to defame and traduce my children? They having my image upon them, how durst ye abuse my picture? At last God's children shall come forth out of all their calumnies, as a "dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold," Ps. lxviii. 13.-2. God will make an open and honourable recital of all their good deeds: as the sins of the wicked shall be openly mentioned, to their eternal infamy and confusion; so all the good deeds of the saints shall be openly mentioned, "and then shall every man have praise of God," 1 Cor. iv. 5. Every prayer made with melting eyes, every good service, every work of charity, shall be openly declared before men and angels: Matt. xxv. 35, 36, "I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; thirsty, and ye gave me drink; naked, and ye clothed me." Thus God will set a trophy of honour upon all his children at the last day; "then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," Matt. xiii. 43. 17. If God be our Father, he will put honour and renown upon us at the last day. -1. He will clear the innocency of his children. God's children in this life are strangely misrepresented to the world. They are loaded with invectives, they are called factious, seditious; Elijah, the troubler of Israel; Luther was called the trumpet of rebellion; Athanasius was accused to the emperor Constantine, to be the raiser of tumults; the primitive Christians were accused to be infanticidii, incestus rei, ' killers of their children,' 'guilty of incest;' as Tertullius reported St Paul to be a pestilent person, Acts xxiv. 4. Famous Wickliff was called the idol of the 18. If God be our Father, he will settle a heretics, and said to have died drunk. If Sa- good land of inheritance upon us, 1 Pet. i. 3, tan cannot defile God's children, he will dis- 4, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord grace them; if he cannot strike his fiery darts Jesus, who hath begotten us again to a lively into their conscience, he will put a dead fly hope, to an inheritance incorruptible and uninto their name; but God will one day clear defiled." A father may be fallen to decay, his children's innocency, he will roll away and have nothing to leave his son but his their reproach. As God will make a resur-blessing; but God will settle an inheritance rection of bodies, so of names, Isa. xxv. 8, on his children, and an inheritance no less "The Lord God shall wipe away tears from than a kingdom, Luke xii. 32, "It is your off all faces, and the rebuke of his people Father's good pleasure to give you the king. shall he take away." God will be the saints' dom." This kingdom is more glorious and compurgator, Ps. xxxvii. 6, “He shall bring magnificent than any earthly kingdom; it is forth thy righteousness as the light." The set out by pearls and precious stones, the richnight casts its dark mantle upon the most est jewels, Rev. xii. 19. What are all the beautiful flowers; but the light comes in the rarities of the world to this kingdom,-the morning and dispels the darkness, and every coasts of pearl, the islands of spices, the rocks of diamonds? In this heavenly kingdom is that | to carry him to his son Joseph! The text which is satisfying,-unparalleled beauty, saith, his spirit revived, Gen. xlv. 27. Death rivers of pleasure, and this for ever, Ps. xvi. is a triumphant chariot to carry every child 11, "At thy right hand are pleasures for ever- of God to his Father's mansion-house. more." Heaven's eminency is its permanency; and this kingdom God's children shall enter into immediately after death: there is a sudden transition and passage from death to glory, 2 Cor. v. 8, " Absent from the body, present with the Lord." God's children shall not wait long for their inheritance; it is but winking, and they shall see God. How may this comfort God's children, who perhaps are low in the world! Your Father in heaven will settle a kingdom upon you at death, such a kingdom as eye hath not seen; he will give you a crown not of gold, but glory: he will give you white robes lined with immortality. "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you a kingdom." 20. If God be our Father, he will not disinherit his children; God may for a time desert them, but not disinherit them. The sons of kings have been sometimes disinherited by the cruelty of usurpers; as, Alexander the Great his son was put by his just right, by the violence and ambition of his Father's captains; but what power on earth, shall hinder the heirs of the promise from their inheritance? Men cannot, and God will not cut off the entail. The Arminians hold falling away from grace, and so a child of God may be defeated of his inheritance: but I shall show that God's children can never be degraded or disinherited, their heavenly Father will not cast them off from being children. 1. It is evident God's children cannot be finally disinherited by virtue of the eternal decree of Heaven. God's decree is the very pillar and basis on which the saints' perseverance depends; God's decree ties the knot of adoption so fast, that neither sin, death, nor hell, can break it asunder, Rom. viii. 30, 19. If God be our Father, it is comfort, 1st. In case of loss of relations. Hast thou lost a father? Yet, if thou art a believer, thou art no orphan, thou hast a heavenly Father, a Father that never dies, 1 Tim. vi. 16, "Who only hath immortality." 2d. It is comfort, in case of death; God is thy Father, and at death thou art going to thy Father;" Whom he did predestinate, them he also well might Paul say, death is yours, 1 Cor. iii. 22. It is your friend that will carry you home to your Father. How glad are children when they are going home! This was Christ's comfort at death, he was going to his Father, John xvi. 28, "I leave this world, and go to the Father." And, John xx. 17, "I ascend to my Father." If God be our Father, we may with comfort at the day of death, resign our souls into his hand so did Christ, Luke xxiii. 46, "Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit." If a child hath any jewel, he will in time of danger, put it into his father's hands, where he thinks it will be kept most safe: our soul is our richest jewel; we may at death, resign our souls into God's hands, where they will be safer than in our own keeping: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." What a comfort is this, death carries a believer to his Father's house," where are delights unspeakable and full of glory!" How glad was old Jacob when he saw the wagons and chariots called," &c. Predestination is nothing else but God's decreeing a certain number to be heirs of glory, on whom he will settle the crown; whom he predestinates, he glorifies. What shall hinder God's electing love or make his decree null and void?-2. Beside God's decree, he hath engaged himself by promise, that the heirs of heaven shall never be put by their inheritance. God's promises are not like blanks in a lottery, but as a sealed deed which cannot be reversed; the promises are the saints' royal charter; and this is one promise that their heavenly Father will not disinherit them, Jer. xxxii. 40, "I will make an everlssting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me." God's fidelity, which is the richest pearl of his crown, is engaged in this promise for his children's perseverance; "I will not turn away from them." A child of God cannot fall away, while he is held fast in these two |
