tion, errs in choice and application of means to his end. (3.) That man is fruftrated, and difappointed in the iffue: after all costs, curfeth his labour. After promifing expectations, expenfive ways in the close of all, has a fhadow for the substance. Hope deferred makes his heart fick, and the defire is not accomplished, which is a tree of life. 6. By his inward perturbations, man is vain. The affections of the foul, have as well changed their name as their use. A man is always at difference, in contestation with himself. 'Tis not in man, a monarchy of reafon, but a democracy of humours. Man disturbs his own content and quiet. To enjoy a man's felf, is the greatest good in the world: the ferenity and sweet compofure of his mind, is happinefs within; yet men eafily difcompofe themselves, and throw themselves into mal-content. Were all the world elfe in a calm, yet man will not be at quiet; he raiseth ftorms and tempefts, makes foul weather within. We have not ourselves in our own hands : we are not masters of our paffions, ends, and undertakings. Man fears where no fear is, and fo creates himself an enemy, by his own fancy he dotingly loves what will return nothing for affection: he runs out in hope, where there is no ground for expectation.. The uses to be made of this, are these. 1. There is no caufe of pride. Prefumption, pride and conceit, are the most ungrounded things in the world. Self-denial is the most rational act. Why should we believe a lie? Why do we make tools of ourselves, by fond self-flattery? man is vain 118 The fecret BLASTING of MEN. in his existence by opinion a liar, Pfal. Ixii. 9. Things are not to conform to our apprehenfions ; but our thoughts are to answer things, 'Tis our mifery to be deprived, but 'tis our madness to be deceived, befooled; otherwife we affect to know things justly as they are; why are we not willing to know ourselves? 2. What caufe have we to magnify the rich grace of God, who gave fo great a price for us, fo little worth. The great physician hath dearly bought difeafed patients. God hath bought chaff instead of wheat; vanity inftead of fubftance. It could not be therefore his gain by us, that did direct his choice, but his compaffion of our mifery, that 'procured us mercy. What the grace of God finds us, and how grace leaves us, are two things of greatest confideration. From the depth of mifery, to the height of excellency. Who deals with the blind, halt and difeafed, but God? Luke xiv. 21. We may fay as Job, Doft thou open thine eyes upon fuch an ane ? Job xiv. 3. 3. Let no man believe himself, or lean to his own understanding, Prov. iii. 5. He that trufteth in his own heart, is a fool, Prov. xxviii. 26. Let the grace of God be acknowledged, both for wisdom, and for frength. Nothing is better grounded than that advice of wisdom; In all thy ways acknowledge him, Prov. iii. 6. If Egypt be a broken reed, Ifa. xxxvi. 6. which was never strong, becaufe a reed; which will pierce him that leans on it, because broken is not he rash and unadvised, that trufts, and hath confidence : dence in fuch things? better have no confidence, than felf-confidence which is a refuge of lies; an hiding place that waters will overflow, Ifa. xxviii.17. And man is never fo broken, as when he is fruftrated in his expectation. 4. Hence we have an account of the general madness that rules in the commonwealth of men. What can the tranfaction be, when the convention is made up of vain and empty perfons? the world is a very chaos, and confufion; fo that, if things be tolerable in the world, that is much more than we can groundedly expect from men. Whatever is of any confideration in the world is to be accounted to God, who made a chaos and confufion the ground-work of a glorious creation. DISCOURSE VIII. Preached before the Honourable HOUSE of COMMONS, February 4. 1673. JER. vi. 8. Be thou inftructed, O Jerufalem, left my foul depart from thee; left I make thee defolate, a land not inhabited. T O awaken your apprehenfions upon this occafion, I fhall make ufe of the words of king Hezekiah, when he rent his clothes,. and covered himself with fackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord, upon an occafion of Senna cherib's cherib's invading Judah, and fending reviling RabShakeh to infult, and triumph over them: his words were, This is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of provocation, Ifa. xxxvii. 3. For our further advantage upon this account, I will adjoin the words of the prophet, Joel ii. 2. A day of darkness and of gloominefs, a day of clouds and of thick darkness : v. 3. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burneth. By fears and apprehensions people are appaled, and all faces gather blackness, v. 6. This seems much to fuit with our condition; and if so, it becomes us (as Ezra fometimes did, Ezra ix. 13.) to make a due acknowledgment to God, and to ftate things right for all this is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespasses; for God hath punifhed us less than our iniquities deferve, viz. in the late devouring fire, and a little before, in the raging peftilence, and by several other judgments. But now God hath given us a very great deliverance, and we have out-lived all these judgments, and we have cause to say that God is righteous, not in the sense that sometimes the word is taken, viz. to punish condignly; but righteous in the sense of the prophet, Dan. ix. 7, 8. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee; which he explains v. 9. To thee, O Lord, belongs mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelTed against thee. God hath been gracious, and God is righteous; he hath been gracious and merciful; for we are before God, all of us in our tranfgreffions, and we cannot ftand before God because of them: wherefore let us be ingenuous, and let us reafon God's caufe with ourselves, as Ezra once did with the the people of Ifrael, should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with a people of fuch abominations; wouldeft not thou be angry with us till thou hadst confumed us, fo that there should be no remnant nor escaping, Ezra ix. 14. We profess, by our assembly this day, to do what king Hezekiah did; to make hearty application to God, to humble ourselves before him, to deprecate his offence and difpleafure, and to reprefent before him, the fad and deplorable condition of the nation, and to do alfo what the prophet Joel called the people to: Thus faith the Lord, turn ye even to me, with all your heart, with fafting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rent your hearts, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God. And also what we find the prophet Jeremiah iv. 4. in the like cafe directing to; Circumcife yourselves to the Lord, and take away the fore-skins of your heart, left my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Let us close with that af Daniel iv. 27. Break off your fins by righteousness, and your iniquities by acts of mercy, if there may be a lengthning of your tranquillity. For a day of humiliation, is a day of repentance, in order to reconciliation with God; and the truth of repentance lies in real reformation, in leaving off fin; in converfion and turning to the Lord. It is not to bow down the head as a bulrush, and to spread fackcloth and afhes under us, Ifa lviii. 5, But as the Ninevites did, who though a people that were not under any inftitution of God, before the prophet Jonah's denunciation against them (that we know of;) yet they teach us the |