1

Secondly, That there is no affiftance

Serm. 1. any where to be had, to enable us to fupport our felves under it; but on the contrary, all thofe things, which us'd to adminifter Comfort to us, under our other Afflictions, turn powerfully against us, and mightily help to increase this. How great foever our Afflictions or Sufferings are in themselves, yot fo long as we are any way affifted with Succours and Supports, in proportion to their greatnefs, be it what it will, they are ftill tolerable. But when an exceeding and more than ordinarily, heavy burthen is laid upon us, and we have not only no new additional ftrength and affiftance communicated to us, but have even our own ordinary strength and abilities very much impair'd, nay, perhaps quite taken away, it must needs be impoffible for us to stand under it. And this alas! is the mifery of our present cafe. Our burthen, as you have seen, is beyond all conception great; and yet, whereever we turn our eyes, whither within to our felves, or without us to others, we shall not be able to find any

thing, to give us the leaft help or M fupport under it.

If we look into our felves, and confult first, as is moft natural, our own Reafon, for aid: that cannot but own the Justice of the Divine Vengeance, lay the Torments we feel at our own doors, and read our Sentence of Condemnation again to us, with an higher voice. So far will that be from giving us any Comfort, that it will continually upbraid, reproach and give us new lashes for our Folly; fo far from mitigating and affwaging our Sorrows, that it will continually increase both the Pains which we already feel, and our Fears and Expectations of more greater.

and

Serm. I.

Well then,, let us try to rally our natural Courage, and fee what afliftance we can have from that; but alafs! there is hardly any fuch thing as natural Courage left to a Man in this cafe. For wickedness, condemn'd by her own Wised. 17. witness, is very timorous, and being 11. prefs'd with Confcience, always forecasteth grievous things; and, what between their fufferings and their fears, the buf

fetings

fetings of their own Reafon and ConSerm. I. Science, and the terrours of God fet in Job. 6.4. array against them, the ftout hearted are fpoil'd, their spirits quite broken, and the strong men bow themselves.

Nor is this the worst of the cafe neither But, as Philofophers obferve that the corruption of the best things is worst, and, as the most healthy Conftitutions bear fickness worst, so here; the greater our natural Courage and Sprightlinefs us'd to be, the greater will our dejection and uneasiness now prove: The higher and fafter our Spirits us'd to run, the more fenfibly fhall we now feel this cruel damp and check upon them.

But are those without us no better able to affift us, than we are our felves? Can our Friends, who have help'd to fupport us under fo many and great Afflictions, do us no good in this? Vain Creatures! what Friends, can we think, will be able to fave us from the inward fcourgings of our own Minds: to skreen us from God's wrath, and keep off the Arrows of his Vengeance from us? What Medicines can our Friends

Friends bring to heal our wounded Minds with, but Reasonings and Ar- Serm. 1. guments: and with what Arguments Thall they plead for us, like those with which we plead against our felves? What one Topic of Comfort have they left in ftore, to pour, like Balm, into the deep and ghaftly wounds of fuch a troubled Spirit? will they not rather, like Job's Friends, tho' with much more reason, Heap up words a- Job. 16. 4. gainst us, and shake their heads at us?

Could they indeed, as it is pretended the Church of Rome can, out of their Treasury and over ftock of good works, fupply us: and, by fo doing, make us as truly Righteous in God's fight, as if they had been our own; this, tho' it would not fupport us under a wounded Spirit, yet would take away the cause of it, and by that means, remove it from us. But alas! we never had but one Friend in the whole World, who was able, in the leaft, to plead any merits that could be available for us: and him we have made our enemy.

But has, our old Friend, the De

vil no comfort or fupport for us? Oh Serm. 1. no! All that ever he was able to do, to support us against these Terrors was, by Lyes and falfe Gloffes, by Sophiftry and Artifice, to make us doubt of the reality of them, or else make us impute them to fome fuch cause, as fhould take away the dreadfulness of them. But thefe fhifts will ferve now no more; for too plainly we feel them, to be able to doubt of the reality of them: too clear an account we see of them, in God's Juftice and Threatnings, to leave room to difpute about the cause of them. Befides, 1 Joh. 4. 4. even in this fenfe, Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world; our own awaken'd Confciences, and the hand of God within us, are an overmatch for the Devil, and defy all his Wiles and Stratagems, all his Strength and Power, how many and great foever. Nay, fo refin'd and unprejudic'd are our Understandings now become, that there is nothing clearer to us, than that the Devil himfelf did all, that in fpite and malice he could, to bring us into this wofull Condition: and therefore, tho' he were able, is not to be rely'd upon

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