A Spiritual Antidote Against Sinful Contagion, Treatise 1 · Duty 11 – Duty 12
DUTY XI.
GEt an holy submission to the Will of God under Submission to the Will of God.all Proviaences. Whether he will have you live, you may be content; whether he will have you die, you may be willing. If God take away your Relations from you, say, It is the Lord, let him do whatsoever seemeth him good. Know, God cannot wrong you, though he may afflict you; and he can take nothing from you, but what he hath first given to you.
That you may quietly submit to the Will of God in the Afflictions and Sickness that may befal you; Consider some Arguments taken from God, your self, and your Affliction.Helps to Submission to the Will of God. Five Arguments from God.
First, From God. He is, 1. infinitely wise; and your murmuring is a charging God with folly. Memorable is that Text, Job 1. 22. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly: Or you may read it, Did not attribute folly to God. And God being infinite in Wisdom, knoweth best, First, What kinde of affliction to lay upon you: You may think, if God afflicted me any other way, it would have been better for me, or I could have better born it. Secondly, He best knows how long, it is meet your affliction should last. Thirdly, He knows what measure to lay upon you; whether to take one childe, or two, or three from you, by the Pestilence.
2. Consider, It is your Father that doth afflict you. Your childe is willing to take a bitter, unpleasant Potion, when it is administred by your own hand, and will not you from God?
3. Consider, God is Almighty; and if you murmur, he can yet afflict you more, till he hath stript you of all your Mercies and Relations.
4. Consider, He is just, and can do you no wrong.
5. Consider, He is merciful, and his Bowels yern over you in all your afflictions. When his people, that are his Gold and Jewels, are in the fire, he sitteth by the Furnace. Never was Goldsmith so careful of his Gold, when it is in the fire, as God is of his people, when they be in affliction.
Secondly, Arguments taken from your self, Two from our Selves.should induce you to submit to Gods afflicting hand. Forasmuch, as you have at real need of those chastisements that God doth exercise you with all; perswade your self you need afflictions as well as your daily Bread.
1. For the exercise of your Grace, which 1. In respect of our Graces.like Spices send forth a more fragrant smell, when pounded in a Morter; like Roses, smell the sweeter when rubbed betwixt your hands, like Stars that shine the brightest in the darkest night. God seeth you have need of affliction for the tryal and exercise of your Faith and Love: Whether you can trust him, and love him, when he is killing of you, when he is taking your children from you: To put you on to greater diligence in holy duties, and to exercise your patience, and mend your pace Heaven-ward.
2. God seeth afflictions needful for you, for 2. In respect of our Sins.the purging away of your sins, and corruption. Corrosives are necessary sometimes, as Cordials; in some distempers, it is needful to open a Vein to let out the corrupt blood. It might be needful to afflict you, for the curing of your Pride and Covetousness; for the curing of your careless omission of holy duties.
Thirdly, If you do but consider the afflictions Five Arguments from our Afflictions.themselves that do befal you. You have reason to submit, as
1. They are but light in comparison of what you have deserved. If God should visit you with the Plague, this is not so great a punishment, as if he had given you up to the Plague of an hard heart, or reprobate minde. Remember when your heart is rising in discontent, because of the heaviness of your affliction, that you are not in Hell.
2. They will be but short: The punishment of the damned, is heavy and eternal; but yours light, and short too.
3. They are mingled with abundance of Mercy: If you have a sick body, yet God hath given you an healthful Soul. If he takes one Relation, yet not all; if all, yet you remain; if your self, it is from a place of sin, to a place of happiness.
4. They are sanctified to you. If the Pill be bitter, yet it works for the good of your Soul. Can you say, you could have been without this affliction.
5. They are no more, then what are common to Gods children. Others of Gods dear Saints have endured more then you, and have not complained so much as you. It is good to hear the Rod, and submit to him that doth appoint it; knowing no affliction riseth out of the dust.
DUTY XII.
SYmpathize with others that be in distress, Remembring Sympathizing with others.that you your self are also in the Body liable to the same diseases, and may be exercised with the same tryals. Be not unconcerned in the afflictions of others: It may be some might want Food, and Physick, and necessary Means for their Preservation; willingly reach forth your hand for the relieving of such, according to your ability (yea, and now beyond your ability) and according to their necessity. Oh let none die of the Plague, and hunger too, if you have it by you. Seriously study these Scriptures, 1 Joh. 3. 17. Heb. 13. 15, 16. Matth. 25. 34. Ad finem.
And that you may do so,
1. Suppose their condition to be yours, and Six Arguments to Sympathize with others in Afflictions.yours to be theirs; and what you would that they should then do to you, that do you now to them.
2. Consider you are also in the flesh, and that which is the condition of others, may you know not how soon be your own. Heb. 13. 3. Remember them that be in Bonds, as bound with them: And them that suffer adversity, as being your selves also in the Body.
3. How do you know, but God hath made a difference between you and others, in these outward dispensations of his Providence, that you may be a help and relief unto them?
4. Hereby you will prove your self a real living member of Christs Mystical Body, when you have a fellow-feeling of the miseries that others are urged with; especially, when you do it out of love to God, and in obedience to his command, and think it not below you to condescend to any mean Office of Love (for Christs sake) to the meanest, or the poorest of Christs Members, no more then the nobler parts of the Body Natural do to preserve the meanest, and the most ignoble.
5. So shall you give a better account of your estate unto God, who hath made you but a Steward of what you do enjoy.
6. Consider it is better to give, then to receive; to help, then to be helped. It is Gods mercy to you, that you are in a capacity to give; and not reduced to a necessity to receive. And be kinde to them that cannot requite you again, except it be by their Prayers for you.