The Balm of the Covenant, Observation 1 – Observation 3
Observation I.
That Gods Covenant People may be exercised with many sharp Afflictions in their Persons and Families.
Even David's House was the House of Mourning. Although my house be not so with God, though he make it not to grow. All sorts of outward Afflictions are incident to all sorts of men.Eccl. 9.2. All things (saith Solomon) come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the clean, and unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not. The Providences seem one and the same, though the subjects on whom the… fall be vastly different. Estate and Children, Health, and Libe… ty, will still be like themselv… vanishing Comforts, whoever the Owners of them. No ma… spiritual Estate can be known b… the view of his temporal Estat… A godly Family cannot be a mis… rable, but it may be a mournful F… mily. Religion secures us fro… the Wrath, but it doth not secur… us from the Rod of God. Th… Lord hath chosen another way o… expressing his love to his peopl… than by temporal and externa… things: therefore all things come alike to all. The Covenant exclude… the Curse, but includes the Cros… If his children forsake my Law, &c then will I visit their iniquity with the rod, and their sin with stripes nevertheless my loving kindness will not utterly take away.
Nor indeed would it be the priviledge of Gods Covenanted People, to be exempt from the Rod; a mark of Bastardy can be no mans felicity: Heb. 12.8. to go without the chastising discipline of the Rod, were to go without …he needful instructions and blessed fruits that accompany and result from the Rod, Psal. 94.12.
Let us not therefore say, as those …rreligious persons did in Mal. 3.14. It is in vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances, and walked mournfully before him? Surely none serve him in vain, but those that serve him vainly. Godliness cannot secure you from Affliction, but it can and will secure you from Hell, and sanctifie your Afflictions to help you to Heaven. But I stay not here.
Observation II.
A declining Family is a sore stroke from the hand of God, and so to be acknowledged, wherever it falls.
It was a growing sorrow to David, that his House did not grow; and he eyed the hand of God in it: He made it not to gro… as he speaks in the Text. He fe… as many Deaths as he had de… Children. It is God that buil… and destroys Families; he enla…geth, and straighteneth them …gain. A Family may decline tw… ways, viz. either,
1. By the Death: or,
2. By the Degeneracy of i… Off-spring.
1. By their Death, when Go… lops off the hopeful springin… Branches thereof; especially th… last and only Prop of it, in whom not only all the care and love, bu… all the hope and expectation of th… Parents is contracted and boun… up. For,
Virgil.Omnis in Aseanio stat chari cur… parentis.
The hearts of tender Parents are usually bound up in the life of an onelyonly Son. As a mans Wife is but himself divided, so his Children …re but himself multiplied; and …hen all love and delight, hope …nd expectation, is reduced to one, …e affection is strong, and that …akes the affliction so too. If it …ere not an unparallel'd grief a…ong all earthly griefs and sor…ows, the Spirit of God would ne…er have chosen and singled it out …om among all other sorrows, to …lustrate sorrow for sin by it, yea, …orrows for that special sin of …iercing Christ, as he doth. They …all look upon him whom they have …ierced, Zech. 12.10.and shall mourn for him, as …e that mourneth for an onelyonly son. How naked are those Walls, and …ow unfurnished is that House, …here the Children (its best Or…aments) are taken down and re…oved by Death! It is natural to …ll men, to desire the continuance …f their Names and Families in …he Earth; and therefore when God cuts off their expectations in …hat kind, they look upon them…elves as dry Trees, or as the wi…hering Stalks in the Fields, when …he Flowers are fallen off and blown …way from them.
2. Or which is yet much wo… a Family may decline by the … generacy of its Off-spring. Wh… the Piety, Probity, and Vert… of Ancestors descend not wi… their Lands to their Posterit… here the true Line of Honou… cut off, and the glory of a Fam…ly dies, though its Children liv… the Family is ruin'd, though the… be a numerous Off-spring. Su…ly it were better mourn for … dead Children, than for one su… living Child.
How many such wretched F…milies can England shew this da… how hath Atheism and Debauc…ry ruin'd and subverted ma… great and once famous Familie… O it were better the Arms of tho… Families had been reversed, a… their Lands alienated, yea, bett… had it been a Succession had fa…ed, and that their Names had bee… blotted out, than that Satan shoul… rule by Prophaness in the plac… where God was once so serious… and sweetly worshipped.
Whensoever therefore God shall …ther of these ways subvert a Fa…ily, it becomes them that are …oncerned in the Stroke, not only … own and acknowledge the …and of God in it, but to search …eir Hearts and Houses to find …ut the sins which have so provo…ed him: yet not so as to fall …to an unbecoming despondency …f Spirit, but withal to relieve …emselves, as David here doth …om the Covenant of God; Yet …ath he made with me an everlasting …ovenant. Which brings us to the …hird and principal point I shall insist on.
Observation III.
That the everlasting, well order'd, …nd sure Covenant of Grace, affords …verlasting, well order'd, and sure Relief to all that are within the bond …f it, how many or how great soever …heir personal or domestick tryals and …ffictions are.
This point will be cleared t… your Understandings, and pre…pared for your use, by clearin… and opening three Proposition… which orderly take up the sum an… substance of it, viz.