had found fuch a fortunate island, or happy climate, where no disease could touch or invade their bodies; no, ficknefs will find out the bodies of the best men, wherever they live; wherever fin hath been, fickness and death will follow it. Heaven is the only privileged place from thefe miferies: but the meaning is, though they be fick, they fhall not feel the pains and burdens of fickness," they fhall not fay "they are fick :" And why fo? because ther iniquities are forgiven; plainly confirming what was before afferted, that the anguish of an affliction is gone as foon as ever the fting of guilt is pluckt out. And hence, pardoning of the foul, and healing of the body, are put to gether as conjugate mercies; "Blefs the Lord, O my foul, who for"giveth all thine iniquities, and healeth all thy diseases,” Pfal. ciii. 1, 3. When the foul is at eafe, the pains of the body are next to nothing: Sickness can cloud all natural joys, but not the joy of a pardon.

Nay, which is yet more; pluck out but the fting of fin, and there is no horror in death, the king of terrors, and worst of all outward evils. See how the pardoned believer triumphs over it: "O death, "where is thy fting? O grave, where is thy victory? The fting of "death is fin," I Cor. xv. 55. They are words of defiance, as men ufe to deride and fcorn a boasting, infulting enemy, when they fee him caft upon his back, and his fword broken over his head.*

Where are your boafts and menaces now? O death, thou hast lost thy fting and terror together. Thus the pardoned believer, with an holy gallantry of fpirit, derides and contemns his difarmed enemy death. So then it is manifeft, that whatever plucks out the poison ous fting of affliction, must needs be an effectual remedy and cure to the afflicted perfon.

But this the covenant of grace doth; it reveals and applies gofpe!remiffion to them that are within the bleffed bond of it. "This fhall "be the covenant that I will make with the house of Ifrael; I will "forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their fin no more," Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. f Behold here a gracious, full, and irrecoverable pardon! I will forgive, or be propitiously merciful, as that word imports; pointing plainly to Chrift our propitiation, our fins are forgiven us for his name's fake. And a pardon as full as it is free; iniquity and fin, fmaller and greater, are here forgiven; for God, in the remiffion of his people's fins, having refpect to the propitiating blood of Christ, he pardons all, as well as fome; that blood deferving and purchafing the most full and complete pardons for his people, 1 John i. 7. "The blood of Chrift cleanseth us from all fin."

And this covenant-pardon is as firm, as it is free and full. So run the expreffions in the grant, I will remember their fin no more: Or in VOL. VI.

N

Where is now thy threats? See there thy fury laid.

Ovid.

to snews tropas, It refpects the propitiatory expiation of fin by Christ, who

is therefore called xes, and hasnpiev. 1 John ii. 2. and Rom. iii. 25.

the apostle's works, Heb. viii. 12. É unvesweth, I will not remember them again: That is, not fo remember, as to impute them, or condemn my pardoned ones for them: For the pardoned perfons come no more into condemnation, Job v. 24. Their fins are cast into the depths of the fea, Mic. vii. 19. Sooner fhall the Eaft and the Weft, the two oppofite points of heaven, meet, than the pardoned foul and its fins meet again in condemnation, Pfal. ciii. 12.

Now, the cafe ftanding thus with all God's covenant-people, all their fins being graciously, fully, and irrevocably forgiven them, how convincingly and fweetly doth this conclufion follow, that the covenant is a complete remedy to all afflicted believers? As nothing can befal us before Chrift and pardon be ours, which is fufficient to raise us, fo nothing can befal us afterwards, which thould deject and fink us. This is the first benefit afflicted believers receive from the covenant, and this alone is enough to heal all our forrows.

Arg. II. As the covenant of grace difarms all the afflictions of believers of the only fting by which they wound them; fo it alters the very nature and property of their afflictions, and turns them from a curfe into a bleffing to them: And in fo doing, it becomes more than a remedy, even a choice benefit and advantage to them.

All afflictions, in their own nature, are a part of the curfe; they are the confequence and punishments of fin; they work naturally against our good: But when once they are taken into the covenant, their nature and property is altered. As waters in their fubterranean paffages, meeting fome virtuous mineral in their course, are thereby impregnated, and endowed with a rare healing property to the body; fo afflictions paffing through the covenant, receive from it a healing virtue to our fouls. They are, in themselves, four and harfh, as wild hedge-fruits; but being ingrafted into this stock, they yield the pleafant fruits of righteoufnefs. "If his children break my ftatutes, and "keep not my commandments, then will I vifit their iniquity with "the rod, and their fins with ftripes: Nevertheless my loving-kind"nefs will I not utterly take away, nor fuffer my faithfulness to fail." Pfal. lxxxix. 30, 31. Here you may fee all the rods of affliction put into the covenant, as Aaron's 10d was into the ark. And hence two. things neceffarily follow.

(1.) That fuch afflictions can do the children of God no hurt. They may affright, but cannot hurt them: We may meet them with fear, but shall part from them with joy: An unfanctified rod never did any man good, and a fanctified rod never did any man hurt; He may afflict our bodies with fickness, deny, or cut off our comfort in children, impoverish our eftates, let loofe perfecutors upon us; but in all this he really doth us no hurt, as he speaks in Jer. xxv. 6. No more hurt than a skilful furgeon doth in faving his patient's life, by cutting off a mortified, gangrened member: No more hurt than frost and snow do the earth in killing the rank weeds that exhausted the fap and strength of it, and preparing and mellowing it to produce

a fruitful crop of corn. By these he recals our minds from vanity, weans our fond and enfnaring affections from the world, difcovers and mortifies those lufts which gentler methods and effays could not do: And is this for our hurt?

I confefs God's thoughts and ours often differ upon this cafe. We measure the good and evil of providences, by their respect to the ease and pleasure of our flesh, but God fees this is the way to caft cur fpirits into a dead formality, and in removing them, he doth but deprive us of the occafions and inftruments of spiritual mischiefs and miferies, in which certainly he doth us no hurt.

(2.) But that is not all. Afflictions once put into the covenant, muft promote the good of the faints; they are beneficial, as well as harmless things. We know (faith the apoftle) that all things work "together for good to them that love God." This promife is the compafs which fets the courfe, and directs the motion of all the afflic tions of the people of God; and no fhip at fea obeys the rudder fo exactly, as the troubles of the righteous do the direction of this promife. Poffibly we cannot discern this at present, but rather prejudge the works of God, and fay all these things are against us; but hereafter we fhall fee, and with joy acknowledge them to be the happy inftruments of our falvation.

How often hath affliction fent the people of God to their knees, with fuch language as this, O my God, how vain and fenfual hath 'this heart of mine been under profperity! How did the love of the creature, like a fluice, cut in the bank of a river, draw away the ftream of my affections from thee! I had gotten a foft pillow of creature-comforts under my head, and I easily fell asleep, and dreamed of nothing but reft and pleasure, in a state of absence ⚫ from thee; but now thy rod hath awakened me, and reduced me to a right fenfe of my condition. I was negligent or dead-hearted in the course of my duty, but now I can pray more fervently, feelingly, and frequently, than before. O it was good for me that I have been afflicted. O, faith God, how well was this rod bestowed, which hath done my poor child fo much good; now I have "more of his heart, and more of his time and company than ever; • now I hear the voice, and fee the gracious workings of the fpirit of ⚫ my child after me again, as in the days of his first love." The fum of all this you may fee in the ingenuous meltings of Ephraim under a fanctified rod, Jer. xxxi. 19, 20. and the founding of the bowels of mercy over him. Ephraim mourns at God's feet, and God falls ' upon Ephraim's neck. I have been as a beaft, faith Ephraim: Thou art a dear fon, a pleasant child, faith God. My bowels are troubled and pained for fin, faith Ephraim: And by bowels are 'troubled for thee, and my compaffions rolled together, faith God.' O bleffed fruits of fanctified rods! fuch precious effects as these richly repay you for all the pain and anguish you feel. And thus, as the wound of a scorpion is healed by applying its own oil, fo the evil of

affliction is cured by the fanctified fruits that it produceth, when it is once put into the covenant.

Arg. III. The covenant doth not only alter the nature and property of the faints afflictions, but it also orderly difpofes, and aptly places them in the frame of providence, among the other means and instruments of our falvation; fo that a council of angels could never place them, or the least circumftance belonging to them, more aptly and advan tageoufly than it hath done. The knowledge of this must needs quiet and fully relieve the afflicted foul: And who can doubt it that believes it to be a covenant ordered in all things, as the text fpeaks? Here all things, yea, the most minute circumstances that befal you, are reduced to their proper class and place of service; fo exactly ordered, that all the wisdom of men and angels know not how to mend or alter any thing to your advantage.

If a fmall pin be taken out of the frame of a watch, and placed any where else, the motion is either presently stopped, or made irregular, And as Galen obferves of the curious fabric of an human body, that if the greatest naturalifts fhould study an hundred years to find out a more commodious fituation, or configuration of any part thereof, it could never be done. It is fo here: No man can come after God and fay, this or that had been better placed or timed than it is, if this affliction had been spared, and fuch an enjoyment stood in the room of it, it had been better. All God's providences are the refult and iffues of his infinite wifdom: For "he works all things "according to the counsel of his own will," Eph. i. 11. The wheels, i. e. the motions and revolutions of providence are full of eyes, Ezek. i. 18. They are well advised and judicious motions, Non caco impetu volvuntur rota; they run not at random. The most regular and excellent working muft needs follow the moft deep and perfect counfel, Ifa. xxviii. 29. "He is deep in counfel, and excellent in work❝ing."

Now, every affliction that befals God's covenanted people, being placed by the most wife and infinite counsel of God in that very order, time, and manner in which they befal them, this very affliction, and not that, at this very time, and not at another, (it being always a time of need, I Pet. i. 6.) and ushered in by fuch forerunning occa fions and circumstances: it must follow, that they all take the pro per places, and come exactly at the fittest seasons; and if one of them were wanting, fomething would be defective in the frame of your hap pinefs. As they now ftand, they work together for your good, which difplaced, they would not do.

It is faid, Jer. xviii. 11. "Behold, I frame evil, and I devife a de "vice." It is fpoken of the contrivance and frame of afflictions, as the proper works of God. The project of it is laid for his glory and the eternal good of his people. It turns to their falvation, Phil. i, 19. But O how fain would we have this or that affliction fcrewed out of the frame of providence, conceiving it would be far better out

than in ! O if God had spared my child, or my health, it had been better for me than now it is. But this is no other than a prefumptuous correcting and controuling of the wifdom of God, and fo he interprets it, Job xl. 2. "He that reproveth God, let him anfwer it." God hath put every affliction upon your perfons, eftates, relations, juft where you find and feel it; and that whole frame he hath put into the covenant, in the virtue whereof it works for your falvation; and therefore let all difputings and reafonings, all murmurs and discontents ceafe; nothing can be better for you, than as God O hath laid it; and this, one would think, fhould heal and quiet all You yourfelves would mar all, by prefuming to mend any thing. "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor, " hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed " him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him "knowledge, and fhewed to him the way of understanding?" Ifa. xl. 13, 14. Well then, be fatisfied it is beft as it is, and nothing can be fo advantageous to you, as God's projects and contrivance, which you are fo uneafy under, and diflatisfied about.

Arg. IV. As the covenant forts and ranks all your troubles into their proper claffles and places of fervice, fo it fecures the fpecial, gracious prefence of God with you in the deepest plunges of distress that can befal you; which prefence is a full relief of all your troubles, or elfe nothing in the world is or can be fo.

The very heathens thought themselves well fecured against all evils and dangers, if they had their petty houfhold-gods with them in their journeys: but the great God of heaven and earth hath engaged to be with his people, in all their afflictions and diftreffes. As a tender father fits up himself with his fick child, and will not leave him to the care of a fervant only; fo God thinks it not enough to leave his children to the tutelage and charge of angels, but will be with them himself, and that in a special and peculiar way: fo run the express words of the covenant, Jer. xxxii. 40. "I will not turn away from them "to do them good, but I will put my fear into their hearts; and "they shall not depart from me." Here he undertakes for both parts, himself and them. I will not, and they shall not.

Here is the faints fecurity for the gracious prefence of God with them, a prefence which difpels all the clouds of affliction and forrow, as the fun scatters the morning mifts. The God of all confolation is with you, O poor dejected believers, and will not fuch a prefence turn the darkness into light round about you? There is a threefold prefence of God with his creatures.

1. Effential, which is common and neceffary to all.
2. Gracious, which is peculiar to fome on earth.
3. Glorious, which is the felicity of heaven.

The first is not the privilege here fecured; for it is neceffary to all, good and bad: In him we all live, and move, and have our being. The vileft men on earth, yea, the beafts of the field, and the very devils