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are but himself multiplied: and when all love and delight, hope and expectation, is reduced to one, the affection is strong, and that makes the affliction so too. If it were not an unparalleled grief among all earthly griefs and forrows, the Spirit of God would never have chofen and fingled it out from among all other forrows, to illustrate forrow for fin by it, yea, forrows for that special fin of piercing Chrift, as he doth, Zech. xii. 10. "They shall lock upon him whom they "have pierced, and shall mourn for him, as one that mourneth for an ✔" only fon." How naked are those walls, and how unfurnished is that house, where the children (its best ornaments) are taken down and removed by death? It is natural to all men to defire the continuance of their names and families on the earth; and therefore when God cuts off their expectations in that kind, they look upon them felves as dry trees, or as the withering stalks in the fields, when the flowers are fallen off, and blown away from them.

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2. Or, which is yet much worse, a family may decline by the degeneracy of its offspring. When the piety, probity, and virtues of ancestors descend not with their lands to their pofterity, here the true line of honour is cut off, and the glory of a family dies, though its children live; the family is ruined, though there be a numerous offspring. Surely it were better mourn for ten dead children, than for one fuch living child.

How many fuch wretched families can England shew this day! How hath Atheism and debauchery ruined and fubverted many great and once famous families! O it were better the arms of those families had been reversed, and their hands alienated, yea, better had it been a fucceffion had failed, and that their names had been blotted out, than that Satan should rule by profaneness in the places where God was once so seriously and sweetly worshipped.

Whenfoever therefore God shall either of these ways fubvert a family, it becomes them that are concerned in the stroke, not only to own and acknowledge the hand of God in it, but to search their hearts and houses to find out the fins which have so provoked him; yet not so as to fall into an unbecoming despondency of spirit, but withal to relieve themselves, as David here doth, from the covenant of God; "Yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant." Which brings us to the third and principal point I shall insist on.

Observ. 3. That the everlasting, well-ordered, and fure covenant of grace, affords everlasting, well-ordered, and fure relief to all that are within the bond of it, how many or how great foever their personal or domestic trials and afflictions are.

This point will be cleared to your understandings, and prepared for your use, by clearing and opening three propositions, which orderly take up the fum and substance of it, viz.

Proposition 1. That the minds of men, yea, the best men, are weak and feeble things under the heavy pressures of affliction, and will reel and fink under them. except they be strongly relieved and under-propped.

A bowing wall doth not more need a strong shore or buttress, than the mind of a man needs a strong support and stay from heaven, when the weight of affliction makes it incline and lean all one way. "Un" less the law had been my delights, I should then have perished in " my affliction," Pfal. cxix. 92. q. d. What shift other men make to stand the shock of their afflictions, I know not; but this I know, that if God had not seasonably fent me the relief of a promise, I had certainly gone away in a faint fit of despondency. O how feasonably did God administer the cordials of his word to my drooping, finking foul!

This weakness in the mind to support the burdens of affliction, proceeds from a double cause, viz.

1. From the finking weight of the affliction.

2. From the irregular and inordinate workings of the thoughts

of it.

1. From the sinking weight that is in affliction, especially in fome forts of afflictions: they are heavy pressures, ponderous burdens in themselves. So Job speaks, "O that my grief were thoroughly " weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now * it would be heavier than the sand of the fea, therefore my words " are swallowed up," Job vi. 2, 3, 4. q. d. If all the fand that lies upon all the shores in the world, were shovelled up into one heap, and caft into one fcale, and my forrows into the other, my grief would weigh it all up. How heavy are the hearts of the afflicted! what insupportable forrows do they feel and groan under, especially when God fmites them in the dearest and nearest concerns they have in the world.

2. But especially the reelings and staggerings of the mind, are occasioned by the inordinate and irregular workings of its own thoughts. Were it but possible to keep the mind in a ferene, sedate, and ordinate frame, our burdens would be comparatively light to what we now feel them to be; but the falling of the thoughts into confufions, and great distractions, spoils all. Upon this account it is, that afflictions are compared to a stupifying doze, which cafts thefoulinto amazement. Pfal.lx. 3. "Thou hast shewed thy people hard things, thou haft "made us to drink the wine of astonishment." Afflictions are called the wine of aftonishment, from their effects upon the mind: for under a great and fudden stroke of God, it is like a watch wound up above its due height, so that for a time it stands still, neither grace nor reasonmove at all: and when it begins to move again, O how confufed and irregular are its motions! it is full of murmurs, disputes, and quarrels: these aggravate both our fin and mifer. It is our own thoughts which take the arrow of God shot at us, (which did but stick before in our clothes, and was never intended to hurt us, but only to warn us), and thurst it into our very hearts.

For thoughts, as well as poniards, can pierce and wound the hearts

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of men, Luke ii 35. "A sword shall pierce through thine own foul;' i. e. Thy thoughts shall pierce thee. They can thake the whole fabric of the body, and loose the best compacted and strongly jointed parts of the body: Dan. v. 6. "His thoughts troubled him, and the " joints of his loins were loofed." And thus a man's own mind becomes a rack of torment to him; a misery which no creature, except men and devils, are subjected to. O how many bodies have been destroyed by the paffions of the foul! they cut through it, as a keen knife through a narrow sheath. " Worldly forrow works death," 2 Cor. vii. 10.

Propofition 2. The merciful God, in condefcenfion to the weakness of his people, hath provided the best fupports and reliefs for the feeble and afflicted spirits.

" In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts de"light my foul," Pfal. xciv. 17. Carnal men seek their relief under trouble, from carnal things; when one creature forsakes them, they retreat to another which is yet left them, till they are beaten out of all, and then their hearts fail, having no acquaintance with God, or special interest in him: for the creatures will quickly spend all that allowance of comfort they have to spend upon us. Some try what relief the rules of philofophy can yield them, supposing a neat sentence of Seneca may be as good a remedy as a text of David or Paul; but, alas! it will not do: fubmiffion from fatal necessity will never ease the afflicted mind, as Christian refignation will do. It is not the eradicating, but regulating of the affections, that composes a burdened and distracted foul. One word of God will fignify more to our peace than all the famed and admired precepts of men.

To neglect God, and seek relief from the creature, is to forsake the fountain of living waters, and go to the broken cisters which can hold no water, Jer. ii. 13. The best creature is but a cistern, not a fountain; and our dependence upon it makes it a broken cistern, strikes a hole through the bottom of it, so that it can hold no water. " I, even I (faith God) am he that comforteth you," Ifa. lvii. 12. The fame hand that wounds you, must heal you, or you can never be healed. Our compaffionate Saviour, to affuage our forrows, hath promised he will not leave us comfortless, John xiv. 18. Our God will not contend for ever, left the spirit fail before him, Isa. lvii. 16. Не knew how ineffectual all other comforts and comforters would be, even physicians of no value, and therefore hath gracioufly prepared comforts for his distressed ones, that will reach their end.

Propofition 3. God hath gathered all the materials and principles of our relief into the covenant of grace, and expects that we betake ourfelves unto it, in times of distress, as to our fure, fufficient, and only remedy.

Ás all the rivers run into the sea, and there is the congregation of all the waters; so all the promises and comforts of the gofpel are gathered into the covenant of grace, and there is the congregation of

all the sweet streams of refreshment that are dispersed throughout the scriptures. The covenant is the store-house of promises, the shop of cordials and rare elixirs, to revive us in all our faintings; though, alas! most men know no more what are their virtues, or where to find them, than an illiterate rustic put into an apothecary's shop.

What was the cordial God prepared to revive the hearts of his poor captives groaning under hard and grievous bondage, both in Egypt and in Babylon? Was it not his covenant with Abraham? And why did he give it the folemn confirmation by an oath, but that it might yield to him and all his believing seed, trong confolation, Heb. vi. 17, 18. the very spirit of joy amidst all their forrows.

And what was the relief God gave to the believing eunuchs that kept his Sabbaths, took hold of his covenant, and chose the things in which he delighted ? "To them (faith he) will I give in mine house, and " within my walls, a place, and a name better than that of fons or " of daughters," Isa. lvi. 4, 5. Tho' they were deprived of those comforts other men have in their posterity, yet he would not have them look upon themselves as dry trees; a covenant-interest would answer all, and recompense abundantly the want of children, or any other earthly comfort.

Certainly, therefore, David was at the right door of relief and comfort, when he repairs to the covenant, as here in the text, " Yet " hath he made with me an everlasting covenant." There, or no where else, the relief of God's afflicted is to be found.

Now, to make any thing become a complete and perfect relief to an afflicted spirit, these three properties must concur and meet in it, elfe it can never effectually relieve any man.

I. It must be able to remove all the causes and grounds of trou

bles.

II. It must be able to do so at all times.

III. It must be capable of a good personal security to us.

For if it only divert our troubles, (as creature-comforts use to do,) and do not remove the ground and cause of our trouble, it is but an anodyne, not a cure or remedy. And if it can remove the very ground and cause of our trouble, for a time, but not for ever, then it is but a temporary relief: our troubles may return again, and we left in as bad cafe as we were before. And if it be in itself, able to remove all the causes and grounds of our trouble, and that at all times, but not capable of a personal security to us, or our well established interest in it, all fignifies nothing to our relief.

But open your eyes and behold, O ye afflicted faints, all these properties of a complete relief meeting together in the covenant, as it is displayed in the text. Here is a covenant able to remove all the grounds and causes of your trouble; for it is ORDERED in all things; or aptly disposed by the wisdom and contrivance of God, to answer every cause and ground of trouble and forrow in our hearts. It is able to do this at all times; as well in our day, as in David's or Abra

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ham's day: for it is an everlasting covenant; its virtue and efficacy is not decayed by time. And, lastly, it is capable of a good perfonal security or affurance to all God's afflicted people; for it is a fure covenant. The concurrence of these three properties in the covenant makes it a complete relief, and perfect remedy, to which nothing is wanting in the kind and nature of a remedy. These three glorious properties of the covenant are my proper province to open and confirm, for your fupport and comfort in this day of trouble.

I. That the covenant of grace is able to remove all the causes and grounds of a believer's trouble, be they never so great or many. This I doubt not will be convincingly evidenced and demonftrated by the following arguments, or undeniable reasons.

Argument I. Whatsoever difarms afflictions of the only sting whereby they wound us, must needs be a complete relief and remedy to the afflicted foul.

But fo doth the covenant of grace, it disarms afflictions of the only fting by which they wound us.

Therefore the covenant of grace must needs be a complete relief and remedy to the afflicted foul.

The fting of all afflictions is the guilt of fin; when God smites, confcience usually smites too: and this is it that causes all that pain and anguish in the afflicted. It is plainly so in the example of the widow of Zarephath, 1 Kings xvii. 18. when her fon, her only fon, and probably her only child, died, how did that stroke of God revive guilt in her confcience, and made the affliction piercing and intolerable! as appears by her paffionate expoftulation with Elijah, who then fojourned in her house: "What have I to do with thee, O man_of "God? art thou come unto me to call my fin to remembrance, and " to flay my fon?" q. d. What injury have I done thee? Didst thou come hither to observe my fins, and pray down this judgment upon my child for them? The death of her fon revived her guilt, and so it generally doth, even in the most holy men.

When Job looked upon his wasted body under afflictions, every wrinkle he faw upon it, seemed to him like a witness rifing up to teftify against him. "Thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me; and my leanness rifing up in me, beareth " witneis to my face," Job xvi. 8.

Affliction is like a hue and cry after fin in the ears of conscience, and this is the envenomed poisonous sting of affliction: pluck out this, and the afflicted man is presently eafed, though the matter of the affliction still abide with him, and lie upon him. He is afflicted still, but not caft down by affliction; the anguish and burden is gone, though the matter of trouble remain.

This is plain both in fcripture, and in experience. Suitable hereunto is that strange, but sweet expreffion, The inhabitants shall not " say I am fick, the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their " iniquities," la. xxxiii. 24. It is not to be imagined these people.