334 P(al. bo.T, Exod 14.az. Dan.S.z z. er.3o.13,14. Ier.; z, z4it5. &c. How to live by Faith in timeof ,fldverfitie, I Deepel mifery is the fittelt feafon for deliverance. Men oft¿ n, like to Swallowes, will be with us in Summer, hut leaveus in winter. The Divcll, wheeliehashdrawne his into the bryars, will give them leave to looke for them- felves. But God bath ever floodnecrefl to his,when their exigencies have beetle greateft.The experienceof mifery & calamity is trade the lure ground of lu h joyfuli hopes, as the Lord bath promifed. The greater ibrrowes the peopleofGod fuffered, the more undoubted experience they had of divine trtith contained in Icfaicali threat- 1 nings : the more undoubted the experienceof their truth, upon confcioufnefleoftheir own tranfgreiions, the grea- trmotives they had, upon hearty and fìncere repentance, to apprehend the flabilitie of his tweeter} promifes for their good. No depreffion of this people, but fèrved as a counter-fway tohaf}en,intend, or inlarge themeafure of their wonted exaltation, fo long as they rightly weighed all their ac4 ons and proceedings in t 'tofes ballances, and compared their permanent forrow for fin part with they wonted delight in tranficnt pleafures. This that the Lord had flricken Jacob will the wound of an enemie, and with a fharpe chaílifemert for the multitudeof his iniquities, is propounded as an argument ofconfolation : for becaufe the Lord had killed, they mutt believe, he wouldmake alive againe. The prefent wounds, infiic<ted contrary to the rules ofpolitique defence, were the bell pledges of their futurehealth, beyond all hope ofState- Surgeons. And when Jeremy more admired, then diffru- fledGods mercies, in tendring the purchafe ofhis Kinf- mans field to him, when the King and Princes ofludali had no afliurance of fo much pofielìion in the promifed Land, as to inherit theSepulchres oftheir Fathers : the Lord expels not his fufpenfive, rather then diffident admi- ration, with figuesand wonders, as he did Gideon: doubt, orhis fliffe-necked Fore-fathers diflrufl. By whatmeanes then ? By the prefent calamities which had feized upon , . theCities ofJudah, and that very place, wherein his late i purcha-
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