52 FIRST SERMON arise, with healing in his wings. In a mine, if a damp come, it is in vain to trust to your lights, they will burn blue, and dim, and at last vanish ; you must make haste to be drawn upward if you will be safe. When God sl rpeneth an affliction with his displea- sure, it is vain to trust to worldly succours, your desires and affections must be on things above, if you will be relieved. There is no remedy, no refuge from God's anger, but in God's grace. Bloodletting is a cure of bleeding, and a burn is a cure against a burn, and running into God is the way to escape him, as to close and get in with him who would strike you, doth avoid the blow. In a tempest at sea, it is very dan- gerous to strike to the shore, the safest way is to have sea room, and to keep in the main still ; there is no landing against any tempest of God's judgments at any shore of worldly or carnal policies, but the way is to keep with him still ; if lie be with us in the ship, the winds and the sea will at last be rebuked. This then should serve to humble us for our carnal prayers hi times of judgments ; such as the hungry raven, or the dry or gaping earth makes, when we assemble ourselves for corn and wine, for peace and safety, and are in the mean time careless whether God receive us graciously or not. God much complains of it, when he slew Israel, the rack made him roar, the rod made him flatter, but all was to be rid of affliction it was the prayer of nature for ease, not of the spirit for grace, for their " heart was not right," Psal. lxxviii. 34. 37. The like he complains of after the captivity ; they fasted and prayed in the fifth month, wherein the city and temple had been burned, and in the seventh month, wherein Gedaliah had been slain, and the remnant carried captive, but they did it not out of sincerity toward God, but out of policy
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