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paid him ten thousand-fold in the peace, courage, and comfort it gave him in all the troubles of his life, which were great and

many.

Confcience must be the bearing fhoulder on which the burden muft ly, beware therefore it be not galled with guilt, or put out of joint by any fall into fin, it is fad bearing on such a shoulder; instead of bearing your burdens, you will not be able to bear its pain and anguifh. To prevent this carefully obferve these rules.

1. Over-awe your hearts every day, and in every place with the eye of God. This walking as before God will keep you upright, Gen xvii. 1. If you fo fpeak and live as thofe that know God fees you, fuch will be your uprightness, that you will not care if all the world fee you too. An artift came to Drufius, and offered to build him an houfe, fo contrived, that he might, do what he would within doors, and no man see him: Nay faid Drufius, fo build it that every one may fee.

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2. Do no action, undertake no defign, that you dare not preface with prayer; this is your rule, Phil. iv. 6. Touch not that you dare not pray for a bleffing npon; if you dare not pray, dare not to engage; if you cannot fend your prayers before, be confident, fhame and guilt will follow after.

3. Be more afraid of grieving God, or wounding conscience, than of difpleafing or lofing all the friends you have in the world befides; look upon every adventure upon fin to escape danger to be the fame thing as if you should fink the fhip to avoid one that you take to be a pirate; or as the fatal mistake of two vials, wherein there is poison and physic.

4. What counsel you would give another, that give yourfelves when the cafe fhall be your own; your judgment is most clear, when intereft is leaft felt. David's judgment was very upright, when he judged himself in a remote parable.

5. Be willing to bear the faithful reproofs of your faults from men, as the reproving voice of God; for they are no lefs when duly adminiftred. This will be a good help to keep you upright, Pfal. cxxxv. 23, 24. "Let the righteous fmite me," &c. It is faid of Sir Anthony Cope, that he fhamed none so much as himself in his family-prayers, and defired the minifters of his acquaintance not to favour his faults; but tell me, faid he, and spare not.

6. Be mindful daily of your dying-day, and your great audit-day, and do all with refpect to them. Thus keep your integrity and peace, and that will keep out your fears and ter

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Rule 9. Carefully record the experience of God's care over you, and faithfulness to you in all your paft dangers and diftreffes, and. apply them to the cure of your prefent fears and defpondencies.

Recorded experiences are excellent remedies, Exod. xvii. 14. "Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears "of Joshua." There were two things in that record; the victory obtained over Amalek, and the way of obtaining it by inceffant prayer: and there are two things to be done to fecure this mercy for their ufe and benefit in future fears, it must be recorded and rehearfed, preferved from oblivion, and feasonably produced for relief.

There are two special affistances given us against fear by experience.

i. It abates the terror of sufferings.

2. It affifts faith in the promises.

1. Experience greatly abates the terror of fufferings, and makes them lefs formidable and scaring than otherwise they would be. Fear faith, they are deep waters, and will drown' us; experience faith, they are much fhallower than we think, and are fafely fordable; others have, and we may pass through the Red-fea, and not be overwhelmed. Fear faith, the pains of death are unconceivable, fharp and bitter, the living littleknow what the dying feel; and to lye in a flinking prifon in continual expectation of a cruel death, is an 'unfupportable evil: Experience contradicts all thefe falfe reports which make our hearts faint, as the fecond fpies did the daunting stories of the firft; and affures us prifons and death are not, when we come home to them for Chrift, what they feem and appear to be at a distance. O what a good report have thofe faithful men given, who have searched and tried these things! who have gone down themselves into the valley of the fhadow of death, and feen what there is in a prifon, and in death itself, fo long as they were in fight and hearing, able by words or figns to contradict our falfe notions of it. Oh what a fweet account did Pomponius Algerius give of his flinking prifon at Lyons in France! dating all his letters whilft he was there, From the delectable orchard of the Leonine prifon; and when carried to Ve"nice, in a letter from the prifon there, he writes thus to his Christian friend; I fhall utter that which scarce any will believe, I have found a neft of honey in the entrails of a lion, a paradife of pleasure in a deep dark dungeon, in a place of forrow and death, tranquillity of hope and life. Oh! here it is that the Spirit of God and of glory rests upon us.

So bleffed Mr. Philpot, our own martyr, in one of his fweet

encouraging letters: O how my heart leaps (faith he) that I ⚫ am so near to eternal bliss! God forgive me my unthankfulness ⚫ and unworthiness of fo great glory. I have fo much joy of the ' reward prepared for me, the most wretched finner, that though I be in the place of darkness and mourning, yet I cannot lament, 'but am night and day so joyful as though I were under no cross ' at all; in all the days of my life I was never fo joyful, the name of the Lord be praised.'

Others have given the fignals agreed upon betwixt them and their friends in the midst of the flames, thereby, to the last, confirming this truth, that God makes the infide of sufferings quite another thing to what the appearance and outside of them is to fenfe. Thus the experience of others abates the terrors of sufferings to you; and all this is fully confirmed by the perfonal experience you yourselves have had of the supports and comforts of God, wherein foever you have confcientiously fuffered for his fake.

2. And this cannot but be a fingular affiftance to your faith; your own and others experiences, just like Aaron and Hur, ftay up the hands of faith on the one fide and the other, that they hang not down, whilst your fears, like those Amalekites, fall before you. For what is experience, but the bringing down of the divine promiles to the test of fenfe and feeling? It is our duty to believe the promises without trial and experiments, but it is easier to do it after fo many trials; fo that your own and others experiences, carefully recorded and feasonably applied, would be food to your faith, and a cure to many of your fears in a fuffering day.

Rule 10. You can never free yourself from finful fears, 'till you throughly believe and confider Chrift's providential kingdom over all the creatures and affairs in this lower world.

Poor timorous fouls! is there not a King, a fupreme Lord under whom devils and men are ? hath not Chrift the reins of government in his hands? Mat. xxviii. 18. Phil. ii. 9, 10, 11, 12. John xvii. 2. Were this dominion of Chrift, and dependence of all creatures on him, well ftudied and believed, it would cut off both our trust in men, and our fear of men; we should foon difcern they have no power either to help us or to hurt us, but what they receive from above. Our enemies are apt to over-rate their own power, in their pride, and we are as apt to over-rate it too in our fears. Knoweft thou not (faith Pilate to Christ) that I bave power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thes 4. d. Refuleft thou to anfwer me? doft thou not know who

and what I am? Yes, yes, faith Chrift, I know thee well enough to be a poor impotent creature, who haft no power at all but what is given thee from above; I know thee, and therefore do not fear thee. But we are apt to take their own boasts for truth, and believe their power to be fuch as they vainly vogue it to be; whereas in truth all our enemies are sustained by Christ, Col. i. 17. they are bounded and limited by Christ, Rev. ii. 10. Providence hath its influences upon their hearts and wills immediately, Jer. xv. 11. Pfal. cvi. 46. So that they cannot do whatever they would do, but their wills as well as their hands are ordered by God. Jacob was in Laban's and in Efau's hands; both hated him, but neither could hurt him. David was in Saul's hand, who hunted for him as a prey, yet is forced to difmifs him quietly, bleffing instead of flaying him. Mélanethon and Pomeron both fell into the hands of Charles V. than whom Christendom had not a more prudent prince, nor the church of Chrift a fiercer enemy; yet he treats these great and active reformers gently, difmiffeth them freely, not once forbidding them to preach or print the doctrine which he fo much oppofed and hated.

Oh Chriftian! if ever thou wilt get above thy fears, settle these things upon thy heart by faith,

1. That the reins of government are in Christ's hands; ene mies, like wild horfes, may prance and tramp up and down the world, as though they would tread down all that are in their way; but the bridle of providence is in their mouths, and upon their proud necks, 2 Kings xix. 28. and that bridle hath a trong curb.

2. The care of the faints properly pertains to Chrift; he is the head of the body, Eph. i. 22, 23. our confulting head; and it were a reproach and dishonour to Chrift, to fill our heads with distracting cares and fears, when we have fo wife an head to confult and contrive for us.

3. You have lived all your days upon the care of Christ hitherto; no truth is more manifest than this, that there hath been a wisdom beyond your own, that hath guided your ways, Jer. X. 23. a power above your own, that hath fupported your burdens, Pfal. lxxiii. 26. a spring of relief out of yourselves that hath supplied all your wants, Luke xxii. 35. He hath performed all things for you.

4. Jefus Chrift hath fecured his people by many promises to take care of them, how dangerous foever the times fhall be Ecclef. viii. 12. Pfal. lxxvi. 10. Amos ix. 8, 9. Rom. viii. 28, Oh! if these things were throughly believed and well improved

fears could no more distract or afflict our hearts, than storms or clouds could trouble the upper region: but we forget his providences and promises, and are so justly left in the hands of our own fears to be afflicted for it.

Rule 11. Subject your carnal reasonings to faith, and keep your thoughts more under the government of faith, if ever you expect a compofed and quiet heart in diflracting evil times.

He that layeth afide the rules of faith, and measures all things by the rule of his own fhallow reafon, will be his own bugbear; if reafon may be permitted to judge all things, and to make its own inferences and conclufions from the afpects and appearan ces of second causes, your hearts shall have no rest day nor night; this alone will keep you in continual alarms.

And yet how apt are the best men to measure things by this rule, and to judge of all God's defigns and mysterious providences by it! In other things it is the judge and arbiter, and therefore we would make it fo here too; and what it concludes and dictates we are prone to believe, because its dictates are backed and befriended by fenfe, whence it gathers its intelligence and information. O quam fapiens argumentatrix fibi videtur ratio bumana? How wife and strong do its arguments and conclufions feem to us! faith Luther. This carnal reason is the thing that puts us into fuch confufions of mind and thoughts. It is this that,

1. Quarrels with the promises, fhakes their credit, and our confidence in them, Exod. v. 22, 23.

2. It is this that boldly limits the divine power, and affigns it boundaries of its own fixing, Pfal. lxxviii. 20, 41.

3. It is carnal reafon that draws defperate conclufions from providential appearances and aspects, 1 Sam. xxvii. 1. and prognofticates our ruin from them.

4. It is this carnal reason that puts us upon finful shifts and indirect courfes to deliver and fave ourselves from danger, which do but the more perplex and entangle us, Ifa. xxx. 15,

16.

15. It is mostly from our arrogant reafonings that our thoughts are difcompofed and divided; from this fountain it is that they flow into our hearts in multitudes when dangers are near, Pfal. Xciv. 16. Pfal. xlii. 1.

All these mischiefs owe themselves to the exorbitant actings and intrufions of our carnal reafons; but these things ought Bot to be fo, this is befide rule. For,

1. Though there be nothing in the matters of faith or providence contrary to right reafon, yet there are many things in

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