Observ. 3. That the sure covenant of grace, affords sure relief to all that are within the bonds of
Observation. 3. That the everlasting, well-ordered, and sure covenant of grace, affords everlasting, well-ordered, and sure relief to all that are within the bonds of it, how many or how great soever 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 sum and substance of it, viz.
Propositions 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 sink 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,
"Unless the law had been my delights, I should then have perished in my affliction," Psal. 119:92. 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 sent me the relief of a promise, I had certainly gone away in a faint fit of despondency. O how seasonably did God administer the cordials of his word to my drooping, sinking soul!
This weakness in the mind to support the burdens of affliction, proceeds from a double cause, viz.
1. From the sinking 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 some sorts 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 sea, therefore my words are swallowed up," Job 6:2, 3, 4. q. d. If all the sand that lies upon all the shores in the world, were shovelled up into one heap, and cast into one scale, and my sorrows into the other, my grief would weigh it all up. How heavy are the hearts of the afflicted! what unsupportable sorrows do they feel and groan under, especially when God smites 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 serene, 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 confusions, and great distractions, spoils all. Upon this account it is, that afflictions are compared to a stupifying doze, which casts the soul into amazement, Psal. 60:3. "Thou hast shewed thy people hard things, thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment."
Afflictions are called the wine of astonishment, from their effects upon the mind: for under a great and sudden 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 reason move at all: and when it begins to move again, O how confused and irregular are its motions! it is full of murmurs, disputes, and quarrels: these aggravate both our sin and misery. It is our own thoughts which take the arrow of God shot at