neither shadow of turning."* The metaphor is thought by some to be borrowed from the art of painting, wherein pictures are first rudely shadowed, then drawn to the life. In the creatures we find a full draught and lively portraiture of mutability; but not so much as the rudiments of a draught, as the least line or shadow of it in God and Christ. EXERCITATION III. Two conclusions from Psalm lxxiii. 25, 26. The Psalmist's case stated. The frequent compli cation of corporal and spiritual troubles. How God strengtheneth his people's hearts against their bodily distempers; how under discourage ments of spirit. The secret supports of sav ing grace. What kind of portion God is to the Saints. A congratulation of their happi-. ness herein. § 1. FROM that pathetical passage in one of the Psalms, Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever† these two conclusions may be raised, 1. There is no person or thing in heaven or earth short of God in Christ to be looked upon and desired as our utmost good. as our u *Teoris axorxiaoua. Pareus in loc. + Psalm lxxiii. 25, 26. 2. The fruition of God in Christ is able to make and to continue a man happy even in the midst of utmost extremity. The former I have treated of in the foregoing exercitations, intending to handle the latter in this. That I account an utmost extremity as to kind, (though as to degrees it may be either more intense or more remiss) when there is a complication of sufferings both in body and mind at once. Such was the Psalmist's case here. It is not flesh alone, or heart alone, but " my flesh and my heart," in conjunction, both failed him at one and the same time. Such is the sympa thy of soul and body, that when it fares ill with one, the other commonly is disturbed. If the soul be in an agony, the body languisheth. Sa tan's buffeting Paul with blasphemous thoughts, as some conceive, proved a thorn to his flesh.* On the other side, if the outward man be tormented, the inward is wont to be dismayed, even to failing of heart. The Stoics indeed, those magnificent boasters, talk of an apathy, and Plutarch tells us that Agesilaus, when he lay sick of the gout, and Carneades, who came to. visit him, observing what pains he conflicted with, was about to leave him as one not in case to be spoken to, bade him stay, and pointing at once to his own feet and to his heart, said, "No * 2 Cor. xii. 7. oxódot rỹ ongni. thing comes from thence hither; as if his mind were no whit disquieted for all the sufferings of his flesh. But far better men than any of them have born witness to the contrary. "Our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears."+ So Paul. David in one of his Psalms thus, "O Lord heal me, for my bones are vexed; my soul also is sore vexed." In another thus, "There is no soundness in my flesh; I am feeble and sore broken, I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.§ § 2. But as when Peter walking upon the waves, and perceiving how boisterous the winds were, began to sink, Jesus immediately stretched forth his hand and caught him; so when the Psalmist's flesh and heart failed, God even then was the strength of his heart; according to the original, the rock of it. Rocks are not more fortifying to cities and castles built upon them, than God is to his people's hearts. A sincere believ er's soul is therefore assimilated by our Saviour to a house founded upon a rock, which was every way assaulted; in the roof by rain descending upon that, in the foundation by floods washing upon it, in the walls by winds blustering against them; and yet stood because it was Mane Carneades, nihil enim illinc huc pervenit. + 2 Cor. vii. 5. strong, was strong because founded on a rock. Such a rock is our God, and that even in such a case as hath been described. 3. Hezekiah whom God had chosen to life,* was sick unto death. Lazarus whom Jesus loved, sickened and died. Timothy had his often infirmities. The Psalmist's flesh failed him, or to speak in Paul's phrase, his outward man perished; yet God meanwhile was the rock and strength of his sick servant's heart. First, by preserving therein an expectation of such fruit as saints use to reap from such trials. Fruit which relates partly to sin, and partly to grace. To sin by way of cure. Diseases when sanctified drain the inward as well as the outward man, and help to spend out the bad humours of both. Sickness (saith Isidore) woundeth the flesh, but healeth the mind; is the body's malady, but the soul's medicine. For instance, weakness kills the itch of worldliness. Let pleasure open all her shops, and present a sick man with her choicest rarities: let Mammon bring forth all his bags and jingle them in his ears; produce all his crowns, sceptres, mitres, and lay them at his feet, how ready will he be to cry out," Away with them." Behold I am at the point to die (as Esau once reasoned¶) and what can these vanities profit me? The like may be said of self-con * Isa. xxxviii. I. † Jolin xi. 3. ‡ 1 Tim. v. 23. § 2 Cor. iv. 16. Adversa corporis remedia sunt animæ. Ægritudo carnem vulnerat, mortem curat. Isidor. lib. 3. de summ. bono. ¶ Gen. xxv. 32. fidence and pride which are also frequently antidoted by diseases. A special end (as Elihu tells Job)* which God aims at in his chastening with pain is to hide pride from man, that is, to remove it, as what we hide is removed out of sight. A Christian Emperor, one of the Ferdinands, when his chaplain Matthias Cittardus came to visit him as he lay upon his death-bed, and according to the mode of the court styled him most Invincible Emperor,† finding himself overcome with sickness, would not admit of that compellation, but charged him not to use it more: where upon the chaplain made his next address on this wise, "Go to dear brother Ferdinand, endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." § 4. Next to grace, in point of growth. The rise of grace is sometimes occasioned by a sore disease. * Beza tells us of himself, that God was pleased to lay the foundation of his spiritual health in a violent sickness which befel him at Paris The growth of grace is always promoted when God makes use of this means. It is not more usual with children to shoot up in length, than with Christians to wax taller in grace in or after a sickness. See it exemplified in the famous protestant divines: Olevian said upon his death-bed, "In ✓ Job xxxiii. 17. + Ab. Scultetus Idea Concion. in Isaiæ cap.9. page 147. In agone invictissimi titulum agnoscere nolebat, &c. Morbus iste veræ sanitatis principium, &c. Epist. præfix Confessioni. D |