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done to me! It was the remembrance of David's grown strange, and broken former friendship,

sin, that had provoked God to raise up his own son against him, of whom he had been too fond, which made him so easily bear the curses and reproach of Shimei. It will make us bear abuse from others, to remember how ill we have dealt with God, and how ill we have deserved at his hands ourselves.

6. I have observed another reason of God's permitting the failing of our friends. It is, that the love of our friends may not hinder us when we are called to suffer or die. When we overlove them, it tears our very hearts to leave them: and therefore it is a strong temptation to draw us from our duty, and to be unfaithful to the cause of Christ, lest we should be taken from our too dear friends, or lest our suffering cause their too much grief. It is so hard a thing to die with willingness and peace, that it must needs be a mercy to be saved from the impediments which make us backward: and the excessive love of friends and relations, is not the least of these impediments: O how loth is many a one to die, when they think of parting with wife, or husband, or children, or dear and faithful friends! Now, I have often observed, that a little before their death or sickness, it is ordinary with God to permit some unkindness between such too dear friends to arise, by which he moderated and abated their affections, and made them a great deal the more willing to die. Then we are ready to say, it is time for me to leave the world, when not only the rest of the world, but my dearest friends have first forsaken me! This helps us to remember our dearest everlasting Friend, and to be grieved at the heart that we have been no truer ourselves to him, who would not have forsaken us in our extremity. Sometimes it makes us even weary of the world, and to say as Elias, 'Lord, take away my life,' when we must say, I thought I had one friend left, and behold even he forsakes me in my distress. As the love of friends entangles our affections to this world, so to be weaned, by their unkindnesses, from our friends, is a great help to loosen us from the world, and proves often a very great mercy to a soul that is ready to depart.

and quickly after turned to such dangerous ways and errors, as convinced the other of the mercifulness of God, in weakening his temptation by his friend's desertion; who might else have drawn him along with him into sin. I have often observed, that when the husbands have turned from religion to infidelity, or to some dangerous heresy, that God hath permitted them to hate and abuse their wives so inhumanly, as that it preserved the poor women from the temptation of following them in their apostacy or sin; when as some other women with whom their husbands have dealt more kindly, have been drawn away with them into pernicious paths.

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Therefore still I must say, we were undone if we had the disposing of our own conditions. It would be long before we should have been willing ourselves to be thus unkindly dealt with by our friends and yet God hath made it to many a soul, a notable means of preserving them from being undone forever. Yea, the unfaithfulness of all our friends, and the malice and cruelty of all our enemies, doth us not usually so much harm, as the love and temptation of some one deluded erring friend, whom we are ready to follow into the gulf.

7. Lastly, consider that it is not desirable or suitable to our state, to have too much of our comfort by any creature: not only because it is most pure and sweet, which is most immediately from God: but because also we are very prone to over-love the creature; and if it should but seem to be very agreeable to us, by serving our necessities or desires, it would seem the more amiable, and therefore be the stronger snare: the work of mortification doth much consist in the annihilation or deadness of all the creatures, as to any power to draw away our hearts from God, or to entangle us and detain us from our duty. The more excellent and lovely the creature appears to us, the less it is dead to us, or we to it; and the more will it be able to hinder or ensnare us.

When you have well considered all these things, I suppose you will admire the wisdom of God in leaving you under this kind of trial, and As the friends that love us most, and have weaning you from every creature, and teaching most interest in our esteem and love, may do you by his providence, as well as by his word, more than others, in tempting us to be unfaithful to cease from man, whose breath is in his nosto our Lord, to entertain any error, to commit trils; for wherein is he to be accounted of? and any sin, or to flinch in suffering; so when God you will see that it is no great wonder that corhath permitted them to forsake us, and to lose rupted souls, that live in other sins, should be their too great interest in us, we are fortified guilty of this unfaithfulness to their friends: against all such temptations from them. I have and that he that dare unthankfully trample known where a former intimate friend hath upon the unspeakable kindness of the Lord,

should deal unkindly with the best of men. You make no great wonder at other kind of sins, when you see the world continually commit them; why then should you make a greater or a stranger matter of this, than of the rest? Are you better than God? Must unfaithfulness to you be made more heinous, than that unfaithfulness to him, which yet you daily see and slight? The least wrong to God is a thousand fold more than the greatest that can be done to you, as such. Have you done that for your nearest friend, which God hath done for him, and you, and all men? Their obligations to you are nothing in comparison of their great and manifold obligations to God.

You know that you have more wronged God yourselves, than any man ever wronged you: if yet for all that, he bear with you, have you not great reason to bear with others?

Yea, you have not been innocent towards men yourselves: did you never wrong or fail another? Or rather, are you not apter to see and aggravate the wrong that others do to you, than that which you have done to others? May you not call to mind your own neglects, and say as Adonizebeck, 'threescore and ten kings having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me.' Many a one have I failed or wronged, and no wonder if others fail and wrong me.

Let thy conformity herein to Jesus Christ, be thy holy ambition and delight: not as it is thy suffering, nor as it is caused by men's sin: but as it is thy conformity and fellowship in the sufferings of thy Lord, and caused by his love. I have already showed you that sufferers for Christ, are in the highest form among his disciples. The order of his followers usually is this: 1. At our entrance, and in the lowest form, we are exercised with the fears of hell, and God's displeasure, and in the works of repentance for the sin that we have done. 2. In the second form, we come to think more seriously of the remedy, and to inquire what we shall do to be saved, and to understand better what Christ hath done and suffered, and what he is and will be to us and to value him, his love, and grace: here we are much inquiring how we may know our own sincerity, and our interest in Christ, and are labouring for some assurance, and looking after signs of grace. 3. In the next form or order we are searching after further knowledge, and labouring better to understand the mysteries of religion, and to get above the rudiments and first principles: and here if we escape turning bare opinionists or heretics, by the snare of controversy or curiosity, it is well. 4. In the next form we set ourselves to the fuller improvement of all our further degrees of knowledge; and to digest it all, and turn it into stronger faith, love, hope, and greater humility, patience, self-denial, mortification, and contempt of earthly vanities, and hatred of sin and to walk more watchfully and holily, and to be more in holy duty. 5. In the next form we grow to be more publicspirited: to set our hearts on the church's welfare, and long more for the progress of the gospel, and for the good of others; and to do all the good in the world that we are able, for men's souls or bodies, but especially to long and lay out ourselves for the conversion and salvation of ignorant, secure, unconverted souls. The counterfeit of this is, an eager desire to proselyte others to our opinions, or that religion which we have chosen, by the direction of flesh and blood, or which is not of God, nor according unto godli

Nay, you have been much more unfaithful and injurious to yourselves, than ever any other hath been to you. No friend was so near you, as yourselves: none had such a charge of you: none had such helps and advantages to do you good or hurt yet all the enemies you have in the world, even in earth or hell, have not wronged and hurt you half so much as you have done yourselves. O, methinks the man or woman that knows themselves, and knows what it is to repent; that ever saw the greatness of their own sin and folly, should have no great mind or leisure to aggravate the failing of their friends, or the injuries of their enemies, considering what they have proved to themselves. Have I forfeited my own salvation, and deserved everlast-ness, but doth subserve our carnal ends. 6. In ing wrath, and sold my Saviour and my soul for so base a thing as sinful pleasure, and shall I ever make a wonder of it, that another man doth me some temporal hurt? Was any friend so near to me as myself; or more obliged to me? O sinful soul, let thy own, rather than thy friend's deceit, treachery, and neglects, be the matter of thy displeasure, wonder, and complaints!

the next form we grow to study more the pure and wonderful love of God in Christ, and to relish and admire that love, and to be taken up with the goodness and tender mercies of the Lord, and to be kindling the flames of holy love to him that hath thus loved us; and to keep our souls in the exercise of that love and withal to live in joy, thanks, and praise to him that hath redeemed us and loved us. Also by faith to

converse in heaven, and to live in holy contem- | doubt is removed by the multitude of furies which

plation, beholding the glory of the Father and the Redeemer in the glass which is fitted to our present use, till we come to see him face to face. Those that are the highest in this form, do so walk with God, and burn in love, and are so much above inferior vanities, and are so conversant by faith in heaven, that their hearts even dwell there, and there they long to be for ever. 7. In the highest form in the school of Christ, we are exercising this confirmed faith and love, in sufferings, especially for Christ: in following him with our cross, and being conformed to him, and glorifying God in the fullest exercise, and discovery of his graces in us, and in an actual trampling upon all that stands up against him, for our hearts: in bearing the fullest witness to his truth and cause, by constant enduring, though to the death.

God hath let loose against me. But yet, methinks, while my friends themselves are so friendly to me, I am much short of what I think I must at last attain to.

II. The cause of this desertion selfishness.

But let us look further into the text, and see what is the cause of forsaking Christ in the disciples: and what it is that they betake themselves to, when they leave him.

'Ye shall be scattered every man to his own. Self-denial was not perfect in them, selfishness therefore in this hour of temptation did prevail. They had before forsaken all to follow Christ; they had left their parents, their families, their estates, their trades, to be his disciples: but though they believed him to be the Christ, yet they dreamed of a visible kingdom, and did all this with too carnal expectations of being great men on earth, when Christ should begin his

and ignominious suffering, and thought how they were frustrate of their hopes, they seem to repent that they had followed him, though not by apostacy and an habitual or plenary change of mind, yet by a sudden passionate frightful apprehension, which vanished when grace performed its part. They now began to think that they had lives of their own to save, and families of their own to mind, and business of their own to do: they had before forsaken their private interests and affairs, and gathered themselves to Jesus Christ, and lived in communion with him, and one another. But now they return to their trades and callings, and are scattered every man to his own.'

Not but that the weakest that are sincere, must suffer for Christ if he call them to it: mar-reign. Therefore when they saw his apprehension tyrdom itself is not peculiar to the strong believers: whoever forsakes not all that he hath for Christ, cannot be his disciple. But to suffer with that faith and love fore-mentioned, and in that manner, is proper to the strong: usually God doth not try and exercise his young and weak ones with the trials of the strong; nor set his infants on so hard a service, nor put them in the front or hottest of the battle, as he doth the ripe confirmed Christians. The sufferings of their inward doubts and fears doth take up such: it is the strong that ordinarily are called to sufferings for Christ, at least in any high degree; I have digressed thus far to make it plain to you, that our conformity to Christ, and fellowship with him in his sufferings, in any notable degree, is the lot of his best confirmed servants, and the highest form in his school among his disciples: therefore not to be inordinately feared or abhorred, not to be the matter of impatience, but of holy joy; and in such infirmities we may glory. If it be so of sufferings in the general, for Christ, then is it so of this particular sort of suffering, even to be forsaken of all our best and nearest, dearest friends, when we come to be most abused by the enemies.

For my own part, I must confess that as I am much wanting in other parts of my conformity to Christ, so I take myself to be yet much short, of what I expect he should advance me to, as long as my friends no more forsake me. It is not long since I found myself in a low, if not a doubting case, because I had so few enemies, and so little sufferings for the cause of Christ, though I had much of other sorts; now that

Selfishness is the great enemy of all societies, of all fidelity and friendship: there is no trusting that person in whoever it is predominant. The remnants of it, where it doth not reign, do make men walk unevenly and unsteadfastly towards God and men. They will certainly deny both God and their friends, in a time of trial, who are not unable to deny themselves: or rather he never was a real friend to any, that is predominantly selfish. They have always some interest of their own, which their friend must needs contradict, or is insufficient to satisfy. Their houses, their lands, their monies, their children, their honour, or something which they call their own, will be frequently the matter of contention; and are so near them, that they can for the sake of these, cast off the nearest friend. Contract no special friendship with a selfish man: nor put any confidence in him, whatever friendship he may profess. He is so confined to himself, that

he hath no true love to spare for others: if he seem to love a friend, it is not as a friend, but as a servant, or at best as a benefactor: he loves you for himself, as he loves his money, or horse, or house, because you may be serviceable to him: or as a horse or dog doth love his keeper, for feeding him therefore when your provender is gone, his love is gone: when you have done feeding him, he hath done loving you: when you have no more for him, he hath no more for

you.

Object. But, some will say, it is not the falseness of my friend that I lament, but the separation, or the loss of one that was most faithful: I have found the deceitfulness of ordinary friends; and therefore the more highly prize those few that are sincere. I had but one true friend among abundance of self-seekers and that one is dead, or taken from me, and I am left as in a wilderness, having no mortal man that I can trust, or take much comfort in.

Answ. Is this your case? I pray you answer these few questions, and suffer the truth to have its proper work upon your mind.

Quest. 1. Who was it that deprived you of your friend; was it not God? Did not he that gave him you, take him from you? Was it not his Lord and owner that called him home? Can God do any thing amiss? Will you not give him leave to do as he lists with his own? Dare you think that there was wanting either wisdom or goodness, justice or mercy, in God's disposal of your friend? Or will you ever have rest, if you cannot have rest in the will of God?

2. How know you what sin your friend might have fallen into, if he had lived as long as you would have him? You will say, that God could have preserved him from sin: it is true; but God preserves wisely, by means, as well as powerfully sometimes he sees that the temptations to that person are like to be so strong, and his corruption like to get such advantage, that no means is so fit as death itself, for his preservation. If God had permitted your friend by temptation to have fallen into some scandalous sin, or course of evil, or into errors or false ways, would it not have been much worse than death to him and you? God might have suffered your friend that was so faithful, to have been sifted and shaken, as Peter was, and to have denied his Lord; and to have seemed in your own eyes, as odious, as he before seemed amiable.

3. How know you what unkindness to your self, your dearest friend might have been guilty of? Alas, there is greater frailty and incon

stancy in man, than you are aware of. There are sadder roots of corruption unmortified, that may spring up into bitter fruits, than most of us ever discover in ourselves. Many a mother hath her heart broken by the unnatural conduct of such a child, or the unkindness of such a husband, as if they had died before, would have been lamented by her, with great impatience and excess. How confident soever you may be of the future fidelity of your friend, you little know what trials might have discovered. Many a one hath failed God and man, that once were as confident of themselves, as ever you were of your friend. Which of us see not reason to be distrustful of ourselves? Can we know another better than ourselves: or promise more concerning him.

4. How know you what great calamity might have befallen your friend, if he had lived as long as you desired? When the righteous seem to men to perish, and merciful men are taken away, it is from the evil to come that they are taken. How many of my friends have I lamented as if they had died unseasonably, concerning whom some following providence quickly showed me, that it would have been a grievous misery to them to have lived longer! Little know you what calamities were imminent on his person, his family, kindred, neighbours, country, that would have broke his heart: what if a friend of yours had died immediately before some calamitous subversion of a kingdom, some ruins of the church, &c. and if ignorantly, he had done that which brought these things to pass, can you imagine how lamentably sad his life would have been to him, to have seen the church, the gospel, and his country, in so sad a case; especially if it had been caused by him? Many that have unawares done that which hath ruined a particular friend, have lived in so much grief and trouble, as made them consent that death should both revenge the injured on them, and conclude their misery. What then would it have been to have seen the public good subverted, and the faithful overwhelmed in misery, and the gospel hindered, and holy worship changed for deceit and vanity; and for conscience to have been daily saying, I had a hand in all this misery: I kindled the fire that hath burned up all !

What comfort can you think such friends, if they had survived, would have found on earth? Unless it were a comfort to hear the complaints of the afflicted, to see and hear such odious sins as sometimes vexed righteous Lot to see and hear; or to hear of the scandals of one friend, and the apostacy of another, and the sinful com

pliances and declinings of a third; and to be under temptations, reproaches and afflictions themselves? Is it a matter to be so much lamented, that God hath prevented their greater miseries and woe?

them, who would have been grieved for their griefs, and for aught they know might have fallen into as sad a state as they themselves are now lamenting.

6. Do you think it is for the hurt or the good 5. What was the world to your friends while of your friend, that he is removed hence? It they did enjoy it? Or what is it now, or like to cannot be for his hurt, unless he be in hell. At be hereafter to yourselves? was it so good and least, it is uncertain whether to live would have kind to them, as that you should lament their been for his good, by an increase of grace, and separation from it? was it not to them a place of so for greater glory. If he be in hell, he was no toil and trouble, of envy and vexation, of enmity fit person for you to take much pleasure in upon and poison, of successive cares, and fears, and earth: he might be indeed a fit object for your griefs, and, worst of all, a place of sin? Did they compassion, but not for your complacency. Surely groan under the burthen of a sinful nature, a you are not undone for want of such company distempered, tempted, troubled heart, of lan- as God will not endure in his sight, and you must guishings and weakness of every grace; of the be separated from for ever. But if they be in rebukes of God, the wounds of conscience, and heaven, you are scarcely their friend if you would the malice of a wicked world? And would you wish them thence. Friendship hath as great have them under these again; or is their deliv-respect to the good of our friends as of ourselves, erance become your grief? Did you not often Do you pretend to friendship, and yet lament join in prayer with them, for deliverance from the removal of your friend to his greatest hapmalice, calamities, troubles, imperfections, temp-piness! Do you set more by your own enjoying tations and sin? and now those prayers are answered in their deliverance: and do you now grieve at that, which then you prayed for!

Doth the world use yourselves so well and kindly, as that you should be sorry that your friends partake not of the feast? Are you not groaning from day to day yourselves? and are you grieved that your friends are taken from your griefs? you are not pleased with your own condition when you look into your hearts, you are displeased and complain : when you look into your lives, you are displeased and complain: when you look into your families, into your neighbourhoods, unto your friends, unto the church, unto the kingdom, unto the world, you are displeased and complain and are you also displeased that your friends are not under the same displeasure and complaints as you? Is the world a place of rest or trouble to you? And would you have your friends to be as far from rest as you?

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If you have some ease and peace at present, you little know what storms are near! you may see the days, you may hear the tidings, you may feel the griefs and pains, which may make you call for death yourselves, and make you say, that a life on earth is no felicity, and make you confess that they are blessed that are dead in the Lord, as resting from their labours, and being past these troubles, griefs and fears. Many a poor troubled soul is in so great distress, as that they take away their own lives to have some taste of hell and yet, at the same time, are grieving because their friends are taken from

his company, than by his enjoying God in perfect blessedness: this shows a very culpable defect either in faith or friendship; and therefore beseems not Christians and friends. If love teaches us to mourn with them that mourn, and to rejoice with them that rejoice; can it be an act of rational love to mourn for them that are possessed of the highest everlasting joys?

7. God will not honour himself by one only, but by many: he knows best when his work is done: when our friends have finished all God intended them for, when he put them into the world, is it not time for them to be gone, and for others to take their places, and finish their work also in their time? God will have a succession of his servants in the world. Would you not come down, and give place to him that is to follow you, when your part is acted, and his is to begin? If David had not died, there had been no Solomon, no Jehosaphat, no Hezekiah, no Josiah, to succeed him and honour God in the same throne. You may as wisely grudge that one day only takes not up all the week, and that the clock strikes not the same hour still, but proceeds from one to two, from two to three, &c., as to murmur that one man only continues not, to do the work of his place, excluding his suc

cessors.

8. You must not have all your mercies by one messenger or hand: God will not have you confine your love to one only of his servants: and therefore he will not make one only useful to you but when one hath delivered his message and done his part, perhaps God will send you

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