Provision in the promises for the two sorts of sorrows to which believers are prone 1/2

           First.  Believers are at times prone to be troub­led for their own persons and private affairs.  To meet this there is in the promises an ample provision.  Ac­quaint thyself with those promises that concern thy­self as a sufferer for Christ, and see where any crevice is left unstopped, if thou canst, that may let in the least air of suspicion in thy mind to disturb thy peace and discompose thy joy.  The promises are so many, and fitted so exactly to every particular query of which the soul can desire satisfaction, that it will require thy study and diligence to gather them.  God having chosen rather to scatter his promises here and there promiscuously than to sort them and set every kind in a distinct knot by themselves, we may think on pur­pose that we might be drawn into an acquaintance with the whole Scripture, and not leave any one cor­ner unsearched, but curiously observe it from one end to the other.  And let not the present peace of the church cause thee to think it needless work.  The apothecary gathers his simples in the summer which haply he may not use [i.e. until] winter.  And how soon persecution may arise thou knowest not.  The church ever hath had, and shall have, its vicissitudes of summer and winter.  Yea, sometimes winter strikes in before it is looked for; and then who is the man most likely to be offended?  Surely he that received the word with joy in the prosperous estate of the church, but laid not in for foul weather.  Well, what is thy fear? whence comes thy discouragement?  Art thou scared with the noisomeness of the prison? or doth the terror of the fire, and torture of the rack, affright thee?  Know for thy comfort, if thy strength be too weak to carry thee through them, thou shalt never be called to such hot service and hard work. The promise assures thee as much, he ‘will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able,’ I Cor. 10:13.

           God who gives the husbandman his discretion with what instrument to thrash his corn, as it is hard­er or softer, will not let the persecutor’s wheel come upon thee that art not able to bear it.  God gives us this very account why he led his people the further way about—at their first coming out of Egypt—rather than by the land of the Philistines—the far shorter cut of the two—‘for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt,’ Ex. 13:17.  See here God considers their weak­ness.  They cannot yet bear war, and therefore they shall not be tried with it until more hardened for it. But if thou beest called into the field to encounter with these bloody fiery trials, the promise takes the whole care and charge of the war off thy hands: ‘When they deliver you up, take no thought’—that is, disquieting, distrustful—‘how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak,’ Matt. 10:19; and, it is ‘the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you,’ ver. 20.  There is no mouth that God cannot make eloquent; no back so weak which he cannot make strong.  And he hath promised to be with thee wherever thy enemies carry thee; fire and water shall not part thee from his sweet company.  These promises make so soft a pillow for the saints’ heads that they have professed, many of them, never to have lain at more ease than when most cruelly handled by their merciless enemies. One dates his letter ‘from the delectable orchard his prison;’ another subscribes herself, ‘Your loving friend, as merry as one bound for heaven.’  They have been so far from pitying themselves in their sufferings, that their chief sorrow hath been, that they could be no more thankful for them.  And whence had they their strength?  Where drew they their joy?  Had they not both from the same Spirit applying the promises to them?