neither of which can render God unfaithful: who is engaged not so much to our faith, as to his own faithfulness to himself, to hear the prayer of his troubled servants; Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

This faithfulness of God believers do best experience in their sufferings; partly, because then they are most prayerful. When our elder brother Esau is upon us, we can wrestle with our elder brother Jesus, and not let him go until he bless us. And partly, because then they are most vigilant to observe the returns of prayer: My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. In adversity we are early with God in prayer; In the morning shalt thou hear my voice, in the morning will I direct my prayer; it implieth double earliness, and doubleearnestness in prayer. And when have done praying, we shall begin waiting, I will look up: In prosperity we put up many a prayer that we never look after; God may deny or grant, and we hardly take notice of it: But in affliction we can press God for the returns of prayer; Hear me speedily, O Lord, my spirit faileth, hide not thy face from me, lest I be like to them that go down into the pit; not only denials but delays kill us; then we can hearken for the echo of our voice from heaven, I will hearken what God the Lord will say, for he will speak peace to his people. As God cannot easily deny the prayer of an afflicted soul, so if he grant, we can take notice of it, and

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know our prayers when we see them again; This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him; and this endears the heart to God and to prayer. I love the Lord, because he heard my voice and my supplications because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

As faithfulness in hearing prayer, so also in making good the promise: the afflicted soul can witness unto God, as we have heard, so have we seen. What we have heard in the promise, we have seen in the accomplishinent, God was never worse than his word. Affliction is a furnace, as to try the faith of God's people, so to ⚫ try the faithfulness of God in his promises; and upon the trial the church brings in her experience; The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Let a man cast the promise a thousand times into the furnace, it will still come out full weight: as for God, his way is perfect, the word of the Lord is tried. It is to be understood in both places of the word of the promise; a man may set heaven and earth upon a promise, and it will bear them up.

(4.) His mercy-Mercy in the moderation of chastisements; In the midst of judgment he remembereth mercy. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not, cries the church in Babylon; q. d. it is banishment, it might have been destruction; we are in Babylon, we might have been in hell; it of the Lord's mercies, and his mercies alone, that we are not there-So saith the afflicted soul: if

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my burning fever had been the burning lake, if my prison had been the bottomless pit, if my banishment from society with friends had been expulsion (with Cain) from the presence of God, and that for ever, God had been righteous. It is never so bad with the people of God, but it might have been worse: any thing on this side hell is pure mercy.

And as mercy in moderating, so mercy in supporting; when I said my foot slippeth, now I sink, I shall never be able to stand under this affliction, I cannot bear it, Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up; when David was sinking, God put under him his everlasting arms, and held him up, as Christ stretched forth his hand to save Peter when he began to sink. Even when God's suffering people have not any great raptures, yet then they find sweet supports, His left hand was under me, his right hand embraced me. And yet it is not supporting mercy only which they experience in their sufferings, but not seldom his refreshing, his rejoicing mercy; so it follows in the psalm above cited, In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul. My thoughts were dark and doleful, and full of despair, and not a few of them; multitudes brake in upon me, and even swallowed me up; but thy comforts were light and life, and delight to my soul, my thoughts did not sink me so deep, but thy comforts raised me up as high'; my thoughts were an hell, but thy comforts were an heaven within me ; the soul hears of God's mercy in prosperity, but it'

tastes of his mercy in affliction; and as it were overcome with enjoyments, can call to others, O taste and see how good the Lord is. Hence it is, that of all the days of the year the apostle would choose as it were a Good-Friday, a passion day, to rejoice in; God forbid I should rejoice in any thing but in the cross of Jesus Christ; Christ's sufferings for him, and his sufferings for Christ.

(5.) The all-sufficiency of God is the last attribute I mentioned, which God proclaims before his suffering people; Now thou shalt see, saith God to Moses, what I will do to Pharoah. Hitherto thou hast seen what Pharaoh hath done to Israel, now thou shalt see what I can do to Pharaoh; and so they did see the doubling of their burdens was the dissolving of their bondage; the extinguishing of their line was the multiplying of their seed; the same waters which were Israel's rocks were the Egyptians' grave-I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy. So boasts the proud tyrant, I will, I will, I will; but not so fast Pharaoh, let God speak the next word, Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them, they sank as lead in the mighty waters. O sudden turn! there lieth Pharaoh with all his boast

ings, drowned in the sea. Thus did God appear to his oppressed Israel in the very nick of their extremities; In the thing wherein they dealt proudly, God was above them and Israel SAW that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians; and the people feared the

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Lord and his servant Moses. Israel SAW-in prospe rity God works, but we see him not: affliction openeth our eyes; when we see our dangers, then we can see God in our deliverances. God could have brought Israel into the Land of Promise a shorter cut, in forty days: but he leads them about in an howling wilderness forty years; (not a more likely place in all the world to have starved them and their flocks) and why? but to proclaim to Israel, and all succeeding generations, that man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord, doth man live. Israel learnt more of God's all-sufficiency in a land of drought, than she could have learnt in the land flowing with milk and honey; namely, that God can feed without bread, and satisfy thirst without streams of water that he can make the clouds rain food, and the rock give out rivers: that the creature can do nothing without God, but God can do what he please without the creature.

Instances are endless: In a word, suffering time is the time wherein God makes his attributes visibleThe Lord will be a refuge to his people, a refuge in time of trouble; and what follows? And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee. In the school of affliction God reads lectures upon his attributes, and expounds himself unto his people; so that many times they come to know more of God, or more experimentally, by half a year's sufferings, than by many years

sermons.