And the prognostics are encouraging. Certainly, Christ and his kingdom will prevail. At last, all his enemies shall be made his footstool; yea, shall from him receive their doom to everlasting punishment which rebels against omnipotency, goodness and mercy, do deserve. If God be not God, if Christ will not conquer, if there be no life to come, let them boast of their success: but when they are rottenness, and dust, and their souls with devils, and their names are a reproach, Christ will be Christ, his promises and threatenings all made good. (2 Thess. i. 6, &c.) He will judge it righteous to recompense tribulation to your troublers, when he cometh with his mighty angels in flaming fire, to take vengeance on rebels, and to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all true believers. And when that solemn judgment shall pass on them that did good, and that did evil, described Matt. xxv., with a "Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom," and "Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," doing good and not doing it, much more doing mischief, will be better distinguished than now they are, when they are rendered as the reason of those different dooms.

GOD'S GOODNESS VINDICATED;

FOR THE

HELP OF SUCH (ESPECIALLY IN MELANCHOLY)

AS ARE

TEMPTED TO DENY IT, AND THINK HIM TO BE CRUEL,

BECAUSE OF THE

PRESENT AND FUTURE MISERY OF MANKIND ;

WITH RESPECT TO THE

DOCTRINE OF REPROBATION AND DAMNATION.

How much the glory of God and the salvation of men is concerned in the right understanding of his goodness, in all his ways and counsels towards them, is evidently seen by all that have any true notion of the Divine Excellency and man's felicity. God's goodness is his most solemnly proclaimed name and glory. It is his goodness duly known, that leads sinners to repentance, and unites their hearts to fear his name, and excites, and forever terminates that love which is our holiness and happiness to eternity. It is also too well known, how much this amiable Divine Goodness is denied or doubted of. What cavils are raised against it by men of corrupt minds! What secret prejudice lies against it, and how deeply rooted in our depraved nature! Yea, with how fearful suggestions and apprehensions are some godly Christians (especially those that lie in the darkness of melancholy) sometimes perplexed about it! And even such as are grounded and settled in it, are liable to be assaulted, and may sometimes stagger and stumble at it. And indeed, though the kindness of God towards men hath appeared in the world, as visible as the sun in the firmament; yet man's darkened understanding, and his connate sensuality and selfishness, taking occasion from the more mysterious parts of providence, and those especially that most contradict the wisdom and interest of the flesh, hath caused disputes, and raised doubts, against the truth of that which is in itself as clear and sure as that there is a God or a world, or any thing existent. Whereupon this author was earnestly desired by a friend, to collect some principles in a narrow compass, that might silence cavillers, succor the tempted, and confirm the sound mind. And for these ends they are, with his permission, by his friend made public; Hosea xiv. 9. "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein."

April 27, 1671.

569

GOD'S GOODNESS VINDICATED.

To help all such persons out of the snare of this dangerous and troublesome temptation, as are described in the propounded case, we must have respect, I. To the special case of the melancholy, who are more liable than others to such disturbances. II. To the common cause of their trouble and perplexity, as it consisteth in such opinions as you describe.

I. With the melancholy, the greatest difficulty lieth in making them capable to receive plain truths: for it will work, not as it is, but as it is received. And melancholy doth breed and feed such kind of thoughts, as naturally as a dead carcase feedeth vermin. Of forty or fifty melancholy persons that I have to deal with, there are scarce four that are not hurried with suggestions to blasphemous thoughts against God and the Sacred Scriptures; and scarce two that are not under dismal apprehensions that they are miserable, undone creatures, (except only some that are all carried to conceits of prophecies, revelations, and some rare, exalting communications of light unto themselves.) This unhappy disease of melancholy is first seated in the organs of imagination and passion both; that is, in the spirits, and thereby in the very imagining faculty itself: though the natural parts being without pain or sickness, they will not believe that it is a disease at all. It inclineth them usually to solitariness, to musing, and to dismal thoughts, that they are undone, graceless, hopeless, &c., which because they passionately seem to feel, no words, which silence them, will satisfy them; or if you seem a little to satisfy them to-day, it is all gone to morrow: for a melancholy man is like the eye that looketh on all things through a colored glass, or in an ophthalmy, and seeth them according to the medium.

The disease, in some few, beginneth with over-stretching thoughts and troubles about things spiritual; but in most that I have met with, Vol. II.

72

(ten to one,) it beginneth with some worldly cross, loss, or trouble, which grieveth them, and casteth them into troublesome anxieties and cares; and then when by these the spirits are diseased, it presently turneth upon conscience; first, against themselves, aggravating sin and misery, apprehending calamity from every thing which they see, hear, or think of; and next, against God and Scripture, perplexed in every thing that cometh before them, and quarreling with all, and offended in all; and usually they are importuned, as if it were by something else within them, to say some blasphemous word against God, or do some mischief against themselves: no doubt through Satan's special instigation, who can work on men according to the advantage of their bodily and sensitive distempers, and can do that on a melancholy man, (though a godly man,) which he cannot do on another; as he can also work on the choleric, phlegmatic, &c. according to their temper.

1. The cure of this must be by these means; (1.) You must not suffer them to be much alone. (2.) You must divert them from all musing, and turn it to discourse. (3.) You must keep from them displeasing things and persons, and help them to suitable, pleasing company and converse. (4.) You must change their air and company sometimes, that strange objects may change their imagination. (5.) Above all, if they have strength, you must not suffer them to be idle, to lie in bed longer than they sleep in the day: nor to sit musing, but must get them upon the work of a lawful calling, and drive them on to so much diligence, that body and mind may be closely employed. This will be more than all other ordinary means. (6.) In most, meet physic also will do very much, which must be ordered by an experienced physician that is with them, or well knoweth them. (7.) Lastly, Their false thoughts also must be confuted, and their minds have due satisfaction. And if you cannot have all, or most of these done, you can hardly expect a cure, unless time wear it off, which is doubtful.

II. The falsehood and vexation of such men's thoughts, whether the melancholy or others, are brought to pass, 1. By a false method of reasoning. 11. By false opinions which they have before received. 1. It is a grossly deluding and subverting way of reasoning, to be