The balm of Gilead, or, Comforts for the distressed, both morall and divine most fit for these woful times / by Jos. Hall.

Comforts against publique Calamities.

§. 1. Comfort from the inevitable necessity of changes, and Gods over-ru∣ling them.

THOU art afflicted with the publique calamities; so it becomes thee as a good man, a good Christian, a good Patriot. Wee are not entire peeces, but are all limbs of a community both of Church and Kingdome; whiles the whole body suffers, how can we be free? This should be no news to us; what earthly Kingdome or Sate hath ever enjoyed a constant felicity? These publique bodies, like

as single persons, have their birth, their infancy, their youth, their vigour, their de∣clinations: Even the white marble of that famous Em∣bleme, and type of Gods Church, after not many cen∣turies of yeares felt the dint of time, and mouldred to no∣thing; It is as much as those heavenly bodies above can doe, to avoid change: well might we be distracted with these troubles, my son, if we did not well know whence they come, even from a most wise, holy, powerfull, just providence: Hee that sits in heaven orders these earthly affaires according to the eter∣nall counsell of his will; It is that Almighty hand that holds the stern of this tossed

vessel, and steers it in that course which he knows best: it is not for us that are passen∣gers to meddle with the ••ard or Compass: Let that all-skilful Pilot alone with his own work; he knows every rock and shelf that may en¦danger it, and can cut the proudest billow that threa∣tens it,* 1.1 with ease: It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.

§ 2. The sense and sym∣pathy of common evils.

Were there no other re∣spects then personal, I can∣not blame thee if thy fears strive with thy grief for the publike evils: every mans interest is involved in the common: And if the Ship sink, what will become of the passengers? But withal, there is a kinde of inbred sympa¦thy

in every good heart, which gives us a share in all others miseries, and affects us more deeply for them, then for our own. Old indulgent Eli loved his sons too well, and was therefore no doubt very sensible of their death; yet that part of the news pas∣sed over with some, not mor∣tal, passion: But when he heard of the Ark of God taken,* 1.2 now his neck and his heart were broken together: and his religious daughter in law, though she were de∣livered upon this report, of a son, yet she died in travel of that heavie news, and could live onely to say,* 1.3 I••ha∣bod, The glory is departed from Israel, for the Ark of God is taken: disregarding her new son,

when she heard of the loss of her people, and of her God. How many Pagans have we read of, that have died reso∣lutely for their Country, chearfully sacrificing them∣selves to the Publike? How many that would die with their Country, hating to think of over-living the common ruine? How many that have professed a scorn to be be∣holden for their lives to their peoples murtherer? We shall as soon extinguish both grace and nature, as quit this com∣passionate sense of the com∣mon calamities.

§ 3. Comfort from the sure pro∣tection of the Al∣mighty.

Thou grievest for the pub∣like distempers: Mourn not as one without faith: Be sure, He that keepeth Israel, will nei∣ther slumber nor sleep. Where∣fore

was the holy Tabernacle over-spred with a strong tent of skins,* 1.4 but to figure out un∣to us Gods Church sheltred under a sure protection? He that was so curious of the custody of his material Tem∣ple, by night as well as by day, that a sleeping Levite might not escape beating, and burning of garments; how careful do we think he will e∣ver be of his spiritual & living house? How unmeet Judges are we of his holy proceed∣ings? We are ready to mea∣sure his love still by an out∣ward prosperity, then which nothing can be more uncer∣tain: The Almighty goes by other rules, such as are most consonant to his infinite ju∣stice and mercy. I am abash∣ed

to hear a Pagan, though no vulgar one,* 1.5 say, Whatso∣ever is brought to pass, a wise man thinks ought to be so done; neither goes about to rebuke nature, but findes it best to suffer what he cannot alter. And shall we Christi∣ans repine at those seemingly harsh events, which we see fall out in Gods Church, whiles we are ignorant of his designes? and be ready to bless a thriving prophane∣ness? Look abroad upon the ancient lot of Gods inhe∣ritance, and their corrivals in glory; thou shalt see the Fa∣mily of Esau flourishing and renowned, yeelding besides Dukes, eight Kings of his line, whiles poor Israel was toyl∣ing and sweating in the

Egyptian furnaces; yet we know the word to stand in∣violable, The elder shall serve the younger; and, Jacob have I loved, Esau I have hated: What if that great and wise God (who works oft-times by contraries, and brings light out of darkness) have purpo∣sed to fetch honour and hap∣piness to his Church out of this sad affliction? Metals are never so bright as when they are scoured: Perfumes and spices never so redolent, as when they have felt the fire, and the p••stle. Wilt thou not give the Physitian leave to make use of his Mithridate, because there are vipers in the composition? how unwor∣thy art thou of health, if thou wilt no trust the fidelity

and skill of the Artist in mixing so wholsome a Cor∣dial?

§ 4. Conside∣ration of the justice of Gods proceed∣ings.

Thou art troubled with the publike miseries: Take heed that thy grief be clear of all impiety. Wouldst thou not have God to be just, that is, himself? Wouldst thou not allow it an act of his ju∣stice to punish sins? Canst thou deny that our sins have reacht up to heaven, and cal∣led for judgement?* 1.6 Why is the living man sorrowful? man suffereth for his sins. I read of a devout man that was in∣stant with God in his prayers for a Nation not far off, and was answered, Suffer the proud to be humbled: Whe∣ther we will suffer it or no, the just God will humble the

proud, and punish the sinful. The wonderful patience, and infinite justice of the Al∣mighty, hath set a stint to the wickedness of every people: The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full,* 1.7 saith God to Abra∣ham; when the measure is once made up▪ it is time for God to strike; we shall then complain in vain, and too late. Wouldst thou know then what is to be done for the preventing of a destru∣ctive vengeance? there is no way under heaven, but this, To break off our sins by a seasonable and serious repen∣tance: by the united forces of our holy resolutions, and endeavours, to make an head against the over-bearing wickedness of the time; and

not to suffer it to fill up to∣wards the brim of that fa∣tal Ephah; till which time the long-suffering God onely threatens and corrects a peo∣ple; but then he plagues them; and stands upon the necessity of his inviolable justice: Shall I not visit for these things,* 1.8 saith the Lord? and shall not my soul be avenged on such a Nation as this?

§ 5. The reme∣dy; our particular repentance

Thou mournest for the common sufferings: thou dost well; our tears can never be better bestowed. But the while, is not thine hand in them? have not thy sins help∣ed to make up this irritating heap? hast no▪ thou cast in thy symbole into the com∣mon shot? May not the times justly challenge thee in part,

as accessary to their misery? Begin at home, my son, if thou wish well to the Pub∣like; and make thine own peace with thy God for thy particular offences. Renew thy Covenant with God of a more holy and strict obedi∣ence; and then pour out thy prayers and tears for an uni∣versal mercy: so shalt thou not onely pull away one brand from this consuming fire, but help effectually to quench the common confla∣gration.

§ 6. The un∣speakable miseries of a Civil War.

Thy heart bleeds to see the woful vastation of Civil discord, and the deadly fury of home-bread enemies: Cer∣tainly there is nothing under heaven more gastly and dreadful then the face of an

intestine War; nothing that doth so neerly resemble hell: Wo is me; here is altogether killing, and dying, and tor∣turing, and burning, and shrieks, and cries, and ejula∣tions, and fearful sounds, and furious violences, and what∣soever may either cause or in∣crease horrour: the present calamity oppresses one, ano∣ther fear: one is quivering in death, another trembles to expect it: one beggs for life, another will sell it dearer: here one would rescue one life, and loseth two; there a∣nother would hide himself where he findes a merciless death: here lies one bleeding, and groaning▪ and gasping, parting with his soul in extre∣mity of anguish; there ano∣ther

of stronger spirits, kills, and dies at once: here one wrings her hands, and tears her hair, and seeks for some instrument of a self-inflicted death, rather then yeeld her chaste body to the lust of a bloody ravisher; there ano∣ther clings inseparably to a dear husband, and will ra∣ther take part of the murthe¦rers sword, then let go her last embraces: here one tor∣tured for the discovery of hid treasure, there another dying upon the rack out of jealou∣sie. Oh that one man, one Christian, should be so bloo∣dily cruel to another! Oh that he who bears the image of the merciful God, should thus turn fiend to his own flesh and blood! These are

terrible things, my son; and worthy of our bitterest la∣mentations, and just fears. I love the speculation of Se∣neca's resolutely-wise man,* 1.9 that could look upon the glit∣tering sword of an executio∣ner with erected and undazel∣ed eyes, and that makes it no matter of difference whether his soul pass out at his mouth, or at his throat; but I should more admire the practice; whiles we carry this clay about us, nature cannot but in the holiest men shrink in at the sight and sense of these tyrannous and tragical acts of death: Yet even these are the due revenges of the Almighties punitive justice, so provoked by our sins as that it may not take up with

an easier judgement: Dost thou not see it ordinary with our Physitians, when they finde the body highly distem∣pered, and the blood foul, and inflamed, to order the open∣ing of a vein, and the draw∣ing out of so many ounces, as may leave the rest meet for correction? Why art thou over-troubled to see the great Physitian of the world take this course with sinful mankinde? Certainly, had not this great Body, by mis diet∣ing and wilful disorder, con∣tracted these spiritual diseases under which we languish; had it not impured the blood that runs in these common veins, with riot, and surfets, we had never been so miserable, as to see these torrents of

Christian blood running down our chanels. Now yet as it is, could we bewail and abandon our former wicked∣ness, we might live in hope, that at the last this deadly issue might stop, and dry up; and that there might be yet left a possibility of a blessed recovery.

§ 7. The woful miseries of Pesti∣lence, al∣laid by considera∣tion of the hand that smites us.

Thou art confounded with grief, to see the pestilence raging in our streets; in so fre∣quent a mortality as breeds a question concerning the number of the living, and the dead: That which is wont to abate other miseries, heightens this, The company of participants. It was cer∣tainly a very hard, and sad option that God gave to King David, after his sin of num∣bring

bring the people; Chuse thee whether seven yeers famine shall come unto thee in thy Land,* 1.10 or three moneths flight before thine enemies, or three days pesti∣lence: We may believe the good King, when we hear him say, I am in a great strait: Doubtless so he was: but his wise resolutions have soon brought him out: Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, (for his mercies are great;) and let me not fall in∣to the hand of man. He that was to send these evils, knew their value, and the difference of their malignity: yet he opposes three days pesti∣lence, to seven yeers famine, and three months vanquish¦ment: so much oddes he knew there was betwixt the

dull activity of man, and the quick dispatch of an Angel! It was a favour that the An∣gel of death, who in one night destroyed an hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians,* 1.11 should in three daies cut off but seventy thousand Israelites; It was a great mercy that it was no worse: We read of one (City shall I call it, or Region, of Cayro) wherein eighteen hundred thousand were swept away in one years pestilence; enow, one would think to have peopled the whole earth: and in our own Chronicles of so generall a mortality, that the living were hardly sufficient to bu∣ry the dead. These are dread∣full demonstrations of Gods heavy displeasure; but yet

there is this alleviation of our misery, that we suffer more immediatly from an holy, just, mercifull God; The Kingly Prophet had never made that distinction in his wofull choyce, if he had not known a notable difference betwixt the sword of an An∣gell, and an enemy, betwixt Gods more direct and imme∣diate infliction, and that which is derived to us through the malice of men; It was but a poor consolati∣on that is given by a victori∣ous enemy, to dying Lausus, in the Poet; Comfort thy selfe in thy death with this, that thou fallest by the hand of great Aeneas: but surely, we have just reason to ••aise comfort to our souls, when the pains

of a pestilentiall death com∣passe us about, from the thought and intuition of that holy and gracious hand, un∣der which we suffer; so as we can say with good Eli, It is the Lord. It is not amisse that we call those marks of deadly infection, Gods Tokens, such sure they are: and ought therefore to call up our eyes and hearts to that Almighty power that sends them, with the faithfull resolution of ho∣ly Iob, Though thou kill me, yet will I trust in thee: It is none of the least miseries of conta∣gious sicknesse, that it bars us from the comfortable so∣ciety and attendance of friends, or, if otherwise, re∣paies their love and kinde vi∣sitation with death: Be not

dismaid, my son, with this sad solitude; thou hast company with thee whom no infection can indanger, or exclude, there is an invisible friend that will be sure to stick by thee so much more closely, by how much thou art more avoided by neighbours, and will make all thy bed in thy sickness, and supply thee with those cordialls which thou shouldst in vain expect from earthly visitants: Indeed, justly doe we style this, The sicknesse, eminently grievous both for the deadlinesse, and generality of the dispersion; yet there is a remedy that can both cure and con••ine it; Let but every man look well to the plague of his own heart, and the Land is healed. Can

we with David, but see the Angell that smites us, and erect an Altar; and offer to God the sacrifices of our praiers, penitence, obedience; we shall hear him say,* 1.12 It is enough: The time was, (and that time may not be forgot¦ten) when in the dayes of our late Soveraigne, our Mother City was almost desolated with this mortall infection, When thousands fell at our side,* 1.13 and ten thousands at our right hand▪ upon the publique hu∣miliation of our soules, the mercy of the Almighty was pleased to command that ra∣ging disease in the height of its fury (like somehead-strong horse in the midst of his ca∣reer) to stop on the sudden, and to leave us at once (ere

wee could think of it) both safe and healthfull: This was the Lords doing,* 1.14 and it was marvellous in our eyes: Behold, the Lords hand is not shortned that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear; The same mercy is everla∣sting, the same remedy cer∣tain; Be wee but penitent, and wee cannot be misera∣ble.

Notes

• * 1.1

  1 Sam. 3. 18.
• * 1.2

  1 Sam. 4. 17, 18.
• * 1.3

  1 Sam 4. 21, 22.
• * 1.4

  Exod. 26 7.
• * 1.5

  Senec. E∣pist. 107
• * 1.6

  Lam. 3. 39.
• * 1.7

  Gen. 15. 16.
• * 1.8

  Jer. 5▪ 9.
• * 1.9

  Sen. Ep▪ 76.
• * 1.10

  2 Sam. 24▪ 13.
• * 1.11

  2 Kings 19. 35.
• * 1.12

  2 Sam. 24▪ 16.
• * 1.13

  Psal. 91. 7.
• * 1.14

  Isai. 59. 1