A treatise of faith divided into two parts. The first showing the nature, the…A treatise of faith diuided into two parts. The first shewing the nature, the…

Sixthly, True and unfeigned confidence will not keep silence in the cares of the Lord, nor cease to importune his aide, to entreat his favour. A•ise, cry out in the night: ¹in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water, before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands towards him. Be merciful unto me, O God be merciful unto me, ²for my soul trusteth in thee; yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be over-past. I will cry unto God most high: unto God that performeth all things for me. Trust in him at all times, ³ye people pour out your hearts before him: Lord in trouble have they visited thee; they poured out a prayer, when thy chastening was upon them. The counsel, which Elephaz and Zophar gave to Job, faith doth apply and put in practice; which was to seek unto God, and commit the cause unto him; ⟨p. 338⟩to prepare the heart and stretch out the hands towards him. Having no wisdom of our selves to make use of chastisements, nor power to deliver our souls, faith urgeth to seek unto God, that he would lead us by his grace in the way that we should go,⁴ teach us to profit, and in due time vouchsafe freedom and deliverance. The true believer desires the benefit and fruit of restraint and correction, no less then the comfort of freedom and liberty. He covets that the spiritual sickness, may be removed, when the bitter potion is taken away. A wise patient will neither refuse to swallow bitter pills, when it may be for health; nor disorder himself to make work for the Physician: he will take Physic to recover strength, and lay it aside when the troublesome malady is expelled. A believing patient had rather be held in a continual course of Physic, then that the matter of spiritual sickness should gather, and engender diseases in the soul. Deliverance with inward soundness is the thing which he longeth after, and beggeth of God. Thus faith will not suffer impotently to fret, repine, or murmur; nor yet to grow secure, as though it were no great matter how things went, forward or backward: it doth both calm the heart, and kindle desires. Nor doth faith incite barely to cry unto God in distress, but in all conditions establisheth the heart upon his aide, that it looks not after other means of deliverance,