I. Scripture-light the most sure light ... delivered in three sermons on 2 Pet.…

Yea, and God doth therefore sometimes send the threatening, that it may lead you to the promise. You know how God appeared to Elijah, first in a wind that did shake the Mountains and Rocks, but God was not there, then in an Earthquake, but God was not there, then in a fire, but God was not there, then in a still voice, and there was God. So when God appears to a soul, sometimes he doth first send a threatening, and shakes the Rocks, and Mountains, and hard hearts, and his converting Grace may not be there, but there is a still voice behind, the voice of the promise, God is there, and all this shaking of the threatening, is but to make way unto the still voice of the promise that is behind.

Yea, and God doth therefore somtimes send the threatening, that it may lead you to the promise. You know how God appeared to Elijah, first in a wind that did shake the Mountains and Rocks, but God was not there, then in an Earthquake, but God was not there, then in a fire, but God was not there, then in a stil voice, and there was God. So when God appears to a soul, somtimes he doth first send a threatning, and shakes the Rocks, and Mountains, and hard hearts, and his converting Grace may not be there, but there is a stil voice behind, the voice of the promise, God is there, and al this shaking of the threatning, is but to make way unto the stil voice of the promise that is behind.

Object. O! but if I should read the scriptures much in this condition, I should meet with many other things which concern not me, there are many histories in the scripture which suites not with my condition, and so I should get no good or comfort.

Answ. Say not so, Christ cures, per modum divertentiae, by way of divertency, as you do those that are grieved. If a friend have lost a husband, or wife, or child, you do not speak of the lost person, and say O! what a sweet friend, or husband, or wife, or child you have lost; but you speak of something else, and then afterwards you are able to speak of the person lost, but first you divert his mind from the matter of his grief, and so you do cure his grief. Thus doth Christ also when he cures a poor, wounded, grieved