A cabinet of choice jewels, or, A box of precious ointment being a plain…A cabinet of choice jevvels, or, A box of precious ointment being a plain…

and his unrighteousness did usher into the world the most glorious Righteousness of Jesus Christ. Hezekiah falls, and by his fall,¹ God gives him a clearer and fuller sight of his own heart than ever he had before in all his days. Sin is no gainer, but a loser by every fall of the Saints. God does, and will, by the over-ruling hand of his ⟨p. 110⟩grace, make the very miscarriages of his people to be glorious inlets to more eminent degrees of Grace and holiness. God hath a great Revenue of glory from the very infirmities of the Saints; and the Saints have a great Revenue of comfort from their very miscarriages, by the wise, powerful, over-ruling, and sanctifying hand of God. God is that powerful, that skilful Physician, that can make an Antidote, and Sovereign remedy of sin, that is the most deadly poison in all the World. God does and will make the very sins of his people to further the Salvation of his people, according to that golden promise Rom. 8.28. God never suffers his people to fall into any sin, but out of a design to break the neck and back of that sin they fall into: God suffered David to fall into those two great sins of Murder and Adultery, but by these very falls he broke the very back of those sins, for we never read that ever he fell into those sins the second time. And so God suffered Peter to deny him once, but by that sore fall God broke the neck of that very sin, for we never read that ever he denied Christ any more at the voice of a Damsel; yea, 'tis very observable, that Peters courage and boldness for the truth, received a very high advance by those deep wounds that he had formerly given them, when he denied the Lord that bought him. After his sore falls, for courage and boldness he carries the Bell from all the Apostles, as you may see in Acts 4.12. It is the nature of true Grace to gather strength by every wound. Grace gathers strength by contraries, as Fire doth when it is compassed about with coldness by an Antiper stasis. By all a Ch istians falls his graces grow brighter and stronger. At the long run, a Christian by all his falls loses nothing but his dross, his chaff, his scum, his filth. Now he that finds his sins thus over-ruled for the good of his soul, he is certainly a gracious Soul. O Sirs! remember this for ever, viz.