Right thoughts in sad hours representing the comforts and the duties of good men…

§. The Lord resolves to make you know more, Thirdly, Of his WORD. There is a Glorious Letter which the God of Heaven, hath sent from the Third Heaven unto the Children of Men. Foolish man often throws it by like Wast-paper, until Affliction puts him upon the due, the diligent study of it. David that had a lesser Bible than we, could say in Psal. 119. 23. Princes did sit and speak against me; but what was the issue of the Affliction which the Calumny and Obloquy of his Persecutors gave unto him? It follows, Thy Servant did Meditate on thy Statutes. Bad weather in the World makes Afflicted men to keep their Eyes much upon the Light shining in a Dark place unto them. To Meditate on a fit portion of the Bible, dwelling on every Verse, till at least one Observation and one ⟨p. 30⟩Supplication be drawn from it; hath not seldomer been the Ease, than it hath been the Work of Afflicted Men: And God will hereby help you, as to a better Relish of, so to a fuller Comment on these Miraculous Lines than once you had: The bitter Tang of Afflictions will bring you to a better Taste of that Book, whereof the Psalmist could say, How sweet are thy words unto my Taste! A Leaf of the Bible appears (as to Luther) not to be parted withal for all this whole World; chiefly unto those whom Affliction hath convinced of the Vanity and Vexation here. But this is not all; the best Expositors of not a few Assertions in the Bible are some sore Afflictions in the World. The Stars and the Scriptures are seen best in a Frosty Night. The Mysteries of a Well-ordered Covenant, the Meanders of a Deceitful Heart, the worth and use of Great and Precious promises, you will best understand in your Afflicted Hours. Adversity makes a Verse of Scripture to be not like a Verse of Ovid, as it often is to them that are not in Trouble as other men.

§. The Lord resolves to make you know more, Thirdly, Of his WORD. There is a Glorious Letter which the God of Heaven, hath sent from the Third Heaven unto the Children of Men. Foolish man often throws it by like Wast-paper, until Affliction puts him upon the due, the diligent study of it. David that had a lesser Bible than we, could say in Psal. 119. 23. Princes did sit and speak against me; but what was the issue of the Affliction which the Calumny and Obloquy of his Persecutors gave unto him? It follows, Thy Servant did Meditate on thy Statutes. Bad weather in the World makes Afflicted men to keep their Eyes much upon the Light shining in a Dark place unto them. To Meditate on a fit portion of the Bible, dwelling on every Verse, till at least one Observation and one