2.1 When a soul can live contentedly and joyfully and wants God, and lives fat and rejoicingly 60. or 70. years without Christ, and never missed Christ; how few know this sickness? Especially 1. The pain of hunger and thirst which is destructive to life; the fruitful earths disease and ⟨p. 321⟩pain in a manner is want of rain and long drought; as Psal. 63. 2. Psal. 14. 4, 6. Lam. 2. 20. this plague brings forth overwhelming of spirit, stretching out of the hands when one is a dying and cannot speak, the eating of young children; the hind for drought and want of grass calves in the field, and forsakes her young ones, Jer. 14. 5. Few are put to shifts of all sorts for want of Christ. 2. Few know the sorrow and sadness of an absent husband: every wind is blessed in the wives thought that blows where he is; every ship that is thought to carry him home is a ship of desire; the earth is loved that he walks on; the house blessed that he lodges in; and when the husband is dead, what mourning does the wife of youth make over his grave? Ah, few know heart-breaking and sorrow because Christ is gone;2 this were a holy moral happiness in the damned in hell, if their sorrow for being banished and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, 2 Thess. 1. 9. were for the want of the saving presence of Christ, which makes holy as well as happy. 3. Impatience of desire is paining, how long shall the Lord hide his face? when shall I see him? come, even so come; there is much paining impatience in that prayer for the marriage day in such as long for his appearance, Cant. 8. 14. Make haste my beloved, and be thou like to a Roe, or a young Hart upon the mountains of spices. So as the song began with desire of Christs first coming to kiss her with the kisses of his mouth, in Christs more bright appearance in the Gospel, preached by himself in the flesh, and his Servants the Apostles, Pastors, and Teachers; so it endeth with a strong desire of his second coming, that he would come with speed, as the young harts, which flee for succour to the mountains where spices grow, Cant. 2. 17.
2.1 When a soul can live contentedly and joyfully and wants God, and lives fat and rejoycingly 60. or 70. years without Christ, and never missed Christ; how few know this sickness? Especially 1. The pain of hunger and thirst which is destructive to life; the fruitful earths disease and ⟨p. 321⟩pain in a manner is want of rain and long drouth; as Psal. 63. 2. Psal. 14. 4, 6. Lam. 2. 20. this plague brings forth overwhelming of spirit, stretching out of the hands when one is a dying and cannot speak, the eating of young children; the hinde for drouth and want of grass calves in the field, and forsakes her young ones, Jer. 14. 5. Few are put to shifts of all sorts for want of Christ. 2. Few know the sorrow and sadness of an absent husband: every wind is blessed in the wifes thought that blows where he is; every ship that is thought to carry him home is a ship of desire; the earth is loved that he walks on; the house blessed that he lodges in; and when the husband is dead, what mourning does the wife of youth make over his grave? Ah, few know heart-breaking and sorrow because Christ is gone;2 this were a holy moral happiness in the damned in hell, if their sorrow for being banished and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, 2 Thess. 1. 9. were for the want of the saving presence of Christ, which makes holy as well as happy. 3. Impatiency of desire is paining, how long shall the Lord hide his face? when shall I see him? come, even so come; there is much paining impatience in that prayer for the marriage day in such as long for his appearance, Cant. 8. 14. Make haste my beloved, and be thou like to a Roe, or a young Hart upon the mountains of spices. So as the song began with desire of Christs first coming to kiss her with the kisses of his mouth, in Christs more bright appearance in the Gospel, preached by himself in the flesh, and his Servants the Apostles, Pastors, and Teachers; so it endeth with a strong desire of his second coming, that he would come with speed, as the young harts, which flee for succour to the mountains where spices grow,
- 1The pain of love-sickness.
- 2The righting of the complaining of the damned.
