They shall be ashamed of their own Counsels

They shall be ashamed of their own Counsels.

When they are come to times of affliction they shall be ashamed of their own Counsels. Times of affliction makes men ashamed of what they would not be ashamed of before (Jeremiah 2:26; Zephaniah 3:11). I remember a notable expression that Sir Walter Raleigh has in his Story: When death comes (says he) which hates men and destroys men, when that comes, that's believed; But God that loves men, and makes men, he is not regarded. Oh Eloquent! Oh! Mighty Death! whom none could advise, you are able to persuade. That's thus, men that would never be persuaded by any thing else to believe that they were not right, yet when death appears that can persuade them: now afflictions are an evil, but how eloquent are afflictions? What power have afflictions to persuade men that they were wrong, that would not be persuaded by all the arguments in the world before? Then they shall be ashamed of their own counsels. Oh! I beseech you let us take heed of this, let not us go on headily in our own counsels till God bring us into misery, and then we should be forced to cry out of our own counsels and be ashamed of them.