It was during the outbreak that Brooks fearlessly preached to his people, visiting them and caring for the sick and dying. And it was then that he penned a classic short work called “A Heavenly Cordial.” The book’s full title is actually, A Heavenly Cordial, for those servants of the Lord that have had the plague and are recovered, or that now have it; also for those that have escaped it, though their relations and friends have been either visited, or swept away by it.

Throughout the summer of 1665 there were literally bodies piled up on the city streets of London. Every evening the town crier shouted “Bring out your dead” and men came around with carts to haul the latest victims of the Bubonic Plague off to one of two mass graves outside the city. When someone fell ill they were sealed up in their homes with their families, and a red cross was painted on their front door with the words “Lord, have mercy on us” underneath.

Tens of thousands in London were dead by July of that summer, and over a hundred thousand by August. One can only imagine the sheer panic that engulfed the citizens. If a family had enough money, they quickly left their homes and moved away. The king of England, Charles II and his family fled to Oxford, but the vast-majority could not afford that luxury, and since they did not know that the illness was communicated by poor hygiene, the plague spread like wildfire in a city which at that time, simply left garbage and other filth on the streets to rot.

Many churches shuttered their doors and their ministers escaped the city. But there was a pastor who stayed in the thick of it all by the name of Thomas Brooks. Brooks was a puritan from a well-to-do family and he pastored a church in north London. His church happened to be located in an area that was well known for its poverty and immorality. Because of this, it was to a particularly vulnerable segment of London that he ministered, and there was a lack of even basic supplies in the area. Even though Brooks’ family had money and he could have fled, he knew that doing so would leave his people without a pastor, and since he loved them, he decided to stay as a faithful shepherd to his flock.

It was during the outbreak that Brooks fearlessly preached to his people, visiting them and caring for the sick and dying. And it was then that he penned a classic short work called “A Heavenly Cordial.” The book’s full title is actually, A Heavenly Cordial, for those servants of the Lord that have had the plague and are recovered, or that now have it; also for those that have escaped it, though their relations and friends have been either visited, or swept away by it. It is in this book that Brooks outlined what he calls “Divine Maxims” or “conclusions” that he gleaned from the Scriptures during the outbreak. He had hoped that these would be a comfort to God’s people in the midst of that terrible time.

The following outlines five of those maxims in modern terms which may be of help to us today:

1. Outward circumstances do not necessarily indicate God’s pleasure or displeasure with us.

Jesus gave His disciples a crucial lesson regarding this point.

As [Jesus] went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (John 9:1-3)

Oh, this is so important! Bad circumstances don’t always mean God is upset with a person. Sometimes the “worst” of men escape the plague, and the “best” of men are taken away by it. So, we must not assume that God is angry with us if we catch a disease, just as we must not assume God’s pleasure if we escape it! God’s ultimate approval or disapproval is based on one thing only: A person’s relationship with Jesus Christ.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]