XII. Use 4.—The reason of the saints' afflictions here
and profession may be; and, therefore, that Christ whom they trusted in, and whose free grace they boasted of, will profess to these professors, "I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matt. 7:23.) "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth who are his; but let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity;" (2 Tim. 2:19;) or else he shall never find himself among the sealed. "Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience to righteousness?" (Rom. 6:16.) Not every one that seeketh, or runneth, or fighteth, much less that presumptuously believeth and trusteth, but he that overcometh, shall have the hidden manna, the white stone, the new name, the white raiment, and power over the nations; he shall eat of the tree of life in the midst of God's paradise, and shall not be hurt of the second death; he shall be confessed by Christ before his Father and the angels; yea, he will make him a pillar in the temple of God, and he shall go out no more; he will write on him the name of his God, and the name of the city of his God, New
Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from his God: and his new name. Yea, he will grant him to sit with him in his throne, as himself overcame, and is set down with his Father in his throne. "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26, and 3:5, 12, 21, 22.)
CHAP. XII
USE IV.—The Reason of the Saint's Afflictions here SECT. I. A further necessary use we must make of the present doctrine is this: to inform us why the people of God do suffer so much in this life. What wonder, when you see their rest doth yet remain! They are not yet come to their resting place. We would all fain have continual prosperity, because it is easy and pleasing to the
flesh; but we consider not the unreasonableness of such desires. We are like children, who, if they see any thing which their appetite desireth, do cry for it: and if you tell them that it is unwholesome, or hurtful for them, they are never the more quieted; or if you go about to heal any sore that they have, they will not endure you to hurt them, though you tell them that they cannot otherwise be healed; their sense is too strong for their reason, and therefore reason doth little persuade them. Even so it is with us when God is afflicting us.
He giveth us reasons why we must bear them, so that our reason is often convinced and satisfied; and yet we cry and complain still, and we rest satisfied never the more. It is not reason, but ease that we must have. What cares the flesh for Scripture and argument, if it still suffer and smart? These be but wind and words, which do not move or abate its pain. Spiritual remedies may cure the spirit's maladies; but that will not content the flesh. But, methinks, Christians should have another palate than that of the flesh, to try and relish providences by: God hath purposely given them the Spirit to subdue and overrule the flesh. And therefore I shall here give them some reasons of God's dealing in their present sufferings, whereby the equity and mercy therein may appear: and they shall be only such as are drawn from the reference that these afflictions have to our rest, which being a Christian's happiness, and ultimate end, will direct him in judging of all estates and means. Though if we intended the full handling of this subject, abundance more considerations, very useful, might be added. Especially, we should direct Christians to remember the sin that procured them, the blood and mercy which sanctifieth them, the fatherly love that ordereth them, and the far greater sufferings that are naturally our due. But I shall now chiefly tell you, how they further the saints in the way to their rest.
Sect. II. 1. Consider then, that labour and trouble are the common way to rest, both in the course of nature and of grace; can there possibly be rest, without motion and weariness? Do you not travel and toil first, and then rest you afterwards? The day for labour goes first, and then the night for rest doth follow. Why should we desire the course of grace to be perverted, any more than we would do the
course of nature; seeing this is as perfect and regular as the other?
God did once dry up the sea to make a passage for his people; and once made the sun in the firmament to stand still; but must he do so always, or as oft as we would have him? It is his established decree,
"that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of heaven," (Acts 14:22,) and "that if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him." (2 Tim. 2:22.) And what are we, that God's statutes should be reversed for our pleasure? As Bildad said to Job,
"Shall the earth be forsaken for thee, or the rock be removed out of his place?" (Job 18:4.) So, must God pervert his established order for thee?
Sect. III. 2. Consider also, that afflictions are exceedingly useful to us, to keep us from mistaking our resting place, and so taking up short of it. A Christian's motion heavenwards is voluntary, and not constrained. Those means, therefore, are most profitable to him, which help his understanding and will in this prosecution. The most dangerous mistake that our souls are capable of, is, to take the creature for God, and earth for heaven. And yet, alas, how common is this! and, in how great a degree are the best guilty of it! Though we are ashamed to speak so much with our tongues, yet how oft do our hearts say, 'It is best being here;' and how contented are we with an earthly portion! So that I fear, God would displease most of us more to afflict us here, and promise us rest hereafter, than to give us our heart's desire on earth, though he had never made us a promise of heaven: as if the creature without God, were better than God without the creature. Alas, how apt are we, like foolish children, when we are busy at our sports and worldly employments, to forget both our
Father and our home! Therefore, is it a hard thing for a rich man to enter into heaven, because it is hard for him to value it more than earth, and not to think he is well already. Come to a man that hath the world at will, and tell him, 'This is not your happiness; you have higher things to look after;' and how little will he regard you! But when affliction comes, it speaks convincingly, and will be heard when preachers cannot. What warm, affectionate, eager thoughts, have we of the world till afflictions cool them, and moderate them!
How few and cold would our thoughts of heaven be, how little should we care for coming thither, if God would give us rest on earth! Our thoughts are with God, as Noah's dove was in the ark, kept up to him a little against their inclinations and desire; but when once they can break away, they fly up and down, over all the world, to see if it were possible to find any rest out of God; but when we find that we seek in vain, and that the world is all covered with the waters of instable vanity, and bitter vexation, and that there is no rest for the sole of our foot, or for the foot of our soul; no wonder, then, if we return to the ark again. Many a poor Christian, whom God will not suffer to be drowned in worldliness, nor to take up short of his rest, is sometimes bending his thoughts to thrive in wealth; sometimes he is enticed to some flesh-pleasing sin; sometimes he begins to be lifted up with applause; and sometimes, being in health and prosperity, he hath lost his relish of Christ, and the joys above; till God break in upon his riches, and scatter them abroad, or upon his children, or upon his conscience, or upon the health of his body, and break down his mount, which he thought so strong; and then, when he lieth in Manasseh's fetters, or is fastened to his bed with pining sickness, oh, what an opportunity hath the Spirit to plead with his soul! When the world is worth nothing, then heaven is worth something. I leave every Christian to judge by his own experience, whether we do not overlove the world more in prosperity than adversity; and whether we be not lother to come away to God, when we have what the flesh desireth here? How oft are we sitting down on earth, as if we were loth to go any further, till affliction calls to us, as the angel to Elijah,
"Up, thou hast a great way to go." How oft have I been ready to think myself at home, till sickness hath roundly told me, I was mistaken! and how apt yet to fall into the same disease, which preyaileth till it be removed by the same cure! If our dear Lord did not put these thorns into our bed, we should sleep out our lives, and lose our glory: therefore doth the Lord sometimes deny us an inheritance on earth with our brethren, because he hath separated us to stand before him, and minister to him, and the Lord himself will be our inheritance, as he hath promised; as it is said of the tribe of Levi. (Deut. 10:8, 9.)
Sect. IV. 3. Consider also, that afflictions be God's most effectual means to keep us from straggling out of the way of our rest. If he had not set a hedge of thorns on the right hand, and another on the left, we should hardly keep the way to heaven. If there be but one gap open, without these thorns, how ready are we to find it, and turn out at it! but when we cannot go astray, but these thorns will prick us, perhaps we will be content to hold the way. When we grow fleshly, and wanton, and worldly, and proud, what a notable means is sickness, or other affliction, to reduce us! It is every Christian, as well as Luther, that may call affliction one of his best schoolmasters.
Many a one, as well as David, may say by experience, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I (sincerely) kept thy precepts."
(Psal. 119:76.) As physicians say of bodily destruction, so may we of spiritual, "that peace killeth more than war." Read Nehem. 9. Their case is ours. When we have prosperity, we grow secure and sinful; then God afflicteth us, and we cry for mercy, and purpose reformation; but after we have a little rest, we do evil again, till God take up the rod again, that he may bring us back to his law. (Nehem.
9:22, 29.) And thus, prosperity, and sinning, and suffering, and repenting, and deliverance, and sinning again, do run all in a round; even as peace breeds contention, and that breeds war, and that, by its bitterness, breeds peace again. Many a thousand poor recovered sinners may cry, 'Oh, healthful sickness! oh, comfortable sorrows! oh, gainful losses! oh, enriching poverty! oh, blessed day that ever I was afflicted!' It is not only the pleasant streams, and the green pastures, but his rod and staff also, that are our comfort; (Psal. 23;) though I know it is the word and Spirit that do the main work; yet certainly the time of suffering is so opportune a season, that the same word will take then, which before was scarce observed. It doth so unbolt the door of the heart, that a minister, or a godly man, may then be heard, and the word may have easier entrance to the affections. Even the threats of judgment will bring an Ahab, or a Nineveh, into their sackcloth and ashes, and make them cry mightily unto God. Something, then, will the feeling of those judgments do.
Sect. V. 4. Consider also, that afflictions are God's most effectual means to make us mend our pace in the way to our rest. They are his rod, and his spur; what sluggard will not awake and stir when he feeleth them? It were well, if mere love would prevail with us, and that we were rather drawn to heaven than driven; but seeing our hearts are so bad that mercy will not do it, it is better to put on with the sharpest scourge, than loiter out our time till the doors are shut.
(Matt. 25:3, 5, 10.) Oh, what a difference is there betwixt our prayers in health and in sickness; betwixt our prosperity and our adversity repentings! He that before had not a tear to shed, or a groan to utter, now can sob, and sigh, and weep his fill; he that was wont to lie like a block in prayer, and scarce minded what he said to God, now, when affliction presseth him down, how earnestly can he beg! how doth he mingle his prayers and his tears! how doth he purpose and promise reformation! and cry out, what a person he will be, if God will but hear him, and deliver him. Alas! if we did not sometimes feel the spur, what a slow pace would most of us hold towards heaven! and if we did not sometimes smart by affliction, how dead and blockish would be the best men's hearts! Even innocent Adam is liker to forget God in a paradise, than Joseph in a prison, or Job upon a dunghill: even as Solomon is like enough to fall in the midst of pleasure and prosperity, when the most wicked Manasses in his irons may be recovered. As Dr. Stoughton saith, "We are like to children's tops, that will go but little longer than they are whipped." Seeing, then, that our own vile natures do thus require it, why should we be unwilling that God should do us good by so sharp a means? Sure that is the best dealing for us, which surest and soonest doth further us to heaven. I leave thee, Christian, to judge by thy own experience, whether thou dost not go more watchfully, and lively, and speedily, in thy way to rest, in thy sufferings, than thou dost in thy more pleasing and prosperous state. If you go to the vilest sinner on his dying bed, and ask him, 'Will you now drink, and whore, and scorn at the godly, as you were wont to do?' you shall find him quite in another mind. Much more then will affliction work on a gracious soul.
Sect. VI. 5. Consider further, it is but this flesh which is troubled and grieved, for the most part, by affliction: and what reason have we to be so tender of it? In most of our sufferings the soul is free, further than we do wilfully afflict it ourselves. Suppose thou be pinched by poverty, it is thy flesh only that is pinched. If thou have sores or sicknesses, it is but the flesh that they assault; if thou die, it is but that flesh that must rot in the grave. Indeed, it useth also to reach our hearts and souls, when the body suffereth; but that is, because we pore upon our evils, and too much pity and condole the flesh; and so we open the door, and let in the pain to the heart ourselves, which else could have gone no further than the flesh; God smites the flesh, and therefore we will grieve our spirits; and so multiply our grief, as if we had not enough before. O if I could but have let my body have suffered alone in all the pining and paining sicknesses which God laid upon it, and not have foolishly added my own self-tormenting fears, and cares, and sorrows, and discontents; but have quieted and comforted my soul in the Lord, my Rock and Rest; I had escaped the far greater part of the afflictions. Why is this flesh so precious in our eyes; why are we so tender of these dusty carcasses; is flesh so excellent a thing; is it not our prison; and what, if it be broken down, is it not our enemy; yea, and the greatest that ever we had; and are we so fearful lest it be overthrown; is it not it that hath so long hampered and clogged our souls, and tied them to earth; and enticed them to forbidden lusts and pleasures: and stolen away our hearts from God; was it not it, that longed for the first forbidden fruit; and must needs be tasting, whatever it cost? And still it is of the same temper; it must be pleased, though God be displeased by it, and ourselves destroyed. It maketh all God's mercies the occasion of our transgressing, and draweth poison from the most excellent objects. If we behold our food, it enticeth to gluttony; if drink, to drunkenness; if apparel, or any thing of worth, to pride; if we look upon beauty, it enticeth to lust; if upon money or possessions, to covetousness. It causeth our very spiritual love to the godly, to degenerate into carnal; and our spiritual zeal, and joy, and other graces; it would make all carnal like itself. What are we beholden to this flesh for, that we are so loth that any thing should ail it? Indeed, we must not wrong it
ourselves, for that is forbidden us; nor may we deny it any thing that is fit for a servant, that so it may be useful to us, while we are forced to use it. But if God chastise it for rebelling against him and the Spirit, and it begin to cry and complain under this chastisement, shall we make the suffering greater than it is, and take its part against God? Indeed, the flesh is very near to us, we cannot choose but condole its sufferings, and feel somewhat of that which it feeleth.
But is it so near as to be our chiefest part; or can it not be sore, but we must be sorry; or cannot it consume and pine away, but our peace and comfort must consume with it; what, if it be undone, are we therefore undone? or if it perish and be destroyed, do we therefore perish? O fie upon this carnality and unbelief, which are so contradictory to the principles of Christianity! surely, God dealeth the worse with this flesh, because we so overvalue and idolise it. We make it the greatest part of our care and labour to provide for it, and to satisfy its desires; and we would have God to be of our mind, and to do so too. But as he hath commanded us "to make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the desires or lusts thereof;" (Rom. 13:14;) so will he follow the same rule himself in his dealings with us; and will not much stick at the displeasing of the flesh, when it may honour himself, or profit our souls. The flesh is aware of this, and perceives that the word and works of God are much against its desires and delights, and therefore is it also against the word and works of God: it saith of the word, as Ahab of Micaiah, "I hate it, for it doth not speak good concerning me, but evil." (1 Kings 22:8.) There is such an enmity betwixt this flesh and God, "that they that are in the flesh cannot please him, and the carnal mind is enmity against him; for it is not subject to his law, nor indeed can be:" so inconsistent is the pleasing of the flesh and the pleasing of God, that he hath concluded,
"that to mind the things of the flesh, or to be carnally minded, is death; and if we live after the flesh, we shall die: but if by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live." (Rom. 8:4–8, 13.)
So that there is no likelihood that ever God's dealings should be pleasing to the flesh; no more than its works are pleasing to God.
Why then, O my soul, dost thou side with this flesh, and say as it
saith, and complain as it complaineth? It should be part of thine own work to keep it down, and bring it in subjection; (1 Cor. 9:26, 27;) and if God do it for thee, shouldst thou be discontented? Hath not the pleasing of it been the cause of almost all thy spiritual sorrows?
Why, then, may not the displeasing of it further thy joys? Should not Paul and Silas sing, because their feet were in the stocks, and their flesh yet sore with the last day's scourgings? (Acts 16.) Why, their spirits were not imprisoned, not scourged! Ah, unworthy soul, is this thy thanks to God for his tenderness of thy good, and for his preferring thee so far before the body! Art thou turned into flesh thyself by thy dwelling a few years in flesh, that thy joys and thy sorrows are most of them so fleshly? (Rom. 8:12.) Art thou so much a debtor to the flesh, that thou shouldst so much live to it, and value its prosperity? Hath it been so good a friend to thee, and to thy peace; or, is it not thy enemy as well as God's? Why dost thou look so sadly on those withered limbs, and on that pining body? Do not so far mistake thyself as to think its joys and thine are all one, or that its prosperity and thine are all one, or that they must needs stand or fall together. (Heb. 12:13.) When it is rotting and consuming in the grave, then shalt thou be a companion of the perfected spirits of the just; and when those bones are scattered about the churchyard, then shalt thou be praising God in rest. And, in the mean time, hast not thou food of consolation which the flesh knoweth not of; and a joy which this stranger meddleth not with? And do not think that, when thou art turned out of this body, that thou shalt have no habitation: art thou afraid thou shalt wander destitute of a resting place? Is it better resting in flesh than in God? Dost thou not know, that when this house of earth is dissolved, "thou hast a building with God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?" (2 Cor. 5:1, 2.) It would, therefore, better become thee earnestly to groan, desiring to be clothed upon with that. (Ver. 3, 4.) Is thy flesh any better than the flesh of Noah was? and yet, though God saved him from the common deluge, he would not save him from common death. Or, is it any better than the flesh of Abraham, Job, or David, or all the saints that ever lived? yet did they all suffer and die. Dost thou think that those souls which are now with Christ do so much pity their rotten or dusty
corpse, or lament that their ancient habitation is ruined, and their once comely bodies turned into earth? Oh! what a thing is strangeness and disaequaintance! It maketh us afraid of our dearest friends, and to draw back from the place of our only happiness; so was it with thee towards thy chiefest friends on earth: while thou wast unacquainted with them, thou didst withdraw from their society; but when thou didst once know them thoroughly, thou wouldst have been loth again to be deprived of their fellowship. And even so, though thy strangeness to God and another world do make thee loth to leave this flesh; yet, when thou hast been but one day or hour there, if we may so speak of that eternity, where is neither day nor hour, thou wouldst be full loth to return into this flesh again.
Doubtless, when God, for the glory of his Son, did send back the soul of Lazarus into its body, he caused it quite to forget the glory which it had enjoyed, and to leave behind it the remembrance of that happiness, together with the happiness itself; or else it might have made his life a burden to him to think of the blessedness that he was fetched from, and have made him ready to break down the prison doors of his flesh, that he might return to that happy state again. O, then, impatient soul, murmur not at God's dealings with that body; but let him alone with his work and way. He knows what he doth; but so dost not thou: he seeth the end; but thou seest but the beginning.
If it were for want of love to thee, that he did thus chastise thy body, then would he not have dealt so by all his saints. Dost thou think he did not love David and Paul, or Christ himself? or, rather, doth he not chasten because he loveth; and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth? (Heb. 12:4–8, 10, 11; Matt. 6:23; Rom. 8:6–8; 1 Cor. 2:2,
10–14.) Believe not the flesh's reports of God, nor its commentaries upon his providences. It hath neither will nor skill to interpret them aright: not will; for it is an enemy to them. They are against it, and it is against them. Not skill; for it is darkness: it savoureth only the things of the flesh; but the things of the spirit it cannot understand, because they are spiritually discerned. Never expect then that the flesh should truly expound the meaning of the rod. It will call love, hatred; and say, God is destroying, when he is saving: and murmur, as if he did thee wrong, and used thee hardly, when he is showing
thee the greatest mercy of all. Are not the foul steps the way to rest, as well as the fair? yea, are not thy sufferings the most necessary passages of his providence? And though, for the present, they are not joyous, but grievous; yet, in the end, do they bring forth the quiet fruits of righteousness to all those that are exercised thereby. (Heb.
12:11.) Hast thou not found it so by former experience, when yet this flesh would have persuaded thee otherwise? Believe it then no more, which hath misinformed thee so oft; for, indeed, there is no believing the words of a wicked and ignorant enemy. Ill-will never speaks well; but when malice, viciousness, and ignorance, are combined, what actions can expect a true and fair interpretation? This flesh will call love, anger; and anger, hatred; and chastisements, judgments. It will tell thee, that no man's case is like thine; and if God did love thee, he would never so use thee. (Psalm 116:11.) It will tell thee, that the promises are but deceiving words, and all thy prayers and uprightness are vain. (Psalm 73:13–15.) If it find thee sitting among the ashes, it will say to thee, as Job's wife, "Dost thou yet retain thine integrity?" (Job 2:8–10.) Thus will it draw thee to offend against God, and the generation of his children. It is a party, and a suffering party, and therefore not fit to be the judge. If your child should be the judge when and how oft you should chastise him, and whether your chastisement be a token of fatherly love, you may easily imagine what would be his judgment. If we could once believe God, and judge of his dealings by what he speaks in his word, and by their usefulness to our souls, and reference to our rest, and could stop our ears against all the clamours of the flesh, then we should have a truer judgment of our afflictions.
6. Lastly, consider, God doth seldom give his people so sweet a foretaste of their future rest as in their deep afflictions. He keepeth his most precious cordials for the time of our greatest faintings and dangers. To give them to such men that are well and need them not, is but to cast them away: they are not capable of discerning their working or their worth. A few drops of divine consolation in the midst of a world of pleasure and contents, will be but lost and neglected, as some precious spirits cast into a vessel or river of
common waters. The joys of heaven are of unspeakable sweetness; but a man that overflows with earthly delights is scarce capable of tasting their sweetness. They may easilier comfort the most dejected soul, than him that feeleth not any need of comfort, as being full of other comforts already. Even the best of saints do seldom taste of the delights of God, and pure, spiritual, unmixed joys, in the time of their prosperity, as they do in their deepest troubles and distress. God is not so lavish of his choice favours as to bestow them unseasonably.
Even to his own will he giveth them at the fittest time, when he knoweth that they are needful, and will be valued, and when he is sure to be thanked for them, and his people rejoiced by them.
Especially, when our sufferings are more directly for his cause, then doth he seldom fail of sweetening the bitter cup. Therefore have the martyrs been possessors of the highest joys, and therefore were they in former times so ambitious of martyrdom. I do not think that Paul and Silas did ever sing more joyfully, than when they were sore with scourgings, and were fast in the inner prison, with their feet in the stocks. (Acts 16:24, 25.) When did Christ preach such comforts to his disciples, and leave them his peace, and assure them of his providing them mansions with himself, but when he was ready to leave them, and their hearts to be sorrowful because of his departure? When did he appear among them, and say, "Peace be unto you," but when they were shut up together for fear of the persecuting Jews? When did the room shake where they were, and the Holy Ghost come down upon them, and they lift up their voices in praising God, but when they were imprisoned, convented, and threatened for the name of Christ?
(Acts 4:24, 31.) When did Stephen see heaven opened, but when he was giving up his life for the testimony of Jesus? (Acts 7:55.) And though we be never put to the suffering of martyrdom, yet God knoweth that in our natural sufferings we need support. Many a Christian that hath waited for Christ, with Simeon in the temple, in duty and holiness all his days, yet never finds him in his arms till he is dying, though his love was fixed in their hearts before; and they that wondered they tasted not of his comforts, have then, when it was needful, received abundance. And, indeed, in time of prosperity, that comfort which we have is so mixed, according to the mixed causes of
it, that we can very hardly discern what of it is carnal and what is spiritual. But when all worldly comforts and hopes are gone, then that which is left is most likely to be spiritual. And the Spirit never worketh more sensibly and sweetly than when it worketh alone.
Seeing, then, that the time of affliction is the time of our most pure, spiritual, heavenly joy, for the most part, why should a Christian think it so sad a time? Is not that our best estate wherein we have most of God? Why else do we desire to come to heaven? If we look for a heaven of fleshly delights, we shall find ourselves mistaken.
Conclude, then, that affliction is not so bad a state for a saint in his way to rest as the flesh would make it. Are we wiser than God? Doth not he know what is good for us better than we? Or is he not as careful of our good as we are of our own? Ah! woe to us if he were not much more; and if he did not love us better than we love either him or ourselves.
Sect. VIII. But let us hear a little what it is the flesh can object.
1. 'Oh!' saith one, 'I could bear any other affliction save this: if God had touched me in any thing else, I could have undergone it patiently; but it is my dearest friend, or child, or wife, or my health itself,' &c.
I answer, It seemeth God hath hit the right vein, where thy most inflamed, distempered blood did lie: it is his constant course to pull down men's idols, and take away that which is dearer to them than himself. There it is that his jealousy is kindled; and there it is that thy soul is most endangered. If God should have taken from thee that which thou canst let go for him, and not that which thou canst not; or have afflicted thee where thou canst bear it, and not where thou canst not; thy idol would neither have been discovered nor removed.
This would neither have been a sufficient trial to thee, nor a cure; but have confirmed thee in thy soul-deceit and idolatry.
Object. 2. Oh! but, saith another, if God would but deliver me out of it yet, I could be content to bear it: but I have an incurable sickness;
or, I am likely to live and die in poverty, or disgrace, or the like distress.
I answer, 1. Is it nothing that he hath promised, it shall work for thy good; (Rom. 8:28;) and that, with the affliction, he will make a way to escape: that he will be with thee in it; and deliver thee in the fittest manner and season? 2. Is it not enough that thou art sure to be delivered at death, and that with so full an advancing deliverance?
Oh! what cursed unbelief doth this discover in our hearts! that we would be more thankful to be turned back again into the stormy, tumultuous sea of the world, than to be safely and speedily landed at our rest; and would be gladder of a few years' inferior mercies at a distance, than to enter upon the eternal inheritance with Christ. Do we call God our chief Good, and heaven our happiness; and yet is it no mercy or deliverance to be taken hence, and put into that possession?
Object. 3. Oh! but, saith another, if my affliction did not disable me for duty, I could bear it; but it maketh me useless, and utterly unprofitable.
Answ. 1. For that duty which tendeth to thy own personal benefit, it doth not disable thee, but is the greatest quickening help that thou canst expect. Thou usest to complain of coldness, and dulness, and worldliness, and security: if affliction will not help thee against all these, by warning, quickening, rousing thy spirit, I know not what will. Surely thou wilt repent thoroughly, and pray fervently, and mind God and heaven more seriously, either now or never. 2. And for duty to others, and for thy service to the church, it is not thy duty when God doth disable thee. He may call thee out of the vineyard in this respect, even before he call thee by death. If he lay thee in the grave, and put others in thy place to do the service, is this any wrong to thee, or doth it beseem thee to repine at it? Why so, if he call thee out before thy death, and let thee stand by, and set others to do the work in thy stead, shouldst thou not be as well content? Must God do all the work by thee? Hath he not many others as dear to him, and as
fit for the employment? But, alas! what deceitfulness lieth in these hearts! When we have time, and health, and opportunity, to work, then we loiter, and do our Master but very little service; but when he layeth affliction upon us, then we complain that he disableth us for his work, and yet perhaps we are still negligent in that part of the work which we can do: so, when we are in health and prosperity, we forget the public, and are careless of other men's miseries and wants, and mind almost nothing but ourselves. But when God afflicteth us, though he excite us more to duty for ourselves, yet we complain that he disableth us for our duty to others; as if, on the sudden, we were grown so charitable that we regard other men's souls far more than our own. But is not the hand of the flesh, in all this dissimulation, secretly thus pleading its own cause? What pride of heart is this, to think that other men cannot do the work as well as we; or, that God cannot see to his church, and provide for his people, without us?
Object. 4. Oh! but, saith another, it is the godly that are my afflieters: they disclaim me, and will scarcely look at me; they censure me, and backbite me, and slander me, and look upon me with a disdainful eye. If it were ungodly men, I could bear it easily: I look for no better at their hands: but when those that were my delight, and that I looked for daily comfort and refreshing from; when these shall be my grief, and as thorns in my sides; who can bear it?
Answ. 1. Whoever is the instrument, the affliction is from God, and the provoking cause from thyself; and were it not fitter then that thou look more to God and thyself? 2. Dost thou not know that the best men are still sinful in part, and that their hearts are naturally deceitful, and desperately wicked, as well as others? And this being but imperfectly cured, so far as they are fleshly, the fruits of the flesh will appear in them; which are, strife, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, seditions, heresies, envyings, &c. (Gal. 5:19–21.) So far, the best is a brier, and the most upright of them sharper than a thorny hedge: learn, therefore, a better use from the prophet: "Trust not too much in a friend, nor put confidence in a guide; keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom, &c. But look rather for the
Lord, and wait for the God of thy salvation." (Micah 7:4–7.) It is likely thou hast given that love and trust to saints, which were due only to God, or which thou hast denied him, and then no wonder if he chastise thee by them. If we would use our friends as friends, God would make them our helps and comforts; but when once we make them our gods, by excessive love, delight, and trust, then he suffers them to prove Satans to us, and to be our accusers and tormentors. It is more safe to me to have any creature a Satan than a God; to be tormented by them, than to idolize them. Or perhaps the observation of the excellency of grace hath made thee forget the vileness of nature; and therefore God will have thee take notice of both. Many are tender of giving too much to the dead saints, that yet give too much to the living without scruple. Till thou hast learned to suffer from a saint, as well as from the wicked, and to be abused by the godly as well as the ungodly, never look to live a contented or comfortable life, nor ever think thou hast truly learned the art of suffering. Do not think that I vilify the saints too much in so saying: I confess, it is a pity that saints should suffer from saints; and it is quite contrary to their holy nature, and their Master's laws, who hath left them his peace, and made love to be the character of his disciples, and to be the first and great and new commandment; and I know that there is much difference between them and the world in this point; but yet, as I said, they are saints but in part, and therefore
Paul and Barnabas may so fall out, as to part asunder, and upright Asa may imprison the prophet, call it persecution or what you please:
Joseph's brethren, that cast him into a pit, and sold him to strangers for a slave, I hope were not all ungodly; Job's wife and friends were sad comforters; David's enemy was his familiar friend, with whom he had taken sweet counsel, and they had gone up together to the house of God. And know also that thy own nature is as bad as theirs, and thou art as likely thyself to be a grief to others. Can such ulcerous, leperous sinners, as the best are, live together, and not infect and molest each other with the smell of their sores? Why, if thou be a Christian, thou art a daily trouble to thyself, and art molested more with thy own corruptions than with any man's else: and dost thou take it so heinously to be molested with the frailties of others, when
thou canst not forbear doing more against thyself? For my part, for all our graces, I rather admire at that wisdom and goodness of God, that maintains the order and union we have amongst us; and that he suffereth us not to be still one another's executioners, and to lay violent hands on ourselves and each other. I dare not think that there is no one gracious that hath laboured to destroy others that were so in these late dissensions. Sirs, you do not half know yet the mortal wickedness of depraved nature. If the best were not more beholden to the grace of God without them, than to the habitual grace within them, you should soon see "that men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie; to be put in the balance, they are lighter than vanity itself." (Psal. 62:7–9.) "For what is man, that he should be clean; and he that is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold he putteth no trust in his saints, and the heavens are not clean in his sight: how much more abominable and filthy is man, that drinketh up iniquity like water!" (Job 15:14–16.)
Object. 5. Oh, but if I had that consolation which you say God reserveth for our suffering times, I should suffer more contentedly; but I do not perceive any such thing.
Answ. 1. The more you suffer for righteousness' sake, the more of this blessing you may expect; and the more you suffer for your own evil doing, the longer you must look to stay till that sweetness come.
When we have by our folly provoked God to chastise us, shall we presently look that he should fill us with comfort? That were, as Mr.
Paul Bayn saith, "to make affliction to be no affliction." What good would the bitterness do us if it be presently drowned in that sweetness? It is well in such sufferings if you have but supporting grace, and your sufferings sanctified to work out your sin, and bring you to God.
2. Do you not neglect or resist the comforts which you desire? God hath filled precepts, and promises, and other of his providences, with matter of comfort; if you will overlook all these, and make nothing of them, and pore all upon your sufferings, and observe one cross more
than a thousand mercies, who maketh you uncomfortable but yourselves? If you resolve that you will not be comfortable as long as any thing aileth your flesh, you may stay till death before you have comfort.
3. Have your afflictions wrought kindly with you, and fitted you for comfort? Have they humbled you, and brought you to a faithful confession and reformation of your beloved sins; and made you set close to your neglected duties; and weaned your hearts from their former idols; and brought them unfeignedly to take God for their portion and their rest? If this be not done, how can you expect comfort? Should God bind up the sore while it festereth at the bottom? It is not mere suffering that prepares you for comfort, but the success and fruit of suffering upon your hearts.
I shall say no more on this subject of afflictions, because so many have written on it already, among which I desire you especially to read Mr. Bayn's letters, and Mr. Hughes' 'Dry Rod Blooming and Fruit-bearing,' and Young's 'Counter-poison.'