Argument. VI. As God strikes none of the substantial mercies of his covenant people, so when he doth
It is true, the loss of outward and earthly things are to a believer real trials, yet they are but seeming losses: and therefore they are expressed in the apostle's phrase, with a tanquam, sicut: "As chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing," 2 Cor.
6:9. And if your losses be but as it were losses, your sorrows should be but as it were sorrows: much like a physic-sickness, which we do not call a proper sickness, but as it were a sickness because it conduceth to the health, and not to the hurt of the person; as all
God's medicinal afflictions on his people also do.
Indeed, if the stroke of God were at our souls, to cut them off from Christ and heaven, to raise our names out of the covenant, or revoke the pardon of sin; then we had cause enough to justify the extremity of sorrow; cause enough to weep out our eyes, and break our hearts for such a dismal blow as that would be. But blessed be God you stand out of the way of such strokes as these; let God strike round about you, or lay his hand upon any other comforts you possess, he will never smite you in these essential things, which is certainly enough to allay and relieve all your other sorrows.
My name is blotted out of the earth, but still it is written in heaven.
God hath taken my only son from me, but he hath given his only Son for me, and to me. He hath broken off my hopes and expectations as to this world, but my hopes of heaven are fixed sure and immoveable for ever. My house and heart are both in confusion and great disorder, but I have still an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure. I cannot say my son liveth, but I can still say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth. The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth; but the word of the Lord abideth for ever," Isa. 40:8.
Argument. VI. As God strikes none of the substantial mercies of his covenant people, so when he doth smite
their external accidental comforts, the covenant of grace assures them, that even those strokes are the strokes of love, and not wrath; the wounds of a friend, and not of an enemy; which is another singular relief to the afflicted soul.
The most frightful thing in any affliction, is the mark or character of God's wrath which it seems to bear: take away that, and the affliction is nothing. "O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure," Psal. 6:1. He doth not deprecate the rebukes, but the anger of God; not his chastening, but his hot displeasure. God's anger is much more terrible than his rebuking, and his hot displeasure than his chastening. Therefore he intreats, that whatever God did to him in the way of affliction, he would do nothing in the way of wrath; and then he could bear any thing from him. A mark of Divine anger engraven upon any affliction, makes that affliction dreadful to a gracious soul.
But if a man be well satisfied, that whatever anguish there be, yet there is no anger, but that the rod is in the hand of love: O how it eases the soul and lightens the burden! Now this desirable point is abundantly cleared in the covenant; where we find a clear consistence, yea, a necessary connection betwixt the love and the rod of God, Psal. 89:31 and Heb. 12:6. Nay, so rare are the afflictions of the saints from being marks of his wrath, that they are the fruits and evidences of his fatherly love.
Two men walking through the streets, see a company of boys fighting, one of them steps forth, and singles out one of those boys, and carries him home to correct him; which of the two, think you, is that child's father? The case standing thus with all God's people,