Argument. II. As the covenant of grace disarms all the afflictions of believers of the only sting by
Now, the case standing thus with all God's covenant people, all their sins being graciously, fully, and irrevocably forgiven them, how convincingly and sweetly doth this conclusion follow, that the covenant is a complete remedy to all afflicted believers? As nothing can befal us before Christ and pardon be ours, which is sufficient to raise us, so nothing can befal us afterwards, which should deject and sink us. This is the first benefit afflicted believers receive from the covenant, and this alone is enough to heal all our sorrows.
Argument. II. As the covenant of grace disarms all the afflictions of believers of the only sting by which they wound them: so it alters the very nature and property of their afflictions, and turns them from a curse into a blessing to them: And in so doing, it becomes more than a remedy, even a choice benefit and advantage to them.
All afflictions in their own nature, are a part of the curse; they are the consequence and punishments of sin; they work naturally against our good: But when once they are taken into the covenant, their nature and property is altered. As waters in their subterranean passages, meeting some virtuous mineral in their course, are thereby impregnated, and endowed with a rare healing property to the body; so afflictions passing through the covenant, receive from it a healing virtue to our souls. They are, in themselves, sour and harsh, as wild hedge-fruits; but being ingrafted into this stock, they yield the pleasant fruits of righteousness. "If his children break my statutes, and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their iniquity with the rod, and their sins with stripes: Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take away, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." Psal.
89:30, 31. Here you may see all the rods of affliction put into the covenant, as Aaron's rod was into the ark. And hence two things necessarily follow.
(1.) That such afflictions can do the children of God no hurt. They may affright, but cannot hurt them: We may meet them with fear, but shall part from them with joy: An unsanctified rod never did any man good, and a sanctified rod never did any man hurt: He may afflict our bodies with sickness, deny, or cut off our comfort in children, impoverish our estates, let loose persecutors upon us; but in all this he really doth us no hurt, as he speaks in Jer. 25:6. No more hurt than a skilful surgeon doth in saving his patient's life, by cutting off a mortified, gangrened member: No more hurt than frost and snow do the earth in killing the rank weeds that exhausted the sap and strength of it, and preparing and mellowing it to produce a fruitful crop of corn. By these he recals our minds from vanity, weans our fond and ensnaring affections from the world, discovers and mortifies those lusts which gentler methods and essays could not do:
And is this for our hurt?
I confess God's thoughts and ours often differ upon this case. We measure the good and evil of providences, by their respect to the ease and pleasure of our flesh, but God sees this is the way to cast our spirits into a dead formality, and in removing them, he doth but deprive us of the occasions and instruments of spiritual mischiefs and miseries, in which certainly he doth us no hurt.
(2.) But that is not all. Afflictions once put into the covenant, must promote the good of the saints; they are beneficial, as Well as harmless things. "We know (saith the apostle) that all things work together for good to them that love God." This promise is the compass which sets the course, and directs the motions of all the afflictions of the people of God; and no ship at sea obeys the rudder so exactly, as the troubles of the righteous do the direction of this promise. Possibly we cannot discern this at present, but rather prejudge the works of God, and say all these things are against us;
but hereafter we shall see, and with joy acknowledge them to be the happy instruments of our salvation.
How often hath affliction sent the people of God to their knees, with such language as this, 'O my God, how vain and sensual hath this heart of mine been under prosperity! How did the love of the creature, like a sluice, cut in the bank of a river, draw away the stream of my affections from thee! I had gotten a soft pillow of creature-comforts under my head, and I easily fell asleep, and dreamed of nothing but rest and pleasure, in a state of absence from thee; but now thy rod hath awakened me, and reduced me to a right sense of my condition. I was negligent or dead-hearted in the course of my duty, but now I can pray more fervently, feelingly, and frequently, than before. O it was good for me that I have been afflicted. O, saith God, how well was this rod bestowed, which hath done my poor child so much good; now I have more of his heart, and more of his time and company than ever; now I hear the voice, and see the gracious workings of the spirit of my child after me again, as in the days of his first love.' The sum of all this you may see in the ingenuous meltings of Ephraim under a sanctified rod, Jer. 31:19, 20 and the sounding of the bowels of mercy over him. 'Ephraim mourns at God's feet, and God falls upon Ephraim's neck. I have been as a beast, saith Ephraim: Thou art a dear son, a pleasant child, saith
God. My bowels are troubled and pained for sin, saith Ephraim: And my bowels are troubled for thee, and my compassions rolled together, saith God. O blessed fruits of sanctified rods! such precious effects as these richly repay you for all the pain and anguish you feel.
And thus as the wound of a scorpion is healed by applying its own oil, so the evil of affliction is cured by the sanctified fruits that it produceth, when it is once put into the covenant.