shall work for your good: Rom. 8:28, 'And we know that all things

2. Secondly, Consider, That all your afflictions, troubles, and trials

shall work together for good to them that love God.' Why then should

you fret, fling, fume, seeing God designs you good in all? The bee

sucks sweet honey out of the bitterest herbs; so God will by

afflictions teach his children to suck sweet knowledge, sweet

obedience, and sweet experiences, &c., out of all the bitter afflictions

and trials he exercises them with. That scouring and rubbing, which

frets others, shall make them shine the brighter; and that weight

which crushes and keeps others under, shall but make them, like the

palm tree, grow better and higher; and that hammer which knocks

others all in pieces, shall but knock them the nearer to Christ, the

corner stone. Stars shine brightest in the darkest night; torches give

the best light when beaten; grapes yield most wine when most

pressed; spices smell sweetest when pounded; vines are the better for

bleeding; gold looks the brighter for scouring; juniper smells

sweetest in the fire; chamomile, the more you tread it the more you

spread it; the salamander lives best in the fire; the Jews were best,

when most afflicted; the Athenians would never mend, till they were

in mourning; the Christ's cross, saith Luther, is no letter in the book,

and yet, saith he, it hath taught me more than all the letters in the

book. Afflictions are the saints' best benefactors to heavenly

affections; where afflictions hang heaviest, corruptions hang loosest.

And grace that is hid in nature, as sweet water in rose leaves, is then

most fragrant when the fire of affliction is put under to distil it out.

Grace shines the brighter for scouring, and is most glorious when it

is most clouded.

Pliny in his Natural History writeth of certain trees growing in the

Red Sea, which being beat upon by the waves, stand like a rock,

immoveable, and that they are battered by the roughness of the

waters. In the sea of afflictions, God will make his people stand like a

rock; they shall be immoveable and invincible, and the more the

waves of afflictions beat upon them, the better they shall be, the

more they shall thrive in grace and godliness. Now how should this

engage Christians to be mute and silent under all their troubles and

trials in this world, considering that they shall all work for their

good! God chastises our carcases to heal our consciences; he afflicts

our bodies to save our souls; he gives us gall and wormwood here,

that the pleasures that be at his right hand may be more sweet

hereafter; here he lays us upon a bed of thorns, that we may look and

long more for that easy bed of down,—his bosom in heaven.

As there is a curse wrapped up in the best things he gives the wicked,

so there is a blessing wrapped up in the worst things he brings upon

his own, Ps. 25:10, Deut. 26:16. As there is a curse wrapped up in a

wicked man's health, so there is a blessing wrapped up in a godly

man's sickness; as there is a curse wrapped up in a wicked man's

strength, so there is a blessing wrapped up in a godly man's

weakness; as there is a curse wrapped up in a wicked man's wealth,

so there is a blessing wrapped up in a godly man's wants; as there is a

curse wrapped up in a wicked man's honour, so there is a blessing

wrapped up in a godly man's reproach; as there is a curse wrapped

up in all a wicked man's mercies, so there is a blessing wrapped up in

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