Christ in his virtues, then certainly your afflictions are in love. Many
with them, and will exhibit the comforts of his presence
whithersoever they go. The presence of God with the spirits of his
people, is a breast of comfort that can never be drawn dry; it is an
everlasting spring that will never fail, Heb. 13:5, 6. Well! Christian,
thou art under many great troubles, many sore trials: but tell me,
doth God give unto thy soul such cordials, such supports, such
comforts, and such refreshments, that the world knows not of? Oh!
then, certainly thy affliction is in love.
4. Fourthly, If by your affliction you are made more conformable to
Christ in his virtues, then certainly your afflictions are in love. Many
are conformable to Christ in their sufferings, that are not made
conformable to Christ in his virtues by their sufferings; many are in
poverty, neglect, shame, contempt, reproach, &c., like to Christ, who
yet by these are not made more like to Christ in his meekness,
humbleness, heavenliness, holiness, righteousness, faithfulness,
fruitfulness, goodness, contentedness, patience, submission,
subjection. Oh! but if in these things you are made more like to
Christ, without all peradventure your afflictions are in love. If by
afflictions the soul be led to shew forth, or to preach forth, the virtues
of Christ, as that word imports in that 1 Peter 2:9, then certainly
those afflictions are in love; for they never have such an operation
but where they are set on by a hand of love. When God strikes as an
enemy, then all those strokes do but make a man more an enemy to
God, as you see in Pharaoh and others; but when the strokes of God
are the strokes of love, oh! then they do but bring the soul nearer
Christ, and transform the soul more and more into the likeness of