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