prevents indeed the ground of complaint, which is the sharpness of the rod, and sets the smart and the fruit in opposition one to another. "Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. He confesses it is grievous, but it is in appearance only. He instructs us, it admits that suffering is grievous, but wholesome. The end and issue of it is to be considered. Because the trouble and grief, which is in every chastisement, make our flesh to apprehend it as an evil, the apostle distinguishes between the pain and the fruit, and draws an argument of patience from the effect. 66 1. All afflictions are grievous to the flesh. They are evils in themselves, though blessed in their effects, God does not expect us to be stocks and stones, to be without sense of grief. Christ himself hath set us a pattern of it, he shed tears for the death of his friend Lazarus, and shed drops of blood at the approach of his own suffering. "His soul was sorrowful even unto death." He "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." It is no sin to grieve under, to complain of suffering, so as it be without murmuring. If we have not a sense of the grief, we despise the chastening of the Lord," against which Solomon warns We, then, cannot be capable of the profit of affliction. Without some grief, affliction would leave us worse than it finds us. As we ought to hear God when he speaks, so we ought to fear God when he strikes. At first, the trouble of a chastisement does so stun and astonish, it does so wholly possess our spirits, that it makes us mistake the end of it. We 'cannot sometimes in our pressures, imagine, that a root so bitter can bear a joyful fruit. David is often us. full of complaints while he is under affliction, and seems to have no sense of anything, but the present trouble. But afterwards he acknowledges the gracious effect, “In faithfulness," says he, "thou hast afflicted me!" "It is good for me, that I have been afflicted." After experience manifests a truth, which the present grief will not allow us to consider. 2. Though afflictions be grievous, the fruit is gracious to a believer. Experience will correct the false judgment we have while we are under the stroke. Indeed, afflictions, of themselves, are rather a means to cool our affections to holiness; to extinguish in our minds the sparks of godliness, and make us despond and distrust the lovingkindness of God. But God in his sovereign wisdom does so dispose and manage them, that he makes them end in an happy result. By the grace of God they wean us from the world, quicken prayer, awaken us out of our slumbers, and put us upon self-examination. They bring us to seek God as reconciled to us in Christ, the true remedy for all our evils, whatever they may be. The joy of the Holy Ghost is often imparted in a more especial manner, when the afflictions are sharpest upon "Having received the word in much affliction, with joy in the Holy Ghost," 1 Thess. i. 6. And though it be not always so, yet after the affliction has done its work, God comes in with comfort and joy. us. The use is to teach us to make a right judgment of afflictions. Not to think God intends to destroy when he strikes. We are often in the same error the apostles were in, when they saw Christ walking upon the sea in the dead of the night. When he was coming to succour them, they imagined he was a spirit coming to do them mischief, Mark vi. 48, 49. The flesh often makes us think that God is our enemy, when he is our friend. B But as Christ cried out, "It is I be not afraid." So doth the apostle to believers in Hebrews, chap. xii. If the flesh suffer, it is good for the spirit. The issue will declare, that, "all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose," Rom. viii. 28. Finally, let patience and faith have their perfect work. The committing our way to the Lord will, in time, render our tempest-tossed minds calm and reposed. "Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established," Prov. xvi. 3. God hath always an eye upon them that fear him, Psalm xxxiii. 18, 19. Not to keep distress and affliction from them, but to quicken and purify them under it, to give them, as it were, new life from the dead. We should unreservedly submit our way to the guidance of God's wisdom, with an entire obedience to his will, and a firm reliance on his mercy in Christ, then the success will be gracious here, and glorious hereafter. Wait upon God, seeing he is a God of judgment; "for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they, that wait for him," Isaiah xxx. 18. IX. Lord! what a wretched land is this, No cheering fruits, no wholesome trees, But pricking thorns thro' all the ground,· And all the rivers that are found, With dangerous currents flow. Yet the dear path to thine abode Lord! we would keep the heav'nly road, Our souls shall tread the desert through, With undiverted feet, And faith and flaming zeal subdue The terrors that we meet. A thousand savage beasts of prey But Judah's lion guards the way, Long nights and darkness dwell below, By glimm❜ring hopes and gloomy fears, We trace the sacred road, Thro' dismal deeps, and dangʼrous snares, We make our way to God. Qur journey is a thorny maze, But we march upwards still ; Forget these troubles of our ways, See the kind angels at the gates, There Jesus the forerunner waits, There on a green and flow'ry mount The labours of our feet. Eternal glories to the king, That brought us safely through, Our tongues shall never cease to sing, And endless praise renew. X. Sometimes God may forsake us, though we fly to him for help. There is a real, and there is a seeming desertion. Christ may be out of sight, and yet not out of mind."Sion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me," Isaiah xlix. 14, 15. In the misgivings of our hearts, we think God hath cast off all care, and all thought of us. But God's affectionate answer shows, that all this was but a vain surmise, "Can a woman forget her sucking child?" &c. So "I said in my baste, I am cut off from before thine eyes ; nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications, when I cried unto thee." Psalm xxxi. 22. We are never more in God's heart many times, than when we think he hath quite cast us off. Surely, when the heart is drawn after God, he is not wholly gone. We often mistake God's dispensations, when he is preparing for us more ample relief, and emptying us of all carnal dependance; we judge that that is a forsaking. “When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up," Psalm xciv. 18. Sometimes in point of comfort, we are at a loss, and filled with distractions and troubles, and it is that God may come in for our relief. There is also a real desertion; for God grants his people are forsaken, sometimes: "For a small moment have I forsaken thee," Isaiah liv. 7, 8. Christ, who could not be mistaken, complaineth of it, Psalm xxii. 1. And the saints often feel it to their bitter cost. There is internal and external desertion. Internal is with respect to the withdrawings of the Spirit. "Take not thy Holy Spirit from me," Psalm li. 11. Now, external desertion is in point of affliction, when God leaves us under sharp crosses, in his wise providence. These must be distinguished; sometimes they are asunder, sometimes they are together and when they are together, God may re |