The school of the cross is the school of light; it discovers the
world's vanity, baseness, and wickedness, and lets us see more of
God's mind. Out of dark afflictions comes a spiritual light.
In times of affliction, we commonly meet with the sweetest
experiences of the love of God.
The end of affliction is the discovery of sin; and of that, to bring
us to a Saviour.
Doth not God ofttimes even take occasion, by the hardest of things
that come upon us, to visit our souls with the comforts of his
Spirit, to lead us into the glory of his word and to cause us to
savor that love that he has had for us even from before the world
began till now? A nest of bees and honey did Samson find even in the
belly of that lion that roared upon him. And is all this no good; or
can we do without such holy appointments of God? Let these things be
considered by us, and let us learn like Christians to kiss the rod,
and love it.
The lamps of Gideon were discovered, when his soldiers' pitchers
were broken: if our pitchers are broken for the Lord and his
gospel's sake, those lamps will then be discovered that before lay
hid and unseen.
People that live high and in idleness bring diseases upon the body;
and they that live in all fulness of gospel ordinances, and are not
exercised with trials, grow gross, are diseased and full of bad
humors in their souls.
The righteous are apt to be like well-fed children, too wanton, if
God should not appoint them some fasting-days.
The Lord useth his flail of tribulation to separate the chaff from
the wheat.
Observe Paul: he died daily, he was always delivered unto death, he
despaired of life. And this is the way to be prepared for any
calamity. When a man thinks he has only to prepare for an assault by
footmen, how shall he contend with horses; or if he looks no further
than to horses, what will he do at the swellings of Jordan?
Oh, when every providence of God unto thee is like the messengers of
Job, and the last to bring more heavy tidings than all that went
before him; when life, estate, wife, children, body and soul, and
all at once, seem to be struck at by heaven and earth, here are hard
lessons--now to behave myself even as a weaned child: now to say,
"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of
the Lord."
Our afflictions work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory. Our afflictions do it, not only because there is
laid up a reward for the afflicted according to the measure of
affliction, but because afflictions, and so every service of God,
make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and
profound, and so, more able to hold, to contain, and bear more.
Let Christians beware that they set not times for God, lest all men
see their folly. "It is not for you to know the times and the
seasons which the Father hath put in his own power;" yea, I say
again, take heed lest, for thy setting of God a seven-day's time, he
set thee so many as seven times seven.
God's time is the time, the best time, because it is the time
appointed by him for the proof and trial of our graces, and that in
which so much of the rage of the enemy and of the power of God's
mercy, may the better be discovered unto us. "I the Lord do hasten
it in his time;" not before, though we were the signet upon his
hand.
Afflictions are governed by God, both as to time, number, nature,
and measure. In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate
with it: "He stayeth his rough wind in the day of his east wind."
Our times, therefore, and our conditions in these times, are in the
hand of God, yea, and so are our souls and bodies, to be kept and
preserved from the evil while the rod of God is upon us.
Ease and release from persecution and affliction come not by chance,
or by the good moods and gentle dispositions of men; but the Lord
doth hold them back from sin, the Lord restraineth them. 2 Chron.
18:31.
"And he stayed yet other seven days." It is not God's way with his
people to show them all their troubles at once, but first he shows
them a part: first, forty days, after that, seven other days, and
yet again, seven days more; that coming upon them by piecemeal, they
may the better be able to travel through them. When Israel was in
affliction in Egypt, they knew not the trial which would meet them
at the Red sea. Again, when they had gone through that, they little
thought that yet for forty years they must be tempted and proved in
the wilderness.
"And Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked;" the failing
again of his expected comforter caused him to be up and doing.
Probably he had not as yet uncovered the ark, that is, to look round
about him, if the dove, by returning, had pleased his humor; but she
failing, he stirs up himself.
Thus it should also be with the Christian now. Doth the dove forbear
to come to thee with a leaf in her bill as before? Let not this make
thee sullen and mistrustful, but uncover the ark and look; and by
looking, thou shalt see a further testimony of what thou receivest
by the first manifestations. "He looked, and behold the earth was
dry."
God doth not let us see the hills for our help before we have first
of all seen them drowned. Look not to them, therefore, while the
water is at the rising; but if they begin to cease their raging, if
they begin to fall, and with that the tops of the mountains be seen,
you may look upon them with comfort; they are tokens of God's
deliverance. Gen. 8.
It was requisite that the hills, Gen. 7:19, should be covered, that
Noah might not have confidence in them; but surely this dispensation
of God was a heart-shaking providence to Noah and them that were
with him; for here indeed was his faith tried, there was no hill
left in all the world; now were his carnal helpers gone, there was
none shut up or left. Now therefore, if they could rejoice, it must
be only in the power of God.
Noah was to have respect in his deliverance not only to himself and
family, but to the good of all the world. Men's spirits are too
narrow for the mind of God, when their chief end, or their only
design in their enjoying this or the other mercy, is for the sake of
their own selves only. It cannot be according to God, that such
desires should be encouraged. "None of us liveth unto himself;" why,
then, should we desire life only for ourselves?
The church cries out thus: "God be merciful to us and bless us, and
cause his face to shine upon us." Why? "That thy way may be known
upon earth, and thy saving health among all nations." So David:
"Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy
free Spirit; then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners
shall be converted unto thee."
So then, we must not desire to come out of trials and afflictions
alone or by ourselves, but that in our deliverance the salvation of
many may be concerned.
In every affliction and persecution, the devil's design is to impair
Christ's kingdom; wherefore, no marvel that God designs in our
deliverance the impairing and lessening the kingdom of sin and
Satan. Wherefore, O thou church of God, which art now upon the waves
of affliction and temptation, when thou comest out of the furnace,
if thou come out at the bidding of God, there shall come out with
thee the fowl, the beast, and abundance of creeping things. Gen.
8:17. "O Judah, he hath set a harvest for thee, when I returned the
captivity of my people."