Fourthly, and lastly, to mention no more, You have a further advantage to this holy life, by all the rods of God that are at any time upon you. I might shew you in many particulars, the ad- vantages this way also, but I shall only present these three to your observation at this time.
First, By these you are clogged, to prevent your straying and wandering. Others may wander even as far as hell, and God will not spend a sanctified rod upon them, to reduce or stop them ; but saith, let them alone," Hos. iv. 17. But if you wander out of the way of holiness, he will clog you with one trouble or other to keep you within bounds, 2 Cor. xii. 7. " Lest I should be lilted " up, a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, was sent to " buffet me.'1 So David, Psal. cxix. 67. " Before I was afflicted, " I went astray; but now I have kept thy word." Afflictions are used by God, as thorns by husband-men, to stop the gaps and keep you from breaking out of God's way, Hos. ii. 6. " I will " hedge up her way with thorns, and build a wall, that she shall " not find her paths." A double allusion; I. To cattle that are apt to stray, / will hedge up thy way with thorns. 2. To the sea, which is apt to overflow the country, / will build a wall to prevent inundatiojis. Holy Basil was a long time sorely afflicted with an inveterate head-ach, he often prayed for the removal of it ; at last God removed it, but in the room of it, he was sorely exercised with the motions and temptations of lust ; which, when he per-
5ERM. XLIT. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 555
ceived, he heartily desired his head-ach again, to prevent a worse evil. You little know the ends and uses of many of your afflictions. Are you exercised with bodily weakness? it is a mercy you are so; and if these pains and infirmities were removed, these clogs taken off, you may with Basil, wish for them again, to prevent worse evils. Are you poor ? why, with that poverty God hath clogged your pride. Are you reproached ? with these reproaches God hath clogged your ambition. Corruptions are prevented by your afflictions. And, is not this a marvellous help to holiness of life ?
Secondly, By your afflictions, your corruptions are not only clog- ged, but purged. By these God dries up and consumes that spring of sin that defiles your lives, Isa. xxvii. 9- " By this therefore shall " the iniquity of Jacob be purged ; and this is all the fruit to take " away sin." God orders your wants to kill your wantonness; and makes your poverty poison to your pride. They are God's physic, to purge ill humours out of your souls. * " When they " fall by the sword, and by famine, and by captivity, and by spoil, " it is to try them, and to purge them, and to make them white T They are both purges and lavatories to your souls. Others have the same afflictions that you have, but they do not work on them as on you ; they are to you as fire for purging, and water for cleansing : and yet, shall not your lives be clean ? It is true, (as one well observes upon that place of Daniel,) Christ is the only la- vatory, and his blood the only fountain to wash away sin: but, in the virtue and efficacy of that blood, sanctified afflictions are cleanser* and purgers too.
A cross without a Christ never made any man better, but with Christ, saints are much the better for the cross. Hath God been (as it were) so many days and nights a whitening you, and yet is not the hue of your conversation altered? Hath he put you so many times into the furnace, and yet is not the dross separated ? The more afflictions you have been under, the more assistance you have had for this life of holiness.
Thirdly, By all your troubles, God hath been weaning vou from the world, the lusts, loves, and pleasures of it ; and drawing out your souls to a more excellent life and state than this. He makes your sorrows in this life, give a lustre to the glory of the next. Whoever hath, be sure you shall have no rest here ; and all, that you may long more ardently for that to come. He often makes you groan, " being burdened, to be clothed with your house from - heaven," 2 Cor. v. 4. And yet will you not be weaned from lusts, customs, and evils of it ? O what manner of persons should you be for heavenly and holy conversations? You stand upon the
* Dan. xi. 33, 34, 55.
556 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM. XLH,
higher ground. You have, as it were, the wind and tide with you. None are assisted for this life as you are. Put all this to- gether, and see what this second argument contributes toward your further conviction, and persuasion to holy life. Have you received a supernatural principle, fitting you for, and inclining you to holy actions, resisting and holding you back from sin? Hath God also set before you such eminent patterns to encourage and quicken you in your way ? Doth the Spirit himself stand ready, so many waysy to assist and help you in all difficulties, and hath God hedged up the way of sin with the thorns of affliction, to prevent your wan- dering, and yet will you turn aside ? Will you offer violence to your own principles and new nature ? Refuse to follow such leaders as have beaten the way before you ? Resist, or neglect his gracious assistance of the blessed Spirit, which he offers you in every need, and venture upon sin, though God hath hedged up your way with afflictions ? O, how can you do such great wickedness, and sin against such grace as this !
Methinks, I need say no more to convince you how much you are concerned to keep the issues of life pure, none being so much obliged to it, or assisted for it, as you are. But when I remember that Joash lost the complete victory over the Syrians, because he smote not his arrows often enough upon the ground, 2 Kings xiii. 8. I shall level one arrow more at this mark : For, indeed, that can never be enough pressed, which can never be enough practised. And therefore,
Consid. 3. Thirdly, It will yet farther appear to be your high concernment, to exact holiness in your conversations, because of the manifold and great uses which God hath to make of the visible holiness and purity of your lives, both in this world and that to come. The uses God puts the conversation-holiness of his people in this world unto, are these among others.