(2.) Secondly, It may be they are not great, if you look upon them with Scripture spectacles, 1 Peter v. 10. Flesh and blood many times looks upon molehills as mountains, and scratches upon the hand as stabs at the heart ; we make elephants of flies, and of little pigmies we frame giants. Carnal reason often looks upon troubles through false glasses. As there are some glasses that will make great things seem little, so there are others that will make little things seem great, and
1 Ps. xvi. 11 ; Tsa. lxiv. 4 ; 1 Cor. ii. 9. 2 Aug. de Triplici habitu, c. iv.
3 Read Ps. cvi., Neh. ix.
SC2 THE MUTE CHUISTI AN [Ps. XXXIX. 9.
it may be thai thou lookest upon thy afflictions through one of them, ls.i liv. 7, 8. Look upon thy afflictions in the glass of the word ; Look upon them in a Scripture dress, and then they will be found to be but little. He that shall look into a gospel glass, shall be able to say, heavy afflictions are Light, long afflictions arc short, bitter afflictions arc sweet, and greal afflictions are little, 2 Cor. iv. 16-18. It is good to make a judgment of your afflictions by a gospel light and by a gospel rule.
Artemon, an engineer, was afraid of his own shadow.' Men that look not upon their afflictions in a Scripture dress, will be afraid even of the shadow of trouble, they will cry out, No affliction to our affliction, no burden to our burden, no cross to our cross, no loss to our loss ; but out- look into a gospel glass would make them change their note. The lion is not always so great nor so terrible as he is painted ; neither are our troubles always so great as we fancy them to be. When Hagar's bottle of water was spent, she sat down and fell a-weeping, as if she had been utterly undone, Gen. xxi. 17-19 ; her provision and her patience, beat bottle and her hope were both out together ; but her affliction was not 80 great as she imagined, for there was a well of water near, though for a time she saw it not. So many Christians, they eye the empty bottle, the cross, the burden that is at present upon them, and then they fall a-weeping, a-whiniug, a-complaining, a-repining, a-murmuring, as if they were utterly undone ; and yet a well of water, a well of comfort, a well of refreshment, a well of deliverance is near, and their case is no way so sad, nor so bad as they imagine it to be.
(3.) Thirdly, Tlte greater thy afflictions are,the nearer is deliverance to (lice. When these waters rise high, then salvation comes upon the wings ; when thy troubles are very great, then mercy will ride post to deliver thee :2 Deut. xxxii. 36, 'For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power (or hand) is gone, and there is none shut up, and left.' Israel of old, and England of late years, hath often experienced this truth. Wine was nearest, when the water-pots were filled with water up to the brim, John ii. 1-1 1 ; so oftentimes mercy is nearest, deliverance is nearest, when our afflictions are at the highest. When a Christian is brim -full of troubles, then the wine of consolation is at hand ; therefore hold thy peace, murmur not, but sit silent before the Lord.
(4.) Fourthly, They are not great, if compared to the glory that shall be revealed, 2 Cor. iv. 10-18: Rom. viii. 18, 'For I reckon, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us, or upon us.' The apostle, upon casting up of his accounts, concludes that all the pains, chains, troubles, trials, and torments that they meet with in this world, was not to be put in the balance with the glory of heaven. As the globe of the earth, which after the mathematicians' account is many thousands of miles in com- pass, yet being compared unto the greatness of the starry sky's circum- ference, is but a centre, or a little prick ; so the troubles, a mictions, and sorrows of this life, in respect of eternal happiness and blessedness, are to be reputed as nothing ; they are but as the prick of a pin to the starry heavens. They that have heard most of the glory of heaven, have not
1 Plutarch, Pericles, 27 ; Diod. xii. 28.— G.
8 IScripture and history speaks fully to this bead.
PS. XXXIX. 9.] UNDER THE SMARTING ROD. 363
heard one quarter of that which the saints shall find there ; that glory is unconceivable and unex'pressible. Augustine in one of his epistles hath this relation : that the very same day wherein Jerome died, he was in his study, and had got pen, ink, and paper, to write something of the glory of heaven to Jerome, and suddenly he saw a light breaking into his study, and a sweet smell that came unto him, and this voice he thought he heard : O Augustine ! what doest thou ? Dost thou think to put the sea into a little vessel ? When the heavens shall cease from their continual motion, then shalt thou be able to understand what the glory of heaven is, and not before, except you come to feel it as now I do.1 Nicephorus speaks of one Agbarus, a great man, that hearing so much of Christ's fame, by reason of the miracles he wrought, sent a painter to take his picture, and that the painter when he came was not able to do it, because of that radiancy and divine splendour which sat on Christ's face.2 Such is the splendour, the brightness, the glory, the happiness, and blessedness that is reserved for the saints in heaven, that had I all the tongues of men on earth, and all the excellencies of the angels in heaven, yet 'should I not be able to conceive, nor to express that vision of glory to you. It is best hastening thither, that we may feel and enjoy that which we shall never be able to declare.