(1.) First, All the afflictions that come upon the saints, they are the fruits of divine love :3 Rev. iii. 19, 'As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten : be zealous therefore, and repent ;' Heb. xii. 6, ' For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth;' Job v. 17, 'Behold! happy is the man whom God correcteth ; therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty;' chap. vii. 17, 18, ' What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him ? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him ? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment ?' Isa. xlviii. 10, 'Be- hold, I have refined thee, but not with silver ; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.' When Munster lay sick, and his friends asked him how he did, and how he felt himself, he pointed to his sores and ulcers, whereof he was full and said, These are God's gems and jewels wherewith he decketh his best friends, and to me they are more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. A gentleman highly prizes his hawk, he feeds her with his own hand, he carries her upon his fist, lie takes a great deal of delight and pleasure in her ; and therefore he [nits vervels upon her legs, and a hood upon her head ; he hoodwinks her, and fetters her, because he loves her, and takes delight in her ; BO the Lord by afflictions hoodwinks and fetters his children, but all is because he loves them, and takes delight ami pleasure in them. There ■ iiinnt be agreater evidence of God's hatred and wrath, than his refusing 1 ' Swell,' boast.— G. 2 Qu. « enjoyed '?— Ed. 3 Prov. ii. 12, Jer. x. 7.
PS. XXXIX. 9.] UNDER THE SMARTING ROD. 391
to correct men for their sinful courses and vanities. . ' Why should you be smitten any more ? you will revolt more and more,' Isa. i. 5. Where God refuses to correct, there God resolves to destroy ; there is no man so near the axe, so near the flames, so near hell, as he whom God will not so much as spend a rod upon. God is most angry where he shews no anger. Jerome, writing to a sick friend, hath this expression, I account it a part of unhappinesss not to know adversity; I judge you to be miserable, because you have not been miserable. Nothing, saith another [Demetrius], seems more unhappy to me, than he to whom no adversity hath happened.1 God afflicts thee, O Christian, in love ; and therefore Luther cries out, Strike, Lord ; strike, Lord, and spare not. Who can seriously muse upon this, and not hold his peace, and not be silent under the most smarting rod ?
(2.) Secondly, Consider, that the trials and troubles, the calamities and miseries, the crosses and losses that you meet with in this vjorld, is all the hell that ever you shall have. Here you have your hell ; here- after you shall have your heaven. This is the worst of your condition, the best is to come. Lazarus had his hell first, his heaven last ; but Dives had his heaven first, and his hell at last, Luke xvi. 24-31. Thou hast all thy pangs, and pains, and throes here that ever thou shaft have ; thy ease, and rest, and pleasure is to come. Here you have all your bitter, your sweet is to come ; here you have your sorrows, your joys are to come ; here you have all your winter nights, your summer days are to come ; here you have your passion-week, your ascension-day is to come ; here you have your evil things, your good things are to come. Death will put a period to all thy sins, and to all thy sufferings ; and it will be an inlet to those joys, delights, and contents that shall never have end ; and therefore hold thy peace, and be silent before the Lord.2
(3.) Thirdly, Get an assurance that Christ is yours, and pardon of ■sin yours, and divine favour yours, and heaven yours ; and the sense of this will exceedingly quiet and silence the soul under the sorest and ■sharpest trials a Christian can meet with in this world,. He that is assured that God is his portion, will never mutter nor murmur under his greatest burden ; he that can groundedly say, ' Nothing shall sepa- rate me from the love of God in Christ,' he will be able to triumph in the midst of the greatest tribulations, Rom. viii. 33-39 ; he that with the spouse can say, ' My beloved is mine, and I am his,' Cant. ii. 1G, will bear up quietly and sweetly under the heaviest afflictions. In the time of the Marian persecution there was a gracious woman, who being convened before bloody Bonner, then bishop of London, upon the trial of religion, he threatened her that he would take away her husband from her. Saith she, Christ is my husband. I will take away thy child. Christ, saith she, is better to me than ten sons. I will strip thee, saith he, of all thy outward comforts. Yea, but Christ is mine, saith she, and you cannot strip me of him. Oh ! the assurance that Christ was hers bore up her heart, and quieted her spirit under all.3
1 Nihil est infeliciua co cui nil unquam contigit adversi. — Seneca. [De Providentia. — G.]
2 See my treatise called ' Heaven on Earth.' [In Vol. II. of these "Works. — G.]
8 [Foxe] Act. and Mon. So John Noyes, Alice Driver, Mr Bradford, Mr Taylor, and Justin Martyr, with many more,
392 THE MUTE CHRISTIAN [Ps. XXXIX. !•.