every lasli into a happy lesson. In this psalm the Holy Ghost useth six arguments to prove that a man is blessed who is chastened. [1.] Because he is instructed by being afflicted, as here. [2.] Because the end why God lays affliction on his people is to give them rest from the days of adversity, ver. 13. [3.] Until the pit be digged for the wicked, in the same verse, until the cold grave hold his body, and hot hell hold his soul. [4.] Because God will support them under all their afflictions. When God casteth his people into the furnace of afflictions, his everlasting arms shall be underneath them. Though God may cast down his people, yet he will never cast off his people. [5.] Because there shall be a glorious restoration : ver. 15, ' Judg- ment shall return unto righteousness.' [6.] Because all the upright in heart shall follow it, in the same verse — viz., in their affections they are carried out after it, earnestly desiring that dear day when God will unriddle his providences, and clear up his proceedings with the sons of men. Jerome, writing to a sick friend, hath this expres- sion : * I account it a part of unhappiness not to know adversity ; I judge you to be miserable, because you have not been miserable.' Demetrius saith. Nothing seems more unhappy to me than he to whom no adversity hath happened. Impimitas, securitatis mater, virtutum noverca, religionis virus, tinea sanctitatis : Freedom from punishment is the mother of security, the stepmother of virtue, the poison of reli- gion, the moth of holiness, [Bernard.] It was a speech of a German divine, [Gaspar Olevianus,] in his sickness : In this disease, saith he, I have learned how great God is, and what the evil of sin is. I never knew to purpose what God was before, nor what sin meant before. God's corrections are our instructions, his lashes our lessons, his scourges our schoolmasters, his chastisements our advertisements. i And to note this, the Hebrews and Greeks both express chastening and teaching by one and the same word, "1D1Q, mitsar, iraihela; be- cause the latter is the true end of the former, according to that in the proverb, ' Smart makes wit, and vexation gives understanding.' Job xxxvi. 8, ' And if they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction ; ' ver. 9, ' Then he sheweth them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded ; ' ver. 10, ' He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from ini- quity.' Sanctified afflictions open men's ears to discipline, and turn them from iniquity, which is a piece of learning that a Christian can never pay too dear for; Affliction is verus Scripturce commentarius : An excellent comment upon the Scriptures. Afflictions make way for the word of the Lord to come to the heart. Affliction sanctified is Lex practica, a practical law. Bernard had a brother of his, who was a riotous and profane soldier ; Bernard gives him many good instructions and admonitions, &c.j but his brother slighted them, and made nothing of them. Bernard comes to him, and puts his hand to his side. One day, saith he, God will make way to this heart of yours by some spear or lance. And so it fell out ; for, going into the wars, he was wounded, and then he remembers his brother's instructions and admonitions, and then they got to his heart, and lay upon it to some purpose : Job xxxiii. 16, * Then he openeth the ears of men, and
^ Schola crucis, schola lucis, Isa. xxvi. 9; Prov. iii. 12, 13, and vi. 23.
WITH HIS PEOPLE IN THEIR GREATEST TROUBLES. 469
sealeth their instruction.' Oculos quos peccatum claudit, poena aperit: The eye that sin shuts, afflictions open, [Gregory.] The cross opens men's eyes, as the tasting of honey did Jonathan's. By correction God seals up instruction ; God sets on the one by the other ; as when a schoolmaster would have a lesson learned indeed, he sets it on with a whipping. As Gideon taught the elders of the city and the men Of Succoth with the thorns and briars of the wilderness, so God teaches his people by affliction many a holy and happy lesson, Judges viii. 1 6. By afflictions, troubles, distresses, and dangers, the Lord teaches his people to look upon sin as the most loathsome thing in the world, and to look upon holiness as the most lovely thing in the world. Sin is never so bitter, and hohness is never so sweet, as when oUr troubles are greatest and our dangers highest. By afflictions the Lord teaches his people to sit loose from this world, and to make sure the great things of that other world. By affliction God shews his people the vanity, vexation, emptiness, weakness, and nothingness of the crea- tures, and the choiceness, preciousness, and sweetness of communion with himself, and of interest in himself. Christ, though he knew, * yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered,' Heb. v. 8 ; that is, he shewed obedience more than before ; not as if Christ were to go to school to learn, or as if by certain acts he were to fit himself for obedience ; he did not learn that which he knew not before, but did that which he did not before. He that was put upon the trial of his obedience, he came to know by experience what a hard matter it was thus to obey God.i By God's favourable presence a man comes to learn many lessons in a time of adversity which he never learned in a day of prosperity ; for we are like idle boys and bad scholars, that learn best when the rod is over us. Hezekiah was better upon his sick-bed than when he was shewing of his treasures to the ambassa- dors of the king of Babylon, Isa. xxxix. 1-5 ; -and David was a better man when he was in his wilderness-condition than when he sat upon his royal throne, Ps. xxx. 6, 7. The Jews ai-e ever best when in the worst condition ; the Athenians would never mend till they were in mourning. 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 pre- cious than all the gold and silver in the world. Here, as that martyr phrased it, we are but learning our A b c, and our lesson is never past Christ's cross, and our walking is still home by Weeping-Cross. Usually men are worst in a prosperous condition. In a prosperous condition God speaks to us, and we mind him not : ' I spoke to thee in thy prosperity, but thou wouldest not hear : and this hath been thy manner from thy youth upwards,' Jer. ii. 21. Pope Martin re- ported of himself that, whilst he was a monk and lived in the cloister, he had some evidences for heaven ; when he was a cardinal, he began to fear and doubt ; but after he came to be pope, he utterly despaired. The Lord never shews more of his favourable, signal, and eminent pre- sence, than by teaching of his people many gracious and gospel lessons by their great troubles, deep distresses, and most deadly dangers. But