Secondly, How do we find it in the word ? ' His testimonies are my delight.' The word requires this joy in troubles, and the word ministers it to the soul.
It requires this joy : James i. 2, ' Count it all joy' when ye fall into divers temptations.' We are not only with patience to submit to God's will, but also to rejoice in it : so Mat. v. 12, ' When men persecute and revile you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my name sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad.' Many times when other ways of persecution cease, yet there is reviling. Those that have no strength and powder to do other injuries, yet have such weapons of malice always in readiness. Some, being not good Christians them- selves, will defame those that are so ; that so, when they cannot reach them in practice, they may depress them by censure ; when tliey cannot go so high as they, they may bring them as low as themselves by detraction. Now, though this be a great evil, we should bear it not heavily but cheerfully ; rejoice and be exceeding glad in hope of the promises : Eom. v. 3, ' We glory in tribulation.' A true believer, that hath received the word of God as the rule of his life and guide of his hopes, he can not only be patient, but cheerful, glory in his tribulation. A carnal man is not so comfortable in his best estate as he at his worst.
Again, it gives us matter and ground of joy. God speaks a great deal of comfort to an afflicted spirit. It was one end why the scrip- tures were penned : Kom. xv. 4, ' That we through patience and com- fort of the scripture might have hope;' and Heb. xii. 5, 'Have you forgotten the consolation, that speaks to you as children ?' The great drift of the word is to provide matter of comfort, and that in our worst estate.
But now, what are the usual comforts that may occasion this delight and joy in the Holy Ghost in the midst of deep affliction ?
1. The scripture gives us ground of comfort from the author of our afflictions, wdio is our Father, and never manifests the comfort of adoption so much as then when we are under chastening : Heb. xii. 5, ' The consolation that speaks to you as children ; ' and John xviii. 11, 'The cup which my Father hath put into my hands, shall I not drink it ? ' It is a bitter cup, but it is from a father, not from a judge or an enemy. Nothing but good can come from him
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who is love and goodness itself ; nothing but what is useful from a father, whose affection is not to be measured by the bitterness of the dispensation, but by his aims, what he intends. If God should let us alone to follow our own ways, it were an argument we were none of his children.
2. The necessity of affliction : 1 Peter i. 6, ' Ye are for a season in trouble, if need be.' Before the corn be ripened, it needs all kind of weathers, and therefore the husbandman is as glad of showers as sun- shine, because they both conduce to fruitfulness. We need all kind of dispensations, and cannot well be without the many troubles that do befall us.
3. The nature and use of affliction. It is a medicine, not a poison ; it works out the remainders of sin : Isa. xxvii. 9, ' By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit, to take away his sin.' Afflictions are useful, and help to mortification. It is a file to get off our rust ; a flail, wherewith we are threshed, that our husk may fly off ; a fire to purge and eat out our dross : ' He verily for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness,' Heb. xii. 10. If God take away any outward comforts from us, and give us graces instead of them, it is a blessed exchange, if he strip us of our gar- ments, and clothe us with his own royal robe, as holiness is. God himself is glorious in holiness. Now, that we may be partakers of his holi- ness, surely that is for our profit.
4. For the manner of God's afflicting, it is in measure : Isa. xxvii. 8, ' In measure when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it. He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.' So Jer. xlvi. 28, * Fear thou not, 0 Jacob, my servant, saith the Lord,^ &c. So 1 Cor. X. 13, 'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above measure.' His conduct is very gentle : as Jacob drove on as the little ones were able to bear, Gen. xxxiii., so doth God with a great deal of moderation measure out sufferings in a due proportion, not to our offences only, but our strength ; as a father, in correcting his children, regards their weakness as well as their wantonness, laying less upon the more infirm, though alike faulty.