Use 2. If we be for the present under affliction, let us bear it with patience, observing how God's ends are accomplished. It is smart and grievous now, Heb. xii. 11, but it will be salutary and healtliful ; it will yield to you righteousness, and that righteousness will yield you peace — give the peaceable fruit of righteousness. If God will take away the fuel of our sin, empty us of our pride, self-conceit, weaken the security of the flesh, let us be content, only let us take heed that the time of mortifying sin be not the time of discovering sin, and that we do not trespass the more. To be sinning and suffering is the case of the damned. Take heed you do not sin in your suffering; especially take heed of those sins that are pi-oper to affliction. Fainting: 'If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is but small.' Distrust of God's providence : ' I shall one day perish by the hands of Saul.' Despair of God's promises : ' I said I am cut off,' &c. Then 3-ou lose the benefit of God's family discipline when you yield to these sins. But see how it drives you out of the way of hell, for affliction is -a gentle remembrance of hell ; for look, as those whose garments were singed, as when they threw the three children into the furnace, their own garments were singed by the force of the flame, they knew what it was to be thrown into the pit ; so the Lord in effect doth tell you what will be in hell ; this is a gentle remembrance, stand farther oft', that je may not be condemned with the world, 1 Cor, xi. 32. And then, liow it quickens you to look after heavenly things ; for when the out- ward man decays, then look to things not seen, 2 Cor. iv. 17 ; when you are fitted more and more for your change, when you grow more humble, mortified, as stones are hewn and squared for the building.
Let us come to the degree, ' I am afflicted very much ; the Sei)tua- gint renders it, iTaTreivcoBi^v ew? acj^uSpa, ' I am afflicted very sore.'
JDoct. The afflictions of God's people may not only be many, but very sore and heavy.
So David here, and Ps. Ixxi. 20, ' Thou hast showed me great and sore troubles.' Why many ?
VeR. 107.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX, 97
1. Many and strong lusts are to be subdued, and we need great afflictions to subdue many and great corruptions. Some stains are not easily washed out, but need much rubbing. When pride is deeply rooted in the heart, God brings down even to the grave, that a man goes up and down like a walking ghost, and like a skeleton or dry bones. There is such an one described, Job xxxiii. 17 with 22; and why? To bring down pride in his heart ? The physic must be according to the distemper ; if the distemper be more rooted, the physic must be more strong : Ps. cvii. 11, 12, ' Because they rebelled against the word of the Lord, and contemned the counsel of the Most High, therefore he brought down their heart with labour; they fell down, and there was none to help.' When people begin to grow high and stomachful, con- temptuous against God and his ordinances, then God brings them into sore distresses, to break their pride and stoutness of heart.
2. That God may have tlie more experience and trial of his people. In daily and little afilictions there is no trial of their courage, faith, patience, and submission, and all other graces. The trial of faith is in extremity. Graces are exercised to the life, when we are even at the point of death : 2 Cor. i. 9, ' We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, which raiseth the dead.' So patience, it is not tried but by sharp affliction ; therefore the apostle saith, ' Let patience have its perfect work,' James i. 4. So Christian courage and resolution, that is tried in deep affliction, when Ave are 'slain all the day long,' Heb. xi. 3.5, 36 ; Eom. viii. 37, ' In all these things we are more than conquerors.' The strength of a man's back is not tried by a small weight, but by a heavy burden, how much he can bear ; so the sharper the affliction, the greater the trial.
3. That they may have the more experience of God, for the sharper the affliction the sweeter their comfort, and the more glorious their deliverance : Ps. Ixxi. 20, ' Thou which hast showed me great and sore troubles, thou shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.' God's jiower in raising them up is more seen : 2 Cor. i. 10, ' Who delivered me from so great a death.'
Use 1. If we be under sore troubles —
1. Let us not faint ; remember it is no more than we have deserved. God will not afflict a man above his deserts ; he cannot complain of wrong, Ezra ix. 13. It is never more, it may be less ; when our afflic- tions are great, our deserts are far greater : Isa. xl. 1, ' Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.' Why ? ' For she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.' God saith double ; he relents presently.