(2.) Ordinary afflictions incident to men. Are you pained with sick- ness, and roll to and fro on your bed, like a door on the hinges, through the restless weariness of the flesh ? Many times we are best when we are weakest, and the pains of the body help to the invigorating and re- newing the inward man, 2 Cor iv. 16. In heaven you shall have ever- lasting ease, for that is a state of rest. Have you lost children ? If God give you a better name than sons and daughters, you have no cause to complain, Isa. Ivi. 5. It is honour enough to you that you are chil- dren of God ; if poor and destitute, yet if rich in the gifts and graces of the Spirit, it is made up to you : Eev. ii. 9, ' I know thy poverty, but thou art rich.' But it is not expedient to name all cases ; whatever the calamity and affliction be, God knowetb how to turn it to good, so that though we restrain ' all things ' to the context, it is large enough for our consolation.
But is there not more in it? — for men are always given to over- gospeling and enlarging their privileges — doth it not comprehend sin ?
Answer, No, not in the intention of the apostle. God hath not made a promise that all the sins of believers shall work for their good. It is true God made advantage of the sins of the world for the honouring of the grace in Christ, Rom v. 16, 17. It should be our care that Satan may be a loser, and Christ have more honour by every sin we commit. True repentance can draw good out of sin itself, to be a means of our hatred and mortification of it ; so love and gratitude to our Redeemer : Luke vii. 47, ' Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved
260 SERMONS UPON ROMANS vin. [Ser. XXXVII.
mucli ; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.' Sia doth not do good as sin, but as repented of ; it is not the sin, but the repent- ance. But for the proof of this — 1. Then it would destroy the qualifi- cation mentioned in the text — ' Those that love God.' Our love is a love of duty ; none love God but those that obey him and keep his com- mandments. 2. To assure us aforehand that our sins would turn to our good would open a gap to looseness, and is contrary to the usual methods of God in his word, who commands obedience, with a promise of increase of grace, and threateneth disobedience, and punisheth it also, by hardness of heart, and a tradition, or giving us up to vile affections. Now there would be no reconciling these passages if God assured us by promise that our sins should turn to good, and yet sins be punislied with blindness of mind and hardness of heart. 3. If any should object, they mean infirmities, not grievous and heinous sins ; yet even then they see a reason to limit this universal particle, irdvTa, and so have lost the advantage. But whether they limit it enough, let us see. It is one thing to say they shall not hurt us ; it is anotber to say they shall conduce to our good, or are means appointed to that end. 4. If God make use of our infirmities for our good, it is to be ascribed to his grace, who bringeth good out of so great an evil ; as David by his fall got wisdom, Ps. li. 6 ; it was the Lord's mercy that made him thereby more sensible of his duty, watch- ful over a naughty heart. But this is no natural effect of sin ; and to say God hath promised it, it would tempt us to omit our caution, and so we should lose this benefit. God, of his wonderful grace, may do many things which he does not think fit to a.ssure us of by promise. 5. We see many christians fall from some degrees of grace which they never afterwards recover again, though preserved in the state of grace for the main. God will not vouchsafe to them such a liberal portion of his Spirit as they had before. Jehoshaphat is said, 2 Cliron. xvii. 8, to have ' walked in the first ways of his father David ; ' his first ways were his best ways, when he kept himself free from those scandalous crimes he fell into in bis latter time.
But doth it not imply that our prosperity shall turn to good, as well as adversity?
Ansioer, Though it be not formally expressed in this place, which speaketh only of sufferings and afHictions, yet it is virtually included. For, 1. God keepeth off, or bringeth on the cross as it worketli for our good ; and all providences wherein the elect are concerned are over- ruled by his grace for their good: Cant. iv. 16, 'Awake, 0 north wind, and come, thou south, blow upon my garden, that the spices therein may flow out' Out of what corner soever the wind bloweth, it blow- eth good to the saints, the sharp north wind or the sultry south wind. 2. It is a threatening to them that do not love God, that their pros- perity tendeth to their hurt : Ps. Ixix. 22, ' Let their table become a snare, and that which should be for their welfare become a trap.' Their worldly comforts serve to harden their hearts in sin. 3. The sanctifying of their prosperity is included in a christian's charter : 1 Cor. iii. 21-23, ' All things are yours , life or death, the present world and the future world, because you are Christ's, and Christ is God's ; ' their prosperity cometh from the love of God, and tendeth to