Book I.] a treatise of self-denial. 251
the ox, because they did not love him for his kindness — ' The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth not know ; my people doth not consider,' Isa. i. 3 ; so we may send you to the dogs for not loving of God when he beats you ; we should the i-ather love him then, because God loves us when he doth correct us — ' He loves whom he chastens.' A man may give entertainment to strangers, but he gives chastisement only to those of his own family. We are of God's household, a part of the charge of God, and therefore are under the discipline of his house. And that is some argument of God's love, that he doth not let us alone. You are put to your trial before men and angels, whether you can love him, when he exerciseth you with sharp afflictions.
4. We must not only love God for the dispensation, but entertain it with cheerfulness and thanksgiving. This should be enough to the creature, that God's will may be fulfilled, though with their loss and smart: Job i. 22, 'The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.' A child of God is of a differ- ent temper from other men ; he can fear God for his mercies, and praise him for his justice. We are bound to bless him for taking as well as giving. All God's corrections to his children are administra- tions belonging to the covenant of grace, evidences of God's faithfulness, and means of good to the saints, and therefore deserve to be reckoned in the roll of mercies. Oh, what a good God do we serve, when we can even bless him for afflictions ! A christian can sing in winter as well as in the spring. In outward things we can thank a physician for a bitter potion. We can pay a surgeon for cutting off an arm or a leg in a gangrene, and therefore much more have we cause to bless God for his faithfulness to us, for taking as well as giving ; but if there were no advantage, it is enough that God's will is accomplished, this is matter of praise. See the instance of David, 2 Sam. xii. 20, when he understood that the child was dead, ' He arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came in- to the house of God, and worshipped. Then he came into his own house; and they set bread before him, and he did eat.' Before, he would not rise from the earth nor eat bread, but sat mourning ; but when God's pleasure was declared, he goes with praise into God's house, and with cheerfulness to his own, because he would not seem to oppose or cross God's will, but would bear it with clieerfulness and patience. It is more than enough to thee that it pleaseth God, whose pleasure thou art bound to fulfil, how dear .soever it should cost thee.
5. This submission must be manifested, whatever the cross be. As in obedience there must be no reservation, they were not to leave a hoof in Egypt ; .so in the cross we must make no exceptions, but give God a blank paper, and let him write what he will. I know there is a gradation in our miseries, some are greater and some are less, though every one thinks his own to be most burdensome, because he is under sense and feeling — ' No sorrow like my sorrow.' There is a great deal of difference between affliction.s. Those miseries that light upon the outward estate, they do not sit so close as those that light upon the body; and those that light upon the body are nothing so terrible as those that light upon the soul — ' The spirit of a man can bear his in-
252 A TREATISE OF SELF-DENIAL. [BoOK I.
firmities, but a wounded spirit, who can bear ?' Common generousness will bear up under an outward cross ; yet all must be borne with patience and submission. The apostle enumerates sundry sorts of afflictions : 2 Cor. xii. 10, ' Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecution, in distresses, for Christ's sake ; ' if it be racking pains of the body, or if it be reproaches that enter into the very soul ; if it be want, calamity, infamy, loss of goods, loss of children or husband, of all dear relations, we must not be our own carvers, but we must take up our cross, as Christ saitli. God himself will choose the rod ; we are not bound to seek, or choose, or make the cross, but to bear, and take it up, when it is laid upon us. We are not to fill the cup ourselves, but drink that which God tempers in the cup with his own hand. It is not a cup of our own brewing ; it is a deceit to say 1 could bear such and such an affliction Avith cheerfulness, and patiently, if it were not the loss of dearest and nearest relations. But God knows how to strike in the right vein. The world would soon become an emptiness and solitude if every ignorant creature might be his own physician, and prescribe his own potion. Those that would have a cross of their own carving do not submit to God, but to their own wills. Pride of will shows itself in providence as well as worship, when men cannot bear the cross that God hath laid upon them. Impatience is as j^reat a sin as supersti- tion. Look, as it is superstition to carve to ourselves such worship as pleaseth us, so it is a breach of God's law, an entrenchment upon the sovereignty and wisdom of providence, when we would carve out our own cross. How grievous soever the affliction be, we must submit. Suppose it be a submission to death itself, it is not by chance, but by God's disposing hand ; God doth but call us back to our old dust, and by the same sovereignty bring us to the grave by which he brought us out of the womb : Ps. xc. 3, ' Thou turnest men to destruction, and say est, Return, ye children of men.'