8. As for outward evils, they are, first, evils of estate, as want and poverty, which oft falls out to be the portion of God's children, yet are they not any whit the worse hereby, but rather the better in their inner man ; for the less they have in this world, the greater and larger happi- ness shall they partake of in another world. What they lose one way is supplied another. Whatsoever comfort we have in goods or friends below. it is all conveyed from God above, who still remains, though these be taken away. The saints see, that if to preserve the dearest thing in the world, they break with God, he can make it a dead contentment and a torment to them ; whereas, if we care to preserve communion with God, we shall be sure to find in him, whatsoever we deny for him, honour, riches, pleasures,.
2G0 THE PRIVILEGES OF THK FAITHFUL.
friends, all ; so nmcli tlio sweeter, by how much we have them more imme- diately from the spring-head. Our riches, and friends, and life itself, may soon depart. But God never loseth his right in us, nor we our inte- rest in him. Every thing beneath teaches us, by the vanity and vexation we find in them, that our happiness is not there ; they send us to God ; they may make us worse, but better they cannot. Our nature is above them, and ordained for a greater good. They can but go along with us for a while, and their end swallows up all the comfort of their beginning.
Besides, none have that experience of God's goodness and faithfulness, as those that are in want and misery. God in his wisdom foreseeing -what is best for his servants, knows that the more worldly wealth they do abound in, the less their estimation would be of heavenly things. He sees how apt the poor creature is to be carried away with present comfort, and to have his love drawn to the world from better contentments. The poorer they are in worldly riches, the more they seek to be rich in grace, in know- ledge, faith, and repentance, which heavenly treasures incomparably sur- mount the most transcendent excellency which the creature can yield.
9. As for the evil of losing a f/ond name, a thing oft befalling the children of God, to be slandered and evil spoken of, they upon every small dis- gi'ace take occasion to enter into themselves and try whether they be guilty of such hard imputations as are flung upon them.
And if upon a serious consideration he find himself disgraced for good things, he wears it as a crown and as a garland upon his head, ' rejoicing that he is accounted worthy to suffer for the Lord Jesus,' Acts v. 41, esteeming ' the rebukes of Christ greater treasure than the riches of Egypt,' Heb. xi. 26. A true believer resigns his good name, and all that he hath, to God. He is assured that no man can take away that from him which God will give him and keep for him. It is not in man's power to make others conceive what they please of us.
10. For the evils of hochj, such as sickness and diseases of all sorts, •which daily attend our houses of clay, God by means hereof acquaints his children with their frail condition, and shews them what a little time they have to provide for eternity, thereby driving them to search their evidences, and to make all straight betwixt him and them. Outward weaknesses are oft a means to restrain men from inward evils. God usually sanctifies the pains and griefs of his servants to make them better. The time of sick- ness is a time of purging from that defilement we gathered in our health. We should not be cast down so much for any bodily distemper, as for sin, that procures and envenoms the same. That is a good sickness which tends to the health of the soul. Naaman, the Assyrian, if he had not had a leprosy in his body, had continued a leper, both in body and soul, all his days : his outward grievances made him inwardly sound. The very heathen could say, that we are then best in soul when we are weakest in body (c), for then we are most in heavenly resolutions and seeking after God. Yea, then it appears what good proficients we have been in time of health. Oh how happy were our conditions, if we were as good when we are well and in health, as we usually are when we are sick and ill.
11. Even death itself, which is the end of all, though it be fearful and irksome to nature, yet it is to God's servants a bed of dowoi, easing them of all their miseries, and putting them in possession of an heavenly king- dom ; therefore saith Solomon, ' The day of death is better than the day of birth,' Eccles. vii. 1. God will be the God of his, not only unto death, but in death. Death is the death of itself, and not of us. It is a disarmed
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and conquered enemy to all the faithful ; for which cause St Paul desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ, which is best of all, Philip, i. 23. Death, albeit it seems terrible and dreadful, yet the sting thereof being taken away by the death of Clirist, it brings everlasting joy along with it, and is only as a groom* porter to let us in to a stately palace. Whither tend all the troubles we meet with in this world, but only to fit us for a better condition hereafter, and to assure the soul that when earth can hold it no longer, heaven shall.