§ 5. (3.) Afflictions, are also God's most effectual means to keep us from losing our way to our rest. Without this hedge of thorns, on the right hand, and left, we should hardly keep the way to heaven. If there be but one gap open, how ready are we to find it, and turn out at it? When we grow wanton, or worldly, or proud, how doth sickness, or other affliction, reduce us? Every Christian, as well as Luther, may call affliction one of his best schoolmasters; and with David may say, _Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I kept thy word_.[300] Many thousand recovered sinners may cry, "O healthful sickness! O comfortable sorrows! O gainful losses! O enriching poverty! O blessed day that ever I was afflicted!" Not only the _green pastures_, and _still waters_, but _the rod and staff, they comfort us_. Though the word and Spirit do the main work, yet suffering so unbolts the door of the heart, that the word hath easier entrance.
[Footnote 300] Psalm cxix, 67.
§ 6. (4.) Afflictions likewise serve to quicken our pace in the way to our rest. It were well if mere love would prevail with us, and that we were rather drawn to heaven, than driven. But seeing our hearts are so bad, that mercy will not do it; it is better be put on with the sharpest scourge, than loiter, like the _foolish virgins_, till _the door is shut_. O what difference is there, betwixt our prayers in health, and in sickness; betwixt our repentings in prosperity and adversity! Alas! if we did not sometime feel the spur, what a slow pace would most of us hold towards heaven? Since our vile natures require it, why should we be unwilling that God should do us good by sharp means? Judge, Christian, whether thou dost not go more watchfully and speedily in the way to heaven, in thy sufferings, than in thy more pleasing and prosperous state.
§ 7. (5.) Consider further, it is but the flesh that is chiefly troubled and grieved by affliction. In most of our sufferings the soul is free, unless we ourselves wilfully afflict it. "Why then, O my soul, dost thou side with this flesh, and complain, as it complaineth? It should be thy work to _keep it under, and bring it into subjection_, and if God do it for thee, shouldst thou be discontented? Hath not the pleasing of it been the cause of almost all thy spiritual sorrows? Why then may not the displeasing of it further thy joys? Must not _Paul and Silas sing_, because _their feet are in the stocks_? Their spirits were not imprisoned. Ah, unworthy soul! is this thy thanks to God for preferring thee so far before thy body? When it is rotting in the grave, thou shalt be a companion of the perfected spirits of the just. In the mean time, hast thou not consolation which the flesh knows not of? Murmur not then at God's dealings with thy body; if it were not for want of love to thee, he would not have dealt so by all his saints. Never expect thy flesh should truly expound the meaning of the rod. It will call love, hatred; and say, God is destroying, when he is saving. It is the suffering party, and therefore not fit to be the judge." Could we once believe God, and judge of his dealings by his word, and by their usefulness to our souls, and reference to our rest, and could we stop our ears against all the clamors of the flesh, then we should have a truer judgment of our afflictions.
§ 8. (6.) Once more consider, God seldom gives his people so sweet a foretaste of their future rest, as in their deep afflictions. He keeps his most precious cordials for the time of our greatest faintings and dangers. He gives them, when he knows they are needed, and will be valued: and when he is sure to be thanked for them, and his people rejoiced by them. Especially when our sufferings are more directly for his cause, then he seldom fails to sweeten the bitter cup. The martyrs have possessed the highest joys. When did Christ preach such comforts to his disciples, as when _their hearts were sorrowful_ at his departure? When did he appear among them, and say, _Peace be unto you_, but when they were shut up for fear of the Jews? When did Stephen _see heaven opened_, but when he was giving up his life for the testimony of Jesus? Is not that our best state, wherein we have most of God? Why else do we desire to come to heaven? If we look for a heaven of fleshly delights, we shall find ourselves mistaken. Conclude then, that affliction is not so bad a state for a saint in his way to rest. Are we wiser than God? Doth he not know what is good for us as well as we? Or is he not as careful of our good, as we are of our own? Woe to us, if he were not much more so! and if he did not love us better, than we love either him, or ourselves!