§ 11. (6.) The frequent believing views of glory are the most precious cordials in all afflictions. These cordials, by cheering our spirits, render our sufferings far more easy; enable us to bear them with patience and joy; and so strengthen our resolutions, that we forsake not Christ for fear of trouble. If the way be ever so rough, can it be tedious, if it lead to heaven? O sweet sickness, reproaches, imprisonments, or death, accompanied with these tastes of our future rest! This keeps the suffering from the soul, so that it can only touch the flesh. Had it not been for that little (alas, too little) taste which I had of rest, my sufferings would have been grievous, and death more terrible. I may say, _I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living_. _Unless_ this promised rest _had been my delight, I should then have perished in mine affliction. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices if joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord._[306] All sufferings are nothing to us, so far as we have these supporting joys. When persecution and fear hath _shut the doors, Christ_ can _come in, and stand in the midst, and say to his disciples, Peace be unto you_. Paul and Silas can be in heaven, even when they are _thrust into the inner prison_, their bodies scourged with _many stripes, and their feet fast in the stocks_. The martyrs find more rest in their flames, than their persecutors in their pomp and tyranny; because they foresee the flames they escape, and the rest which their fiery chariot is conveying them to. If _the Son of God_ will _walk with us_, we are safe _in the midst of those flames_, which shall devour them that cast us in. _Abraham went out_ of his country, _not knowing whither he went_; because _he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt_, because _he had respect unto the recompense of reward. He forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king_; because _he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection._ Even _Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God_. This is the noble advantage of faith, it can look on the means and end together. This is the great reason of our impatience, and censuring of God, because we gaze on the evil itself, but fix not our thoughts on what is beyond it. They that saw Christ only on the cross, or in the grave, _do shake their heads_, and think him lost; but God saw him dying, buried, rising, glorified, and all this at one view. Faith will in this imitate God, so far as it hath the glass of a promise to help it. We see God burying us under ground, but we foresee not the spring, when we shall all revive. Could we but clearly see heaven, as the end of all God's dealings with us, surely none of his dealings could be so grievous. If God would once raise us to this life, we should find, that though heaven and sin are at a great distance; yet heaven and a prison, or banishment, heaven and the _belly of a whale_, or a _den of lions_, heaven and consuming sickness, or invading death, are at no such distance. But as _Abraham saw Christ's day, and rejoiced_; so we, in our most forlorn state, might see that day when Christ shall give us rest, and therein rejoice. I beseech thee, Christian, for the honor of the gospel, and for thy soul's comfort, be not to learn this heavenly art, when in thy greatest extremity thou hast most need to use it. He that, with Stephen, _sees the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God_, will comfortably bear the shower of stones. _The joy of the Lord is our strength_, and that joy must be fetched from the place of our joy! and if we walk without our strength, how long are we like to endure?
[Footnote 306] Psalm xxvii, 13. cxix, 92. xxvii, 4-6.