Chap. 101 is NOT ON EARTH. 151. ing 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. 5. Consider, further, it is but the flesh that is chiefly troubled and grieved by afflictions. In most of our suffer- ings 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 pi.eas:- ing of it been the cause of almost all thyspiritual sorrows? Why, then, may not the displeasing of it further thy joy ? 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 meantime, bast thou not consolation which the flesh knows not of? Murmur not, then, at God's dealings with thy body : if it were for want of love to thee, he would not have dealt so by all his saints. Never expect thy flesh vhouiti truly expounci the meaning of the rcd. 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 deal- ings 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. 6. -Once more, consider, God seldom gives his people so sweet a foretaste of their future rest, as in their deep afflic- tions. 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 that his people will be 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 disci- ples, as when " their hearts were sorrowful" at bis depar- ture? When did he appear among them, and say, " Peace
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