AFFLICTIONS TEACH O'DEA SOVEREIGNTY. 579 Would it not be ridiculous for a man to fret at the sword that has wounded him ? Thus it is with us when we are looking only at instruments, and neglect the hand that manages them. DocT. ,c2. Faith believes that God afflicts not his crea- tures without reasons " Shew me WHEREFORE thou contendest with me." Job knew there was a reason for his afflictions, and he would fain know it. " If need be ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations :" There is a " NEED BE" in all the sorrows God brings upon his people, else they should not be. 'There are many reasons and causes why God brings afflictive dispensations upon theme 1. It is to teach the creature God's awful sovereignty over him. When he overwhelmed the earth with a flood,' and brought great destructionupon all living flesh, it was a notable instance of the Creator's sovereignty over the works of his händs The brute creation could not be charged with sin that they should be destroyed ; yet God shews his own power, his infinite authority over all things. This is a doctrine we have need to learn, and we can never carry ourselves becomingly, as creatures to- wards a Creator, without a particular and frequent reflec= tion on the sovereignty of God over us, This is what good Job had need to learn more powerfully, as God tells him in the 40th and 42d chapters ; and therefore when .God speaks to Job out of-the whirlwind he only shews his.almighty Arm : His power and authority are the chief subjects of God's discourse with him, hereby he con+ founds him and brings him to his foot, and Job then ac< knowledged the sovereignty that God preached to him and answered, I know that thou canst do every thing; therefore I uttered what I understood not." There is nothing teaches this doctrine like affliction. Sore afflic- tions, sharp pains, and of long continuance, shew us there is a sovereign God that manages creatures as he pleases, and gives us no account of his matters. A soul when it has cried long, it may be, and mourned before the Lord under its sorrows, and God seems to shut out his prayer for a season, the poor creature languishes un- der as much pain as the body is able to bear, then he cannot but fall down and say, ". Who am I that I should quarrel with the Almighty, who might inflict a thousand 2r2
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