r 58 AFFLICTION PROMOTES HOLINESS. noted by all afflictive providences ; and this is God's - great end why he sends sore afflictions upon us. " God chastens us for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness." I will instance in a few duties among ma- nyothers, of which the children of God are witnesses, that they are instructed in, and that they have learnt them no other way, but by the means of afflictive dispensations, as 1. Compassion to others under sorrow. Our hearts are perhaps hard, and we are unconcerned about the afflictions ofothers. Pains teach us to pray earnestly for others that are under pains and sore troubles : for ifwe pray for ourselves at such seasons asthese, because we do not know how to bear these troubles any longer, they are so violent; then if we love our neighbours as ourselves, it will teach us to lift up our prayers for others under such strokes. 2. To teach us the emptiness of all creatures and all earthly enjoyments. I might appeal to your own judg- ments in a day of sore trouble, how little, how mean, brow inconsiderable have all the enjoyments of the world been ! They are worth nothing of themselves, they can not help us under sorrows. When God has made our flesh upon us to have pains, and our souls within us to mourn, and no creature could take notice of this mourn- ing, then what empty things did they appear ! O that the world may always appear to us little, for it is little, that we may always esteem it as we do when w°e are -tinder the correction of divine providence ! How little influence has it in our real comforts, so should it have in our real sorrows. S. Humility and Watchfulness are learned by frequent afflictions. When we 'see we are frail and weak, it beats down the pride of nature, and makes us walk carefully before an awful God. 4. Spiritual mindedness has been taught by sorrows ; and there is this reason for it, whilst we are at ease and peace we live on the creature, but when these pleasur, able enjoyments of life are all struck off from us, then Ave look for better comforts than these; then our souls, if they have any thing of sanctification, tend naturally towards God our portion and bur hope ; our thoughts 'then fly to spiritual things which we had forgot before. When á child of God has long been passessed of the,
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