588 / 652
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-
ny
others,
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
of
others. Pains
teach
us to
pray earnestly for
others
that
are under
pains and sore troubles
:
for
if
we
pray
for ourselves
at
such
seasons
as
these,
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,