to the charge of God's elect? and in the same chapter declares, that it is God that glorifies: for though glorification is the last thing done to us, yet it is the first thing God designs for us. What is the great thing for a natural man to hear? what is it? why, not only that God has chosen us, but chosen us in the furnace of affliction: O that the Spirit of God may vouchsafe to transcribe these words into our hearts! God help thee to take it to thyself, O man; to take it to thyself, O woman; to take it to thyself whoever thou art, that art either a christian now, or desires or hopes to be a christian before thou diest, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. What can be the meaning of the words? why 'tis very plain that the import of them must be this; I have chosen thee, and it is my determination from everlasting to the end of time, and for ever, I have chosen thee with this determination, that the way to heaven should be through the road of affliction: this is the believer's way, especially the ministers of Christ. When Paul was converted, pray what preferment did God promise him? was it to be a great dignitary in the church? no, nothing about the church: was it any more ease? was it to wear a triple crown? were persons to come and kiss his toe? what preferment did God chuse him to? what? says God, I will show him what great things he must suffer for my name's sake. I verily believe that if we were to have no other preferment than this of Paul, there is not one in a thousand of the ministers that would ask for a living, if they knew they were to have suck poor wages as Paul had. Ministers that hold the standard up, must expect the enemy will fire on them from every quarter; and if they happen be instrumental in comforting others, with the same comforts wherewith they themselves are comforted of God, they must expect to bear their part, not only for their own purification, but for the benefit of those to whom they minister; and I be#lieve audiences find that ministers minister best, and the bread comes best, when it comes out of the furnace of a minister's affliction. The word affliction is of a very complex kind; it is like the word tribulation, which comes from the latin tribulus, signifying a pricking thorn, a scratching briar, or wounding spikes concealed in the way; and the word affliction arises from a word that signifies something that beats down, presses sore, and is very grievous and tormenting; it is a word of so general import, that it takes in all the trouble we meet with from men, all the wounds we receive from enemies, as well as in the house of our friends; it takes in all our domestic trials, all our inward struggles and dreadful temptations occasioned by the fiery darts of a watchful devil; and if I am not mistaken, when the great God said, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction, it implies, that this is really to continue with us even to the very end of our days this is what young converts, in the time of their first love, do not see; that is, do not wholly see it; for if young christians were to know all they have to suffer, it would dreadfully discourage them. God says, his people shall not do so and so, because at their first setting out they would be disheartened, and think of going back. It is our happiness God lets us know our trials but very little before-hand, very little notice of them have we before the time, and then, perhaps, gives us but little respite; but Q when one trial is gone, : God does with us as masters do with their scholars, turns over a new leaf with us; and when one trial is over, teaches us another: hence our trials are not only new, but constant: hence many a believer is apt to say, My trials rise out of the ground; and many believers are saying, who would have thought such a trial would have befallen me at such a time, from such a hand? this may, perhaps, open to us a gloomy scene; it would be gloomy indeed, if we were not living in a state of preparation; it would be gloomy indeed, if God was to afflict us without a cause; but there is so much corruption, such remainders of indwelling sin, even in God's own children that are to stand nearest to him in glory, that are the dearest to him, and who are to be blessed with being in his boson, that if God was not to send them afflictions, there is not a child of God but would overset even with the comforts God vouchsafes them. We find it so with our bodies, that if we live without exercise we are liable to have a variety of diseases, we therefore submit to vàrious ways and means that a physician can prescribe; and if the disorders to which we are exposed in our bodies make us willing to submit to a regimen prescribed by a skilful physician, does it not follow by a parity of reasoning, that we for our souls want sometimes lenitives and corrosives, and something like a caustic to eat off the proud flesh that cleaves to us? and it vindicates God's ways to man, that there is an hereafter appointed for us, that there is another world, to which, perhaps, we shall be called to go before the morning," where the habitants shall no more say, I am sick." Believers know this, and if they cannot keep a ledger-book, if they cannot post a merchant's book, they must learn so much of divine arithmetic, as to know that "the light afflictions which are but for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." The way to heaven, good bishop Beveridge says, is narrow, but it is not long; the gates are strait, but open to everlasting life; and therefore"God has chosen us in the furnace of affliction, because if we were not afflicted we should never know what we were made of." Mr. Bohem, who was chaplain to the prince of Denmark, that was married to queen Anne, in one of his excellent sermons upon affliction, has this observation, "Afflictions and temptations are like sun-beams falling upon a dunghill; they do not bring vapours into the dunghill, but they exhale the vapours." So afflictions do not bring the corruptions into us; we blame such and such a one for stirring up such and such corruptions in us; but these tend to draw out the vapours, and prepare for us a more lasting sunshine of a smiling God. God does not intend to destroy thee, but to refine thee, and to humble thee by it. The devil wants to sift thee as wheat; he thinks to let the grain go through the sieve, but Christ will only let the chaff fall through, and the sooner that is gone the better : so it is no ways derogatory to the honour of Christ, but agreeable to the state in which we are, agreeable to the state and the preparations to be made for eternity, agreeable to the militant disposition that our graces must retain. Hence our Lord was content to be called God's servant, "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, minc elect in whom my soul delighteth.-Though he was a son, he learned obedience by the things that he suffered;" he was made perfect by his suffer ings. We cannot avoid trouble as men, as christians we should not attempt it: 66 man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards :" and christians, especially the man new-born. "If these things. were done to the green tree, what shall be done to the dry?" The cross is the high road to heav en, and so the king's highway: you know there is always a bar upon the king's road, the king has a particular road for himself; but the King of kings will make all bars to be removed, and then his people go the same road he himself went: this was the road of all the children of God; there is not an heir of God in heaven but is now thanking God for his sufferings here below: there is not a child of God ever received into glory, but, I believe, as soon as he comes there, is made to know why he met with such a trial, and from such a quarter; why he was under such a rod, why under it so long; why it was shifted, why it was changed, why the whip sometimes was turned to a scorpion, and the furnace heated seven times hotter; then the believer sees the need of it in heaven it makes him wonder he was not amicted seven times more on earth. I re: member Virgil makes his hero in the Enied to say, "'twould all end well.*" He comforts him self with this consideration under his trouble, that the discharge from it would be the better; and if a child of God would think of that, hereafter he will look with pleasure on what he suffered here; much more a christian enriched with the grace of God, will be willing to die when * Dabit Deus his quoque finem. Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit, Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum, |