He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.
~ Job 20:17
God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
~ 1 Corinthians 1:9
And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.
~ Exodus 3:17
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
~ Psalm 124:7
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
~ Jeremiah 29:11
Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
~ James 5:11
Exhortation in Affliction, by Thomas Case. The following contains Chapter Six of his work, “A Treatise of Affliction”.
Chapter 6. Use of Exhortation
I have done with the use of information, I come now in the second place to the use of exhortation:
Firstly, to such as are yet free from sufferings. Secondly, to such as are under sufferings.
Finally, to such as are come out of a suffering condition.
1. The first branch of exhortation is to such as through the patience and forbearance of God, are yet free from chastisement and affliction. The candle of the Almighty shines in their tabernacle, and they “wash their steps in butter” (Job 29:6). Now, would you prevent chastisement, and keep off the strokes of divine displeasure from yourselves or families? Let me commend unto you, a two-fold caution from this doctrine:
a.) If you would prevent chastisements, study these and the like lessons well, while you are under the teachings of the Word. Therefore God sends us into the school of affliction, because we have been non-proficients in the school of the gospel; because we will not hear the Word, God turns us over to a severer discipline, and to have our ears bored with affliction; and then says God, now hear the rod, and who has appointed it. O my beloved, labor I beseech you, to profit much by the teachings of Jesus Christ in the gospel; set your hearts to all truths and counsels of God revealed to you therein. The gospel is the model or platform of sound words, able to make you sound Christians, wise to salvation; O let your profiting be made known unto all men. In special, set you hearts to those instructions or lessons first propounded; for the neglect whereof God sends his people into captivity, that there he may teach them with the briars and thorns of the wilderness, in particular.
Learn in the time of your peace and tranquility to lay to heart the sufferings of the rest of your brethren that are in the world. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; put your souls in their souls’ steads; and content not yourselves with those loose, fruitless, and transient glances which those that are at ease in Zion do usually cast upon men in misery; a cold ‘Lord have mercy upon them,’ and there’s an end. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and that you may know you are not to confine your compassion to prisoners only, it follows, and them that suffer adversity. Learn to sympathize with all the people of God under any adversity whatever; hide not your eyes, and shut not up your affections of compassion from any that are in a suffering condition; and that upon this account, as being yourselves in the body; if the duty respect your brother, the motive respects yourself; you are yet in the body; and while you remain in the flesh, you cannot promise yourselves one hour’s exemption from troubles; but are exposed to the same common calamities which attend a state of mortality.
As it is an argument of comfort to them that are in affliction, that their temptations and trials are common to men (1 Corinthians 10:13); God does not single them out to encounter with unparalleled affliction. So on the other side it is an incentive to compassion to them that are free, to consider that they are liable to the same temptations; and therefore should measure out the same compassions to their suffering brethren, that they would expect in the same trials; not knowing how soon the cup of trembling may be put into their own hand: to be sure, insensibleness of other men’s miseries will hasten it. “They put far away the evil day” (Amos 6:3). They give themselves up to all manner of sensuality, and thereby drown the sense of their brethren’s miseries. They are not grieved for the affliction of the Church, it never cost them an hour’s sleep, they abated nothing of all their sensual excesses; they never turn aside to shed one tear over bleeding Zion in secret. What follows? “Why,” says God, “Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed” (verse 7); as if God should have said, ‘As I live, because you have not pitied your brethren in captivity, you yourselves shall be led away captive, and the next turn shall be yours; and there you shall learn by sense what you would not feel by sympathy.’
And therefore, Christians, set your hearts to the afflictions of the Church and people of God; it is the great duty which the times call for, and I am afraid God is now visiting England and London for the neglect of this duty. We are guilty concerning our brethren in Germany, in Ireland, in England, and Scotland, and in other places. “In that we saw the anguish of their souls, when they besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us” (Genesis 42:21); we have not grieved their sorrows, nor wept their tears, nor sighed their groans, nor bled their blood; and therefore may fear, lest God should say unto us also, even unto us, with the next that go into captivity, ‘They shall go into captivity; with the next that are plundered and spoiled, London shall be plundered and spoiled; with the next that shall be imprisoned, you shall be taken prisoners; with the next that shall be slain with the sword, you shall be slain with the sword; your wives shall be made widows, and your children shall be made fatherless, and your dwellings shall cast you out, and be left desolate’; and therefore let us look to it, and know in this our day the things of our peace, before they be hid from our eyes. Show compassion, that you may not need compassion; or if you need it, you may find it.
In like manner set your hearts to the other lessons which God teaches by his chastisements.
Prize creature comforts more, and surfeit upon them less; be more thankful and less sensual; especially prize a gospel while you have a gospel; prize it by its worth, that you may not prize it by the want; prize it that you may keep it, lest you prize it one day when you cannot recover it. It is a dreadful word, “I will send a famine, not of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord, and they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it” (Amos 8:11-12).
Study self-denial and meekness of spirit. Labor to discover the hidden corruptions of your own hearts. Continue digging into that dunghill and you will find it a bottomless pit; “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? I the Lord search the heart” (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Oh entreat the Lord to discover your hearts to you.
Study Scripture evidence for your interest in Christ. Rest not in any evidence which you will not venture your souls upon, if you were to die this moment.
Labor to maintain sweet communion with God; to be able to say with the apostle, and to say truly, “Our communion is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). Make God your choice, and not your necessity; and labor to maintain such constant converse with him that when you die, you may change your place only, but not your company.
Live up in the exercises of your graces. “Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Peter 1:5-7). Be adding one grace to another, and one degree of grace to another, and one exercise of grace to another exercise of grace, that God may not add affliction to affliction, and sorrow to sorrow. While others are adding sin to sin, drunkenness to thirst, add grace to grace, “Be steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
Acquaint yourselves with God, and good shall come thereby (Job 22:21). Study to know God more and love him better; “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3).
Mind, I beseech you, while you are in your strength and peace, the one thing necessary. O take heed of industrious folly, and dishearten not yourselves in the pursuit of trifles! Mind your work.
“Redeem the time, the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16); O that Christians would study the worth of time! Value a day—say of every hour, yes of every moment, ‘This is time.’ Redeem time while it may do you good; “Evil days are coming, wherein you will say ‘I have no pleasure in them’” (Ecclesiastes 12:1). Yes, the days are evil; evil with sin, evil with sorrow; redeem the time to do good, to receive good, that neither you may be the worse for the times, nor the times for you. Blessed shall that man be called who contributes not to the heap of the God-provoking abominations, nor receives impressions from the hypocrisy and prevarication of the present generation.
Study the sufferings of Jesus Christ. Resolve with Paul, “to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). A due contemplation of the cross will heighten Christ’s love, and lesson your own sufferings. And labor to get your conversation in Heaven, looking for, and hastening to the coming of Christ (2 Peter 3:11-12); say, “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly” (Revelation 22:20). In a word, brethren, study, and study thoroughly, the sinfulness of sin, emptiness of the creature, and the fullness of Christ. And in all these and the like lessons, labor for an inward, convincing, experimental, powerful, sweet, abiding teaching.
Content not yourselves, Christians, with a general, slight, superficial, unsavory, powerless, flitting knowledge. Rest not in notions; be not satisfied with expressions without impressions; nor with impressions that are not abiding impressions, that are like figures written in the sand; this is the ruin of professors. Those professors shall have their names written in the dust, who write divine instructions in the dust.
Know this, if God has a mind to do you good, expect that he should send you into the house of correction, and there teach you with scourges, and write his instructions as it were in blood.
And therefore if you would prevent so severe a discipline, improve your time well in the school of the Word. “While you have the light, walk in the light, lest darkness come upon you” (John 12:35); while you sit under the teachings of the gospel, labor to get knowledge answerable to the means, and grace answerable to your knowledge.
b.) If you would prevent affliction, labor to be instructed by the chastisements which you see upon other men. God deals with his children as tutors do with the children of princes, he corrects them upon strangers’ backs. Thus God scourged Israel upon the back of the nations round about them; “I have cut off the nations, their towers are desolate, I made their streets waste that none passes by, their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant” (Zephaniah 3:6). Their punishment was Israel’s caution; “I said, ‘Surely you will fear me, you will receive instruction’” (verse 7). The world’s judgments are the Church’s instructions, and God expected that his people should have made that use of his practical doctrine. God had gracious ends in this dispensation; his severity to strangers was his tender mercy towards Israel; “Behold,” as the apostle says in another case, “the goodness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22); severity to the nations, but goodness towards Israel, had they continued in his goodness and received instruction by their neighbor’s destruction. And as God punished Israel upon the nations’ backs, so God punished Judah upon Israel’s back: “Go you now to my place in Shiloh, and see what I did to it, for the wickedness of my people Israel” (Jeremiah 7:12).
Israel’s chastisements should have been Jerusalem’s teachings, and by their stripes she should have been healed. For the neglect whereof God is highly displeased, and speaks concerning this in a very angry dialect, “And I saw when, for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also” (Jeremiah 3:8). God took it ill that Jerusalem should slight the kindness of such a caution, and despise the counsel which was written to her in her sister’s blood; as if he had said, ‘I would have made Jerusalem wise by Samaria’s harms, and taught her by a rod which she only saw; but she feared not; she hardened her heart through unbelief, and either would not understand the caution, or dared me to my face to do my worst, while by her shameless whoredoms she went on to provoke me to jealousy.’ This hastened that judgment upon herself which she despised on others; Judah must feel Israel’s rod because she would not hear it; as Israel must suffer those judgments on the nations which she herself would not use to her improvement; by those very nations by whom she would not be instructed, she must be destroyed.
So Judah must feel what she feared not at a distance. She that would not tremble at her sister’s divorce must suffer divorce herself, and “be judged as women that break wedlock—and bear her own shame for her sins that she had committed more abominable than they” (Ezekiel 16:38,52).
Beloved Christians, if we would prevent the like severity, let us take heed of the like security. God has been a long time scourging England upon Germany’s back, and upon Ireland’s back, and upon Scotland’s back. God has for these many years scourged London on the back of all the cities and countries round about us, and God daily scourges every one of us in particular upon the back of our suffering brethren, in diverse kinds. His design is that we should fear him, that we should receive instruction. If we altogether fail, we may fear the same rods are preparing for our backs, with which they have bled, yes that their rods shall he turned into scorpions to us. We sin worse than others when we sin those very sins for which others have been punished before our faces, and add contempt to their transgressions; and how just will it be with God, if as we aggravate their sins, to aggravate upon us their plagues; that we that would not see and learn, should feel and perish; even particular judgments should be our warnings. Remember Lot’s wife; her pillar of salt should season our hearts, that when the judgments of God are abroad in the earth, we that are the inhabitants, not of the earth only—but of Zion also, may learn righteousness.
Even those judgments which the magistrate executes by God’s appointment are chiefly for caution to standers by, that others may hear and fear, and do no more any such wickedness; how much more those judgments which the Lord himself executes?
2. I come to the second branch of exhortation, which is to such as yet lie under affliction, and the chastisements of the Almighty.
Take notice, O afflicted soul, what God’s design is in afflicting you— and make it your design, that you may be taught. “Hear the rod and the One who has appointed it” (Micah 6:9). It is the great mistake and folly of men, that they make more haste to get their afflictions removed than sanctified, “The captive exile hastens that he may be loosed, that he should not die in the pit” (Isaiah 51:14). Men would gladly break prison, or escape at the window—before God opens the door; but this their way, is their folly. Men indeed would gladly be delivered, but they take not the right course. Deliverance belongs unto God: “I am the Lord your God who divided the sea,” and made it a way for my ransomed to pass over, and that when it was most tempestuous, “when the waves thereof roared”. When I will deliver, no obstruction can stand in the way—and yet Israel now in captivity will not look to me: “I am the Lord Almighty” (verse 15), who has all the armies in Heaven and earth at my command. And yet when they are besieged with troubles and dangers, I do not hear from them. They run to the creature and neglect God. Or if they cry to me in their distresses, it is for deliverance only, but not for teaching. Though “I have put my words in your mouth” (verse 16)— that is, though I have given them my laws and statutes, wherein I have made known my design in affliction, that I might humble them, and prove them, and make them know what is in their heart. This is the shortest way to deliverance, and if they had trod in this path, I would have said to Zion, ‘You are my people.’
This is God’s method wherein he will own his people, and wherein if they meet him—they shall not wait long for their deliverance. And therefore be wise, O afflicted ones, tossed with tempest, and not comforted. Be instructed, lest God’s soul departs from you. Make more haste to be taught, than to be delivered, and choose rather to have your affliction sanctified, than removed. That is observable in Elihu’s speech: “Hypocrites in heart heap up wrath”—they add to their own calamities—why? “even when he fetters them, they do not cry for help” (Job 36:13).
Consider that God’s design is that he might teach you by his chastisements—and if you cross God’s design, it is just with him to cross your design. The only way to delay it, is to make too much haste to be delivered, and “he who believes will not make haste” (Isaiah 28:16).
Consider that bare deliverance is not the blessing. I told you before that deliverance is but the common bounty; I tell you more now— deliverance alone may be the fruit of the curse. A man may be delivered in wrath, and not in love; deliverance from one affliction may but make way for another and greater affliction. Affliction may return, like the unclean spirit, with seven more worse than itself; so God threatens an unteachable people, “If by these things you will not be reformed, but will walk contrary to me,” by crossing my design in my chastisements, “then will I walk contrary to you”—I will cross your design, and instead of deliverance, “I will punish you yet seven times more for your sins” (Leviticus 26:23-24). The blessing of correction, is instruction. O do not let God go until he bless you (Genesis 32:26).
It is a sad thing to have affliction—but not the blessing of affliction. It is a sad thing to feel the wood of the cross, but not the good of the cross. It is a sad thing to taste the bitter root, but not the sweet fruit of a suffering condition. It is a sad thing have the curse, but not the cordial. Truly in such a case one affliction may not only make way for another, for more, for greater afflictions; but affliction here on earth, may make way for damnation hereafter! As one says, “By all the fire of affliction in this world—a man may be made fuel for eternal fire.” Therefore mind instruction, study the lessons of a suffering condition (as above) and be importunate for nothing so much as to be taught of God, with that special saving teaching which changes the soul into the nature of the truth; and makes the soul holy as that is holy, and pure as that is pure.
3. To those who have come out of affliction and fiery trials. Sit down, Christian, and reflect upon yourself; turn in upon your own heart, and examine yourself. Have divine teachings accompanied chastisements? Has the rod budded? Cast up your accounts—what have you learned in the school of affliction? Has God revealed to you . . .
the sinfulness of sin,the emptiness of the creature, and the fullness of Christ?
Is no evil like the evil of sin? Is no good like the goodness of Jesus Christ? Has the world become an empty vanity, a mockery, a nothing in your eyes? Can you say, “It is good that I have been afflicted” (Psalm 119:71)? Can you point out that good, and say, ‘This I have got by my sufferings: I know divine truth more inwardly, more clearly, it has a more abiding impression upon my heart’? I would here speak a word to those who through grace do find the fruit of affliction in the savory and saving teachings of God upon their hearts. Let me, by way of exhortation, commend these duties to you.
a.) Study to be thankful. Has God taught you as well as chastised you? O say with David, “What shall I render to the Lord?” (Psalm 116:12). For consider how great things God has done to your soul:
God has done more for you than if he had never brought you into affliction and trouble—or than if he had brought you out of affliction on the same day on which he sent you in. If he had delivered you upon the first prayer that ever you made in your affliction, it had not been a comparable mercy to his teaching you by it. Prevention and deliverance may be in wrath, but God never teaches the soul, unless it is in love.
Again, God has doubled his mercy and loving-kindness to you; he has commanded deliverance and instruction too. Yes, as deliverance and instruction were the return of prayer—this is a multiplied mercy; which should make the heart sing with David, “I will love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplication” (Psalm 116:1).
Double, triple, and multiplied mercy calls for double, triple, and multiplied thankfulness. When God loads us with mercy—then we should load him with our praises.
Again, instruction is the seal of God, which set upon correction, seals up adoption and sonship to those who are exercised thereby. The children of affliction are by divine teaching sealed up as the children of promise: “If his children forsake my law,” speaking of Christ’s spiritual seed, “I will visit their transgressions with a rod” (Psalm 89:30, 32). That is, I will teach them with the rod; it shall be a rod of instruction to them. That is the children’s portion: “If his children forsake me,” God deals with you as with sons.
Behold, O Christian! God has done that for you in your sufferings which possibly may be denied you in your prosperity—he has given you an evidence of sonship; he has made your suffering time your sealing time; he has allured you and brought you into the wilderness, and there has spoken comfortably to your heart (Job 36:16). Your Patmos has been your paradise, wherein he has given you his loves.
God has consecrated your sufferings by his teachings. Afflictions have taken orders as it were, and stand no longer in the rank of ordinary providences, but serve now in the order of gospel ordinances, officiating in the holy garment of divine promises, and to the same uses.
What is the great end and design of the promises? The apostle tells us “that we might be partakers of a divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4)—of gracious dispositions and qualities which make the soul resemble God. What the apostle Peter affirms of the promises, the very same Paul affirms of God’s chastisements, “He chastens us for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10). See by virtue of divine teaching: afflictions are advanced to the same degree and office with gospel ordinances and promises—so that we may give those titles of honor to afflictions, which the apostle here gives to the promises, and say, ‘There are given unto us exceeding great and precious afflictions—that by them we might be partakers of the divine nature,’ that is, ‘made partakers of his holiness.’
See, O afflicted soul, by teaching God has changed the very nature of affliction! He has turned your water, into wine! He has turned your prison, your bed of sickness—into a school, into a temple, wherein he has taught you into his own likeness.
And as God has consecrated your sufferings—so likewise he has consecrated you also by your sufferings. As it is said of Christ, “He made the captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10)—he consummated, or perfected him. Christ became a perfect mediator by his cross; hence you hear him cry upon it, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
And thus also it may be said of the members of Christ, they are “perfected by sufferings.” Chastisement coupled with teaching is the consecration and consummation of the saints, “I fill up,” says Paul, “in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” (Colossians 1:24)—the after-sufferings of Christ. As Christ as a mediator is perfected through sufferings, so Christ as one body with his members is completed by sufferings. Christ is not full, until all his members have had their measure of sufferings. “You have need of patience, that when you have done the will of God, you may inherit the promises” (Hebrews 10:36). When we have done God’s will, all is not done— there is something to be suffered, without which the Christian is not in a capacity to receive his inheritance. You have need of patience to carry you through the suffering part of your work, as well as the doing—that so being perfect, you may inherit the promises.
Finally, by adding instruction to correction, God has crowned you with the blessing. “Blessed is the man whom you chasten and teach” (Psalm 94:12). God has turned the crown of thorns into a crown of gold, and set it on your head—and now brings you forth wearing this crown, and shows you, as it were, to the world, as a monument of free grace; proclaiming before you, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom God delights to honor!” (cf. Esther 6:6).
Well then, Christian, sit down and consult with your own soul, what to render to God for so rich a mercy; and behold, it is resolved to your hand, “I will deliver you—and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:15). God has not only delivered, but taught you; now therefore he expects glory from you.
Glorify God with your LIPS, ‘I cried to him with my lips, and he was glorified with my tongue.’ Let the lip of prayer, be turned into the tongue of praise. Make your tongues your glory, by proclaiming God’s glory. Be telling what great things God has done for you; say with David, “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he has done for my soul! Abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness, make his praise glorious” (Psalm 66:16,145:7).
Glorify God with your LIFE, and live his praise. Put all the lessons which you have learned into print: “Show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9); put them in such a legible character, that who so runs may read. Lip-praise is good, but life-praise is better: “He who offers me praise glorifies me, and to him who orders his conduct aright, I will show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23). It is good to speak so that bystanders may be God’s witnesses and yours, that you are taught of God; and say, “Behold! what has God wrought!” (Numbers 23:23).
How holily, and humbly, and fruitfully, and self-denyingly do these servants of God walk since they came out of tribulation? Live so that you may take off the scandal of the cross of Christ, and bring men into love with a suffering condition. “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
Again, now that God has taught you—be ready to teach others. It is a debt which you owe to all you converse with, “When you are turned, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32). Communicate what God has taught you to your wife, children, and others, upon all seasonable opportunities. Sanctified knowledge is communicative, “freely you have received—freely give” (Matthew 10:8). God never lighted this candle that it should be put under the bed of pleasure, or the basket of profit—but that it may be put into the candlestick of your conduct, and so “shine before men, that they may see and glorify your Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16). This is indeed to glorify God.
b.) Labor to preserve the teachings of God upon YOUR heart. Study how to maintain that sweet gracious frame of heart into which God has taught you by affliction. It is the duty which Christians should practice as often as they come from the Word, or any other divine ordinance. When we come out of a Sabbath, we should sit down and observe with what frame of spirit God sends us away from the ordinance. If the ordinance has left no savory gracious impression upon the heart—then lie in the dust, and mourn, and commune with our own hearts, and lament after God. If there is an ordinance frame—then we should rejoice in it, bless God for it, and labor to keep up such a frame upon the heart until the next solemn approach to God. And how much more should it be our care, when we come out of God’s furnace, to labor to maintain that melting frame of heart—that life and vigor which we have brought with us out of affliction. “Look to yourselves, that you lose not those things which God has wrought in you” (2 John 1:8). To that end, take these helps:
(1.) Be often reading over the lessons which God has taught you. Frequently revive the remembrance of them in your heads, and work the impressions of them upon your hearts. You have need to take much pains with yourselves, to keep the teachings of God alive upon your spirits, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). There is much of a Pharaoh-like disposition in every man—very prone to harden when the storm is over. It is sad and astonishing to consider how a corruption will lie as if it were quite dead, while danger and death are before us—and how suddenly and powerfully it will revive and betray the soul when the danger is over.
That caution which God gave the Israelites in the wilderness, may make every wise Christian tremble, “I know their imaginations, which they go about even now, before I have brought them into the land, which I swore” (Deuteronomy 31:21). Their hearts were secretly scheming their lusts, even while they were yet smarting under the rod; and in the howling wilderness they are forecasting how to satisfy sense and serve their carnal interests when they would come into the land that flowed with milk and honey. Possibly, these were not down-right resolves; but says the Lord, “I know their imaginations.”
O my brethren, we should hearken to the whisperings of lust in our own bosoms, and labor to suppress them; for if there are now such floatings of sin in the imagination—what will there be when enlargement shall present both temptations and opportunities? And therefore “keep your hearts with all diligence, for out of them come the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
(2.) Renew often the remembrance of the sharpness and bitterness of the affliction—it will be a good corrective to sensuality, and give check to sinful excesses. The flesh will quickly grow wanton when it finds ease. Jeshurun, when the neck was removed from under the yoke, quickly “waxed fat and kicked” (Deuteronomy 32:15). They soon forgot God’s works—they quickly forgot a barren wilderness, in a land that flowed with milk and honey. They did not wait for his counsel; they grew weary of it when once free from correction, and chose rather to walk by the dictate of their own lusts, than of God’s laws, until at length God grew as weary (if I may so say) of counseling, as they were of being counseled. Then he “gave them up to their own hearts’ lusts, to walk in their own counsels” (Psalm 81:12).
Those who would not live by God’s counsels, should perish by their own. And therefore, you who have come out of the house of bondage, remember the sorrows of a suffering condition. Set your heart not so much upon the pleasure of your present enlargement, as upon the bitterness of your former captivity. The Church found great advantage in it, when returned from Babylon, “Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall; my soul has them continually in remembrance” (Lamentations 3:19-20). And what was the fruit of it? It follows, “and my soul is humbled in me” (verse 20b). And that is not all, as remembrance of affliction preserved humility, so humility strengthened faith: “This I recall to mind, therefore have I hope. Tribulation wrought patience, and patience experience, and experience hope,” and so forth (Lamentations 3:21).
(3.) Call often to mind the sad discourses and reasonings, the fears and tremblings, which you have had in your bosoms in the times of trouble and distress. Thus says the Church, “I forgot prosperity” (Lamentations 3:17)—she had been so long in a suffering condition, that now she can scarcely remember that ever she saw a good day in all her life; and at length she sits down, and gives herself up to despair, “And I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord” (verse 18). She remembered what unbelieving conclusions she made in her affliction—and so the prophet Jeremiah says, “Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off” (Lamentations 3:54); when he began to sink in the mire, he remembered how his heart began to sink with fear; he called to mind what faithless language his heart spoke, “I said, I am cut off.”
Hezekiah makes a large narrative of what discourses he had in his own soul when he had received the sentence of death, and left it in writing to all posterity: “The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been sick: I said in the cutting off of my days,” what did he say? “I shall go to the gates of the grave; I am deprived of the residue of my years; my age is departed” (Isaiah 38:9-10), and a great deal more to that purpose; the sum whereof is this, ‘I shall die, I shall die. I must take my leave of this world, and worms must eat my flesh in the grave,’ and so forth. Such uncomely words he uttered —but he remembered them afterward, and is contented to shame himself for them to all the world. He puts his complaints in print— that he may humble himself, and caution, yes and comfort, others.
Thus, Christians, should we do, we should call to mind our sins—we should sit down and recount the impatience, murmurs, and unbelief; the love of a present world, the fear of death, the hard thoughts of God; all the irregularities and distempers of our own spirits in the time of tribulation. Doubtless it would be of singular use, as to humble our souls and check corruption—and so to endear and preserve the teachings of God upon your souls.
While you might tune David’s thanksgiving (conceived upon some such like occasion), “Good and upright is the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners in the way” (Psalm 25:8); as much as to say, ‘I sinned against the Lord in my affliction by my impatience, unbelief, unhumbledness, and so forth—yet he was pleased, not altogether to leave me without the teachings of his Spirit—not because I was good —but because he was good; not because I pleased him—but because mercy pleased him; not because I was upright before him—but because he was upright. True and faithful to his own promise, has he done it, good and upright is the Lord—and therefore he has taught me in the way.’
(4.) Remember your vows. When God by affliction showed you your folly, and revealed to you the hidden corruption of your hearts, and brought your ways and doings to remembrance, which were not good —you were ashamed, yes, even confounded; and said, as it is in Job, “Lord, wherein I have done wickedly, I will do so no more” (Job 34:32). But take heed it be not with you as it was with backsliding Israel, of whom God thus complained: “Of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bands, and you said, ‘I will not transgress’” (Jeremiah 2:20).
I brought you (as if he had said) hundreds of years ago, out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and then you made me fair promises. “I remember the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals” (Jeremiah 2:2); you said, “I will do so no more” (Job 34:32); Lord, I will be covetous no more, idolatrous no more, adulterous no more. I will murmur no more; I will no more depart from you, “You are the guide of my youth” (Jeremiah 3:4). Good words—had she been as good as her word! But O read what follows, and tremble! “When upon every high hill, and under every green tree, you wander, playing the harlot” (Jeremiah 2:20). No sooner had her old heart and her old temptations met, but presently they fell into mutual embraces!
This is also the temper of our hearts, we are very good while we are in affliction, and promise fair. But no sooner is the trial over, but we forget God’s teachings and our own vows, and return into the same sinful course and conduct as before.
Now therefore, if you would preserve the teachings of God upon your spirits—sit down and remember your vows; and spreading them before the Lord, say with David, “I will pay you my vows, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth has spoken, when I was in trouble” (Psalm 66:13-14).
(5.) If you would preserve the teachings of God upon your heart, attend constantly and conscientiously upon the ministry of the Word. The truth is, the Word and the rod teach the same lessons. The rod many times is but the Word’s remembrancer—and therefore as the rod quickens the Word. In the same way, the Word will revive and sanctify the teachings of the rod. They mutually help to set on one another with deeper impressions. And therefore “Hear Wisdom, watching daily at her gates, waiting at the posts of her doors” (Proverbs 8:33-34), if you will be blessed. It will be of a twofold advantage—
FIRST. It will help your memories. As the rod repeats the Word—so the Word will repeat the instructions of the rod. The Word will bring to remembrance what you have learned in the school of affliction.
SECOND. It will quicken affection. To hear that repeated by the still small voice of the Word, which before God taught you in the voice of thunder in affliction—this cannot but affect your hearts! As once the Israelites said unto Moses, “Speak unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto you, and we will hear it and do it; but let us not hear the voice of God any more”—that terrible voice of judgment—”lest we die” (Deuteronomy 5:27; Exodus 20:18-19). And certainly God will take it as well at your hands as he did at Israel’s, and will answer in some such language, “I have heard the voice of this people, they have well said all that they have spoken. O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep my commandments, that it might be well with them” (Deuteronomy 5:28-29)—and that I might not bring upon them such evils as I have done, anymore!
(6.) Be often feeding that frame of heart which God has taught you into. Do by it as you daily beg God would do by you—give it day by day its daily bread (Matthew 6:11). Maintain MEDITATIONS suitable to the nature of that grace which you would maintain— threatenings, promises, truths, and Scripture considerations agreeable to the lesson. Take heed of feeding your heart’s corruption, with thoughts of the sweetness which is in sin. Take heed also, of starving grace by withdrawing from it suitable nourishment.
Meditate much upon . . . the sinfulness of sin,
the vanity of the creature, the fullness of Christ,
the exquisiteness of His sufferings, the finality of the judgment,
the torments of Hell,
the joys of Heaven,
the infinite perfections of the divine nature, and the solemnity of eternity!
Rich in meditation—rich in grace!
(7.) And lastly, be much in prayer. As it was not enough for God to make the first creation, but he must “uphold it by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3), or else it would quickly have returned into its first nothing—so it is with the second creation. Christ is the finisher as well as the author of grace (Hebrews 12:2); he who has begun a good work in you, must perfect it (Philippians 1:6). Stability only comes from the unchangeable God—therefore pray that God would put his unchangeableness upon you.
Pray as Luther was in the habit of praying, “Confirm, O Lord, in us what you have wrought, and perfect the work you have begun in us, to your glory, Amen.” He seems to have taken this out of Psalm 68:28, “Strengthen, O God, that which you have wrought in us.”
Pray that prayer which David prayed over that liberal frame of heart which God had formed in his people, for the service of the temple: “O Lord God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, our fathers—keep this forever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of your people, and establish their heart unto you” (1 Chronicles 29:18).
Oh be earnest with God for stability of heart, that your goodness may not be as a morning cloud, and as the early dew; but that it may, in some proportion, resemble the Author of it, and be the same yesterday, and today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
In SUMMARY, by all these means and helps, and what other God has sanctified for this gracious end—labor, Christians, to be such after God has delivered out of your afflictions, as you promised God and yourselves to be when you were in them—so that the fruit of chastening may be repentance never to be repented of. Having in your troubles repented of your sins—take heed when you are delivered, that you repent not of your repentance.
c.) I come now to the third duty of those who have come out of afflictions: pray for the afflicted. And when you pray, say, ‘Lord teach them, as well as correct them—that they may be blessed.’ O pray thus for England; she has been a long time sorely chastised of the Lord—and yet has been all this while “like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke” (Jeremiah 31:18). O pray, “Turn us, Lord, and we shall be turned—you are the Lord our God” (Lamentations 5:21). Pray that God would teach England in this day of her visitation, the things of her peace, before they are hidden from her eyes. O pray that we may be instructed, lest God depart from us. If correction is not accompanied with instruction—if England is not at length reformed by all the judgments of God upon her—then she has already seen her best days, and may expect to be “made desolate, a land not inhabited” (Jeremiah 6:8). Then there is no balm for our pain, nor any physician who can heal our malady.
Pray thus for all your friends who are or have been in the furnace of affliction. Pray that they may come forth as gold purified seven times in the fire. Pray that they may lose nothing there, but their rust and dross.
One great use which Christians should make of reading the Scriptures, is to learn the language of prayer. O that the professors of this age would in this particular, learn what to pray, and how to pray for their brethren in tribulation. O that they would censure less— and pray more; and instead of speaking one of another, speak more one to another, and one for another. That was the good old way, “Then those who feared the Lord spoke often one to another” (Malachi 3:16).
But now the tender, praying, healing, restoring Spirit is departed; and if Christians stir not up themselves to call Him back again, it is a sad presage that God is departing too. And woe unto us when God departs from us.
We judge before we inquire, and reject before we admonish—our brethren in afflictions. And this we think befits us—and we take a kind of pride and contentment in it. But O to inform, to convince, to exhort, to pray, to put the bone that is out in joint again—this is to act like the disciples of Christ; this is to show ourselves Christians indeed, professors not of the letter, but of the Spirit, and would gain our brethren instead of blasting them.
Finally, I would also address such as cannot evidence to their own souls that chastening has been accompanied with divine teaching in any gospel proportion, or at least are not deeply sensible of the lack of it. Here is a word of exhortation for them, receive it, I beseech you. Roll yourselves in the dust before the Lord; smite upon your thigh; sigh and cry out with Ephraim, “You have chastised me and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke” (Jeremiah 31:18). I have felt the blows of God, but that is all. I have received no more instruction by all my correction than a brute beast—or if I had, I have quickly lost it; it is fled away like a bird.
Truly you have cause to sit down, and even wish for your affliction again. God had put himself into your hands as it were—and you have let him go without the blessing, the blessing of saving instruction. How may you even wish, ‘O that I were in prison again, in my sick bed again, in banishment again.’ However, humble yourself greatly before the Lord, and wrestle mightily for the after teachings of God upon your heart. Pray, “Turn me O Lord, and I shall be turned, for you are the Lord my God” (Lamentations 5:21)—what affliction has not done, Lord do—”turn me, and I shall be turned”—so that your soul may yet speak to the praise of free grace: “After that I returned I repented, and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh; I was ashamed, yes even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth” (Jeremiah 31:19).
Urge the Lord, as Sampson did after his victory, “You have given this great deliverance into the hand of your servant, and shall I now die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” (Judges 15:18). Say unto him, ‘Lord, you have given your servant this great deliverance from danger and death—and shall I now perish for lack of teaching, and go down to Hell among the uncircumcised?’ “Teach me your way, O Lord—and I will walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name” (Psalm 86:11). In a word, desire the Lord that he would do all the work—and then take all the glory. Say, ‘Lord teach me as well as deliver me—and I shall be blessed.’
4. The fourth and last branch of exhortation, is to parents— to exhort them in the education of their children to imitate God, and that in three things:
a.) Afford your children due correction. It is the counsel of the Holy Spirit, “Chasten your son while there is hope, and let not your soul spare for his crying” (Proverbs 19:18). Behold, God counsels you who are parents to do with your children as he does with his—wisely to use the discipline of the rod, before vicious dispositions grow into habits, and folly is so deeply rooted that the rod of correction will not drive it out.
“Error and folly,” says one very well, “are the cords of Satan with which he ties sinners to the stake to be burnt in Hell!” These cords are easiest cut early. If you make the child bleed in the cutting of them, let it not cause you to withdraw your hand; for so it follows, “Chasten your son, and let not your soul spare for his crying.” It is not only foolish, but cruel pity to forbear correction for a few childish tears; to cause your child to wail in Hell for sin, rather than to shed a few tears for the preventing of it. Foolish fathers and mothers call this love, but the Father of Spirits calls it hatred: “He who spares the rod, hates his son!” (Proverbs 13:24). Surely there is nothing so ill- spared, as that whereby the child is bettered. Such sparing is hatred; and because you hate your children in not correcting them—they may come afterwards to hate you for not correcting them.
But this is not all. The parent’s leniency in disciplining, makes way for God’s severity. Pity to the child’s flesh—is cruelty to the child’s soul. So the Hebrew may be rendered, “Spare not to his destruction, or to cause him to die”—that is, to occasion his destruction. The foolish indulgence of the parent may be, and often is, the death of the child—eternal death. Parents spare their children in their folly—to the destruction both of body and soul!
And this may help us to expound that other parallel text, “Withhold not correction from the child, for if you beat him with the rod he shall not die.” (Proverbs 23:13). The meaning may be either that correction will not kill him—the rod will break no bones. This reproves the silly and sinful soft-heartedness of parents, who think if they would correct their children, they would presently die of it. They are as afraid to use the rod, as if it were a sword. Nay, but says the Holy Spirit, fear not correction, for behold, the strokes of the rod are not the strokes of death. It is but a rod—it is not a serpent. It may hurt—but it will not give a poisonous sting. To obviate the fear of parents in this case, God himself gives his word for it, “He shall not die.”
This may be the meaning, which I rather conceive—the words may be a motive drawn from the fruit of correction, “Withhold not correction from the child.” Why? “He shall not die”—in other words discipline may be, and (through divine blessing accompanying it) is often a means to prevent death. It may prevent the first and second death, to which the child is exposed by the sinful indulgence of the parent.
The word used in this place, says one, seems to note an immortality; so that “He shall not die”—is all one as if the Holy Spirit had said, ‘He shall live forever,’ the rod on the flesh shall be a means to save the soul in the day of the Lord Jesus. “We are chastened that we should not be condemned with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:32). “Such smitings,” as David says in another case, “shall be a kindness” (Psalm 141:5). And such rebukes are so far from breaking the head, that they shall be an excellent oil which shall cure, and give life. Even the philosopher could say, “Correction is a kind of medicine for children.”
Alas, our children are sick, and cruel is that mercy which will allow them to die—yes eternally—rather than heal their palates with a little bitter medicine! They are monsters in the form of fathers and mothers—who thus hug their little ones to death! They are infanticides rather than parents; of whom we may say, as once the Roman emperor said of Herod, when he heard that he had murdered his own son among the rest of the infants in Bethlehem, so that he might be sure to destroy the King of the Jews, “Surely it is better to be such people’s swine, than their sons!”
O hateful indulgence and merciless pity—to damn a child for lack of correction! Such parents throw both the rod and the child into the fire at once! They throw the rod into the fire of the chimney—and the child into the fire of Hell.
This is not done like God, for “whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6)—and so does every wise loving parent! “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him chastens him early” (Proverbs 13:24).
As moths are beaten out of a garment with a rod—so must vices be beaten out of children’s hearts. For lack of this disciplinary love— how have some children accused their parents on their death-bed, yes at the gallows! And how many do and will curse their parents in Hell—as Cyprian supposes some to do: “The wicked fondness of our parents has brought us into these torments! Our fathers and mothers have been our murderers! Those who gave us our natural life, have deprived us of eternal life! Those who would not correct us with the rod, have occasioned us now to be tormented with scorpions.”
Yes, even in this life, how do many godly parents smart for their indulgent fondness, because they will not make their children smart for their folly. Eli and David would not so much as rebuke their sons —and God gave them rebukes in their sons. It is said of Eli, “His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not” (1 Samuel 3:13). The Hebrew has it, “He did not frown upon them.” How sad—for lack of a frown, to destroy a soul!
I am much afraid, this unchristian, yes wicked indulgence of parents, is the fountain of all that confusion under which England at this time reels and staggers like a drunken man. And for this very sin (at least for this among others, yes, and for this above others) God is visiting all the families of the land, from the throne to the poorest cottage. Such indulgent parents have laid the foundation of . . .
their own sorrows,
their children’s ruin, and
the destruction of the nation,
in withholding proper discipline from their children!
Therefore God crosses us in our righteous desires; we have walked, even in this point, exceedingly contrary to God and to his discipline; and therefore God is walking contrary to us, and is punishing us seven times more for this iniquity. And therefore O that parents would at length awaken themselves, to follow both the pattern and precept of their heavenly Father, who, as “he corrects those whom he loves,” so he commands them to lovingly correct their children. “Withhold not correction from the child; for if you correct him with the rod he shall not die” (Proverbs 23:13).
And it is further worth observation, that the same word in the original, which is translated “withhold”, signifies also “to forbid”; meeting with another distemper in parents, who as they will not correct their children themselves, so also they forbid others to correct them, under whose tuition they put them. It is as if they were afraid their children would not have sin enough here, nor Hell enough hereafter—they lay in caveats against the means which God has sanctified for their reclaiming. Parents, take heed that when you commit your children to others’ hands, you do not in the meanwhile hold their hands.
If you judge them unwise, why do you choose them? If you choose them, why do you not trust them? Well then, if the rod is in your own hand, withhold it not; if in your friend’s hand, forbid it not.
Certainly there is great need of this duty, which the Spirit of God frequently inculcates all through the Proverbs.
b.) And secondly, if you would have your children blessed, add instruction to correction. Imitate God in this part of paternal discipline also. Let chastisement and instruction go together—it is what the Holy Spirit urges upon you, “Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
There are two words relating to both of these parental duties; in the “nurture” or correction; and it is added, “of the Lord”. That is, the chastisement which the Lord commands earthly parents to exercise towards their children—this is the first duty, of which we have already addressed. And then there is another word, which holds forth the end and design of parental correction—that is the “admonition” or instruction of the Lord—counsels and instructions taken out of the Word of God, or such as are approved of by God. The sum is this, that while we chasten the flesh—we should labor to inform and form the mind and spirit, by infusing right principles, pressing and urging upon their tender hearts counsel, reproof, and instruction as the matter requires.
This is the duty of parents, to imitate God, to let instruction expound correction; and with a rod in the hand, and a word in the mouth—to train up their children to life eternal.
A silent rod is but a brutish discipline, and will certainly leave them more brutish than it found them. Chastisement without teaching— may sooner break the bones than the heart. Chastisement alone may mortify the flesh, but not corruption. Chastisement alone may control nature, but never beget grace. But the rod and reproof give wisdom. As instruction added to correction makes excellent Christians—so also it makes good children.
There are parents who are severe and crusty enough to their children —they spare for no blows. Instead of breaking them of their wills by a wise and moderate correction—they are ready to break their bones, and their necks too sometimes, in their angry passions! But they never mind the other branch of paternal discipline—instruction and admonition.
Of such parents I suppose the apostle speaks, “We have had fathers of our flesh, who corrected and chastened us after their own pleasure” (Hebrews 12:9-10). He is not speaking of all parents, but his meaning is, there are such men and women in the world who are most unlike to God, and in smiting their children rather please themselves, than profit their children. God disciplines for our profit —but they discipline to give vent to their passion, and satisfy their vindictive rage and fury. And when is that?
Truly when the rod and reproof do not go together, it is an argument that there is more passion than wisdom, and more cruelty than love, in such chastisements. Such parents do rather betray their own folly, than take a course to make their children wise.
The rod and reproof give wisdom—neither alone will do it. The rod without reproof, will harden the heart and teach children sooner to hate their parents than to hate sin. While reproof without the rod, will oftentimes leave no impression. It is divine truth alone, which must be the instrument which works saving grace in the heart, “Sanctify them with your truth—your word is truth” (John 17:17). It is the commendation of Timothy’s mother, that from his very infancy, she instructed him in the Scriptures, “which were able to make him wise to salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15). When the instruction of the Word in in the mouth of the rod—it brings wisdom and life with it.
And therefore, O that parents would imitate the Father of Spirits in this blessed are of paternal discipline, join the word of instruction to the rod of correction—and teach as well as chastise “Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2). O that every child might have cause to give their parents that commendation which once Augustine gave his mother, “My mother labored with my everlasting salvation with more tenderness and sorrow, than ever she did with my first birth.”
O that natural parents could speak of the fruit of their loins, as Paul speaks of his Galatians, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19); so that they might rejoice in the second, more than they ever did in the first birth.
Beloved, this is done by the Word and the rod. “Correct your son and he shall give you rest, yes he shall give delight unto your soul” (Proverbs 29:17). What greater delight than to see your children walking in truth, and to think thus with yourselves: that so many children God has given you, so many children you have brought up for God, and so many heirs for the kingdom of Heaven! Well, chastise and teach them out of the Word of God, and your children shall be blessed.
Take one short caution more, and that is:
c.) Add prayer to instruction. As teaching should accompany chastisement—so prayer should accompany teaching. Paul may plant, and Apollos may water—but God must give the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6). In the same way with us, the father may correct, the mother may instruct, both may do both—but God must give the blessing.
So therefore Christian parents, while they add instruction to correction—should add prayer to instruction. The means are ours—the success is God’s. Therefore let us put the rod into the hand of instruction—and instruction into the hand of prayer—and all into the hand of God.
Pray and teach your children to pray—that God would so bless correction and instruction, that both may make you and your children blessed. Amen.
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