Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.
~ Proverbs 29:17
Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.
~ Deuteronomy 8:5
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
~ Psalm 103:13
The Grounds and Demonstrations Of God Teaching Via Affliction, by Thomas Case. The following contains Chapter Four of his work, “A Treatise of Affliction”.
Chapter 4.
The Grounds and Demonstrations of the Point
It must needs be a blessed thing when correction and instruction meet, if we consider:
1. The lessons themselves which God teaches his people. These are, as above shown: sympathy, moderation, self- denial, humility, self-knowledge, prayer, the Scriptures, evidences for Heaven, evil of sin, communion with God, exercise of grace, life of faith, self-diffidence, knowledge of God, duties of suffering, privilege of suffering, the one thing necessary, time redemption, the sufferings of Christ, and the value of Heaven.
Behold Christians! To be taught of God when chastised by him, is a blessedness compounded of twenty several precious ingredients.
2. The nature and properties of divine teaching; which is inwardly, clearly, experimentally, powerfully, sweetly, and abidingly. This must needs be a blessed teaching; it being a teaching which possesses the soul of the excellencies which it discovers. Doctrinal and notional knowledge is a blessing, “Blessed,” says Christ to his hearers, “are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear” (Matthew 13:16): but to be taught these lessons with these qualifications; to be taught into the nature and image of the truth; to be taught into the possession of divine excellencies—this is blessedness indeed; blessedness in being; full, perfect, fruitful blessedness.
3. A teaching chastisement is the fruit of God’s distinguishing love. Chastisements, simply considered in themselves, lie in common to all the sons and daughters of Adam since the fall. They are the fruit of that first apostasy, as well as of actual and personal departures from God.
Yes and deliverance also lies in common. Providence dispenses deliverance to the worst of men. The 106th psalm is a psalm of promises made to the Church; but the next psalm is a psalm of providential dispensations to the world; and there, as you find affliction, so you may find deliverance also out of those afflictions, to be the portion of wicked men. Rebels, fools, and seamen—for the most part, not the most religious order in the world—all these are delivered out of their troubles. The worst of men, I say, share in this fruit of God’s providential goodness, deliverance; but a teaching sanctified affliction is the privy seal of special love, “My loving kindness will I not take from him” (Psalm 89:33); “whom the Lord loves he chastens” (Proverbs 3:12); that is to say, with a teaching chastisement. When Word and rod meet together, when correction and instruction kiss each other, they are the fruit of paternal affection, and therefore must needs have a blessing bound up in them.
4. A teaching correction is a branch of the covenant of grace, which God has made in Christ for the children of promise; “All your children shall be taught of God. They shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest” (Hebrews 8:11). By virtue of divine teaching, affliction is adopted a branch in the covenant of grace. The 89th psalm is a song of the new covenant, “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord” (verse 1)—what mercies? Not providenced mercies only, but promise mercies, covenant-mercies; “I have made a covenant with my chosen” (verse 3). And among the rest of the branches of the covenant, you shall find the rod and the whip have their place. “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes” (verses 30-32). Behold rod and stripes standing here, not upon Mount Ebal, the mount of curses, as branches of a covenant of works, but upon Mount Gerizim, the mount of blessings, as branches of the covenant of grace. Affliction is not so much threatened as promised to Christ’s seed: “My covenant will I not break” (verse 34). When God seems even to break the bones and hearts of his people by sore and heavy strokes of correction, yet he does not break his covenant, “My covenant will I not break”; it is in order to the covenant when God chastises his children, and instructs them by his chastisements. Affliction separated from instruction, is pure wrath; but by a matrimonial covenant those two Scriptures, “I will visit—I will teach”, are married together, and made one spirit, as in my text, and then they are pure grace. The covenant is the magna carta of Heaven, and contains a list of whatever the Father has purposed, the Son has purchased, and the Holy Spirit applies to the heirs of promise. The breasts of the covenant run nothing but the milk of spiritual blessings to the children of God.
5. A teaching affliction is the purchase of Christ’s death and bloodshed. Christ died not to exempt his redeemed from suffering, but to sanctify their sufferings with his own blood; “I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil” (John 17:15): whatever Christ purchased, he prayed for; and this was one main privilege, not freedom from the evil of affliction, but from the evil of sin; “Sanctify them through your truth; your word is truth” (verse 17): Christ’s blood purchased nothing for us but blessings.
6. And lastly, a teaching affliction is the result of all the offices of Jesus Christ. As a king he chastens, as a prophet he teaches, and as a priest he has purchased this grace of his Father, that the rod might blossom, that correction might be consecrated for instruction unto the redeemed. Behold, a sanctified affliction is a cup into which Jesus Christ has wrung and pressed the juice and virtue of all his mediatory offices; surely that must be a cup of generous and royal wine, like that in the supper, a cup of blessing to the people of God.
And thus I have finished the fourth particular, propounded for the clearing and confirming of the doctrine, namely, the grounds and demonstrations of the point; and with it the whole doctrinal part of this great and blessed truth, namely, that it is a blessed thing when correction and instruction, Word and rod, go together.
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