yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Heb. xii. 11). There is a perfect opposition; the root and the fruit are opposed; affliction, and the fruit of righteousness; the quality of the root, and the quality of the fruit: & χαρᾶς εἶναι, ἀλλὰ λύπης and καρπὸν εἰρηνικον; the appearance and the reality, δοκεῖ and ἀποδίδωσι; then the season, πρὸς τὸ παρὸν and ὕτερον. God's physic must have time to work: at first, it may not be so, or at least not appear; for things are before they appear, or can be observed for the present. We must tarry God's leisure, and be content with his blows, till we feel the benefit of them it is first matter of faith, and then of feeling: though we do not presently understand why everything is done, we must wait. The hand in the dial doth not seem to stir, yet it keeps its course: while it is passing, we see it not; but that it hath passed from one hour to another, is evident. So is God's work with the soul; and spiritual renovation and increase is not so sensible at the first, though it be carried on nμέpa kaì ǹμέpą, day by day (2 Cor. iv. 16); but, in the view of the whole, it will appear. What are we the better? Doth sin decay, and what sin? Do we find it otherwise with us than it was before?

Men

8. This profit is not only when the affliction is upon us; but, after it is over, the fruit of it must remain. Their qualms and pangs most have: "When he slew them, then they sought him; and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless, they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues; for their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant" (Psalm lxxviii. 34-37). Many have a little forced religion in their extremities, but it weareth off with their trouble. Sin is but suspended for a while, and the Devil chained up: they are very good under the rod, they are frighted to it; but, after the deliverence cometh, the more profane. It is true, many may begin with God in their troubles; and their necessities drive them to the throne of grace; and Christ had never heard of many, if fevers, and palsies, and possessions, and blindness, deafness and dumbness, had not brought them unto him; thanks to the disease: but, if a course of godliness begin upon these occasions, and continue afterwards, God will accept it. He is willing to receive us upon any terms. will say, 'You come to me in your extremity;' but he doth not upbraid us, provided we will come so as to abide with him, and will not turn the back upon him when our turn is served. If you do so, take heed; God hath other judgments to reach you; as John said, "IIe that cometh after me, is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire; whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. iii. 11, 12). So, that which cometh after, is mightier than that which went before; the last judgment is the heaviest: "The axe is laid unto the root of the tree: therefore every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matt. iii. 10). He will not only lop off the branches, but strike at the root; as the Sodomites, that escaped the sword of Chedorlaomer, perished by fire from Heaven. The Israelites, that were not drowned in the Red Sea, were stung to death by fiery serpents: "As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him" (Amos v. 19). When

you avoid one judgment, you may meet another, and find a stroke where you think yourselves most secure.

USE I.-Let us consider these things, that we may profit by all the chastenings of the Lord. It is now a time of affliction, both as to public judgments and as to the private condition of many of the people of God. We have been long straying from God, from our duty, from one another: it was high time for the Lord to take his rod in his hand, and to scourge us home again. Upon these three nations, there is a somewhat of God's three great judgments, war, pestilence, and famine: they are all dreadful. The pestilence is such a judgment as turneth populous cities into deserts and solitudes in a short time. Then one cannot help another. Riches and honour profit nothing then, and friends and kinsfolk stand afar off. Many die without any spiritual helps. In war, what destructions and slaughters, expense of blood and treasure! In famine, you feel yourselves to die without a disease, know not where to have fuel to allay and feed the fire which nature hath kindled in your bodies. But, blessed be God! all these are in moderation: pestilence doth not ragingly spread, the war is at a distance, the famine only a scarcity. Before God stirreth up all his wrath, he observeth what we do with these beginnings. Besides, the pecple of God are involved in a heap of miseries on all hands: the oppressed, dejected party burthened with jealousies, and ready to be haled to prison, and put under restraint. Holy men sometimes have personal afflictions added to the public calamities. Jeremy was cast into the dungeon when the city was besieged. The chaff and grain both are threshed together; but the grain is besides ground in the mill, and baked in the oven. Besides, who thinks of his strayings, and returning with a more severe resolution to his duty? If we would profit by afflictions, we must avoid both the faulty extremes: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him" (Heb. xii. 5): slighting and fainting must be avoided.

1st, Let us not slight them. When we bear them with a stupid, senseless mind, surely that hindereth all profit. None can endure to have their anger despised, any more than their love: a father is displeased when his child slights his correction. That we may not slight it, let us consider,

1. Their author, God. We think them fortuitous, from chance; but they do not rise out of the dust (Job. v. 6). Whoever be the instruments, or whatever be the means, the wise God hath the whole ordering of it. He is the first cause, he is to be sought to, he is to be appeased, if we would stop evil at the fountain-head: for all creatures willingly or unwillingly obey him, and are subject to his empire and government: "Is there any evil in the city, and I have not done it? saith the Lord" (Amos iii. 6). "I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things" (Isa. xlv. 7); "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away" (Job i. 21).

2. The meritorious cause is sin: "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sin?" (Lam. iii. 39;) that first brought mischief into the world, and still continueth it. God never afflicts without a cause; either we need it, or we deserve it: "I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him; until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness" (Mic. vii. 9). We should

search for the particular sins that provoke God to afflict us; for, while we only speak of sin in general, we do but inveigh against a notion, and personate a mourning; but those we can charge upon ourselves, are most proper and powerful to break the heart.

3. The end is our repentance and amendment; to correct sin past, or prevent sin to come.

(1.) For correction, to make us more penitent for sin past. We, being in a lower sphere of understanding, know things better by their effects than their nature: "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know, therefore, and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of Hosts" (Jer. ii. 19). Moral evil is represented to us by natural evil: pain showeth what sin is. (2.) For prevention of sin for time to come. The smart should make us cautious and watchful against sin: "Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we are not cleansed until this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord, but that ye must turn away this day from following the Lord? And it will be, seeing ye rebel to-day against the Lord, that to-morrow he will be wroth with the whole congregation of Israel" (Josh. xxii. 17, 18). Afflictions should also stir up in us heavenly thoughts, heavenly desires, and more lively diligence in the exercise of those graces which before lay dormant in us, through our neglect. Only I must tell you, that sometimes the affliction may be merely for prevention, and may go before sin. God hath always a cause; but he doth not always suppose a fault in act, but sometimes in possibility; looking into thy actions or thy temper, what thou hast done or wouldst do, to cure or prevent a distemper in thy spirit, as well as a disorder in thy con

versation.

2ndly, Let us not faint. When the afflictions sit close and near, then we are apt to fall into the other extreme, to be dejected out of measure. An over-sense worketh on our anger, and then it is fretting; or on our sorrow, and then it is fainting. The former is the worse of the two; for that is to set up an anti-providence; or a being displeased with God's government, a practical disowning of his greatness and justice: all men will acknowledge God is great, yet what worm is there will submit to him any further than themselves please? We say we deserve nothing but evil from his hands, but yet are maddened like wild bulls in a net, when the goad is in our sides. We say, any other cross but this. We do not dislike trial, but this trial that is upon us. God thought this fittest for us: our murmuring will not ease our trouble, but increase and continue it. Certainly, without submission, troubles will do us no good: patience worketh experience (Rom. v. 4). Fainting, properly so taken, is when we look upon God's work through a false glass, and misexpound his dispensation. God puts forth his hand, not to thrust us off, but pull us to himself: “I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face in their affliction they will seek me early" (Hos. v. 15). The very affliction giveth us hope that he will not let us go on securely in our sins. It is not our being afflicted and made miserable by trouble which God aimeth at: "He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men" (Lam. iii. 33). Nor is it that which we should chiefly be affected with under afflictions. We should mind another lesson taught by it, which if we neglect, our sense of trouble will be but perplexing. It is

to subdue sin, to make us more mindful of heavenly things, to have our hearts humbled. No affliction should be counted intolerable which helpeth to purge our sin. We evidence our love to sin, if we are overmuch troubled at it, or peevishly quarrel with God. Fainting showeth our weakness: “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small" (Prov. xxiv. 10).

USE II-Something concerning the profit of it: value it, observe it.

1. Value it. What do you count a profit or benefit, to flow in wealth, or excel in grace? to live in ease, or to be kept in a holy, heavenly, and humble frame?"For they, verily, for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness" (Heb. xii. 10). Not that we might have the pelf of this world, but that we might be partakers of his holiness. It is better to have holiness, than to have health, wealth, and honour: the sanctification of an affliction is better than to have deliverance out of it. Deliverance taketh away malum naturale, some penal evil which God bringeth upon us; sanctification malum morale, the greatest evil, which is sin. I am sure this is that which we should look after: deliverance is God's work, the improvement of the trouble is our duty: do you mind your work, and God will not be wanting to do his part.

2. Observe it, and see how the rod worketh, what thoughts it begets in you, what resolutions it stirreth up, what solaces you run to, and seek after to this end.

(1.) In what temper and frame of heart you were when the affliction surprised you. Usually, affliction treadeth upon the heels of some sin if it be open and in our practice, it discovereth itself: if secret, and in the frame of our hearts, it must be searched after. Usually, it is some slightness and carelessness of spiritual and heavenly things: your hearts were grown in love with the world, you began to neglect your souls, grew more cold in the love of God, more formal in prayer, and indifferent as to your spiritual estate; you did not watch over your hearts; therefore the holy and jealous God cometh and awakeneth you by his smarting scourge. The foregoing distemper observed, will help you to state your profit.

(2.) How that is cured by God's discipline, or what benefit you have gotten by it. You are more diligent in your duty, careful in your preparations for a better state. A Christian should be able to give an account of the methods by which God bringeth him to Heaven. David could give an account, as here, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray: but now have I kept thy word;" and, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes" (verse 71); not good that I should be, as accepting the punishment; but that "I have been," as owning the profit.

SERMON LXXVII.

VERSE 68.-Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.

The Psalmist, in the first verse of this portion, had expressed himself in a way of thankfulness to God for his goodness (verse 65); then interrupteth his thanksgiving a little, and beggeth the continuance of the same goodness (verse 66); and, after that, returneth again to show how this good came by means of affliction (verse 67); and therefore once more praiseth God for his goodness, and reneweth his suit. God is ever good

to his people, but most sensibly they have proof of it in their afflictions; when to appearance he seemeth to deal hardly with them, yet all that while he doth them good. Sanctification of afflictions is a greater mercy than deliverance out of them. We may learn our duty by the discipline of a smart rod: "Thou hast dealt well with thy servant;" for, "before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I kept thy word." And then he falleth into thanksgiving and prayer again, “Thou art good and doest good; teach me thy statutes." ~ Here is,

1. A compellation and confession of God's goodness, both in his nature and actions.

2. A petition for grace, "Teach me thy statutes."

First, The compellation used to God, "Thou art good, and doest good." Divers have been the glosses of interpreters upon these words. Aben Ezra, Bonus est non petenti, et benefacit petenti; thou art good to them that ask not, but surely dost good to them that ask. Others, 'Thou art good in this world, doest good in the world to come.' Others better, 'God is good of himself, and doeth good to us.' Goodness is communicative of itself: he is good, that noteth his nature and inclination; and he doeth good, that noteth his work; whereby he giveth proof of his goodness. Unumquodque operatur secundum suam formam; everything acteth according to its nature. So doth God: as is his being, so is his operation; he is good, and doeth good; the work must needs be answerable to the workman. The point is,

DOCTRINE. It becometh all those that have to do with God, to have a deep sense of his goodness.

1. What is God's goodness.

2. How it is manifested to us.

3. Why those that come to God should have a deep sense of it.

First, What is God's goodness? There is a threefold goodness ascribed by divines to God.

1. His natural goodness, which is the natural perfection of his being. 2. His moral goodness, which is the moral perfection of his being. 3. His beneficial, communicative goodness, called otherwise his benignity, which is of chief regard in this place. Besides the perfection and excellency of his nature, there is his will and self-propension to diffuse his benefits; the perfection of his nature is his natural and moral goodness, the other his bounty. All must be spoken to distinctly.

1st, God is naturally good. There is such an absolute perfection in his nature and being, that nothing is wanting to it, or defective in it; and nothing can be added to it to make it better. As Philo saith, 'O övtwg ây tò πрτоν ȧyaò, the first being must needs be the first good. As soon as we conceive there is a God, we presently conceive that he is good: in this sense it is said, " Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one; that is, God" (Mark x. 18). He is good of himself, good in himself; yea, good itself. There is none good above him, or besides him, or beyond him; it is all from him, and in him, if it be good. He is primitively and originally good, avrayasos, good of himself, which nothing else is; for all creatures are good only by participation and communication from God. He is essentially good; not only good, but goodness itself: the creatures' good is a superadded quality; in him, it is his essence. is infinitely good: the creatures' goodness is but a drop; but, in God, there is an infinite ocean and sea, or gathering together, of goodness. He can

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