And is all this no good; or
can we do without such holy appointments of God? Let these things be
considered by us, and let us learn like Christians to kiss the rod,
and love it.
The lamps of Gideon were discovered, when his soldiers' pitchers
were broken: if our pitchers are broken for the Lord and his
gospel's sake, those lamps will then be discovered that before lay
hid and unseen.
People that live high and in idleness bring diseases upon the body;
and they that live in all fulness of gospel ordinances, and are not
exercised with trials, grow gross, are diseased and full of bad
humors in their souls.
The righteous are apt to be like well-fed children, too wanton, if
God should not appoint them some fasting-days.
The Lord useth his flail of tribulation to separate the chaff from
the wheat.
Observe Paul: he died daily, he was always delivered unto death, he
despaired of life. And this is the way to be prepared for any
calamity. When a man thinks he has only to prepare for an assault by
footmen, how shall he contend with horses; or if he looks no further
than to horses, what will he do at the swellings of Jordan?
Oh, when every providence of God unto thee is like the messengers of
Job, and the last to bring more heavy tidings than all that went
before him; when life, estate, wife, children, body and soul, and
all at once, seem to be struck at by heaven and earth, here are hard
lessons--now to behave myself even as a weaned child: now to say,
"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of
the Lord.
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