Chapter 5

Section 1.

That adversity is a furnace to try of what metal our hearts are, none can doubt, that has either studied the Scriptures, or observed his own heart under afflictions.

When the dross and rust of hypocrisy and corruption had almost eaten out the heart of religion among the Jews; then said God, 'I will melt them, and try them; for what shall I do for the daughter of my people?' (Jeremiah 9:7). Here affliction is the furnace, and the people are the metal cast into it; and the end of it is trial. 'I will melt them and try them; what other course shall I take with them? If I let them alone, their lusts like the rust and canker in metals will eat them out.' Prosperity multiplies professors, and adversity brings them to the test: then hirelings quickly become changelings: the gilded potsherd glistens till it comes to scouring. The devil thought Job had been such a one, and moves that he may be tried this way; being confident he would be found but dross in the trial (Job 1:11). But though the furnace of affliction discovered some dross in him (as it will in the best of men), yet he came forth as gold.

In this furnace also grace is manifested: it is said (Revelation 13:10): 'Here is the patience and faith of the saints,' that is, here is the trial and discovery of it in these days of adversity. It was a weighty saying of Tertullian to the persecutors of the church in his days, 'Your wickedness is the trial of our innocency.' Constantius the father of Constantine made an exploratory decree, that all who would not renounce the Christian faith, should lose their places of honor and profit; this presently separated the dross from the gold; which was his design: for many renounced Christianity, and were thereupon renounced by him; and those that held their integrity, were received into favor.

In time of prosperity, hypocrisy lies covered in the heart like nests in the green bushes; but when the winter of adversity has made them bare, everybody may see them without searching.

But to fall into closer particulars, it will be necessary to inquire what effects of adversity are common to both the sound, and the unsound; and then what are proper to either in this close trial by adversity.

Section 2.

It will be expedient to the design I manage in this discourse, to show in the first place what are common effects of adversity to both the godly and ungodly; for in some things they differ not, but as it is with the one, so also with the other, as:

First, both the godly and ungodly may fear adversity before it comes. To be sure a wicked man cannot, and it is evident many godly men do not come up to the height of that rule (James 1:2), to count it all joy when they fall into various temptations, or trials by adversity.

It is said (Isaiah 33:14): 'The sinners in Zion are afraid, trembling surprises the hypocrite,' — namely, under the apprehension of approaching calamities: and it is true also, the saints in Zion may be afraid. 'My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments,' said holy David (Psalm 119:120); and Job said (Job 3:25): 'The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me.' There is a vast difference between a saint's first meeting with afflictions, and his parting with them: he entertains them sometimes with trembling, he parts with them rejoicing, smiling on them, and blessing them in the name of the Lord. So that by this the upright, and the false heart, are not discriminated: even sanctified nature declines sufferings and troubles.

Secondly, both the godly and ungodly may entertain afflictions with regret and unwillingness when they come: afflictions and troubles are wormwood and gall (Lamentations 3:19), and that does not go down pleasantly with flesh and blood (Hebrews 12:11): 'No affliction for the present seems joyous, but grievous' — he means to God's own people. They are in heaviness through manifold temptations or trials by the rod (1 Peter 1:6). When God gives the cup of affliction into the hands of the wicked, how do they resist and loathe it? How their stomachs rise at it! And though the portion of the saints' cup is much sweeter than theirs (for that bitter ingredient of God's vindictive wrath is not in it), yet even they shrink from it, and are loath to taste it.

Thirdly, both the one and the other may be impatient and fretful in adversity: it is the very nature of flesh and blood to be so. 'The wicked are like the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast forth mire and dirt' (Isaiah 57:20). It is an allusion to the unstable and stormy ocean: you know there is naturally an ebbing and working in the sea, whether it be incensed by the wind or not; but if a violent wind blows upon the unquiet ocean, oh what raging and foaming is there! What abundance of trash and filth does it at such times cast out!

Now, though grace makes a great difference between one and another, yet I dare not say, but even a gracious heart may be very unquiet and tumultuous in the day of affliction. Sanctified souls have their passions and lusts which are too little mortified, even as sweet-briar, and holy-thistles have their prickles, as well as the worthless bramble. Jonah was a good man, yet his soul was sadly distempered by adverse providences (Jonah 4:9): 'Yes,' said he, even to his God, 'I do well to be angry, even to death.'

Fourthly, both the one and the other may be weary of the rod, and think the day of adversity a tedious day, wishing it were once at an end. Babylon shall be weary of the evil that God will bring upon it (Jeremiah 51:64); and O that none of Zion's children were weary of adversity too! How sad a moan does Job make of his long-continued affliction (Job 16:6-7): 'Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged; and though I forbear, what am I eased?', 'But now he has made me weary.'

And if you look into Psalm 6:3, 6, you may see another strong Christian even tired in the way of affliction: 'My soul,' said David in that place, 'is sore troubled: but you, O Lord, how long!', 'I am weary with my groaning.'

Fifthly, both the one and the other may be driven to their knees by adversity. 'Lord, in trouble they have visited you, they have poured out a prayer when your chastening was upon them' (Isaiah 26:16). Not that a godly person will pray no longer than the rod is at his back; O no, he cannot live without prayer long, however few calls he has to that duty by the rod: but when the rod is on his back, he will be more frequently, and more fervently upon his knees. Indeed many graceless hearts are like children's tops which will go no longer than they are whipped; they cannot find their knees and their tongues, till God finds a rod to excite them — a dangerous symptom. The same affliction may put a gracious and a graceless soul to their knees; but though in the external matter of duty, and in the external call or occasion of duty they seem to agree; yet is there a vast difference in the principles, manner, and ends of these their duties; as will evidently appear in its proper place in our following discourse.

But by what has been said in this section you may see how in some things the holy upright soul acts too like the unsanctified, and in other things how much the hypocrite may act like a saint: he may be externally humbled, as was Ahab; he may pray under the rod (Malachi 2:13); indeed and request others to pray for him, as did Simon (Acts 8:24).

Section 3.

But though the sound and unsound heart differ not in some external behavior under the rod; yet there are effects of adversity which are proper to either, and will discriminate them. To which end let us first see what effects adversity is usually followed with in unsound and carnal hearts: and we shall find among others, these five symptoms of a naughty heart appearing under crosses and afflictions.

First, a graceless heart is not quickly and easily brought to see the hand of God in those troubles that befall it, and be duly affected with it (Isaiah 26:11): 'Lord, when your hand is lifted up they will not see': when it has smitten, or is lifted up to smite, they shut their eyes: it is the malice of this man, or the negligence of that, or the unfaithfulness of another that has brought all this trouble upon me. Thus the creature is the horizon that terminates their sight, and beyond that they usually see nothing: sometimes indeed the hand of God is so immediately manifested, and convincingly discovered in afflictions, that they cannot avoid the sight of it, and then they may (in their way) pour out a prayer before him; but ordinarily they impute all to second causes, and overlook the first cause of their troubles.

Secondly, nor is it usual with these men under the rod to retire into their closets, and search their hearts there; to find out the particular cause and provocation of their affliction. 'No man repented of his wickedness, saying, What have I done?' (Jeremiah 8:6). What cursed thing is there with me, that has thus incensed the anger of God against me? God visits their iniquities with afflictions, but they visit not their own hearts by self-examination. God judges them, but they judge not themselves; he shows their iniquities in a clear glass, but none says, 'What have I done?' This phrase, 'What have I done?' is the voice of one that recollects himself after a rash action; or the voice of a man astonished at the discovery afflictions make of his sins; but no such voice as this is ordinarily heard among carnal men.

Thirdly, an unsound professor if left to his choice, would rather choose sin than affliction; and sees more evil in that, than in this.

And it cannot be doubted if we consider, the principle by which all unregenerate men are acted, is sense not faith: hence Job's friends would have argued his hypocrisy (Job 36:21), and had their application been as their rule, it would have concluded it: 'This, namely sin, you have chosen, rather than affliction.'

I do not say that an upright man cannot commit a moral evil, to escape a penal evil. O that daily observation did not too plentifully furnish us with sad instances of that kind! But upright ones do not, dare not upon a serious deliberate discussion and debate choose sin rather than affliction; what they may do upon surprises, and in the violence of temptation is of another nature.

But a false and unsound heart discovers itself in the choice it makes upon deliberation, and that frequently, when sin and trouble come in competition. Put the case, says Augustine, a ruffian should with one hand set the cup of drunkenness to your mouth, and with the other a dagger to your breast; and say, 'Drink or die': you should rather choose to die sober, than to live a drunkard. And many Christians have resisted to blood striving against sin, and with renowned Moses chosen affliction, the worst of afflictions; indeed death itself in the most formidable appearance, rather than sin: and it is the habitual temper and resolution of every gracious heart so to do, though those holy resolutions are sometimes overborne by violence of temptation.

But the hypocrite dreads less the defilement of his soul, than the loss of his estate, liberty or life. If you ask on what ground then does the Apostle suppose (1 Corinthians 13:3) a man may give his body to be burned, and not have love? that the salamander of hypocrisy may live in the flame of martyrdom? The answer is at hand: they that choose death in the sense of this text, do not choose it to escape sin, but to feed and indulge it. Those strange adventures (if any such be) are rather to maintain their own honor, and enroll their names among worthy and famous persons to posterity; or out of a blind zeal to their espoused errors and mistakes; than in a due regard to the glory of God, and the preservation of integrity. I fear to speak it, but it must be spoken, said Jerome: that even martyrdom itself, when suffered for admiration and applause, profits nothing; but that blood is shed in vain.

Fourthly, it is the property of an unregenerate soul under adversity to turn from creature to creature for support and comfort, and not from every creature to God alone. So long as their feet can touch ground, that is, feel any creature relief or comfort under them, they can subsist and live in afflictions; but when they lose ground, when all creature refuge fails, then their hearts fail too.

Thus Zedekiah and the self-deceiving Jews, when they saw their own strength failed them, and there was little hope left that they should deliver themselves from the Chaldeans, what do they in that strait? Do they with upright Jehoshaphat say, 'Our eyes are upon you'? No, their eyes were upon Egypt for succor, not upon heaven: 'Well, Pharaoh and his aids are left still, all hope is not gone' (Jeremiah 37:9). See the like in Ahaz in a sore plunge and distress; he courts the king of Assyria for help (2 Chronicles 28:29); that project failing, why then he will try what the gods of Damascus can do for him — any way rather than the right way: 'If I cannot bend the gods above, I will move the powers below.'

So it is with many others. If one child die, what do they do — run to God and comfort themselves in this, 'The Lord lives though my child die'? If an estate be lost and a family sinking, do they with David comfort themselves in the everlasting covenant, ordered and sure? No; but if one relation is gone, there is another alive; if an estate be gone, yet not all: something is left still, and the case will mend.

As long as ever such men have any visible encouragement, they will hang upon it; and not make up all in Christ, and encourage themselves in the Lord. To tell them of rejoicing in the Lord when the fig tree blossoms not, is what they cannot understand.

Fifthly, to conclude, an unsound heart never comes out of the furnace of affliction purged, mortified, and more spiritual and holy than when he was cast into it: his scum and dross is not there separated from him. Indeed, the more they are afflicted, the worse they are. 'Why should you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and more' (Isaiah 1:5). And to keep to our metaphor, consult Jeremiah 6:29: God had put that incorrigible people into the furnace of affliction, and kept them long in that fire; and what was the issue? The prophet says, 'The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire, the founder melts in vain, etc.; reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord has rejected them.'

If the fire of affliction be continually blown till the very bellows be burned, that is, the tongue, or rather the lungs of the prophet, which have some resemblance to bellows; though these be even spent in reproving and threatening, and denouncing woe upon woe, and judgment upon judgment; and God fulfills his word upon them; yet still they are as before; the dross remains. Though Jerusalem be made a furnace, and the inhabitants the flesh boiling in it over a fierce fire of affliction; yet as is noted (pertinently to my discourse) in Ezekiel 24:6, 12, the scum remains with them, and cannot be separated by the fire; and the reason is plain, because no affliction in itself purges sin, but as it is sanctified, and works in the virtue of God's blessing, and in pursuance of the promises.

O think on this, you that have had thousands of afflictions in one kind and another, and none of them all have done you good; they have not mortified, humbled, or benefited you at all. And thus you see what the effects of adversity are when it meets a graceless heart.

Section 4.

By this time, Reader, I suppose you are desirous to know what effects adversity and afflictions are wont to have when they meet with an honest and sincere heart; only before I come to particulars, I think it needful to acquaint you, that the fruits of afflictions are mostly after-fruits, and not so discernible by the Christian himself under the rod, as after he has been exercised by it (Hebrews 12:11), and calmly reflects upon what is past; nor does every Christian attain the same measure and degree: some rejoice, others commonly submit. But I think these seven effects are ordinarily found in all upright hearts that pass under the rod.

First, the sincere and upright soul betakes itself to God in affliction (Job 1:20). When God was smiting, Job was praying; when God afflicted, Job worshipped. So David (Psalm 116:3-4): 'I found sorrow and trouble, then I called upon the name of the Lord.' And when the messenger of Satan buffeted Paul, 'For this cause,' said he, 'I besought the Lord three times' (2 Corinthians 12:8). Alas, where should a child go in distress but to its Father?

Secondly, he sees, and owns the hand of God in his afflictions: however much or little of the instruments of trouble appear. 'The Lord has taken away,' said Job (Job 1:21). 'God has bidden him,' said David (2 Samuel 16:10). If the blow comes from the hand of a wicked man, yet he sees that wicked hand in God's righteous hand (Psalm 17:14). And this apprehension is fundamental to all that communion men have with God in their afflictions, and to all that peaceableness and gracious submission of their spirits under the rod; he that sees nothing of God in his troubles, has nothing of God in his soul.

Thirdly, he can justify God in all the afflictions and troubles that come upon him, be they never so severe. 'You are just in all that is brought upon us,' said Nehemiah (Nehemiah 9:33). 'You have punished us less than our iniquities deserve,' said Ezra (Ezra 9:13). 'It is of the Lord's mercy we are not consumed,' said the church (Lamentations 3:22). 'Are we in Babylon? it is a mercy we are not in hell.' If God condemns him, yet he will justify God: if God casts him into a sea of trouble, yet he will acknowledge in all that sea of trouble, there is not one drop of injustice. 'If I have not deserved such usage from the hands of men, yet I have deserved worse than this at the hands of God.'

Fourthly, afflictions are wont to melt and humble gracious hearts: there is a habitual tenderness planted in their spirits, and just occasion quickly draws it forth: and so usual a thing it is for gracious hearts to be humbled under the afflictions of God, that affliction is upon that score called humiliation — the effect put for the cause; to show where one is, the other will be (2 Corinthians 12:21): 'My God will humble me,' that is, he will afflict me with the sight of your sins and disorders. And if a gracious soul is so apt to be humbled for other men's sins, much more for his own.

Fifthly, the upright soul is inquisitive under the rod to find out that evil for which the Lord contends with him by affliction (Job 10:2): 'Show me why you contend with me'; and Job 34:31: 'That which I see not, teach me; if I have done iniquity, I will do no more.' So Lamentations 3:40: 'Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord'; in afflicting, God searches them, and under affliction they search themselves: willing they are to hear the voice of the rod, and glad of any discovery it makes of their hearts.

Sixthly, the upright heart chooses to die under affliction rather than to be delivered from it by sin. I say this is the choice and resolution of every upright heart, however it may be sometimes overborne by the violence of temptation (Hebrews 11:35): 'not accepting deliverance,' namely, upon sinful terms and conditions.

They are sensible how the flesh smarts under the rod, but had rather it should smart, than conscience should smart under guilt. Affliction, says an upright soul, grieves me, but sin will grieve God; affliction wounds my flesh, but sin will wound my soul. Deliverance I long for, but I will not pay so dearly for it, however much I desire it. I would rather not buy my peace by repentance: outward ease is sweet, but inward peace is sweeter.

Seventhly, he prizes the spiritual good gotten by affliction, above deliverance from it; and can bless God from his heart for those mercies however near his flesh has paid for them (Psalm 119:67, 71): 'It is good for me that I have been afflicted.' Such is the value the people of God have for spiritual graces, that they cannot think them a dear purchase, whatever their flesh has paid for them. The mortification of one lust, one discovery of sincerity, one manifestation of God to their souls, does much more than make amends for all that they have endured under the rod.

Is patience improved, self-acquaintance increased, the vanity of the creature more effectually taught, longings after heaven inflamed? O blessed afflictions that are attended with such blessed fruits! It was the saying of a holy man under a sore trouble for the death of an only son; when in that dark day God had graciously manifested himself to his soul; 'O,' said he, 'I would be contented (if it were possible) to lay my only son in the grave every day I have to live in the world, for one such discovery of the love of God as I now enjoy.'