By REV. JOHN FLAVEL (1677).
AND, first, for sad and afflictive providences, in what kind or degree soever they befall us, we may warrantably conclude they are blessings to us, and come from the love of God, when,
(1) They come in a proper season, when we have need of them, either to prevent some sin we are falling into, or recover us out of a remiss, supine, and careless frame of spirit, into which we are fallen. “If need be, ye are in heaviness” (1 Peter i. 6). Certainly it is a good sign, that God designs your good by those troubles which are so fitted and wisely ordered to suit the opportunity. If you see the husbandman lopping a tree in the proper season, it argues he aims at the fruitfulness and flourishing of it; but, to do the same thing at midsummer speaks no regard to it, yea, his design to destroy it.
(2) When they are fitted both for quality and degree, to work properly upon our predominant corruptions, then they look like sanctified strokes. The wisdom of God is much seen in the choice of his rods. It is not any kind of trouble that will work upon, and purge every sin; but, when God sends such afflictions as, like medicine, are appropriated to the disease the soul labours under, this speaks divine care and love. Thus, we may observe, it is usual with God to smite us in those very comforts which
stole away too much of the love and delight of our souls from God; to cross us in those things from which we raised up too great expectations of comfort. These providences speak the jealousy of God over us, and his care to prevent far worse evils by these sad but needful strokes. And so for the degrees of our troubles, sanctified strokes, are ordinarily fitted by the wisdom of God to the strength and ability of grace within us. “In measure when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it; he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind” (Isa. xxvii. 8). It is an allusion to a physician, who exactly weighs and measures all the ingredients which he mingles in a potion for his sick patient, that it may be proportionate to his strength, and no more; and so much the next words intimate: “By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged.”
(3) It is a good sign our troubles are sanctified to us, when they turn our hearts against sin, and not against God. There are few great afflictions which befall men that do not make them quarrelsome and discontented. Wicked men quarrel with God, and are filled with discontent against him. So the scripture describes them: “They were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God which hath power over these plagues” (Rev. xvi. 9). But godly men, to whom afflictions are sanctified, they justify God, and fall out with sin, they condemn themselves, and give glory to God. “O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces,” etc. (Dan. ix. 7). “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?” (Lam. iii. 39). Happy afflictions, which make the soul fall out and quarrel only with sin.
(4) It is a sure sign afflicting providences are sanctified when they purge the heart from sin, and leave both heart and life more pure, heavenly, mortified, and humble than they found them. Sanctified afflictions are cleansers, they pull down the pride, refine the earthliness, and purge out the vanity of the spirit. So you read, Dan. xi. 35, it purifies and makes their souls white. Hence it is compared to a furnace, which separates the dross from the pure metal. “Behold I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (Isa. xlvi. 10). But, for wicked men, let them be ever so long in the furnace, they lose no dross (Ezek. xxiv. 6). How many Christians can bear witness to this truth! After some sharp affliction hath been upon them, how is the earthliness of their hearts purged. They see no beauty, taste no more relish in the world, than in the white of an egg. Oh, how serious, humble, and heavenly are they, till the impressions made upon them by afflictions be worn off, and their deceitful lusts have again entangled them! And this is the reason why we are so often under the discipline of the rod. Let a Christian, saith a late writer, be but two or three years without an affliction, and he is hardly good for any thing: he cannot pray nor meditate, nor discourse as he was wont to do; but, when a new affliction comes, then he can find his tongue, and comes to his knees again, and lives at another rate.
(5) It is a good sign afflictive providences are sanctified to us, when we draw near to God under them, and “turn to him that smites us.” A wicked man under affliction “revolts more and more” (Isa. i. 5), “turns not to him that smites him” (Isa. ix. 13), but grows worse than before: formality is turned into stupidity and indolence.
But if God afflict his own people with a sanctified rod, it awakens them to a more earnest seeking of God; it makes them pray more frequently, spiritually, and fervently, than ever. When Paul was buffeted by Satan, he “besought the Lord thrice” (2 Cor. xii. 8).
(6) We may conclude our afflictions to be sanctified, and to come from the love of God to us, when they do not alienate our hearts from God, but inflame our love to him. This is a sure rule, whatever ends in the increase of our love to God, proceeds from the love of God to us. A wicked man finds his heart rising against God when he smites him, but a gracious heart cleaves the closer to him; he can love as well as justify an afflicting God. “All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant: our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way; though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death” (Psal. xliv. 17-19). Here you have a true account of the temper and frame of a gracious soul under the greatest afflictions. To be “broken in the place of dragons, and covered with the shadow of death,” imports the most dismal state of affliction; yet even then a gracious heart turns not back, that is, doth not for all this abate one drachm of love to God: God is as good and dear to him in afflictions as ever.
(7) We may call our afflictions sanctified when divine teachings accompany them to our souls. “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law” (Psal. xciv. 12). Sanctified afflictions are eye-salves; they teach us sensibly and effectually, when the Spirit accompanies them, the evil of sin, the vanity of the creature, the necessity of securing things that cannot be shaken. Never doth a Christian take a truer measure both of his corruptions and graces than under the rod. Now a man sees that filthiness which hath been long contracted in prosperity, what interest the creature hath in the heart, how little faith, patience, resignation and self-denial we can find, when God calls us to the exercise of them. O it is a blessed sign that trouble is sanctified, which makes a man thus turn in upon his own heart, search it, and humble himself before the Lords for the evils of it!