December 2

And when he was in affliction he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him.— 2 Chronicles 33:12; 13.

AFFLICTIONS are exceedingly useful to us, to keep us from mistaking our resting-place, and so taking up short of it. A Christian's motion heavenwards is voluntary, and not constrained. Those means, therefore, are most profitable to him, which help his understanding and will in this prosecution. The most dangerous mistake that our souls are capable of, is to take the creature for God, and earth for heaven. And yet, alas, how common is this! and in how great a degree are the best guilty of it! Though we are ashamed to speak so much with our tongues, yet how oft do our hearts say, it is best being here; and how contented are we with an earthly portion! So that I fear, God would displease most of us more to afflict us here, and promise us rest hereafter, than to give us our heart's desire on earth, though he had never made us a promise of heaven: as if the creature without God, were better than God without the creature. Alas, how apt are we, like foolish children, when we are busy at our sports and worldly employments, to forget both our Father and our home! Therefore is it a hard thing for a rich man to enter into heaven, because it is hard for him to value it more than earth, and not to think he is well already. Come to a man that hath the world at will, and tell him, This is not your happiness; you have higher things to look after; and how little will he regard you! But when affliction comes, it speaks convincingly, and will be heard when preachers can not. What warm, affectionate, eager thoughts have we of the world, till afflictions cool them and moderate them! How few and cold would our thoughts of heaven be, how little should we care for coming thither, if God would give us rest on earth! Our thoughts are with God, as Noah's dove was in the ark, kept up to him a little against their inclinations and desire; but when once they can break away, they fly up and down, over all the world, to see if it were possible to find any rest out of God; but when we find that we seek in vain, and that the world is all covered with the waters of unstable vanity, and bitter vexation, and that there is no rest for the sole of our foot, or for the foot of our soul; no wonder, then, if we return to the ark again. Many a poor Christian, whom God will not suffer to be drowned in worldliness, nor to take up short of his rest, is sometimes bending his thoughts to thrive in wealth; sometimes he is enticed to some flesh-pleasing sin; sometimes he begins to be lifted up with applause; and sometimes being in health and prosperity, he hath lost his relish of Christ, and the joys above; till God break in upon his riches, and scatter them abroad, or upon his children, or upon his conscience, or upon the health of his body, and break down his mount, which he thought so strong; and then when he lieth in Manasseh's fetters, or is fastened to his bed with pining sickness, oh, what an opportunity hath the Spirit to plead with his soul! When the world is worth nothing, then heaven is worth something. I leave every Christian to judge by his own experience, whether we do not over love the world more in prosperity than in adversity; and whether we be not more loth to come away to God, when we have what the flesh desireth here? How oft are we sitting down on earth, as if we were loth to go any farther, till affliction calls to us, as the angel to Elijah, "Up, thou hast a great way to go." How oft have I been ready to think myself at home, till sickness hath roundly told me I was mistaken! and how apt yet to fall into the same disease, which prevaileth till it be removed by the same cure! If our dear Lord did not put these thorns into our bed, we should sleep out our lives, and lose our glory: therefore doth the Lord sometimes deny us an inheritance on earth with our brethren, because he hath separated us to stand before him, and minister to him, and the Lord himself will be our inheritance.