3. They serve to try, to purify, to confirm and increase that living hope also, whereunto the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ hath begotten us again of his abundant mercy. Indeed our hope cannot but increase, in the same proportion with our faith. On this foundation it stands: believing in his name, living by faith in the Son of God, we hope for, we have a confident expectation of, the glory which shall be revealed. And consequently, whatever strengthens our faith; increases our hope also. At the same time it increases our joy in the Lord, which cannot but attend an hope full of immortality. In this view the apostle exhorts believers in the other chapter, Rejoice that ye are partakers of the sufferings of Christ. On this very account, happy are you; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. And hereby ye are enabled, even in the midst of sufferings to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
4. They rejoice the more, because the trials which increase their faith and hope, increase their love also: both their gratitude to God for all his mercies, and their good-will to all mankind. Accordingly the more deeply sensible they are, of the loving-kindness of God their Saviour, the more is their heart inflamed with love to him who first loved us. The clearer and stronger evidence they have of the glory that shall be revealed, the more do they love him who hath purchased it for them, and given them the earnest thereof in their hearts. And this, the increase of their love, is another end of the temptations permitted to come upon them.
5. Yet another is, Their advance in holiness; holiness of heart and holiness of conversation: the latter naturally resulting from the former; for a good tree will bring forth good fruit. And all inward holiness is the immediate fruit of the faith that worketh by love. By this the blessed Spirit purifies the heart from pride, self-will, passion; from love of the world, from foolish and hurtful desires, from vile and vain affections. Beside that sanctified afflictions have (thro’ the grace of God) an immediate and direct tendency to holiness. Thro’ the operation of his Spirit, they humble more and more, and abase the soul before God. They calm and meeken our turbulent spirit, tame the fierceness of our nature, soften our obstinacy and self-will, crucify us to the world; and bring us to expect all our strength from, and to seek all our happiness in God.
6. And all these terminate in that great end, That our faith, hope, love and holiness, may be found (if it doth not yet appear) unto praise from God himself, and honour from men and angels, and glory assigned by the great Judge to all that have endured to the end. And this will be assigned in that awful day to every man according to his works, according to the work which God had wrought in his heart, and the outward works which he has wrought for God: and likewise according to what he had suffered; so that all these trials are unspeakable gain. So many ways do these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!
7. Add to this the advantage which others may receive, by seeing our behaviour under affliction. We find by experience, example frequently makes a deeper impression upon us than precept. And what examples have a stronger influence, not only on those who are partakers of like precious faith, but even on them who have not known God, than that of a soul calm and serene in the midst of storms, sorrowful yet always rejoicing: meekly accepting whatever is the will of God, however grievous it may be to nature: saying in sickness and pain, The cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it? In loss or want, The Lord gave: the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord!
V. 1. I am to conclude with some inferences. And, first, How wide is the difference between darkness of soul and heaviness? Which nevertheless are so generally confounded with each other, even by experienced Christians! Darkness, or the wilderness-state implies a total loss of joy in the Holy Ghost: heaviness does not; in the midst of this we may rejoice with joy unspeakable. They that are in darkness have lost the peace of God; they that are in heaviness have not: so far from it, that at the very time peace as well as grace may be multiplied unto them. In the former, the love of God is waxed cold, if it be not utterly extinguished: in the latter it retains its full force, or rather increases daily. In these, faith itself, if not totally lost, is however grievously decayed. Their evidence and conviction of things not seen, particularly of the pardoning love of God, is not so clear or strong as in time past: and their trust in him is proportionally weakened. Those, tho’ they see him not, yet have a clear, unshaken confidence in God, and an abiding evidence of that love, whereby all their sins are blotted out. So that as long as we can distinguish faith from unbelief, hope from despair, peace from war, the love of God from the love of the world, we may infallibly distinguish heaviness from darkness.
2. We may learn from hence, secondly, That there may be need of heaviness, but there can be no need of darkness. There may be need of our being in heaviness for a season, in order to the ends above recited: at least, in this sense, as it is a natural result of those manifold temptations, which are needful to try and increase our faith, to confirm and inlarge our hope, to purify our heart from all unholy tempers, and to perfect us in love. And by consequence they are needful, in order to brighten our crown, and add to our eternal weight of glory. But we cannot say, that darkness is needful, in order to any of these ends. It is no way conducive to them: the loss of faith, hope, love, is surely neither conducive to holiness, nor to the increase of that reward in heaven, which will be in proportion to our holiness on earth.
3. From the apostle’s manner of speaking we may gather, thirdly, That even heaviness is not always needful. Now, for a season, if need be: so it is not needful for all persons; nor for any person, at all times. God is able, he hath both power and wisdom, to work when he pleases, the same work of grace, in any soul, by other means. And in some instances he does so: he causes those whom it pleaseth him to go on from strength to strength, even till they perfect holiness in his fear, with scarce any heaviness at all: as having an absolute power over the heart of man, and moving all the springs of it at his pleasure. But these cases are rare: God generally sees good to try acceptable men in the furnace of affliction. So that manifold temptations and heaviness, more or less, are usually the portion of his dearest children.
4. We ought therefore, lastly, to watch and pray and use our utmost endeavours to avoid falling into darkness. But we need not be sollicitous how to avoid, so much as how to improve by heaviness. Our great care should be, so to behave ourselves under it, so to wait upon the Lord therein, that it may fully answer all the design of his love, in permitting it to come upon us: that it may be a means of increasing our faith, of confirming our hope, of perfecting us in all holiness. Whenever it comes, let us have an eye to these gracious ends, for which it is permitted, and use all diligence, that we may not make void the counsel of God against ourselves. Let us earnestly work together with him, by the grace which he is continually giving us, in purifying ourselves from all pollution both of flesh and spirit, and daily growing in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, till we are received into his everlasting kingdom!
The End of the Third Volume.