the excellence of the metal he may also add the with them. For these indeed are grim in their out ward appearance, but not so fearful when, having experience of their strength, they become familiar to us; like those barbarians who, when they were to fight with their enemies, painted themselves that they might appear more terrible, whereas in truth they were weak and naked, unable to endure the first onset. For so these afflictions have in them a painted shadow of fierceness, and do but put on them an ugly vizard to make them full of terror at their first appearing; whereas if the vizard be done away, and we, ceasing to look upon them through the false glass of fear and astonishment, do behold them with a true judgment, we shall find them so easy to be endured, through the assistance of God's Spirit, that there will be no cause of terror and amazement. But on the other side, those enemies, prosperity and worldly allurements, hiding hostility under pretence of friendship, and being much stronger, bring us into a pernicious security, and without show of assault get the victory. 6. Resignation and self-committal to God. (157.) As learned and faithful physicians do not promise their patients, who are full of corrupt humours, or endangered with old and festered sores, that they will not distaste their appetite or any way molest and trouble them, but only that they will effect the cure, and to this purpose use both the best and easiest means and medicines which they can; and as the wise patient is well satisfied with this promise, being contented rather to suffer for the present a little smart and pain than to hazard his life by neglect of the means, or to have his sore turn to a fistula or incurable cancer. So the Lord does not promise that we shall feel no smart or pain, but that He will cure and save us by the best means Afflictions, like bills and pikes, make a terrible which will stand with His own glory and our good. show when they cannot reach us; but the tempta If we would have our prayers heard in our afflictions of prosperity, like unseen bullets, wound and tions we must pray for that which God has promised; not absolutely that crosses may not befall us, or being inflicted we may be delivered out of them; but conditionally, if this our suit will stand with God's glory; not that they may not happen, but that they may not hurt us; not that we may be quite exempted from sense of pain, for this perhaps would hinder the cure, and cause us to rot in our corruptions, but that like a wise, faithful, and pitiful physician, He will handle us as gently as possibly He may, so as in the meantime the medicines used may be effectual for the purging of our corruptions and recovery of our health. -Dorname, 1644. (158.) While we fret and repine at God's will, do we not say in effect that it is better for us to have our own? that is, in other words, that we are wiser than God, and could contrive things much more to our own advantage, if we had the disposal of them. Do we not as good as complain that we are not taken in as sharers with God in the government of the world? that our advice is not taken, and our consent had, in all the great changes which He is pleased to bring over us? These indeed are things that no man utters in words; but whosoever refuses to submit himself to the hand of God speaks them aloud by his behaviour: which by all the intelligent part of the world is looked upon as a surer indication of man's mind than any verbal declaration of it whatsoever. God, perhaps, is pleased to visit us with some heavy affliction, and shall we now, out of a due reverence of His all-governing wisdom, patiently endure it? or out of a blind presumption of our own, endeavour by some sinister way or other to rid our selves from it? Passengers in a ship always submit to their pilot's discretion, but especially in a storm; and shall we, whose passage lies through a greater and more dangerous deep, pay a less deference to that great pilot, who not only understands, but also -South, 1633-1716. commands the seas? 7. Courage. (159.) Howsoever this enemy adversity, and those innumerable troops of afflictions, are in show more terrible than prosperity and those glorious forces led under his conduct, yet they are much weaker, in truth, and less dangerous when we come to buckle kill us before they are discerned. They, like the fiery serpents, sting us, but with sense of pain make us seek for remedy, looking up to the true Brazen Serpent that we may be cured. These, like the viper, putting us to no pain, bring us into a sweet slumber of security, which ends in that deep sleep of death and condemnation. They wound with pain, and enforce us with torment to seek recovery; these, with delight, making us to love still the weapons that hurt us, and to abhor the means whereby we may be healed, because even our wounds and sores are pleasing to us. The one, like the wind boisterously blowing upon us, makes us more careful to hold fast the garments of God's graces, that they be not taken from us; the other, like the sun, warming us with delight, causes us of our own accord to cast it from us. -Downame, 1644. (160.) How sick soever a man be with physic, he is not afraid of dying, because he considers the physician in wisdom gave him what now occasioneth his present sickness. No more should we be dismayed at the bitterness of our cup, if, with Christ, we did but take notice it is the cup that our Heavenly Father hath mingled, and hath given us only for our correction, not confusion. -Ludovicus de Granada. (161.) Let us make a right judgment of afflictions. Let us not think God intends to destroy when He We are often in the same error begins to strike. the apostles were in. When they saw Christ, walking upon the waves in the dead of the night and terror of a tempest, coming to succour them, they imagined He was a spirit coming to mischief them. The flesh makes us think God often to be our enemy when He is our friend. Charnock, 1628–1680. 8. Gratitude. love and duty, not only because he feeds and clothes him, but also because he governs and corrects him; not for the blows and smarts which he sustains, for these his nature abhors, but for his care in reclaim. ing him from his faults, which, being nourished, would in time justly disable him from receiving his inheritance. (162.) If the child be bound to his father in all And if, being grievously sick, we are content to requite the physician and surgeon for their distasteful potions, their sharp corrosives, cutting, lancing, searing, with thanks and deserved praise; not because of the things themselves, which for the present increase our pain; but because out of their skill they ase them as means for the recovery of our bodily health. Then, how much more are we to be thankful to our Heavenly Father chastising us? seeing in His love and care He hereby reforms us of our sins, and so makes us fit to be heirs of that everlasting patrimony of His glorious kingdom? How much should we magnify this Spiritual Physician of our souls? Not for the bitter potions which He makes us drink, but because He intends, and accordingly effects, our recovery to health, and that not the health of our corruptible bodies, which only reprieves them to the next assizes of sickness, but of our precious and immortal souls; not such as is momentary and temporary, but perpetual and everlasting. It is not therefore enough that we take these great benefits, which God's chastising hand reaches out to us, with patience; but we must also receive them with praise and thanksgiving (1. Pet. iv. 16; Col. i. 11, 12). -Downame, 1644. (163.) How profitable and beneficial a thing is affliction; especially to some dispositions! I see some trees that will not thrive unless their roots be laid bare; unless, besides pruning, their bodies be gashed and sliced. Others that are too luxuriant, except divers of their blossoms be seasonably puiled off, yield nothing. I see too rank corn, if it be not timely eaten down, may yield something to the barn, but little to the granary. I see some full bodies that can enjoy no health without bloodlettings. Such is the condition of our spiritual part: it is a rare soul that can be kept in any constant order, without these smarting remedies: I confess mine cannot. How wild had I run, if the rod had not been over me! Every man can say he thanks God for ease: for me, I bless God for my troubles. -Hall, 1574-1656. (165.) There are bitter mercies and sweet mercies; some mercies God gives in wine, some in wormwood. Now we must praise God for the bitter mercies as well as the sweet: thus Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Too many are prone to think, nothing is a mercy that is not sweet in the going down, and leaves not a pleasant farewell on their palate; but this is the childishness of our spirits, which, as grace grows more manly, and the Christian more judicious, will wear off. Who, that understands himself, will value a book by the gilt on the cover? Truly, none of our temporals (whether crosses or enjoyments) considered in themselves abstractly, are either a curse or mercy. They are only as the covering to the book; it is what is writ in them that must resolve us whether they be a mercy or not. Is it an affliction that lies on thee? If thou canst find it comes from love, and ends in grace and holiness, it is a mercy though it be bitter to thy taste. Is it an enjoyment? If love doth not send it, and grace end it (which appears when thou grewest worse by it), it is a curse though 9. It is the duty of the afflicted to look at life as a whole. (166.) Our hours of misery become such, because we feel them singly, and apart from the rest of life. But we know not what those shades will be, when the whole, with its reliefs and lights, is seen together. The minute insect which moves upon the face of a pictured landscape, as upon a wide and boundless plain, may feel itself at times buried in the deepest gloom of midnight; while the eye that takes it all at once, sees in those dark lines the contrast which gives effect and brilliancy to the general design. -Woodward. (167.) Though it be not in our power to make affliction no affliction, yet it is in our power to take off the edge of it, by a steady view of those Divine joys prepared for us in another state. —Atterbury, 1663–1732. (168.) There are many scenes in life which are either sad or beautiful, cheerless or refreshing, according to the direction from which we approach them. If, on a morning in spring, we behold the ridges of a fresh-turned ploughed field from their northern side, our eyes, catching only the shadowed slopes of the successive furrows, see an expanse of white, the unmelted remains of the night's hailstorm, or the hoar-frost of the dawn. We make a circuit, or we cross over, and look behind us, and on the very same ground there is nothing to be seen but the rich brown soil, swelling in the sunshine, warm with promise, and chequered perhaps, here and there, with a green blade bursting through the surface. -Froude. 10. To seek deliverance by the use of all appointed means. (169) When a little child, that can scarcely go, chanceth to stumble upon a stone, he falleth down, and there lieth, crying till somebody take him up. But people of reason and understanding must not do like children, but must endeavour, what sickness or inconvenience soever happen, so far as is pos sible, to remedy it. Wermullerus, 1551. (170.) Ordinary means are not to be contemned. Like as a shipmaster being upon the water, and foreseeing a tempest, calleth upon God's help; and yet hath also a sure eye to the stern, to rule that as handsomely and cunningly as he can (Acts xxvii). Even so in all manner of necessities and perils, it is lawful to use all manner of honest and convenient means; as medicines in sickness; labour in poverty; the power and authority of the magistrate in wrong; battle array against the enemies of our country, and such like: so that no man build nor trust in any manner of thing, saving in the very living God only, who can help, deliver, and remedy all things, without any middle or mean, if there were none at hand. -Wermullerus, 1551. 11. But they are not to seek comfort in worldly things. (171.) Whosoever followeth but man's reason to teach comfort to the troubled mind can give but a counterfeit medicine; as the surgeon doth, which colourably healeth, or the physician which giveth medicines that do but astonish the sore place, and so deceive the patient. But the true healing of sorrow they had not, for they lacked the ground; they lacked that that should heal the sore at the bone first, that is, true faith in Christ and His holy Word. All medicines of the soul, which be laid on the sores thereof, not having that cleanser with them, be but over-healers: they do not take away the rankling within; and many times, under colour of hasty healing, they bring forth proud flesh in the sore, as evil or worse than that which was first corrupt. -Wermullerus, 1551. 12. Nor unduly to depend on human aid. (172.) As a passenger in a storm that, for shelter against the weather, betaketh him to a fair spread oak, standeth under the boughs, and findeth good relief thereby for the space of some time, till at length cometh a sudden gust of wind, that teareth down a main arm of it, which, falling upon the poor passenger, maimeth him that resorted to it for succour; thus falleth it out not with a few, meeting in the world with many troubles, they step aside out of their own way, and too often out of God's, to get under the wing of some great one, and gain, it may be, some aid and shelter thereby for a season, but after awhile that great one himself, falling from his former height of favour or honour, they are also called in question, and so fall together with him, that might otherwise have stood long enough on their own legs, if they had not trusted to such an arm of flesh, such a broken staff, that deceived them. -Gataker, 1574-1654. 13. Nor to seek relief by sinful methods. (173.) Turn a four-cornered stone how thou wilt, and it will always stand right up; even so, howsoever a right Christian be tempted and assaulted, he will ever notwithstanding remain upright. —Wermullerus, 1551. (174.) A man that is unskilful in swimming, having ventured past his depth, hastily and inconsiderately catcheth at what comes next to hand to save himself; but often layeth hold on sedgy weeds, that do but entangle him and draw him deeper under water, and there keep him down from ever getting up again, till he be (by that whereby he thought to save himself) drowned indeed. Thus it is that, whilst many, through weakness of faith and want of patience, are loth to wait God's good pleasure, and, being desirous to be rid in all haste of the present affliction, they put their hand oft to such courses as procure fearful effects, and use such sorry shifts for the relieving of themselves as do but plunge them further and deeper into such a labyrinth of evils, out of which they seldom or never get again. -Gataker, 1574-1654. bour, and Christ his pilot, and heaven his country and all the evils of poverty, or affronts of tribunals and evil judges, of fears and sudden apprehensions, are but like the loud wind blowing from the right point; they make a noise, and drive faster to the harbour; and if we do not leave the ship, and leap into the sea, quit the interest of religion, and run to the securities of the world, cut our cables, and dissolve our hopes; grow impatient and hug a wave, which dies in its embraces, we are as safe at sea, safer in the storm that God sends us than in a calm when befriended by the world. -Jeremy Taylor, 1612-1667. 14. But to look up to God. (176.) 2 Cor. iv. 18.-Mr. Astor, once fording the Susquehanna on horseback, became so dizzy as to be near losing his seat. Suddenly he received a blow on his chin from a hunter who was his companion, with the words "Look up." He did so, and recovered his balance. It was looking on the turbulent waters that endangered his life, and looking up saved it. 15. And to seek relief and strength in prayer. (177.) We must also pray either that God will help and deliver us, not after the device of our own brains, but after such wise as shall seem unto Hi godly wisdom, or else that He will mitigate our pain, that our weakness may not utterly faint. Like as a sick person, although he doubt nothing of the faithfulness and tenderness of his physician, yet for all that desireth him to handle his wound as tenderly as possible; even so may we call upon God, that, if it be not against His honour and glory, He will vouchsafe to give some mitigation of the pain. -Wermullerus, 1551. (178.) That grace which will carry us through Prosperity will not carry us through sufferings: the ship needs stronger tackling to carry it through a -Watson, 1696. storm than a calm. VI. CONSOLATIONS FOR THE AFFLICTED. 1. Amiction is apportioned and limited by God, (179.) We are not equally afflicted with the same diseases, or all in need of an equally severe method of cure. Hence we see different persons exercised with different kinds of crosses. But whilst the Heavenly Physician, consulting the health of all His patients, practises a milder treatment towards some, and cures others with rougher remedies, yet He leaves no one completely exempted, because He knows we are all diseased, without the exception of a single individual. -Calvin, 1509–1564. (175.) I have often seen young and unskilful per- (180.) The Lord does not measure out our sons sitting in a little boat, when every little wave afflictions according to our faults, but according sporting about the sides of the vessel, and every to our strength, and looks not what we have motion and dancing of the barge, seemed a danger, deserved, but what we are able to bear; for, as the and made them cling fast upon their fellows; and yet prophet says, in wrath He remembers mercy (Hab. all the while they were as safe as if they sat under a iii. 2), which makes Him in all our chastisements to tree, while a gentle wind shook the breeze into a intend our profit, and not our punishment. Neither refreshment and a cooling shade. And the unskil- does He give to all His servants a cup of like size, ful, inexperienced Christian shrieks out whenever or a burden to bear of the same weight; but either his vessel shakes, thinking it always a danger that fits their afflictions to the measure of their strength, the watery pavement is not stable and resident as a or their strength to the measure of their afflictions. rock; and yet all his danger is in himself, none at He does not observe in sharing of afflictions an all from without; for he is indeed moving upon the arithmetical proportion, giving to all indifferently waters, but fastened to a rock; faith is his founda- the same number and measure, but like a wise geotion, and hope is his anchor, and death is his har-metrician, He proportionates them to the strength of the bearers, allotting a greater burden to the strongest, and a less to the weakest. In the Word of God we have an express promise, that the Lord will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it (1 Cor. x. 13). -Downame, 1644. (181.) Afflictions proceed from God our heavenly Father, whose wisdom is infinite, and whose love is incomprehensible. And therefore, if earthly parents -out of their small model of love and little pittance of affection, guided by their shallow discretion-do not give to all their children the like measure of chastisement, though they be alike guilty of the same fault, but have respect to their age and big; ness, giving less to the youngest and weakest, and more to those who are older and of greater strength; because if they should receive these greater stripes, they would (exceeding their strength) make them dull and desperate, and if these should have the lighter chastisements they would hereby grow careless and negligent; how much more then will the Lord, so far exceeding them in love and wisdom, thus proportionate His chastisements to the strength of His children, seeing He does not in His chastisements aim at the satisfying of His justice by punishing the fault, but does all out of mere love for the reformation of the offender. Downame, 1644. (182.) If we see all who are wise and just to have regard not to oppress their inferiors with labours, but fit their employments according to their abilities; if no good schoolmaster will appoint his scholars longer or harder lessons than they can learn, nor correct them with more or greater stripes than is fit for their age; if no good master will give his servants a greater burden than they can carry, but allot the heaviest to the strongest, and the lightest to the weakest; yea, if a good man will be merciful to his beast, fitting its load to its strength, and not oppress ing it with more than it can bear; how much more may we be assured that the Lord will be more careful over His own children, in proportioning their burden to their strength, that they may not sink under the weight of their afflictions, especially considering that He perfectly knows their power and ability, and can as easily add to their strength as detract from their burden! -Downame, 1644. (183.) As no man is so loaded with benefits, as that he is in all respects happy; so there is none so oppressed with afflictions, that he is in every way miserable. And this mixture the wise Judge of heaven and earth has made, to keep us in a mean, who are too prone to run into extremes. And because we would be too much exalted with continual prosperity, and too much dejected if we should feel nothing but affliction, the Lord never suffers us to abound with worldly happiness, but that we have something to humble us; nor so to be plunged in misery, but that we have some cause of present comfort or future hope. And like a wise father, He does not too much dandle us, which would make us wantons, nor always beat us, which would make us desperate; but He judiciously mingles the one with the other, not letting us have our wills in all things, lest we should neglect Him; nor yet always crossing us in them, lest we should hate and rebel against Him; not always cockering us, lest we should grow proud and insolent, nor always correcting us, lest we should become base and servile; but He gives gifts that we may love Him, and stripes that we may fear Him. Yea, oftentimes He mixes frowns with His favours, when they make us malapert, and kind speeches with His rebukes and chastisements, to show in the hatred of our faults His love to our persons, when He sees us humble and penitent; that so He may make us in all things to reverence Him, and no less to fear Him in His favours, than to love Him in His chastisements. -Downame, 1644 (184.) As the wise commander does not always wear out his servants with long marches, wearisome watchings, and fierce skirmishes and assaults; but after their tedious labour brings them into garrisons, that, taking their rest, and refreshing themselves with some wholesome diet, good lodging and pleasant recreations, they may renew their strength and courage, and afterwards be more fit for service: so deals our great Commander with us, in this spiritual warfare, giving to us a breathing time after our fight, rest after our labours, recreation after and refreshings; that so having recovered our sorrows, and after troubles and afflictions, comforts strength, and taken new courage unto us, we may the better be enabled to do Him further service. Yea, He does not only interchangeably let one of these succeed the other, but like a prudent general, He intermixes them, giving to them in the time of their greatest labours some rest, and in their sharpest encounters with afflictions some breathing and refreshing; even as contrariwise He does not, when they are in the garrison of prosperity, suffer them to languish in idleness, and to spend their whole time in pleasure, which would make them unfit for service, but sometimes inures them to labour, watching, and warlike exercises, for the preserving of their strength and manlike courage. -Downame, 1644. for, therefore God imposeth no more on me, because (185.) Not to be afflicted is a sign of weakness; He sees I can bear no more. God will not make choice of a weak champion. When I am stronger I will look for more; and when I sustain more it shall more comfort me that God finds me strong, than it shall grieve me to be pressed with a heavy affliction. -Hall, 1574-1656. (186.) When an unskilful eye looks upon the threshing of corn, he says, "Why do they spoil the corn?" But those that know better say, "The flail does not hurt the corn; if the cart-wheel should pass upon it there would be spoil indeed, but the flail hurts not." Now, there is no affliction or suffering that a godly man meets with but is God's fail. And if you look into Isa. xxviii., ye shall find the Lord promises, under a similitude, that His cartwheel shall not pass upon those that are weak. God will always proportion His rod to our strength. "I am God's corn," says the martyr, "I must therefore pass under the flail, through the fan, under the millstone, into the oven, before I can be bread for Him." And if our chaff be severed from our graces by this flail, have we any reason to be discouraged because we are thus afflicted? -Bridges, 1600-1670, (187.) God doth moderate His stroke (Jer. xxx. 11), "I will correct thee in measure.” God will in the day of His east wind stay His rough wind (Isa. xxvii. 8). The physician that understands the crasis and temper of the patient will not give too strong physic for the body, nor will he give one drachm or scruple too much. God knows our frame, He will not over-afflict. He will not stretch the strings of His viol too hard, lest they break. — Watson, 1696. (188.) "I had," said Latimer, describing the way in which his father trained him as a yeoman's son, "my bows bought me according to my age and strength; as I increased in them so my bows were made bigger and bigger." Thus boys grew into cross-bowmen, and by a similar increase in the force of their trials, Christians become veterans in the Lord's host. The affliction which is suitable for a babe in grace would little serve the young man, and even the well-developed man needs severer trials as his strength increases. God, like a wise father, trains us wisely, and as we are able to bear it He makes our service and our suffering more arduous. As boys rejoice to be treated like men, so will we rejoice in our greater tribulations, for here is man's work for us, and by God's help we will not flinch from doing it. -Spurgeon. 2. Afflictions do not necessarily prove that God is angry with us. (189.) Every severe dispensation is not an effect of God's anger. The same effect may proceed from very different causes. Love is sometimes put upon the rigour of those courses, which at the first aspect seem to carry in them the inscriptions of enmity. God may sweep away a man's estate, snatch away a friend, stain his reputation; and yet the design of all this not be revenge, but remedy; not destruction, but discipline. He sees, perhaps, something evil in us to be cured, and something worse to be prevented; some luxuriances to be abated, and some malignant humours to be evacuated; all which cannot be effected but by sharp and displeasing applications. And in all the hard passages of Providence when God strips a man of all his externals, God's intent may be, not to make him miserable, but to make him humble; not to ruin, but to reduce him. If you look only upon the outside of an affliction, you cannot distinguish from what principle it may proceed. Gehazi's leprosy and Lazarus's sores may seem to be inflicted by the same displeasure, and yet one was a curse for hypocrisy, and the other a trial of humility. David's and Saul's afflictions were dispensed with a very different hand. Saul could not pursue him so fast, but mercy followed him as close. Stephen was stoned as well as Achan; but certainly God did not with the same arm fling the stone at the one with which He did at the other. Consider the saints (Heb. xi. 37), "Afflicted, tormented, naked, destitute, sawn asunder." And what could anger itself do more against them? And yet the God who did all this was not angry. That very love which makes God to be our friend, makes Him sometimes to appear our enemy: to chastise our confidence, to raise our vigilance, and to give us safety instead of security. Persons who are truly holy, are yet very apt to look upon God's dealings on the wrong side, and to make hard conclusions concerning their own condition. David is an example of this; through the transports, sometimes of diffidence sometimes of impatience, he is high in his expostulations with God (Ps. lxxiv. 1, lxxvii. 9); not considering (as he does elsewhere) that when God deals with His chosen ones, with "the sheep of His pasture," His rod is still attended with His staff; and as with one He strikes, so with the other He supports. So, on the other side, men of a morose, uncharitable temper, from such instances of outward miseries, are as ready to denounce God's anger against others. If such dogs meet with a Lazarus, instead of licking his sores they will bite his person, bark at his name, and worry his reputation. Nothing can befall any man, besides themselves, but presently it is "a judgment." Let us rest assured of this, that the roughest of God's proceedings do not always issue from an angry intention: it is very possible, because very usual, that they may proceed from the clean contrary. The same clouds which God made use of heretofore to drown the earth, He employs now to refresh it. He may use the same means to correct and to better some that He does to plague and to punish others. The same hand and hatchet that cuts some trees for the fire may cut others into growth, verdure, and fertility. -South, 1633-1716. 3. On the contrary, they may be an evidence of our acceptance with God, (190.) Furthermore, be it in case, that the father hath two sons, whereof the one behaveth himself wickedly, and yet his father correcteth him nothing at all; the other for the least fault that he doth is corrected by and by. What thing else is the cause of this, but that the father hath no hope of amendment at all of the one, and therefore mindeth to put him clearly from his heritage, and to give him no part thereof? For the heritage pertaineth wholly unto that son that is chastened. And yet the same poor son that is thus chastened thinketh in his mind that his brother is much more happy than he, forasmuch as he is never beaten ; and therefore he mourneth by himself, "Well, my brother doth what he will against my father's will, and yet my father giveth him not one foul word; and towards me he showeth not so much as a good look, but is ever in my top, if I do but look away," &c. Here now mayest thou mark the foolishness of the child, which hath respect only unto the present grief, and never considereth what is reserved for him. Even such imaginations have Christian men also, when they suffer much tribulation, and see on the other side how prosperously it goeth with the wicked; whereas they ought rather to comfort themselves with the remembrance of the heritage that is reserved for them in heaven, which appertaineth unto them, as good and virtuous children. As for the other, that hop and spring, make merry, and take their pleasure now for a while, they shall be deprived of the heritage everlastingly, as strangers, and shall have no part thereof (Heb. xii. 6-8). -Wermullerus, 1551. (191.) The herdman will suffer such calves as are appointed shortly to the slaughter to run about in the pasture of pleasure; and again, such as are reserved to labour are kept under the yoke. Even so Almighty God doth permit unto those ungodly persons, whose destruction is at hand, to accomplish their pleasures and desires; but the godly whom He will use to His honour and glory, those keepeth He under the yoke, and restraineth them from the pleas ant lusts of the world. -Wermullerus, 1551. (192.) We are trees of righteousness which God's |