A Thousand Mercies

…where we have one affliction, we have a thousand mercies. And should the sense of one, though sharp, drown all these, especially a few of them? Some one of them is more just matter of praise and rejoicing, than all the afflictions in the world of sorrow and dejection. You are in troubles, but you are not in hell; and why not there, but because his mercy towards you is infinite? The Lord has taken this or that from you. Oh, but hath he taken his loving-kindness from you? Has he divorced you from Christ? Has he cut you off from hopes of glory? Has he extinguished his grace in you, or taken his Holy Spirit from you, or shut you out from the covenant of grace, or separated you from his love? Rom. 8

-David Clarkson, from Pray For Everything, volume 2 of Works, page 174

Thank Him For Afflictions

When we are under afflictions, are we to give thanks for personal grievances? Yes; there is something in them for which we may, we ought to be thankful. But how? Not for the afflictions considered in themselves, for so they are not joyous, but grievous. But if they be for righteousness’ sake, then are they blessed dispensations, then they are occasions of joy, and so of praise, Mat. 5. Then they are gifts, special favours, and so oblige us to thankfulness: Phil. 1:29, ‘Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.’

-David Clarkson, from Pray For Everything, volume 2 of Works, page 173

Wicked Men, The Launderers of The Church

We should certainly enjoy our times of peace as a church, but we should not begrudge the Lord His methods of refining the body when it comes. We should in fact embrace it, for we know that if He is refining us, the wicked world of men are the abrasive compound that God would use to polish His church to reflect the image of His Son. Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), the puritan explains God’s intentions over the worlds.

“There is but one to whom all are subject. There is one grand wheel that turns all the others. And therefore Satan himself is serviceable to God’s end, whether he will or no.

And then for the world of wicked men, all their designs, though for the present they seem to be against the church, yet they are serviceable to the church. For the wicked men are but the launderers of the church, to wash the church, to purge it, to do base services that God intends for the refining of the church. And all their hatred is for the good of the church.

For God suffers the world to hate his children, that his children might not love the world, because it would be a dangerous love. The church is a strange corporation; it is such a corporation as hath greatest benefit by enemies. The enemies of the church are the promoters of the greatest good of the church.”

-Richard Sibbes (from A Christians Portion, an exposition of 1 Corinthians 3:21-23; volume 4, Banner of Truth edition, The Works of Richard Sibbes)

Affliction To Be Chosen Over Sin

All men are afraid of afflictions and troubled at affliction, but where’s the man or woman that fears sin and flies from it as from a serpent, and is troubled at sin more than any affliction? That there is more vile in sin than in affliction, in general (I suppose), is granted by all. None dare deny it; but, because they do not see how this is, they do not have convincing arguments to bring this truth to their souls with power…. Their is more evil in sin than in outward trouble in the world; more evil in sin than in all the miseries and torments of hell itself.  

Suppose that God should bring any of you to the brink of that bottomless gulf and open it to you, and there you should see those damned creatures sweltering under the wrath of the infinite God, and there you should hear the dreadful and hideous cries and shrieks of those who are under such soul-amazing and soul-sinking torments through the wrath of the Almighty. Yet, I say, there is more evil in one sinful thought than there is in all these everlasting burnings,…. Yet the truth is, that if it should come into competition whether we would endure all the torments that are in hell to all eternity rather than to commit one sin, I say, if our spirits were as they should be, we would rather be willing to endure all these torments than commit the least sin.

-Jeremiah Burroughs, The Evil of Evils, Soli Deo Gloria Pub.