A Saint Indeed

3. Direct. Ponder the great advantages attending the people of God in an afflicted condition. If a low and an afflicted stare in the World be really b•st for the Church, then your dejections are not only irrational, but ungrateful: indeed, if ye estimate the happiness of the Church by its ⟨p. 65⟩worldly ease, splendour and prosperity, then such times will seem bad for it; but if you reckon its glory to consist in its humility, faith, patience and heavenly mindedness, no condition in the World abounds with advantages for these as an afflicted condition doth. It was not persecutions and prisons, but worldliness and wantonness that was the poison of the Church; neither was it the earthly glory of its Professors, but the blood of its Martyrs that was the seed of the Church. The power of godliness did never thrive better than in affliction, and never ran lower than in times of greatest prosperity; when we are left a poor and an afflicted people, then we learn to trust in the Name of the Lord, Zeph. 3. 12. What say ye Sirs? Is it indeed for the Saints advantage to be weaned from the loves and delights of ensnaring worldly vanities? to be quickened and pricked forward with more haste to Heaven, to have clearer discoveries of their own hearts, to be taught to pray more fervently, frequently, spiritually to look and long for the Rest to come, m••e ardently? if this be for their advantage, experience teacheth us, that no condition is ordinarily blest with such ••uits as these, like an afflicted Condition.

3. Direct. Ponder the great advantages attending the people of God in an •fflicted condition. If a low and an •fflicted stare in the World be really b•st for the Church, then your dejections are not only irrational, but ungrateful: indeed, if ye estimate the happiness of the Church by its ⟨p. 65⟩worldly ease, splendor and prosperity, then such times will seem bad for it; but if you reckon its glory to consist in its humility, faith, patience and heavenly mindedness, no condition in the World abounds with advantages for these as an afflicted condition doth. It was not persecutions and prisons, but worldliness and wantonness that was the poyson of the Church; neither was it the earthly glory of its Professors, but the bloud of its Martyrs that was the seed of the Church. The power of godliness did never thrive better than in affliction, and never ran lower than in times of greatest prosperity; when we are left a poor and an afflcted people, then we learn to trust in the Name of the Lord,