A Divine Cordial

2. Afflictions work for good as they are a means to make the heart more upright.§2 In ⟨p. 28⟩prosperity the heart is apt to be divided, Hos. 10.2. The heart cleaves partly to God, and partly to the World; it is like a Needle between two Load-stones, God draws, and the World draws; now, God takes away the World that the heart may cleave more to him in sincerity. Corrigere, quasi cor rectum facere; Correction, is a setting the heart right and strait. As we sometimes hold a crooked stick over the fire to straiten it: So God holds us over the fire of affliction to make us more strait and upright. Oh how good is it, when sin hath bent the soul awry from God, that affliction should straiten it again!

3. Afflictions work for good, as they conform us to Christ. Gods Rod is a Pencil to draw Christs Image more lively upon us. It is good that there should be a symmetry and proportion between the Head and the Members. Would we be parts of Christs Mystical Body, and not like him? His life (as Calvin saith) was a series of suffering, Isa. 53.2. A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: He wept, he bl•d. Was the Head Crowned with Thorns, and do we think to be Crowned with Roses? It is good to be like Christ, though it be by sufferings. Jesus Christ drank a bitter Cup, it made him sweat drops of blood to think of it; and though it be true, he drank the Poison in the Cup (the wrath of God) ⟨p. 29⟩yet there is some Wormwood in the Cup left, which the Saints must drink: Only here is the difference between Christs sufferings and ours; his were satisfactory, ours are only castigatory.