The saints everlasting rest

O what a difference is there betwixt our prayers in health and in sickness! betwixt our prosperity and adversity-repentings! He that before had not a tear to shed, or a groan to utter, now can sob, and sigh, and weep: he that was wont to lie like a block in prayer, and scarce minded what he said to GOD: now affliction presseth him down, how earnestly can he beg! How doth he mingle his prayers and his tears! And cry out, what a person he will be, If GOD will but hear him, and deliver him! Alas! if we did not sometimes feel the spur, what a slow pace would most of us hold toward heaven!

Seeing then what our vile natures require, why should we be unwilling GOD should do us good by a sharp means? Sure that is the best dealing for us which surest and soonest doth further us for heaven. I leave thee, christian, to judge by thy own experience, whether thou dost not go more watchfully, and lively, and speedily in thy way to rest, in thy sufferings, than thou dost in thy more pleasing and prosperous state.

Lastly consider, GOD doth seldom give his people so sweet a fore-taste of their future rest, as in their deep afflictions. He keepeth his most precious cordials for the time of our greatest faintings and dangers. GOD is not so lavish of his choice favours as to bestow them unseasonably: he gives them at so fit a time, when he knoweth they are needful, and will be valued; and when he is sure to be thanked for them, and his people rejoiced by them. Especially, when our sufferings are more directly for his cause, then doth be seldom fail of sweetening the bitter cup. Therefore have the martyrs been possessors of the highest joys, and therefore were they so ambitious of martyrdom. I do not think that Paul and Silas did ever sing more joyfully, than when they were sore with ⟨p. 190⟩scourgings, and fast in the inner prison, with their feet in the stocks. When did Christ preach such comforts to his disciples, and assure them of his providing them mansions with himself, but when he was ready to leave them, and their hearts were sorrowful because of his departure? When did he appear among them, and say, peace be unto you, but when they were shut up together for fear of the persecuting Jews? When did Stephen see heaven opened, but when he was giving up his life for the testimony of Jesus? And though we be never put to the suffering of martyrdom, yet GOD knoweth that in our natural sufferings we need support.