Mystery of Providence - Flavel - XVI - Chapter 12 continued

Required reading 
Mystery of Providence by John Flavel (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Chapter 12 continued (Sections 'How may a Christian discern when a providence is sanctified and comes from the love of God to him?)

My notes and thoughts
Today's reading tackles the problem of how you can tell if what is happening to you is part of God's love for you.  Flavel basically solves the dilemma right away by saying that either everything that happens to you is part of God's love for you (Christians) and or everything is against you (non-Christians).  To look at providences for signs of God's love is the wrong thing to do: 'If prosperous providences befall us we cannot say, This is a sure sign that God loves me, for who have more of those providences than the people of his wrath....And from adverse afflictive providences we cannot know his hatred.' Great line:  'Outward things are promiscuously dispensed, and no man's spiritual state is discernible by the view of his temporal.'  But how prone we are to look at our circumstances as a sign of God's favour or disfavour!

The rest of the section proves Flavel's point quite convincingly.

(Also, sorry about making no post yesterday.  I had an accident last night washing up a glass and spent my evening in the hospital emergency room receiving 5 stitches.  I thought about making a catchup post today, but decided to just start Bunyan a day late.)

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.