Works (Vol 4) - Bates - VI - Sermon V (How to bear afflictions)

Required reading
The Works (Vol 4) by William Bates (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Sermon V (How to bear afflictions).

My summary
Today we begin the first of two sermons on how to bear afflictions. 

The sermon's text is 'My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him' (Heb 12:5).

Bates proposition from the text is that 'It is the duty and best wisdom of afflicted christians, to preserve themselves from the vicious extremes of despising the chastenings of the Lord, or fainting under them.'

To illustrate his point Bates endeavours to show:
(i) what it is to despise the chastenings of the Lord and the causes of it;
(ii) what fainting under his rebuke signifies and what makes us incident to it.

Bates also began a third point which we will finish in next week's sermon.  He endeavoured:
(iii) to prove that it is the duty and best wisdom of the afflicted to avoid these extremes.

What grabbed me
I found it helpful to be reminded of this cause of despising God's correction: '1. A contracted stupidity of soul, proceeding from a course in sin. There is a natural stubbornness and contumacy in the heart against God, a vicious quality derived from rebellious Adam ; we are all hewn out of the rock, and digged out of the quarry : and this is one of the worst effects of sin and a great part of its deceitfulness that by stealth it increaseth the natural hardness, by degrees it creeps on like a gangrene Heb. 3. 13. and causes an indolency. The practice of sin makes the heart like an adamant, Zech. 7. 12. the hardest of stones, that exceeds that of rocks. From hence proceeds such unteachableneas of the mind, that when God speaks and strikes, yet sinners will not be convinced; that briars and thorns are only effectual to teach them ; and such an untractableness in the will, that when, the sinner is stormed by affliction, and some light breaks into the undentanding yet it refuseth to obey God's call.'

The stubbornness of the human heart to persist in sin is a great tragedy.

Next week's reading
Read Sermon VI (How to bear afflictions).

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