1. This often mention of God’s hand teacheth this doctrine: When God punisheth us by the hands of the wicked, we are hardly brought to ascribe it to Him alone; and they from thinking that their own hand and power hath done it.
2. When God layeth afflictions upon us, they ransack the most secret parts that are in us.
3. God often bringeth His servants to the greatest misery that can be sustained by man.
4. God doth govern, and that in special manner, the particular course of all those afflictions which He layeth upon His people.
5. We can no more wind ourselves out of those afflictions that God layeth upon us, than the entangled soul can escape the net that compasseth him.
6. Nothing can go forward, or come to any good issue, but that only which the Lord furthereth.
7. It is God that giveth friends, health, etc.; and taketh all away at His pleasure.
8. According to the measure and continuance of God’s afflicting hand upon us, so must the measure and continuance of our sorrows be. (J. Udall.)
