1. According to the measure of God’s correcting hand upon us, must our grief be.
(1) Because God is sure to be (at the least) so angry as His rods are heavy.
(2) Our sins do cause Him to afflict us, which we must repent of according to the measure of God’s anger against them appearing by His smiting of us. This reproves them that remain unrepentant, when the correcting hand of God is upon them. It teaches us to increase in sorrow and lamentation, seeing the trouble of the Church in general, and our own crosses in particular are daily increased.
2. Weeping for sin and its punishment is such a sign of true repentance as we must labour to show forth, especially in time of calamity.
(1) Because the heart appeareth then to be truly affected when it breaketh into tears.
(2) The godly have always been brought thereunto (Joe_2:12). This reproves our corruption, that can easily be brought to weep for a worldly loss, but hardly for our sins. We must labour against this with all diligence, carefully using all the means of grace.
3. It is a grievous plague to lack comforts in affliction; the contrary whereof is a great blessing.
(1) Because the comfortable words and deeds of others will mitigate the sense of the misery.
(2) It adds to the grief to be left alone in it.
4. It is an intolerable grief to have friends become foes.
(1) Because we put great trust in our friends, and promise ourselves much assistance by them.
(2). They having been most inward with us, may do us more harm than those whom we have always esteemed enemies. Let us take heed with what men we make friendship. Let us not be dismayed though our friends become our foes, seeing it hath been often the lot of the godly, but seek to God the more earnestly for His assistance.
5. God often leaveth His people destitute of all outward help and comfort, to teach us to rest upon Him alone at whose disposition all things are, and not upon any outward thing, seem it never so glorious to our outward eyes. (J. Udall.)
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her.
Adversity the test of friendship
We do not know our friends until we are in some extremity. Fair-weather friends are not to be implicitly trusted. You cannot know a man until you have had occasion to test him by some practical sacrifice; until you have opposed a man you do not know what his temper is; until you have disappointed a man you cannot tell the extent of his good nature; until you have seen a man in trial you know nothing whatever of his grace or his virtue. Many persons shine the more brightly because of the surrounding darkness; they have no genius for conversation, they cannot display themselves in public, they are but poorly feathered and coloured, so that they have nothing to attract and gratify the attention of curiosity: but how full of life they are when their friends are in trouble, how constant in watchfulness, how liberal in contribution, how patient under exasperation! These are the men to trust! As we should never see the stars but for the darkness, so we never should see real friendship but for our affliction and sorrow. (J. Parker, D. D.)
