Page:Token for mourners.pdf/7

 in what sense we are to understand the expression in my text, “It is well.”

This "well” dost not suppose there is nothing in providential dispensations, which to flesh and sense appears evil. Submission quiets under an affliction, but it does not take away our sense and feeling of the affliction. The apostle speaks what is every believer's experience, Heb. xii, 11. No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Whatever be spoken of the good of it, it presents itself unto us with a very different face; it is matter of present grief and sorrow to them that are chastised; nor are we blamed for our feeling and sense of it.

Our blessed Lord himself wept at the grave of his dear friend, John xi. 35. And at the approach of his last sufferings, “his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,” Matt. xxvi. 38. “yet he was led as a lamb to the slaughter; he opened not his mouth": here was patience and quiet submission under all his sorrows, while nature had some vent; for groans are sometimes an appeasement to our grief.

Thus it is said of the good woman, "that her soul was bitter within her," ver. 27. Elisha saw her agony in her looks, though he knew not the cause of it; and yet "All is well." When Job lost his substance and his children, and was smitten in his body with sore