It was requisite that the hills, Gen. 7:19, should be covered, that Noah might not have confidence in them; but surely this dispensation of God was a heart-shaking providence to Noah and them that were with him; for here indeed was his faith tried, there was no hill left in all the world; now were his carnal helpers gone, there was none shut up or left.  Now therefore, if they could rejoice, it must be only in the power of God.

Noah was to have respect in his deliverance not only to himself and family, but to the good of all the world.  Men’s spirits are too narrow for the mind of God, when their chief end, or their only design in their enjoying this or the other mercy, is for the sake of their own selves only.  It cannot be according to God, that such desires should be encouraged.  “None of us liveth unto himself;” why, then, should we desire life only for ourselves?

The church cries out thus:  “God be merciful to us and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us.”  Why?  “That thy way may be known upon earth, and thy saving health among all nations.”  So David:  “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit; then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.”

So then, we must not desire to come out of trials and afflictions alone or by ourselves, but that in our deliverance the salvation of many may be concerned.

In every affliction and persecution, the devil’s design is to impair Christ’s kingdom; wherefore, no marvel that God designs in our deliverance the impairing and lessening the kingdom of sin and Satan.  Wherefore, O thou church of God, which art now upon the waves of affliction and temptation, when thou comest out of the furnace, if thou come out at the bidding of God, there shall come out with thee the fowl, the beast, and abundance of creeping things.  Gen. 8:17.  “O Judah, he hath set a harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.”

Persecution.

There are several degrees of suffering for righteousness:  there is the scourge of the tongue, the ruin of an estate, the loss of liberty, a jail, a gibbet, a stake, a dagger.  Now answerable to these are the comforts of the Holy Ghost prepared, like to like, part proportioned to part; only the consolations are said to abound. 2 Cor. 1:5.

But the lighter the sufferings are, the more difficult it is to judge of the comforts of the Spirit of God; for it is common for a man to be comfortable under sufferings when he suffereth but little, and knows also that his enemy can touch his flesh, his estate, or the like, but little.  And this maybe the joy of the flesh, the result of reason; and may be very much, if not altogether, without a mixture of the joy of the Holy Ghost therewith.  The more deep, therefore, and the more dreadful the sufferings are, the more clearly are seen the comforts of the Spirit.  When a man has comfort where the flesh is dead, stirreth not, and can do nothing; when a man can be comfortable at the loss of all; when he is under sentence of death, or at the place of execution—­if yet a man’s cause, a man’s conscience, the promise, and the Holy Ghost, have all one comfortable voice, and do all together with their trumpets make one sound in the soul, then good are the comforts of God and his Spirit.