Oh what a difference is there betwixt our prayers in health, and in sickness! betwixt our prosperity and our adversitiy-repentings! He that before had not a tear to shed, nor a groan to utter; now can sob, and sigh, and weep his fill: He that was wont to lie like a block in prayer, and scarce minded what he said to God; Now when affliction presseth him down, how earnestly can he beg? how doth he mingle his prayers and his tears? how doth he pur∣pose and promise reformation? and cry out, what a person he will be, if God will but hear him, and deliver him! Alas, if we did not sometime feel the spur, what a slow pace would most of us hold toward Heaven? and if we did not sometimes smart by Affliction, how dead and blockish would be the best mens hearts? Even innocent Adam is liker to forget GOD in a Paradise, then Joseph in a prison, or Job upon a dunghil. Even a Solo∣mon is like enough to fall in the midst of pleasure and prosperity, when the most wicked Manasses in his Irons may be recovered. As Doctor Stoughton saith, We are like to childrens tops, that will go but little longer then they are whipt. Seeing then that our own vile natures do thus require it, why should we be un∣willing, that GOD should do us good, by so sharp a means? Sure that is the best dealing for us, which surest and soonest doth further us for Heaven. I leave thee, Christian, to judg by thy own experience, whether thou dost not go more watch∣fully, and lively, and speedily in thy way to Rest, in thy suf∣ferings, then thou dost in thy more pleasing and prosperous state? If you go to the vilest sinner on his dying bed, and ask him, Will you now drink, and whore, and scorn at the godly as you were wont to do? you shall finde him quite in another minde. Much more then will Affliction work on a gracious Soul.