Now, there is no due management of our souls under any affliction, so that God may have the glory of it, and ourselves any spiritual benefit or improvement thereby, but by the consolations of the Holy Ghost. All that our Saviour promiseth his disciples, when he tells them of the great trials and tribulations they were to undergo, is, “I will send you the Spirit, the Comforter; he shall give you peace in me, when in the world you shall have trouble. He shall guide and direct, and keep you in all your trials.” And so, the apostle tells us, it came to pass, 2 Cor. i. 4–6; yea, and this, under the greatest afflictions, will carry the soul to the highest joy, peace, rest, and contentment. So the same apostle, Rom. v. 3, “We glory in tribulations.” It is a great expression. He had said before, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God,” verse 2. Yea, but what if manifold afflictions and tribulations befall us? “Why, even in them also we glory,” saith he; “we glory in our tribulations.” But whence is it that our spirits are so borne up to a due management of afflictions, as to glory in them in the Lord? He tells us, verse 5, it is from the “shedding abroad of the love of God in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.” And thence are believers said to “receive the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost,” 1 Thess. i. 6; and to “take joyfully the spoiling of their goods.” This is that I aim at:— there is no management nor improvement of any affliction, but merely and solely by the consolations of the Holy Ghost. Is it, then, of any esteem or value unto you that you lose not all your trials, temptations, and affliction? — learn to value that whereby alone they are rendered useful.