(5.) As God’s children are prone to backslide from him, and so have need of restoring grace, he will recover and humble them, and thereby prevent their total apostacy: this he sometimes does by afflictions, which the apostle calls fatherly chastisements, and reckons them not only consistent with, but evidences of his love: _Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth; and if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons_, Heb. xii. 6, 8, 11. The apostle does not here speak of afflictions as considered absolutely in themselves, but as proceeding from the love of God, the design whereof is to do them good; and as they are adapted to this present state, in which they are training up for the glorious inheritance reserved for them in heaven, and need some trying dispensations, which may put them in mind of that state of perfect blessedness which is laid up for them: and they are rendered subservient to their present and future advantage, as the afflictions of this present time _bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness_ to them; and when they are, in the end, perfectly freed from them, will tend to enhance their joy and praise; which leads us to consider another privilege, which is so great that it crowns all those that they are now possessed of, namely, (6.) They shall, at last, be brought into God’s immediate presence, and satisfied with his likeness. The apostle calls the perfect blessedness of the saints, when raised from the dead, and so delivered from the bondage of corruption, and made partakers of the glorious liberty of the Sons of God, by way of eminency, _the adoption, to wit, the redemption of their bodies_; which signifies not only the full manifestation of their adoption, but their taking possession of their inheritance, which they are now waiting and hoping for, which is too great for the heart of man to conceive of in this present state; for the apostle says, _Now are we the sons of God; and it doth not appear what we shall be: but we know, that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is_, 1 John iii. 2. So that all the blessings which we have, either in hand or hope, the blessings of both worlds, which are conferred upon us from our first conversion to our glorification: these are privileges which God bestows on those who are his adopted children.