_1st_, When they consider, that the body gave occasion to the first entrance of sin into the world, and bears a part with the soul in all the sins committed, and guilt contracted thereby. It is therefore no wonder, when we find that it has its share in those miseries that attend it. _2dly_, Bodily diseases are our monitors, to put us in mind of the frailty of our present state; and therefore, since they are the harbingers of death, we are hereby forwarned, to prepare for it, as making sensible advances towards it. _3dly_, The greatest pains that we are liable to, are far short of what Christ endured for us; in which respect our afflictions are comparatively light, and a convincing proof, that they are not certain indications of our being rejected by God, Eccl. ix. 1. _4thly_, As God will not lay more on us than he will enable us to bear; so none of these afflictive dispensations shall have a tendency to separate the soul from Christ. Though we sometimes complain that this is a great interruption to the exercise of grace; yet this shall not be charged upon us as our fault, any otherwise than as it is the effect of that sin, which is the procuring cause of all affliction. _5thly_, The heavier our afflictions are at present, the more sweet and comfortable the heavenly rest will be, to those who have a well-grounded hope that they shall be brought to it, Job iii. 17. 2 Thess. i. 7. 2 Cor. iv. 17. [2.] If our condition be low and poor in the world, we are not without some inducements to be content. For, _1st_, Poverty is not, in itself, a curse, or inconsistent with the love of God, since Christ himself submitted to it, 2 Cor. viii. 9. Matt. viii. 20. and his best saints have been exposed to it, and glorified God, more than others, under it, 2 Cor. vi. 10. _2dly_, How poor soever we are, we have more than we brought into the world with us, or than the richest person can carry out of it, Job i. 21. _3dly_, They who have least of the world, have more than they deserve, or than God was under any obligation to give them. [3.] Suppose we are afflicted in our good name, and do not meet with that love and esteem from the world, which might be expected; but, on the other hand, are censured, reproached, and hated by those with whom we converse. This should not make us, beyond measure, uneasy. For,