We may trace this subject still further, and take a view of the sufferings of the martyrs in every age, from the days of righteous Abel, to the last saint who may be called to seal the truth with his blood. Those who loved the Saviour, and loved not their lives unto death, endured every species of persecution, for the love they bore to truth, having felt its power, and enjoyed its reality, were opposers of Satan’s kingdom, and Satan aimed to extirpated them from the earth: but the more the truth has been opposed, the more the church has been oppressed, the more it has ever prospered: what their enemies aimed at, was to degrade the religion of the Son of God, to abolish the gospel, and to ruin immortal souls; but in this they have ever failed, and ever will, because God has meant the sufferings of his people, and the malice of their enemies, to good. The history of the experience of saints, in all ages, prove the same, as may be seen in the trial of Abraham, when called to sacrifice his Son; and by faith he obtained this name, the Father of the faithful, and the Friend of God. In the deep trials, and accumulated afflictions of Job, Satan plotted against him, to destroy him—he traduced him as an hypocrite before God, though he was the most sincere man then living; he extended his malice to the ruin of his family, in order to provoke him to curse God. He stirred up his wife for the same tremendous purpose, and then set his brethren to accuse him of hypocrisy, of living in some secret sin, alledging that such uncommon trials never befel a real saint, as befel Job; but this was judging after the flesh, for which the Lord afterwards reproved them; and though they were good men, yet they did not speak the thing that was right, concerning God or his servant Job. Yet these things were all meant by infinite wisdom for good; to answer God’s own gracious purposes, to shew Job the desperate evil of his own heart, and the insufficiency of his own righteousness, to justify him before God.