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###### Advantage: Decays Help Liberate the Soul from Things Below and Let It Grow

{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…

Exhortation and Counsel to Earthly Traders

Counsel Five: Get Advantage from Decays to Further Heavenly Trade

Advantage: Decays Help Liberate the Soul from Things Below}

Liberation and growth of the soul are additional fruits of sanctified straits and thus a help to the heavenly trade. Christians are never fit to make any speed on their way to Heaven until their hearts are set free and given growth (Psalm 119:32).1263 Growth in worldly things is often bondage to the soul. The one who has most of earth usually has least liberty for Heaven. When the Lord cuts short the earthly things of His people, He only knocks off golden fetters from their feet that He may bring their souls out of prison. Afflicting providences are God’s special diets for His racers to give them more endurance and swiftness in their run toward glory. Oh, how imprisoned are redeemed souls in the many things of this world! They have no time for prayer, Bible reading, sermon hearing, or holy conversation due to all of the entangling affairs of this life—until God sets them at liberty by some disasters on their earthly employments. When God removes worldly treasures, it is the lifting off of heavy baggage from the shoulders of Zion’s travelers so that they may more comfortably travel to their journey’s end. Good souls, while crowded with earthly business, are like people entangled in thorns and briars: when they would go forward, one briar hangs onto their clothing and other thorns stop up their way. So, when God removes earthly things from them, He just clears out a way for His children to pass more comfortably and swiftly through the underbrush of this world and lightens the ship so it will sail faster and safer to its intended port. Is not this an advantage?

1263“I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!” (Psalm 119:32 ESV). The word translated enlarge has a root of רחב [raw-khab´] and it has the general meaning of make large, and it is used also in the sense of relieving one from a strait (narrow) place, including making free from bondage or confinement. Psalm 4:1 uses the same root for relieved me: “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer” (Psalm 4:1 NKJV). So, the word can have two senses: liberation from bondage, and growth. Ashwood uses both of those senses in this subchapter.

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