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season of all his offspring by death. There we see the widowed mother of a numerous family at a loss to still the cries of her children, who are clamorous for bread. If we turn in another quarter, we may find a poor unhappy creature wasting away under an incurable and painful disorder, where the only vigorous principle seems to be the living cancer which corrodes him. Hear the bitter lamentation of Job: "Even to-day is my complaint bitter, and my stroke heavier than my groaning. "When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? I am full of tossings to and fro." "Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!" "therefore my words are swallowed up." "For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit." Hear the man after God's own heart exclaim, "I water my couch with my tears, § and mingle my drink with weeping." || By reason of grief my flesh is dried up, and my heart is withered as grass." Look at the history, not of the enemies only, but of the most eminent servants of God, and you will generally find their trials as conspicuous as their piety: so true is it that the high road to heaven is through suffering; and that “ through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom."

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*Job xxiii. 2. § Psalm vi. 6.

+ Job vii. 4.
|| Psalm cii. 9.
**Acts xiv. 22.

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Job vi. 2, 3, 4. ¶ Psalm cii. 4.

If we are tempted to repine at seeing others in peace and prosperity, while we are harassed and distressed, we form a most inadequate and premature judgement. Their period of trial will arrive; their day of calamity is also approaching; the mildew that blights their enjoyments is prepared; and from the evil omen of adversity it will be impossible for them to escape, more than ourselves. "If a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many."

III. Here we learn the propriety of not looking for happiness on earth. "This is not our rest: it is polluted."* A state exposed to so much calamity can never have been designed as the scene of enjoyment; it must have been calculated for the purpose of trial. It is not Canaan; it is the wilderness through which the chosen tribes were destined to pass in their way to it; it is a vale of tears, [along] which the christian pilgrim toils and struggles in his passage to the heavenly kingdom. Let us understand the real nature of our present condition; let us learn that nothing belonging to it is merely or principally intended for our gratification; that it is well suited to be the abode of a sinful creature upon trial, under a dispensation of mercy; where there is just enough of good to support under evil, and those prospects of greater good afforded in a future state, which are sufficient to dispel despondency. It is

*Micah ii. 10.

a condition characterized by vicissitude, by danger, by suffering, and by hope; and he is to be esteemed the happiest man who most surmounts its tempests, escapes its pollutions, and is sanctified by its trials. Are you at present in circumstances of ease and comfort? be thankful for it, but place no reliance on its continuance. Enjoy with moderation whatever is gratifying in your lot, but let it not engage your heart, let it not deeply entangle your affection. By an intimate converse with the promises of the gospel, learn to live above [the world], and consider it not as [constituting] your portion or your happiness. Study, indeed, to the utmost to be dead to the world, and alive to God; that " when he, who is our life, shall appear, ye also shall appear with him in glory."*

IV. Let us all be engaged to lay in a suitable preparation for the days of adversity. Let us be aiming to acquire, by faith and prayer, and the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, those principles which will effectually support us in the dark and cloudy day.

The christian character is [formed] of such dispositions as are each of them apart, and still more when combined, adapted to support the soul amidst the severest trials. Under the influence of these, the christian believer fears none of those things that may happen. Faith, by elevating the attention to a future world-to the glory to be revealed, * Col. iii. 4.

by imparting to the real christian a living sense of that atonement which is given in the gospel, is a principle of primary efficacy. The habitual disposition to look upon this present state as a passage and a pilgrimage, which is deeply wrought into the christian character, is of itself an admirable preparation for suffering. The solemn renunciation of the world included in this [impression] of the [mind] tends immediately to the same effect. Thus the joys of faith, the consolations of the Holy Ghost, raise the soul to a surprising elevation above the storms and trials of life.

XXVIII.

ON CHASTISEMENT RESULTING IN PENITENCE.

JER. xxxi. 18.-Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God.

THIS chapter contains great and gracious promises made to the people of Israel, upon the prospect of their true repentance. They are assured that, notwithstanding the severe rebukes of Providence, the Lord had mercy in reserve, when their afflictions had answered the purpose for which they were appointed, in humbling and reforming them.

Before God visits his people with consolation, he prepares them for it by inspiring a penitential spirit, well knowing that to indulge them with his smiles, while they continue obstinate and

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unreclaimed, would neither comport with his character, nor contribute to their good. His benignity and condescension are sufficiently evinced in his "waiting to be gracious;" in the promptitude with which he pardons the humble penitent. He shews himself attentive to the first movement of the contrite heart, agreeable to his declaration in the passage before us, "I have surely heard Ephraim." In these words we have the picture of the inmost. feelings of a humble and penitent heart. We behold it in the deepest retirement, without the least disguise, pouring itself out before God.

In these remarkable words we have an acknowledgement and a prayer.

I. These words contain an acknowledgement"Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke."

1. This expression we conceive to denote the inefficacy of former corrections. In the Septuagint it is rendered, "As a bullock, I was not taught: thou didst chastise me, and I was chastised." This was all; and no other effect ensued than the uneasy pain which chastisement necessarily imparts. Ephraim is represented as conscious that former corrections had answered little purpose. He laments the little improvement he had made, and prays for such an interposition of divine power and grace as may work an efficient conversion : "Turn thou me, and I shall be turned." The rebukes of Providence are often represented in the Scriptures in this light." And ye have forgotten

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