the exhortation, which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."*

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Since afflictive dispensations "spring not from the dust," but are ordained of God, who takes no pleasure in the sufferings of his creatures, nor willingly afflicts the children of men;"+-since a state of innocence would have included an exemption from every sorrow on the one hand, and the sufferings of life are not, for the most part, destructive, there is no light in which it is so natural to consider them as chastisements; which are effects of displeasure, but not of a displeasure intended for the destruction of its object, but the amendment.

2. Though corrections are calculated to produce amendment, though such is their tendency and design, it is evident, from observation and experience, they often fail in accomplishing the effect. It is not uncommon to see men hardened under rebukes, and to grow more bold and presumptuous in the commission of sin, after having experienced severer trials than before. This melancholy fact is of no recent observation; it is frequently described and lamented in the word of God. "Thou hast stricken them," says Jeremiah, "but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have

*Heb. xii. 5, 6.

+ Lam. iii. 33.

made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.”*

Of the inefficacy of mere external correction, we have a striking proof in the conduct of the generations who were conducted from Egypt under the hand of Moses. Never were a people more frequently or more severely corrected, and never did a people [shew] themselves more incorrigible. While the remembrance of their sufferings was fresh, they seemed disposed in earnest to seek God; but no sooner did the sense of their calamities wear off, than they relapsed into all their former disobedience and rebellion. "When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the most high God their redeemer. Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongue." This is but a picture of what we may observe every day. We see men, under afflictive dispensations, evince a degree of emotion: they appear, in some measure, humbled and convinced; and, with much apparent sincerity, confess their persuasion of the vanity of the world, and of the utter impossibility of finding happiness out of the ways of religion. If they are brought to the brink of the grave, and eternity presents itself to their immediate prospect, we find them making the most solemn resolutions, condemning their former course of life, and resolving, if spared, † Psalm lxxviii. 34—36.

* Jer. v. 3.

to enter on a new course. The frivolous objects which before engaged their attention seem to have lost their charm, and a flattering prospect is exhibited of their turning into the path of wisdom. From their subsequent conduct, however, it is manifest their passions were only laid asleep, while their principles continued unchanged. The influence of the world was suspended, not destroyed. The novelty of their situation put new thoughts into their minds, and awakened fears to which before they had been strangers. But as the whole impression was to be ascribed to circumstances, when these circumstances were changed, the mind returned to its former state. Their "goodness was as the morning cloud, and as the early dew which passeth away." The serious impressions they felt during the season of affliction were never followed up. They terminated in no regular attachment to the serious exercises of piety; or, if they were led to pray at all, they were not sufficiently deep and abiding to produce a perseverance in that duty. The recovery of health, or the return of prosperity, gradually, but speedily, effaced every trace of serious feeling, and left them, perhaps, in a state of deeper alienation from God than ever.

3. Ephraim is here represented as reflecting upon it. (Proximate causes of the inefficacy of correction by itself.)

4. Inattention to the hand of God, and, as a natural consequence, their neglecting to pass from the contemplation of their sufferings to their sins.

Religion begins with consideration. Till they are brought to thorough reflection, no real improvement can be expected. It was a frequent complaint with the Messiah, My people will not consider." "The Lord crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it."* If we consider affliction as springing from the dust, and content ourselves with looking only at secondary causes, or human instruments, no wonder, *

*

Men are apt to spare themselves; to give way to a dangerous pusillanimity, by shrinking from reflections which, however useful in their tendency, they find to be painful. They are apt to consider their sufferings as expiatory.

5. In the serious purpose of a religious life, formed under afflictive dispensations, too many depend entirely upon resolutions formed in their own strength. To such purposes may be applied the beautiful image of Nahum: "As the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known."+

II. The prayer,—" Turn thou me," [may be] enforced by such arguments as these:

1. The plea of necessity. There is no other resource. It is evident something is wanting, some divine [agency], which shall produce the effect which external events have failed to [produce].

*Micah vi. 9.

Nahum iii. 17.

2. To entreat God to turn is not to ask an impossibility. The residue of the Spirit is with him.

3. It is worthy of his interposition. The turning the heart is a fit occasion on which Omnipotence may act.

4. The plea may be enforced by precedents. It implies no departure from his known methods. 5. We may enforce it by a reference to the divine [mercy].

XXIX.

ON THE COMFORTS OF CHRISTIANS UNDER EITHER WORLDLY OR SPIRITUAL TRIALS.

PSALM XCIV. 19.—In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.*

LET us take a brief survey of the internal thoughts, of a distressing nature, which are apt to arise in the mind of a good man; and next observe the tendency of the comforts of the gospel, to assuage or remove the uneasiness which they

have occasioned.

I. Let us take a survey of some of the distressing thoughts which are apt to oppress the mind of a good man. They may be considered as relating to these objects: the state of the world, the state of the church, and his own state as an individual.

1. The state of the world. When a good man surveys the general prevalence of irreligion and impiety, when he considers how few there are, *Preached at Leicester, December, 1815.