sake, and render up to him humble thanks for his fatherly visitation, submitting yourself wholly to his will; it shall turn out to your profit, and help you forward in the right way to life everlasting."

The design of affliction comprehends a variety of objects, varying according to the nature of our spiritual condition, and the peculiarity of our circumstances. Afflictions are intended

To turn us from our iniquities. Sin is an evil incomparably worse in its nature, and more terrible in its consequences, than any temporal affliction with which we can be visited. It defiles our nature, subjects us to the condemnation of the divine law, separates us from God, and renders us liable to eternal misery. Now the chastisements we endure are medicinal applications for the cure of sin; under this view the mercy in which they originate is most apparent. The conversion of the sinner is often effected in this way. Such is the infatuation of men, that they are seldom convinced of the evil of sin by the law of God, until they are made to feel its bitter effects. "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy back slidings shall reprove thee; know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts." The instructions of the rod are more impressive than those of the word; they render us more attentive to God's voice, and more disposed to serious consideration. In the full tide of health and worldly prosperity, men are too often forgetful of spiritual things, and inattentive to the condition of their souls. The bustle and anxiety of business, the excitation of passion, and the intoxicating influence of pleasure, drown the voice of God and of conscience, and cause men to walk on heedlessly "after the imagination of their own heart:" but when affliction comes upon them, the wandering mind is called home, reflection is

forced upon the sinner; conscience, which before had seldom occasioned disturbance, is aroused from its lethargy, and exerts a power which causes the sinner to tremble. It brings his past sins to remembrance, and sets them in order before his eyes, and inspires him with fear and dread in the view of their number, their aggravation, and their consequences. It is the observation of Elihu, "if they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction; then he shewed them their work and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity." In numberless instances the most painful dispensations have been made the happy means of directing the wandering steps of men from the labyrinth of sin and death, into the path of wisdom, purity, and eternal life. How many have, with gratitude, adopted the language of the Psalmist, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word." The Athenian said, "I should have been lost, if I had not been lost;" and numbers may apply the same remark to their spiritual condition. Where did Manasseh find his father's God, but in affliction? He was the son of good Hezekiah, but every pious principle of his education had been corrupted by power, wealth, and pleasure; he became proverbial for wickedness, and would have gone on till he had filled up the measure of his iniquity, but God hedged up his way with thorns. "When he was in affliction, he sought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his father, and prayed unto him; and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem unto his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God." What made the prodigal think of home, but famine? In the days of his prosperity he was vain, ungrateful, and rebellious; but when he began to be in want, then he came to himself, and said, "I will arise

and go to my father, and will say unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants." Sinners will not believe the evil of sin until, by painful experience, they are convinced of the evil they have done by the evil they suffer. Affliction bows down the stubborn heart, and makes it humble and relenting. Even Pharaoh, who, in his prosperity, presumptuously demanded, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?" became an humble suppliant in the time of his distress; "and Pharach sent and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned; the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. Entreat the Lord, that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail." We often feel for those who have been reduced and afflicted. But if in their prosperity they forgat God that made them, and lightly esteemed the rock of their salvation; and in their adversity have been induced to cast away their sins, and to cry, surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more; that which I see not, teach thou me; if I have done iniquity, I will do no more ;' then these are the best days they ever saw, and they will draw forth their praises for ever. This, my suffering friend, may be your case, and will be, if you flee from your sins unto God, and commit your cause into his hand; then shall you experimentally acknowledge, "I know in faithfuluess thou hast afflicted me."

Affliction is sent to prevent evil. "I withheld thee from sinning against me;" so said God to Abimelech, king of Gerar, when he went to take Sarah, Abraham's wife. But it will truly apply to every individual of the human race, though not in the same circumstances. Some men have gone great lengths in iniquity, and have furnished fearful specimens of the depravity of human nature; yet, even these would have been much worse, but for the restraints put upon them by the

Almighty. The vilest characters that ever lived would have gone to much greater lengths of wickedness had they not been checked and hindered. You perhaps have not sinned as some others, but you know not how much you owe to God for the restraints of his hand. It is likely you would have resembled some of those whom you condemn, had you been placed in the same circumstances, and exposed to the same excitements. The case of Hazael is a striking one: in private life he abhorred the thought of inhumanity. When the man of God viewed him with tears, and predicted the cruelties of his future reign, he was filled with horror, and exclaimed, “is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" "Yet," as Matthew Henry remarks, "after all, the dog did it." He went forward, arrived at the foot of the throne, exchanged the man for the tyrant, and became the very monster which he had execrated. The affliction you are now suffering may be designed to prevent as well as to recover-to render transgression more difficult-to fence in your path, that you may be preserved from going farther astray-to put a check upon the depravity of your nature, which might otherwise involve you in some heinous transgression. In such a case, the affliction is most wise and merciful. "Therefore," says God, "behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her paths; and she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them; then shall she

say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was

pre

better with me than now." The metaphor is taken from a husbandman, who, to keep his cattle in the pasture, and vent their going astray, fences them in; and the sharper the hedge, the better. Thus God resolves to make our rovings difficult. If we will go astray, we must smart for it. If lighter afflictions avail not, he will employ heavier. If we be sufficiently rebellious and perverse to break through thorns,

and to go on, though wounded and bleeding, he will employ stones as well as brambles ;-he will make a wall around us: he will present insuperable difficulties, and effectually stop us in all the ardour of our schemes and enterprises.

This view of the subject is deeply interesting to the christian as well as the sinner: and the due consideration of it will prevent much distress and perplexity of mind. It not unfrequently occurs that such an one, when visited with calamity, finds himself unable to discover any particular reason for its infliction. Though it is true he always sees in his general conduct unworthiness and imperfection sufficient to render him vulnerable to trouble; yet he cannot charge himself with having wilfully transgressed the word of the Lord. "I have endeavoured," he says, "to examine and prove myself by the balance of the sanctuary, still, after the most scrupulous investigation, I cannot discover any sin which I have designedly indulged, or any duty which I have knowingly omitted, or any idol which I have set up in opposition to God. In all my ways I have been endeavouring to observe the apostolic rule, whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." But he who formed the heart, knoweth the secrets of the heart. He sees the future in the present-the effect in the cause. He knows how much our character is formed and unfolded by circumstances-how prone we are to change with events-how the friction of certain objects quickens dormant corruption, and excites to transgression. When, therefore, he sees us in danger-when our situation is becoming pregnant with temptation—when our principles are likely to yield to the excitation of surrounding circumstances, he mercifully interposes to save us from the threatening evil. By removing an ensnaring object-by placing us in new circumstances-by disappointing some favourite scheme-by embittering some special enjoymentby breaking in upon some connexion, he prevents the evil

B