be willing to do and suffer, because it is His will; conscious that He requires us neither to do nor suffer any thing, but what is perfectly wise and good, yea, perfectly desirable. "To render our resignation entire, it is indispensable that it should be unmingled with murmuring, impatience, distrust of the goodness of God, or any dissatisfaction with His providence." This disposition is the only becoming temper in creatures suffering at the hand of God, and it will be the aim and exercise of all those who reverence Him.

The reasons or grounds on which the Christian is led to a patient, yea, cheerful, endurance of affliction, we shall reserve for another discourse. For the present, we shall content ourselves with urging the duty upon you by a few considerations.

"Forasmuch as Christ

1st. By the example of Christ. hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” * The Holy Ghost hath set down for us the persecutions, reproaches, buffetings, the agony, the cross, the passion he endured, to encourage us not to be " weary nor faint in our minds." You know that he came into the world without sin, but he went not through it without sorrow. Ought not we then to suffer with and for him, who suffered so much for our sins? It is meet that we should follow him who left us so fair an example. It is meet that we should be made like him in suffering, if we would be made like him in glory.

2d. A patient and cheerful submission, softens our sufferings. Nothing so powerfully composes. God does what He will whether we consent or not. Our impatience hinders not His purposes, but our peace. what He wills, even suffering is made This is the secret of" rejoicing in tribulation."

* 1 Peter iv. 1

But, if we will sweet and easy.

Shoot out bitter thoughts and words against God as you will, they hurt not Him; but, like the arrows, which, it is reported, Cæsar caused in his displeasure to be shot against Jupiter, they will return and fall upon your own heads and wound both deeply and dangerously.

But, "be dumb, open not your mouth because God hath done it ;" that will blunt the shaft, assuage the pain, and ultimately heal the wound.

3d. Patience disarms affliction.

As lightning, according to some, overthrows every tree but the laurel, so affliction scathes every man, but the patient man. Be patient, and, if the affliction come from God, like a tree shaken by the storm, it promotes your growth; if from man, it falls like an arrow shot against a rock; if from the Devil, patience quenches the fiery dart.

4th. Affliction endured purifies from sin. "He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.”*

Affliction, simply considered, does not, but affliction sanctified does, purify and disengage the heart from sin, and wean it from the world, and the ways of the world. "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word."+

Finally, brethren, possess your souls in patience. Are you a servant? Like Jacob you may have a churlish master. Are you a master? Like Mephibosheth you may have a traitorous servant. Are you a wife? Like Abigail you may have a profane husband. Are you a husband? Like Job you may have a foolish, wicked wife. Are you a brother? Like Jacob you may have a merciless, cruel Esau for a brother. Are you a father? Like Abraham you may have an Ishmael for a son. Are you a son? Like

Hezekiah, you may have a wicked Manasseh for a father. In all these conditions of life let every man possess his soul in patience. "Now the God of peace strengthen you with all might through his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." Amen.

SERMON XI.

My son, despise, not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth."-PROV. iii.

11. 12.

We now proceed, as we promised in a former discourse, to adduce some of those reasons which lead the Christian to a patient, yea, cheerful endurance of affliction.

me.

I. The Christian is patient in suffering under the conviction that all affliction comes from the hand of God. The common dialect of the world is,—“ 'By chance such an accident befell me. Through inadvertence I sustained such a loss. By the infamy of such an one my character was blasted. Through imprudence such a sickness came upon All which may be true, humanly speaking, and regarding only second causes. But, the Christian, taught in a better school, looks beyond second causes to that invisible hand which guides the vast machinery of Providence, and according to his own will and pleasure, determines alike the fall of a hair, the death of a sparrow, or the dissolution of a world. "Affliction," says Eliphaz, "cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground ;*" but in their number, measure, and duration, altogether arise from the wise and righteous appointment of God. An instance

* Job v. 6.

or two will illustrate, and establish the fact, beyond all disputes and cavils of the carnal mind.

Joseph was rent from his father's house, and sold a slave into Egypt by his unnatural brethren: but what says the man of God? "Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither; for God hath sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance: so now, it was not you that sent me hither, but God."*

estate.

Consider also how Job suffered in his mind, body, and How came these things to pass? You will answer, "The Sabians fell upon his oxen and asses and took them away; that fire from heaven destroyed his thousands of sheep; that the Chaldeans slew his servants and carried away his camels; that a violent wind overthrew the house where his children were, and buried them in its ruins." But, the man of God, accustomed to search out the sovereign and principal causes of events, raises his thoughts to a higher source, and how answers he this question? He says, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!"+

"Let

Take also the case of David, when that "dead dog, Shimei," cursed his lord and king. "Let me go over," says Abishai to David, "I pray thee, and take off his head." But what says the suffering, the reproached monarch? him alone-let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him."‡ "The sin of Shimei was from himself, but David's affliction was from the Lord, and Shimei merely an instrument which God employed in correcting David for good."

We might also adduce the case of David's son and Lord in all his sufferings, which the sacred historians are ever careful to inform us, happened that it might "come to pass

*Gen. xlv. 5, 7, 8.

+ Job i. 21.

2 Sam. xvi. 9-11.