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the trying hour. Lay up these thoughts in store against the dark and cloudy day.

Remember that all trouble comes by the special providence of God; that the heaviest affliction is less than our least sins deserve.

Get your minds stored with God's precious promises. Especially lay before your minds this truth, "All things shall work together for good to them that love God."

Your sun may now shine, but the dark day will come. Your mountain may appear so strong that it cannot be moved; soon it may be carried into the midst of a sea of affliction. To you it may appear that trouble creeps "decrepid with old age." You mistake-it spreads its broad pinions to the wind, and wings its flight swifter than an eagle to his prey. This night it may make the world to you a wilderness, and plant your steps with thorns. And oh! not to have the "preparation of the Gospel of peace ;" not to have that faith in God's word, and that love to His will, which alone can unable us to submit to, and bear the cross, is, for "thy hard and impenitent heart only to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgments of God," without strength to bear them, or a friendly hand to remove them. But, "if ye endure," patiently, joyfully endure, chastening, then "God dealeth with you as with sons." If ye endure"-a mere suffering of chastisement, which is common to men and to devils, is no evidence of a gracious acceptance with God -but, "if ye endure," that is, with faith, submission, patience, and perseverance, and "faint not," then "God dealeth with you as with sons." Then it is a broad seal, set to the patent of your adoption, "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." #

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* Heb. xii. 6.

Welcome, my hearers, welcome grace to your souls : cultivate faith, cherish hope, foster love, exercise patience, as the best friends in adversity or in prosperity. Faith is a cable strong-hope, an anchor sure and steadfastlove kisses the hand that guides the helm-patience is oil upon the troubled waves which wreck the peace and happiness of those who possess her not. "Patience disarms afflictions of their sting, and deprives temptations of their danger, and spiritual enemies of their success." Patience brings in her train experience, and hope, and joy, and safety, and security.

And in this manner, the soul is prepared for that state where she will enjoy "peace, quietness, and assurance for ever." Wherefore, "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."

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SERMON XII.

As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.

Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to-day do I declare, that I will render double unto thee."-ZECH. ix. 11. 12.

Our text forms part of a prophecy addressed to the Jews at the approach of their deliverance from the Babylonish captivity. Their bondage is compared to imprisonment in a pit; their release to the sending forth of prisoners from so gloomy a confinement. But it has a higher reference, to which this bears no more comparison, than the stones of the temple to the glorious shekinah within the veil.

We have here in a figure an affecting view of man in his natural state; of the means employed for his redemption, and of the benefits resulting from that redemption; all of which we propose to notice; and, in conclusion, because many among us-like those Jews who lingered in Chaldea, enamored perhaps with its greatness and splendor, or their own ease and prosperity-still remain captives to Satan and enslaved by the beggarly elements of the world, we shall call upon them as "prisoners of hope" to turn to the strong hold, with the assurance of a "great recompense of reward."

I. We are to look at the affecting view given of man in his natural state-"prisoners in a pit wherein is no water." A state of nature is a state of bondage and imprisonment— the fatal consequences of man's insubordination to the laws

of God. Being a transgressor, he is arraigned by divine justice; held in a state of spiritual thraldom; kept under the curse of the law, the dominion of Satan, and the power of his own lusts. As a traitor against the majesty of heaven, he forfeits all right and title to every favor, and is most justly exposed to an ignominious end. Sentence indeed is not immediately executed on fallen man, as on fallen angels; but he is condemned already, and unless a mighty ransom can be found, nothing remains but "a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries."*

We shall better perceive the force of the figure used in our text, if we glance at the construction of oriental prisons. In the inner part there was usually a deep pit, in which indeed there was no water, but an abundance of mire and mud. Accordingly, we read that Jeremiah, who was cast into the worst and lowest part of the dungeon, "sunk in the mire." They are said also to have sharp spikes, so placed at the top and bottom, as grievously to torment the incarcerated, and prevent their escape-a state which insured to them a miserable existence, and, in the end, inevitable death.

To this mode of punishment there are frequent allusions in the Old Testament. Thus in the speech of Elihu to Job: "He keepeth back his soul from the pit." "Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom." The allusions in the Psalms are numerous and interesting. "Be not silent to me; lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit," that is, lest I come to a miserable and untimely end. Again in Isaiah, "The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail." He must starve

* Heb. x 27.

+ Job. xxxiii. 18, 24.

Ps. xxviii.1.

§ Is. li. 14.

and die if not hastily liberated. There is no light to cheer his eyes; darkness reigns in all its terrors; no bread to satisfy his craving appetite; no water to quench his parched tongue; "hungry and thirsty, his soul faints within him."

What energy do these facts give to those passages, which speak of our moral condition under the idea of imprisonment; imprisonment in a deep, dark, miry pit!

Yes, my brethren, it is a melancholy fact, that there is something in our condition by nature, strongly analogous to this wretched state. Is the prisoner we have placed before you, immured in darkness? We are buried in the shades of mental darkness. Is he a captive in chains? We wear the heavy chains, and endure the iron bondage, of natural corruption. Does death, certain death, await the poor captive? Death; eternal death, stands ready to receive us within its devouring jaws.

This is true, dear brethren, of you, and of me, and of every one that is born of Adam. Yet men have a fatal propensity to lull their consciences to sleep, and to blind their eyes to their real character and condition, by taking delusive views of their nature, dignity and freedom, and of the ample range for their faculties which nature presents. The habits of our fallen state take the place of our primeval character, and we become enamored with those very chains which are our curse, and shame, and ruin. We persuade ourselves to forget,—and then we persuade ourselves to believe that God forgets too,-that we are rebels against his authority. Through blindness, through insensibility, or through a strange perversion of our intellect, like the maniac, we call our prison our palace, our chains our ornaments, and vainly imagine ourselves subject to no control.

But what is our boasted dignity? Nothing better than a state of base servitude to sin and Satan.

What is our pretended freedom? If we may judge from

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