value of thy favor, of the worth of the immortal spirit, the importance of the present disciplinary state, and the weight of glory that is in reserve for thy faithful servants: so that while we improve the few days allotted to us here, we may be preparing for eternal bliss hereafter; and thus fulfilling thy gracious intentions towards us, may though humble and sinful, be permitted to glorify Thee our Father, and the Father of the universe. Now to Thee, almighty and most merciful Creator, of whom, to whom, and through whom are all things, be glory in our hearts and lives for ever. Amen.

"IT IS GOOD FOR ME THAT I HAVE BEEN AFFLICTED, THAT I MIGHT LEARN THY STATUTES."

"IT is good for me that I have been afflicted:"-happy would it be for us, my brethren, if this were our sentiment, and if our hearts thus reposed in Providence. How tranquil would our soul be, if persuaded that God, while he has disposed all events for the greatest good of his creatures, retains them under his ceaseless control, we were able to confide in him in all the circumstances of our life, and to see in the dispensations which appear at first the most inauspicious, the advantages which will subsequently result. Unhappily, these are not our thoughts, this is not our language. Not that our doubt extends to the dealings of Providence in general: we are not blind enough for that. We believe that God conducts the whole of the world; that he has regulated and arranged everything with the deepest wisdom, and we place the most entire confidence in him as long as our lot is happy: but does it change, are our

plans traversed, are we visited by affliction, and exposed to the storms of life, then our confidence in Providence wavers; we see no longer that wisdom and that goodness which we used to admire in his ways; we can no longer harmonise with his tenderness the evils he permits us to experience; God appears to have abandoned us, and murmurs are ready to escape from our lips. "How unhappy I am: my fortune has received a check, from which it will never recover!" "He is gone, my husband, the sole support of my children, and I am undone!" "That calumny has dishonored me for ever; the idea of it will be the torment of my life!" Foolish complaints, unjustifiable distrust! God is ever a tender father to us, even when he exposes us to the blows of adversity; and those afflictions through which he leads us, may prove to us of incalculable advantage. This is what I now propose to show.

You are men, exposed consequently to sufferings. Many of you perhaps groan now under the weight of some calamity. Those who are in prosperity, may be on the point of falling. Evil, ever present or at hand, threatens you all. Come, then, all of you, and arm yourselves against its blows, and draw consoling thoughts from religion: come, and learn from it to what an extent the very evils of which you complain may, if you knew how to profit by them, produce the happiest consequences.

When we are well convinced, my brethren, that God has each of us constantly under his notice; that he wishes the happiness of us all, and that he has in his power a thousand means to lead us to it, we are naturally induced to ask why, this being the case, he often

leaves us in, yea exposes us to, misfortune; and we can find no other reason, except that our afflictions have their uses, seen of God, but unknown to us, and that what we call evil is really good. This conclusion is confirmed by the Holy Scriptures in many places. They often represent the different troubles of life as benefits from God: they tell us that he chastens those whom he loves, and that our transient sufferings produce an infinitely excellent weight of glory. What, then, is that happiness which we buy so dearly, that, to lead us to acquire it, He who is our Father exposes us sometimes to many and long calamities? He tells us himself. It is only through much tribulation that we can be fitted for entering on the happiness of heaven; that we can be rendered partakers of his holiness. It is good, said David, after having learnt by experience, it is good for me to have been afflicted, that I may learn thy statutes: before I went astray, but now I keep thy word. It is, then, to perfect your characters, to render you worthy. of the happiness which God has in reserve for the righteous, that he subjects you to the reverses of which you complain; that he deprives one of you of your fortune; that he takes from another a beloved child; that he allows the reputation of a third to be torn by calumny. Doubtless, my brethren, if God took counsel of flesh and blood, he would pursue a different course. Doubtless, if he left to our will the removal of evils, at the moment when they are on the point of falling on our heads, most, perhaps all of us, would sacrifice to the ease and gratification of life, the inestimable advantages which may accrue to us from momentary calamities. For such is the ordinary tenor of our conduct. Although

we profess to expect a future life, and are convinced of its certainty, we commonly conduct ourselves as if all our hopes were limited to this earth. A world that we have never seen, an existence in futurity, although demonstrated to the satisfaction of our mind, have only a feeble influence on our imagination. The present, as a greedy usurer, sells to our inconsiderate youth a few wretched gratifications, at the price of the rich patrimony of happiness laid up in the heavens; and we should perhaps be mean enough to renounce the joys of eternity, if we had to purchase them by twenty or thirty years of earthly trouble. But do you think that you would have the same sentiments on the bed of death? Would not the dying man, think you, who is no longer deceived by false hopes; who, placed between the two worlds, is able to see them both at once,-would not the dying man wish, with his whole strength, that he had passed his life in tribulations? Did Lazarus in heaven envy the bad rich man the opulence and pleasures in which he had lived? On the other hand, would not the bad rich man, could he have lived again, have coveted the poverty and the wounds of Lazarus? These are undoubtedly persons who are in a state to compare the afflictions of this world with the fruits they produce in the next, and who can judge which is preferable here, a portion of evil, or constant prosperity. But God, who judges better still; God, who weighs in the balance some years of bitterness against an eternity of bliss; God, who loves us and has disposed every thing for our greatest good, places us sometimes in the school of misfortune, in consideration of the great advantages which may result;-for adversity makes us