DISC.

VIII.

Our Lord's declaration shall be confidered, in the following discourse, as general, and made to all his disciples. We shall state the grounds on which the duty is founded; and point out the manner in which it may best be performed.

It may appear difficult, at first fight, to comprehend the goodness of God in afflicting us, or commanding us to afflict ourselves. Could not he render us holy, without rendering us miferable, by way of preparative? Doubtless he could have done it; and he could have produced all men, as he created the first man, at their full growth; but his wisdom has seen it fit, that we should pass through the pains and hazards of infancy and youth, in the latter instance, and, in the former, that through tribulation and affliction we should enter into his heavenly kingdom. It is his will; and therefore, though no reasons could be affigned, filence and fubmiffion would best become us. But there are many.

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For

For it is obvious to remark, in the first DISC.

place, that Christianity did not bring afflictions into the world with it; it found them already there. The world is full of them. The misery of man is a theme on which philosophers and hiftorians, orators, and poets, have expatiated, from age to age; nor is it yet by any means exhausted. The wealthy and the great, the men of business and the men of pleasure, have discovered no method of exemption. In every profeffion, every station, nay, in every individual, there is a something, which, at times, damps all enjoyments, and embitters the cup of life. Men are disquieted either by the tempers of others, or their own; by their fins, or by their follies; by fickness of body, or forrow of heart. Many, instead of becoming better by their fufferings, are made worse; they murmur, they rebel, they rage, they defpair; and the torments of time lead on to those of eternity. Such is the state of things in the world. Let us reflect,

Secondly, how it came to be so, and we shall

VOL. III.

M

VIII.

VIII.

DISC. shall find still less cause of complaint. The misery of man proceeded not originally from God; he brought it upon himself. "God formed him upright;" and, while upright, happy; but he " fought out " inventions," he followed his own imaginations, and became miferable. What the wise man says of death, is equally true of affliction; "God made it not, neither " hath he pleasure in the deftruction," or the suffering, " of the living. For he "created all things, that they might have "their being; and the generations of the " world were healthful, and there was no "poison of destruction in them, nor the "kingdom of death upon the earth: for " righteousness is immortal-But ungodly " men, with their works and words, called "it to them." You see how exactly this harmonizes with the doctrine of the Apoftle; "death" - and, in like manner, trouble" came upon all men, for that all had " finned." Whatever, therefore, our fufferings may be, we fuffer no more than we deserve; we must bow down under the

VIII.

mighty hand of God; we must kiss the DISC. rod, exclaiming, in the words of Nehemiah, "Thou art just, O Lord, in all that is " brought upon us; for thou hast done " right, but we have done wickedly *."

The Scriptures inform us, that by one man's tranfgreffion moral evil entered into the world; death, and every other kind of natural evil, entered with it. To find our way through all the mazes of that labyrinth of disputation which the subject has occasioned, may be difficult; to explain clearly and unexceptionably every particular in that concife history given us by Mofes, may not be easy: but the fact is sufficient, related in the Old Testament, acknowleged and built upon in the New. And it is the only clue that can unravel, the only key that can open every thing. Grafp it firmly, and fuffer no man, either by fraud or force, to wrest it from you. Without it, all is dark and inexplicable. You will be driven,

DISC. either to deny there can be a wife and VIII. gracious God who governs the world, which

is the madness of the Epicureans; or, to affirm that evil is good, which is the abfurdity of the Stoics.

But though it be most undoubtedly an absurdity to call evil good, there is no abfurdity in holding, that good may be brought out of evil. Natural evil may be converted into a remedy for moral evil, which gave it birth. Sin produced forrow; and forrow may contribute, in some measure, to do away fin. That the crosses we meet, the pains and the troubles we fuffer through life, are by the providence of God intended, and by his grace rendered effectual, for this purpose, shall be our

:

Third observation; and I am confident it will give full fatisfaction and rest to your minds, as touching the matter in difcuffion.

From what we feel in ourselves, and what we fee and hear of others, every perfon,

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