or others. Joseph in his prison, under the strongest disqualifications, loss of liberty, and a blasted reputation, made way for both his own high advancement and for the deliverance of Israel. Daniel in his dungeon, not only the destined prey, but in the very jaws of furious beasts, converted the king of Babylon, and brought him to the knowledge of the true God Could prosperity have effected the former? Would not prosperity have prevented the latter?

ed, and therefore an uncertain resource. | power to glorify him; that he can place us He does not come as an alien before a strange under any circumstances which may not be master, but as a child into the well known turned to some account, either for ourselves presence of a tender father. He did not put off prayer till this pressing exigence He did not make his God a sort of dernier resort, to be had recourse to only in the great water-floods. He had long and diligently sought him in the calm; he had adhered to him, if the phrase may be allowed, before he was driven to it He had sought God's favour while he enjoyed the favour of the world. He did not wait for the day of evil to seek the supreme Good. He did not defer his meditations on heavenly things to the disconsolate hour when earth has nothing for him. He can cheerfully associate religion with those former days of felicity, when with every thing before him out of which to choose, he chose God. He not on ly feels the support derived from his present prayers, but the benefit of all those which he offered up in the day of joy and gladness. He will especially derive comfort from the supplications he had made for the anticipated though unknown trial of the present hour, and which in such a world of vicissitudes, it was reasonable to expect.

But to descend to more familiar instances;-It is among the ordinary, though most mysterious dispensations of Providence, that many of his appointed servants who are not only eminently fitted, but also most zealously disposed, to glorify their Redeemer by instructing and reforming their fellow creatures, are yet disqualified by disease, and set aside from that public duty of which the necessity is so obvious, and of which the fruits were so remarkable; whilst many others possess uninterrupted health and strength, for the exercise of those functions for which they are little gifted and less disposed.

But God's ways are not as our ways. He is not accountable to his creatures. The caviller would know why it is right. The suffering Christian believes and feels it to be right. He humbly acknowledges the necessity of the affliction which his friends are lamenting; he feels the mercy of the measure which others are suspecting of injustice. With deep humility he is persuaded that if the affliction is not yet withdrawn, it is because it has not yet accomplished the purpose for which it was sent. The privation is probably intended both for the individual interest of the sufferer, and for the reproof of those who have neglected to profit by his labours Perhaps God more especially thus draws still nearer to himself, him who had drawn so many others.

Let us confess, then, that in all the trying circumstances of this changeful scene, there is something infinitely soothing to the feelings of a Christian, something inexpressibly tranquillizing to his mind, to know that he has nothing to do with events, but to submit to them; that he has nothing to do with the revolutions of life but to acquiesce in them, as the dispensations of eternal wisdom; that he has not to take the management out of the hands of Providence, but submissively to follow the divine leading; that he has not to contrive for to-morrow, but to acquiesce today; not to condition about events yet to come, but to meet those which are present with cheerful resignation. Let him be thankful that as he could not by foreseeing, prevent them, so he was not permitted to foresee them, thankful for ignorance where knowledge would only prolong without pre- But to take a more particular view of the venting suffering; thankful for that grace case, we are too ready to consider suffering which has promised that our strength shall as an indication of God's displeasure, not so be proportioned to our day, thankful that as much against sin in general, as against the he is not responsible for trials which he has individual "sufferer. Were this the case, not brought on himself, so by the goodness of then would those saints and martyrs who God these trials may be improved to the no-have pined in exile, and groaned in dunblest purposes. The quiet acquiescence of geons, and expired on scaffolds, have been the heart, the annihilation of the will under the objects of God's peculiar wrath instead actual circumstances, be the trial great or of his special favour. But the truth is, some small, is more acceptable to God, more indi- little tincture of latent infidelity mixes itself cative of true piety, than the strongest gen-in almost all our reasonings on these topics. eral resolutions of firm acting and deep sub- We do not constantly take into the account mission under the most trying unborn events. a future state. We want God, if I may haz In the remote case it is the imagination ard the expression, to clear himself as be which submits in the actual case it is the goes. We cannot give him such long credit will. as the period of human life. He must every moment be vindicating his character against every sceptical cavil; he must unravel his plans to every shallow critic, he must antici pate the knowledge of his design before its operations are completed. If we may adopt a phrase in use among the vulgar, we will trust him no farther than we can see him.

We are too ready to imagine that there is no other way of serving God but by active exertions; exertions which are often made because they indulge our natural taste, and gratify our own inclinations. But it is an error to imagine that God, by putting us in any supposable situation, puts it out of our

Though he has said, 'judge nothing before the time, we judge instantly, of course rashly, and in general falsely. Were the brevity of earthly prosperity and suffering, the certainty of retributive justice, and the eternity of future blessedness perpetually kept in view, we should have more patience with God.

Is not the one as far from rest as he is from virtue, as far from the enjoyment of quiet as from the bope of heaven, as far from peace as he is from God? Is it nothing that every day brings the Christian nearer to his crown, and that the sinner is every day working his way nearer to his ruin? The Even in judging fictitious compositions, hour of death, which the one dreads as somewe are more just. During the perusal of a thing worse than extinction, is to the other tragedy, or any work of invention, though the hour of his nativity, the birth-day of imwe feel for the distresses of the personages, mortality. At the height of his sufferings, yet we do not form an ultimate judgment of the good man knows that they will soon terthe propriety or injustice of their sufferings.minate. In the zenith of his success the We wait for the catastrophe. We give the sinner has a similar assurance. But how poet credit either that he will extricate them different is the result of the same conviction! from their distresses, or eventually explain An invincible faith sustains the one, in the the justice of them We do not condemn severest calamities, while an inextinguishahim at the end of every scene for the trials ble dread gives the lie to the proudest triof that scene, which the sufferers do not ap-umphs of the other.

pear to have deserved; for the sufferings He then, after all, is the only happy man, which do not always seem to have arisen from not whom worldly prosperity renders aptheir own misconduct. We behold the tri-parently happy, but whom no change of als of the virtuous with sympathy, and the successes of the wicked with indignation; but we do not pass our final sentence till the poet has passed his. We reserve our decisive judgment till the last scene closes, till the curtain drops Shall we not treat the schemes of infinite wisdom with as much respect as the plot of a drama?

worldly circumstances can make essentially miserable; whose peace depends not on ex ternal events, but on an internal support; not on that success which is common to all, but on that hope which is the peculiar privilege, on that promise which is the sole prerogative of a Christian.

CHAP. XXI.

Sickness and in Death.

But to borrow our illustration from realities. In a court of justice the by-standers do not give their sentence in the midst of a trial. We wait patiently till all the evi- The temper and conduct of the Christian in dence is collected, and circumstantially detailed, and finally summed up. And-to pursue the illusion-imperfect as human de cisions may possibly be. fallible as we must allow the most deliberate and honest verdict must prove, we commonly applaud the justice of the jury, and the equity of the judge The felon they condemn, we rarely acquit; where they remit judgement, we rarely denounce it. It is only INFINITE WISDOM on whose purposes we cannot rely; it is only INFINITE MERCY whose operations we cannot trust. It is only the Judge of all the earth' who cannot do right. We reverse the order of God by summoning HIM at our bar, at whose awful bar we shall soon be judged.

The pagan philosophers have given many admirable precepts both for resigning blessings and for sustaining misfortunes; but wanting the motives and sanctions of Christianity, though they excite much intellectual admiration, they produce little practical effect. The stars which glittered in their moral night, though bright, imparted no warmth. Their most beautiful dissertations on death had no charm to extract its sting. We receive no support from their most elaborate treatises on immortality, for want of Him who brought life and immortality to light.' Their consolatory discussions could not strip the grave of its terrors, for to them it was not swallowed up in victory.' To conceive of the soul as an immortal principle, without proposing a scheme for the pardon of its sins, was but cold consolation. Their future state was but a happy guess their heaven but a fortunate conjecture. The eye

But to return to our more immediate point -the apparently unfair distribution of prosperity between good and bad men. As their case is opposite in every thing-the one is constantly deriving his happiness from that which is the source of the other's misery, a sense of the divine omniscience

of God is a pillar of light' to the one, and a cloud and darkness' to the other. It is no less a terror to him who dreads His justice, than a joy to him who derives all his sup port from the awful thought, THOU GOD SEEST!

When we peruse their finest compositions, we admire the manner in which the medicine is administered, but we do not find it effectual for the cure, nor even for the mitigation of our disease. The beauty of the sentiment we applaud, but our heart continues to ache. There is no healing balm in But as we have already observed, can we their elegant prescription. These four little want a broader line of discrimination be- words, THY WILL BE DONE,' contain a tween them, than their actual condition here, charm of more powerful efficacy than all the independently of the different portions re- dicipline of the stoic school! They cut up a served for them hereafter? Is it not distinc-long train of clear but cold reasoning, and tion enough that the one, though sad, is safe; supersede whole volumes of argument on that the other, though confident, is insecure? fate and necessity.

What sufferer ever derived any ease from we give up, if we do not give up our own inthe subtle distinction of the hair-splitting clination. It is inward repining that we casusist, who allowed that pain was very must endeavour to repress; it is the discontroublesome, but resolved never to acknowl- tent of the heart, the unexpressed but not edge it to be an evil? There is an equivo- unfelt murmur, against which we must pray cation in his manner of stating the proposi for grace, and struggle for resistance. We tion. He does not directly say that pain is must not smother our discontents before othnot an evil, bu by a sophistical turn profes-ers, and feed on them in private. It is the ses that philosophy will never confess it to be an evil But what consolation does the sufferer draw from the quibbling nicety? What difference is there,' as archbishop Tillotson well inquires, between things being troublesome and being evils, when all the evil of an affliction lies in the trouble it creates to us?'

Christianity knows none of these fanciful distinctions. She never pretends to insist that pain is not an evil, but she does more ; she converts it into a good. Christianity therefore teaches a fortitude as much more noble than philosophy, as meeting pain with resignation to the hand that inflicts it, is more heroic than denying it to be an evil.

hidden rebellion of the will we must subdue, if we would submit as Christians. Nor must we justify our impatience by saying, that if our affliction did not disqualify us from being useful to our families, and active in the service of God, we could more cheerfully bear it. Let us rather be assured that it does not disqualify us for that duty which we most need, and to which God calls us by the very disqualification.

A constant posture of defence against the attacks of our great spiritual enemy, is a better security than an incidental blow, or even an occasional victory It is also a better preparation for all the occurrences of life. It is not some signal act of mortification, To submit on the mere human ground that but an habitual state of discipline which will there is no alternative, is not resignation but prepare us for great trials. A soul ever on hopelessness. To bear affliction solely be- the watch, fervent in prayer, diligent in selfcause impatience will not remove it is but inspection, frequent in meditation, fortified an inferior, though a just reason for bearing against the vanities of time by repeated it. It savours rather of despair than sub- views of eternity, all the avenues to such a mission, when not sanctioned by a higher heart will be in a good measure shut against principle. It is the Lord, let him do what temptation, barred in a great degree against seemeth him good,' is at once a motive of the tempter. Strong in the Lord and in more powerful obligation, than all the docu- the power of his might,' it will be enabled to ments which philosophy ever suggested; a resist the one, to expel the other. To a firmer ground of support than all the ener-mind so prepared, the thoughts of sickness gies that natural fortitude ever supplied. will not be new, for he knows it is the conUnder any visitation, sickness for instance, dition of the battle;' the prospect of death God permits us to think the affliction not will not be surprising, for he knows it is its joyous but grievous.' But though he allows termination. us to feel, we must not allow ourselves to repine There is again a sort of heroism in bearing up against affliction, which some adopt on the ground that it raises their character, and confers dignity on their suffering. This philosophic firmness is far from being the temper which Christianity inculcates.

All

The period is now come when we must summon all the fortitude of the rational being, all the resignation of the Christian. The principles we have been learning must now be made practical. The speculations we have admired we must now realize. that we have been studying was in order to When we are compelled by the hand of furnish materials for this grand exigence.— God to endure sufferings, or driven by a All the strength we have been collecting conviction of the vanity of the world to re- must now be brought into action. We must nounce its enjoyments, we must not endure now draw to a point all the scattered arguthe one on the low principle of its being in- ments, all the several motives, all the indievitable, nor, in flying from the other, must vidual supports, all the cheering promises of we retire to the contemplation of our own religion. We must exemplify all the rules virtues. We must not, with a sullen intre- we have given to others; we must embody pidity, collect ourselves into a centre of our all the resolutions we have formed for ourown; into a cold apathy to all without, and a selves; we must reduce our precepts to exproud approbation of all within. We must perience; we must pass from discourses on not contract our scattered faults into a sort submission to its exercise; from dissertaof dignified selfishness; nor concentrate our tions on suffering to sustaining it. We must feelings into a proud magnanimity, we must heroically call up the determinations of our not adopt an independent rectitude. A better days. We must recollect what we gloomy stoicism is not Christian heroism. A have said of the supports of faith and hope melancholy non-resistance is not Christian resignation.

Nor must we indemnify ourselves for our outward self-control by secret murmurings. We may be admired for our resolution in this instance, as for our generosity and disinterestedness in other instances; but we deserve little commendation for whatever'

when our strength was in full vigour, when our heart was at ease, and our mind undisturbed. Let us collect all that remains to us of mental strength. Let us implore the aid of holy hope and fervent faith, to show that religion is not a beautiful theory but a soul-sustaining truth.

Endeavour without harrassing scrutiny of

distressing doubt, to act on the principles without, while the inhabitant sits in darkwhich your sounder judgment formerly ad-ness.

mitted. The strongest faith is wanted in the PLEASURE! That has not left a trace behardest trials. Under those trials, to the hind it. It died in the birth, and is not confirmed Christian the highest degree of therefore worthy to come into the bill of grace is commonly imparted. Impair not Mortality.'* that faith on which you rested when your mind was strong, by suspecting its validity now it is weak. That which had your full assent in perfect health, which was then firmly rooted in your spirit, and grounded in your understanding, must not be unfixed by the doubts of an enfeebled reason and the scruples of an impaired judgment. You may not now be able to determine on the reasonableness of propositions, but you may derive strong consolation from conclusions which were once fully established in your mind.

FAME! Of this his very soul acknowledges the emptiness. He is astonished how he could ever be so infatuated as to run after a sound, to court a breath, to pursue a shadow, to embrace a cloud. Augustus. asking his friends as they surrounded his dying bed, if he had acted his part well, on their answering in the affirmative, cried plaudite. But the acclamations of the whole universe would rather mock than sooth the dying Christian if unsanctioned by the hope of the divine approbation. He now rates at its just value that fame which was so often eclipsed by envy, and which will be so soon forgotten in death. He has no ambition left but for heaven, where there will be neither envy, death, nor forgetfulness.

The reflecting Christian will consider the natural evil of sickness as the consequence and punishment of moral evil. He will mourn, not only that he suffers pain, but because that pain is the effect of sin. If man bad When capable of reflection, the sick not sinned, he would not have suffered. The Christian will revolve all the sins and errors heaviest aggravation of his pain is to know of his past life; he will humble himself for that he has deserved it. But it is a counter-them as sincerely as if he had never repentbalance to this trial to know that our merci ful Father has no pleasure in the sufferings of his children; that he chastens them in love; that he never inflicts a stroke which he could safely spare; that he inflicts it to purify as well as to punish, to caution as well as to cure, to improve as well as to chastise.

What a support in the dreary season of sickness is it to reflect, that the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through sufferings; that if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him, which implies also the reverse, that if we do not suffer with him, we shall not reign with him; that is, if we suffer merely because we cannot help it. without reference to him, without suffering for his sake and in his spirit. If it be not sanctified suffering it will avail but little. We shall not be paid for having suffered, as in the creed of too many, but our meetness for the kingdom of glory will be increased if we suffer according to his will and after his example.

ed of them before; and implore the divine forgiveness as fervently as if he did not believe they were long since forgiven. The remembrance of his former offences will grieve him, but the humble hope that they are pardoned will fill him with joy unspeakable and full of glory.'

Even in this state of helplessness he may improve his self-acquaintance. He may detect new deficiencies in his character, fresh imperfections in his virtues. Omissions will now strike him with the force of actual sins. Resignation, which he fancied was so easy when only the sufferings of others required it, he now finds to be difficult when called on to practise it himself. He has sometimes wondered at their impatience, he is now humbled at his own. He will not only try to bear patiently the pains he actually suffers, but will recollect gratefully those from which he has been delivered, and which he may have formerly found less supportable than bis present sufferings.

He who is brought to serious reflection by In the extremity of pain he feels there is the salutary affliction of a sick bed, will look no consolation but in humble acquiescence back with astonishment on his former false in the divine will. It may be that he can estimate of worldly things. Riches! Beauty' pray but little, but that little will be fervent. Pleasure! Genius! Fame!-What are He can articulate perhaps not at all, but his they in the eyes of the sick and the dying? prayer is addressed to one who sees the heart, RICHES! These are so far from affording who can interpret its language, who requires bim a moment's ease, that it will be well if not words but affections. A pang endured no former misapplication of them aggravate without a murmur, or only such an involunhis present pains. He feels as if he only tary groan as nature extorts, and faith rewished to live that he might henceforth ded-grets, is itself a prayer. icate them to the purposes for which they If surrounded with all the accommodawere given.

tions of affluence, let him compare his own situation with that of thousands, who probably with greater merit, and under severer trials, have not one of his alleviations. When invited to the distasteful remedy, let him reflect how many perishing fellow creatures may be pining for that remedy, to whom it might be restorative, or who, fancying that

Bishop Hall.

it might be so, suffer additional distress from their inability to procure it.

In the intervals of severer pain he will turn his few advantages to the best account. He will make the most of every short respite. He will patiently bear with little disappointments, little delays, with the awkwardness of accidental neglect of his attendants, and, thankful for general kindness, he will accept good will instead of perfection The suffering Christian will be grateful for small reliefs, little alleviations, short snatches of rest. To him, abated pain will be positive pleasure. The freer use of limbs which had nearly lost their activity, will be enjoy ments. Let not the reader who is rioting

earnestly implore mercy for them as instruments which have helped to fit him for his present state. He will look up with holy gratitude to the great Physician, who by a divine chemistry in making up events, has made that one unpalatable ingredient, at the bitterness of which he once revolted, the very means by which all other things have worked together for good; had they worked separately they would not have worked effi caciously.

Under the most severe visitations, let us compare, if the capacity of comparing he allowed us, our own sufferings with the cap which our Redeemer drank for our sakesdrank to avert the divine displeasure from In all the madness of superfluous health, us. Let us pursue the comparative view of think lightly of these trivial comforts. Let our condition with that of the son of God. him not despise them as not worthy of grati-He was deserted in his most trying hour; tude, or as not capable of exciting it. He deserted probably by those whose limbs, may one day, and that no distant day, be sight, life, he had restored, whose souls be We are surrounded by brought to the same state of debility and had come to save. pain. May he experience the mercies he now unwearied friends; every pain is mitigated derides, and may he feel higher comforts ou by sympathy, every want not only relieved safe grounds! but prevented; the 'asking eye' explored; the inarticulate sound understood; the illexpressed wish anticipated; the but suspected want supplied. When our souls are 'exceeding sorrowful,' our friends participate

The sufferer has perhaps often regretted that one of the worst effects of sickness is the selfishness it too naturally induces. The temptation to this he will resist, by not being exacting and unreasonable in his requisitions. Through his tenderness to the feelings of others, he will be careful not to add to their distress by any appearance of discon

tent.

What a lesson against selfishness have we in the conduct of our dying Redeemer !-It was while bearing his cross to the place of execution, that he said to the sorrowing multitude, Weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children.' It was while enduring the agonies of crucifixion that he endeavoured to mitigate the sorrows of his mother and of his friend, by tenderly committing them to each other's care. It was while sustaining the pangs of dissolution, that he gave the immediate promise of heav en to the expiring criminal.

our sorrow; when desired to watch' with us, they watch not one hour,' but many, not falling asleep, but both flesh and spirit ready and willing; not forsaking us in our agony,' but sympathizing where they cannot relieve!

Besides this, we must acknowledge with the penitent malefactor, we indeed suffer justly, but this man hath done nothing amiss.' We suffer for our offences the inevitable penalty of our fallen nature. He bore our sins and those of the whole human race. Hence the heart rending interrogation, Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.'

The Christian will review, if able, not on- How cheering in this forlorn state to rely the sins, but the mercies of his past life. flect that he not only suffered for us then, If previously accustomed to unbroken health, but is sympathizing with us now; that in he will bless God for the long period in which all our afflictions he is afflicted.' The tenhe has enjoyed it. If continued infirmity derness of the sympathy seems to add a value has been his portion, he will feel grateful to the sacrifice, while the vastness of the sathat he has had such a long and gradual crifice, endears the sympathy by ennobling weaning from the world. From either state he will extract consolation. If pain be new, what a mercy to have hitherto escaped it! If habitual, we bear more easily what we have borne long.

He will review his temporal blessings and deliverances; his domestic comforts, his Christian friendships. Among his mercies, his now purged eyes' will reckon his difficulties, his sorrows and trials: A new and heavenly light will be thrown on that passage, It is good for me that I have been af flicted.' It seems to him as if hitherto he had only heard it with the hearing of his ear, but now his eye seeth it.' If he be a real Christian, and has had enemies, he will always have prayed for them, but now he will be thankful for them. He will the more

it.

If the intellectual powers be mercifully preserved, how many virtues may now be brought into exercise which had either tain dormant, or been considered as of inferior worth in the prosperous day of activity. The Christian temper indeed seems to be that part of religion which is more peculiarly to be exercised on a sick bed. The passive virtues, the least brilliant, but the most diffi. cult, are then particularly called into action. To suffer the whole will of God on the tedions bed of languishing, is more trying than to perform the most shining exploit on the theatre of the world. The hero in the field of battle has the love of fame as well as patriotism to support him. He knows that the witnesses of his valour will be the heralds of