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joy of my heart. Do they ask, Why renounce the dissipation of life for the joys of religion?" answer them, They are the very joy of my heart.' Why do you keep the Sabbath so devoutly? why read the Bible so eagerly? why pray with such holy importunity? why so constant at the sacrament? why so anxiously seek the society of holy and good men? why "deny yourself, and take up the cross?" why choose your portion with the people of God? why seek mainly what others neglect, and practise what others avoid?' answer them, "The testimonies of God have I chosen as my heritage for ever;" and if you ask, "why?" "they are the very joy of my heart." May they be your joy, my brethren, in time and in eternity! May this heritage be yours, in all its width and depth, and breadth and height! May you be enriched with the unfathomable riches of the grace of God! May the great Advocate, who has purchased you a title to glory, put the key of the heavenly treasury into your hands! May He give you that covenant of hope and joy which he has sealed with his own blood! May the "God of hope fill with all joy and peace in believing!" May you be enabled, amidst the tempests and trials of the world, "to possess your souls in patience;" and, though now you" see not" the Son of God, yet, "believing," may you "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory!"

you

SERMON XVIII.

THE CHRISTIAN ENCOURAGED UNDER AFFLICTION BY A CONSIDERATION OF ITS FINAL CONSEQUENCES.

HEB. xii. 11-13.

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

It has been observed, that no artist of real skill, in framing to himself from Scripture a conception of the countenance of our blessed Redeemer, has been led to represent him with features indicating any thing of extravagance or excess. The portraits, indeed, which have been presented to us, of some of the self-torturing or self-displaying pretenders to religion, have been stamped with these characters; but not so that of the meek and lowly Master they profess to serve. And in this point of view, how entirely does the religion of the blessed Jesus harmonize with his character and image! One of its grand peculiarities is its complete moderation. Many of the systems of human philosophy are in the highest degree extravagant; paying not the smallest regard either to the circumstances or

the capacities of the creature for whom they are framed. A celebrated sect of antiquity, for instance, laid down, as the fundamental principle of its creed, the doctrine that "pain is no evil;" that affliction is no affliction; that a man, in order to subdue his grief, has nothing to do but to remember that it is not grief. How wide of all such extravagance is the Gospel; and how tenderly considerate of the real frame and infirmity of our nature! This merciful religion does not insult the mourner with the intelligence that the affliction which rends his heart is no affliction. On the contrary, the reality of the evil under which he suffers is fully admitted; and he is directed for consolation, not to a view of sorrow which his feelings contradict, but to a view of the tendencies and effects of sorrow, the truth of which no devout mind will be inclined to dispute-tendencies and effects which he who experiences forgets the "heat and the burden of the day" of trial, in the season of repose and enjoyment by which it is followed.

Such is the general lesson designed to be conveyed to the afflicted servants of God in the text. But a more accurate examination of its several expressions will serve, I conceive, more fully to illustrate this important feature in the religion of our compassionate Redeemer. And may He be present to bless our inquiry!

It will be my object to consider,

I. THE ADMISSION IN THE text with REGARD TO AFFLICTION;

II. THE STATEMENT WITH REGARD TO ITS REAL NATURE AND CONSEQUENCES; and,

I. In the first place, we are to consider THE

ADMISSION IN THE TEXT AS TO THE PRESENT BURDEN

OF AFFLICTION. "No_chastening," it is here said, "for the present, seemeth to be joyous, but grievous."

These words, my Christian brethren, obviously involve the admission, that sorrow in the abstract-in its actings upon the mind; in itself, and without any view to its final consequences-is an evil. And this is affirmed, not only of one species of affliction, but of all: "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous." Let pretended philosophers describe it as they will, affliction in its nature is both calculated and designed to lacerate the mind. How far is the language of Scripture from encouraging the notion that affliction is no evil! Job felt his affliction when he said, “The arrows of the Lord. are within me;" David, when he exclaimed, My bones are out of joint;" Peter, when "he went out, and wept bitterly;" and even our Lord himself, when he "wept" over the grave of Lazarus, and the guilty seat of Jerusalem. Indeed, an insensibility to pain under the visitations of God, far from having the warrant of Scripture, is uniformly spoken of as a crime. “I have smitten them," it is said, “and they were not grieved."

If it be asked, to what extent is sorrow allowable in a true servant of God? it may be answered that -not only is he authorized, as we have seen, to feel the pangs of affliction, but to express his feelings to God: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Still further, it is allowed him to express them to his fellow-creatures: "Have pity upon me, my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me," And still farther, he may

submissively cry aloud for deliverance: "Remove thy stroke from me, for I am even consumed by thy hand:" "If it be possible, let this cup pass. from me."-We are not stones, my Christian brethren, but men; and therefore God expects not apathy, but resignation; not insensibility, but patient endurance of his blessed will; not the extinction of the passions, but, as it has been said, the "laying on them the golden bridle of Christian moderation."

Again: if it be asked, "when does this sense of sorrow become excessive?" I answer, when it withdraws the heart from God; when it drives us from the path of ordinary duty; when it destroys our enjoyment of the comforts which remain; when it impairs our sympathy with the griefs or joys of others; when it checks us in prayer, or in the exercises of faith, and love, and gratitude to our God and Saviour. Such feelings of grief are evidently immoderate; and such "sorrow worketh death." It is permitted, indeed, to the Christian to "weep" with "Rachel; but we must not, with her," refuse to be comforted."

Having thus noticed the admission in the text as to the present burthen of affliction, let us consider, as was proposed,

II. THE STATEMENT CONTAINED IN THE TEXT

AS TO THE REAL NATURE AND BENEFITS OF AFFLICTION.

It may be inquired, for instance, what are the proper fruits of affliction? when shall they be gathered? and who are they that shall gather them? To all these questions the text replies, "It afterward yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby."