VIII.

mighty hand of God; we muft kifs the DISC. rod, exclaiming, in the words of Nehemiah, "Thou art juft, 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 occafioned, may be difficult; to explain clearly and unexceptionably every particular in that concise history given us by Mofes, may not be eafy: but the fact is fufficient, related in the Old Teftament, 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 suffer no man, either by fraud or force, to wreft it from you. Without it, all is dark and inexplicable. You will be driven,

VIII.

DISC. either to deny there can be a wife and 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 abfurdity 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 fome measure, to do away fin. That the croffes 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 obfervation ; 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,

perfon, who has thought at all upon the DISC. fubject, must have been convinced, that, VIII. circumstanced as we are," it is good for "us to be afflicted." Naturally, man is inclined to pride and wrath, to intemperance and impurity, to selfishness and worldly mindednefs; defirous to acquire more, and unwilling to part with any thing. Before he can enter into the kingdom of heaven, he must become humble and meek, temperate and pure, difinterested and charitable, refigned, and prepared to part with all. The great inftrument employed by heaven to bring about this change in him, is the crofs. Affliction will make him humble and meek, by fhewing him. how poor and weak a creature he is, and how little reason he has to be proud, or to be angry; it will render him temperate and pure, by withdrawing the fuel which has nourished and inflamed bafe lufts; it will cause him to become difinterefted and charitable, as teaching him, by his own fufferings, to fympathize with his fuffering brethren, and to grant that relief, which he

DISC. perceives himself to want; he will die to VIII. the world, which is already dead to him,

and live to God, in whom alone he finds every bleffing and comfort. Contented,

and refigned, he will have but one wish"to depart, and to be with Christ.”

Such is the procefs which, at different times, and in different manners, must take place in us. The maladies to be healed are inveterate, and not without much difficulty eradicated. The procefs therefore must be long, and it must be painful; but there is good reafon for it; the corruption of our nature makes it neceffary, and is the real cause of the pain we endure in the operation. The surgeon applies not the knife where the flesh is found; but when it is otherwise, the application must be made, and made in proportion to the depth of the wound, and the danger of a mortification. In fuch case, is it cruelty in him, when he cuts to the quick? No; it is affection, it is skill; it is the manner in which he would treat his

only fon. Does the father hate his child,

whom

VIII.

whom he chaftifes? No; it is the beft DISC. proof he can fhew of his love. So faith our heavenly Father of his children. "Whom "the Lord loveth he chafteneth, and scourgeth every fon whom he receiveth"."

In this light, then, are we to view the troubles of life; not only thofe of the more notorious and heavier kind, as poverty and perfecution, fickness, pain, and the loss of perfons who are dearest to us; but those also which are of less moment, and pass in fecret, unobferved by the world, the little rubs and vexations arifing from the ingratitude and froward difpofitions of others, the conflict of paffions in our own minds, or that languor, that tædium vitæ, as it is called, which destroys the relish of our enjoyments, and even of life itself. All these, which conftitute the daily cross mentioned in the text, are defigned to cure the furfeit of prosperity; to intimate, that earth is not the feat of

b How finely is this touched by the hand of our great poet

"Confideration, like an angel, came,

"And whipt th' offending Adam out of him."