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God, only when he blesses us with prosperity, and crowns our wishes with success? Shall we not also consider him as our heavenly father, when he visits us with afflictions, and chastises us for our good? Shall we trust in him and submit to him, only when he supports and protects us with his staff? Shall we not also trust in him, and submit to him, when he corrects us with his rod?

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Against the remonstrances and upbraidings of his friends, who considered his misfortunes as the vengeance of God against his impiety and hypocrisy, which they supposed he had covered with the garb of religion and sanctity, he pleads the innocency of his life, the integrity of his heart, the uprightness of his intentions; and, assures himself that whatever might be the design of Almighty God in overwhelming him with such a deluge of calamities, it could not be for the punishment of vice, because he had no ver lived in it; nor for the correction of evil tempers and sions, because he had never indulged them. Upon the most exact review of his life, he could not find any reason to repent of it, or wish his general conduct had been other than it was. He therefore resolves, that, though his sufferings were so exceeding great as to make bin curse the day of his birth, and wish himself out of existence; he would still live and act upon his old principles-patient submission to the will of God, and firm trust and confidence in him, be the consequence whatever it mightThough he slay me, yet will I trust in him.

From what has been said, and particularly from the example of Job, let us learn to fix our own principles and regulate our own conduct. Should we see virtue and integrity bending beneath the burthen of distress, and enduring every species of misery to which this transitory life is exposed, reaping only calamity and reproach as the fruit of its ways-should we see vice and villany triumphant, exulting in prosperity, and rejoicing in the full success of its iniquitous schemes; let us not conclude with the silly wife of Job, that God regards not the actions of men-that trust and confidence in him are vain and fruitless-and that the best thing we can do is, to renounce

both him, and our integrity, and to give ourselves up to the conduct of knavery and hypocrisy, as the more certain way to obtain the happiness of the world: Nor, let us conclude with Job's friends, that misfortunes and calamities are instances of the vengeance of God; and that every man who falls into disastrous circumstances, is an object of the wrath of God, suffering the just punishment of his wickedness and hypocrisy. But, let us remember, that God, whose knowledge, and goodness, and wisdom are infinite, has many ends to answer by the various dispensations of his providence-that it is his property to bring good out of evil, happiness out of misery, order and regularity out of confusion and contention: And that if he permits virtue and integrity to be distressed, and vice and villany to succeed, he has some good and gracious end to accomplish, which could no other way be so well effected: And that he will finally make his righteousness clear as the sun, and his justice as the noon-day; rewarding every one according to his deeds, giving happiness and glory to the good, and recompensing infamy and misery to the wicked.

Let it also be the care of every one of us, through the whole period of life, so to imitate the integrity and faith of holy Job, that should distress, affliction or poverty come upon us, we may be able with him to appeal to our own hearts, and consciences, in the presence of God, for the uprightness of our intentions and designs, for the virtue and integrity of our actions and principles: For, then only may we with equal confidence, place our hope and trust in God, and reasonably expect his support and protection, when like Job, we hold fast our integrity, and with him resolve, Though God slay me, yet will I trust in him

DISCOURSE III.

THE EXAMPLE OF THE ISRAELITES.

1 COR. X. 11, 12.

Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.

ST.

T. Paul, in the end of the preceding chapter, tells us, that he disciplined himself by self-denial; so that, by keeping under the appetites of the body, he might obtain a part in that life eternal through Christ, which he preached to others. He had been called to the profession and preaching of the gospel, in a miraculous manner. He had been favoured with revelations from God, in greater number, and of a more extraordinary nature than any other Apostle. He had been taken up into the third heaven, and there saw and heard things which it exceeded the power of human nature to describe. He had preached and laboured more, in the propagation of the gospel, than the other Apostles had done. He had been assured by God, that his grace was sufficient to support him under the infirmities and distresses of the body, and all temptations to which he was liable. Could any man be sure of his salvation, we might reasonably presume St. Paul had obtained that assurance. And yet he disclaims all pretensions to it. He continued still to run his Christian race; and so to run, that he might obtain the reward of it, He strove to get the mastery over the inordinate passions and appetites of his nature, that he might obtain the incorruptible crown of glory in the life to come; and, therefore, he kept under his body, and brought it into subjection by temperance and mortification; denying himself liberties F

VOL. II.

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which were indifferent, and in themselves innocent; lest while he "preached to others," he himself "should be a cast-away"-reprobated, or rejected of God.

To the imitation of his patience and self-denial he calls his Corinthian converts; and exhorts them to strive for the mastery over unruly tempers and passions, as he did. And to encourage them by example, as well as direct them by precept, he, in the tenth chapter, sets before them the conduct of the Israelites in the wilderness, and the dreadful judgments of God which their wickedness and obstinacy brought on them. His whole reasoning proceeds on this ground; that the hopes of future happiness founded on the promises of God, ought always to include obedience to what God commands; because if we fail in our obedience, the promise is no longer in force as

to us.

To prove this point, he adduces the instance of the Jewish Church. He mentions several of the blessings and privileges God conferred on it, and the great promises he made to it; all which they failed to obtain, through unbelief and disobedience, and miserably perished in the wilderness. The inference he draws ought to be a warning to us, lest any of us be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and fail of entering into that rest which is promised to the people of God, under the gospel.

The Jewish Church, in its time, was the true Church of God; differing, indeed, in many things in its economy, from the Christian, but resembling it also in many circumstances. That was the oeconomy of types, and representations, and shadows; the Christian, of substance, and reality, and truth. St. Paul frequently calls those types and shadows by the name of the reality which they represented. The Jews he calls our ancestors or fathers, though they were so, only in a figurative, or in a spiritual sensehaving been in the family or Church of God, and having had a right to the blessings of his covenant, before us. The rock which gave thein water at Horeb, he says, was Christ; that is, a figure or type of Christ.

But we will take a nearer view of the discourse which

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