liever, every distressed object is Christ's peremptory demand, or bill in sight, written with his blood, for so much help, or such a sum, as the case requires.

Let others say and do what they will, I must love. The obloquy, or ill usage of others, is my opportunity for self-inspection; and I am convinced by a late occurrence, how much more happy might have been all my life in a spirit of love. Not one of its proper ties set down in 1 Cor. xii. must be wanting.

To love mankind, knowing what they are, can be nothing but the work of omnipotence, and of God in man. I shall never love all mankind as I ought, till I hate myself.

CHAP. XI.

RESIGNATION.

SUBMISSION to the will of God, with experience of his support in pain, sickness, affliction, is a more joyous and happy state than any degree of health or worldly prosperity.

He who had no sin, suffered for all sin;

well may I, who have so much, and laid so heavy a load upon him, be content to suffer a little for my own. Lying awake all night -there is no sleep in hell. Rev. xiv. 11.

I see God in every thing; in pain I feel him; and know he is come near to me upon some gracicus design. I never have so lively a sense of the being, presence, and good ness of God, as in pain, sickness, and suffer. ing; it puts me upon thinking, and I cannot avoid coming to this conclusion, that it is ordained by his immediate will, and that he does it in mercy.

Instead of repining at bodily disorders, think how many have much greater, and how to be thankful both for those you have and. have not. Pain, affliction, &c. is only God's speaking louder.

The stranguary is a messenger sent from heaven, to warn me home, to reconcile me to the thought of death, and prepare me for a happy reception into another world.

In pain, sickness, trouble, methinks I hear God saying, Take this medicine, exactly suited to the case, prepared and weighed by my own hands, and consisting of the choicest drugs which heaven affords.

If I was left to myself, I should never think of crucifying sin with the stone and stranguary as God does. The stranguary has not done its work yet by far.

Say, my heart, with respect to the stone, "I am unworthy of this mercy: Lord, let

it be more or less painful, and the means of death sooner or later, as thou please st, only make it a means of thy grace to me."

If the cross should be laid upon me, it will come assuredly to my relie; and I must be destitute of grace, and dead to all consideration, if I do not regard it as a help, and an especial mercy vouchsafed in a time of great danger.

A cold north wind.-Have patience with God.

If my heart and will were given up to God, stone, gravel, stranguary, &c. would be well endured, and death come with a smile on his face.*

If I am afflicted, or sick, or weak, or in pain, let me not comfort my self chiefly with thinking that it will quickly be over, or that I shall soon be well, but rather with thinking and knowing that it is the appointment of divine wisdom; for reasons of infinite concernment to myself, and for the end which God has chiefly in view for his people in all his inflictions, viz. the glory of his name in their spiritual health and recovery; and a blessed support it will be, to know and feel that I do not so much desire ease and deliverance from present trouble, as grace and strength to undergo more and greater, and

* Mr Darracot, a valuable minister of Wellington, in Somersetshire. He died of the stone, full of joy in Christ. The torment of the stone was so greatly alleviated, that in his last moments he said to his friends, who stood around him, "Is this dying? 'Tis so easy, 'tis so easy."

even death itself, quietly, obediently, in the spirit of faith, and with full acceptance of the will of God.

This whole life is a state of labour and suffering, in order to our purification, and not of enjoyment, either temporal or spirit

nal.

I believe no man is obliged to sell all he has, &c. because Christ gave such a command to one person, any more than he is obliged to sacrifice his son, because God commanded Abraham to do so; and yet, doubtless, these were written for our instruction, that we might be ready always to obey the severest calls of Providence; a matter of no small difficulty, and which we infinitely deceive ourselves and others in. It is a common thing for people to say, God's will be done, without one grain of sincerity or true resignation.

It is one point of happiness, and perhaps the highest we can attain to, to know and be fully convinced that at the best we are but poorly qualified for it; and therefore must not expect it in this life. The generality of mankind create to themselves a thousand needless anxieties, by a vain search after a thing that never was, nor ever will be found upon earth. Let us then sit down content. ed with out lot; and in the mean time be as happy as we can in a diligent preparation for what is to come.

The world is so constituted, that obe

dience to the commands of God is impossi bie, without taking up the cross daily; but then, they who are unwilling to take up the cross, explain away all the trying commands of the gospel, and that of the cross in the first place.

If any thing, though ever so dear, is taken from me by the order of Providence, I have no longer any interest in it, or business with it. The cloud is taken up, (Numb. ix. 17.) and my station is fixed for some other place. God is now in the absence and privation of it, and it ever I find him it must be there.

It is our duty to bless God for the measure of grace we have, and to rest satisfied with his appointment in spirituals as well as temporals. Every degree of real grace is his gift, and the work of the Spirit, who divideth to every man severally as he will; and to be thankful for lower degrees of grace, notwithstanding the most ardent de. sires and longings after the highest, is per. haps the truest and as well as most difficult kind of humility and resignation. Rom. xiv.

Christ is a refiner's fire, Mal. iii. We could like well enough to come and warm ourselves at this fire; but the business depends upon being thrown into it.

Be not disturbed for trifles. By the prac tice of this rule we should come in time to think most things too trifling to disturb.us.