The Publications Volume 5

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1820 Excerpt: ...them. If when we are afflicted, we eventually find our minds driven further from God, and a cheerful acknowledgment of his chastising hand, we have jus.t cause to be alarmed with ourselves. But let as not co'ntlude in a moment when we first enter into the furnace of affliction, that God hath forsaken us, because we have not that lively sense of his perfection and his providence which we m;iy have had heretofore. If we find within ourselves, that amidst all the tumult and darkness of our minds, we have a fixed determination to trust in God though he slay us, we shall find some encouragement to hope that hereafter light will break in upon our minds, and that the present scourge will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. So long as we look no higher than second causes to fin4, the author of our troubles, we shall pay no homage to God, and shall murmur at his dealings..Let the heart be placed upbn the perfect character and government of the Most High, and we shall be stilled from complaining of our lot, and shall with Moses, Job, David, and other saints, both in the Old Testament and in the New, feel a holy reverence towards him, who is pleased to chastise us. No affliction for the present is joyous, but grievous; but when it issanctified, it produces a peace and a joy, to which the men of this. world are strangers. All things work together for the good of them that love God, and the light and momeptary afflictions of this life will work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory in the wotld to come. 2. It is good for us to have been under the rod, when we are led to a clear discovery of our sins, and a cordial acknowledgment of the divine, justice and wisdom in our chastisement. "1 know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that...