448 LIFF. OF L'dlTH. Q, what unbelief our impatience and disquietness in sufferings do discover! Is this living by faith, and conversing in another world, and taking God for all, and the world for nothing? What! make such adoof poverty, imprisonment, injuries, disgrace, with heaven and hell before our eyes! The Lord vouchsafe me that condition,in which I shall be nearest to himself, and have most communion with heaven ; be it what itwill be for the things of earth. These are the desires to which I will stand. To thank God for the fruit of past afflictions, as the most ne- cessary mercies of our lives, (as some of us have daily cause,) and at the same time to be impatient under present afflictions, or inor- dinately afraid of those to come, is an irrational, as well as unbe- lieving incongruity. Are we derided, slandered, abused, by the ungodly ? If we repine . that we have enemies, and must fight, we repine that we are Christ's soldiers, and that is, that we are Christians. ' Quo- modo potest imperator militum suorum virtutem 'ptobare nisi hab- uerit hostem,' saith Lactantius. Enemies of God do not use to fight, professedly, against himself, but against his soldiers ; ' Non quî contra ipsum Deum pugnent, sed contra milites ejus,' inquit idem. If the remnants of goodness had not been aderision among the heathens themselves, in the more sober 'sort, a heathen would not have said, ' Nondum flix es, si non to turba deriserit: si bea- tus vis esse, cogita hoc primum contemnere, et ab aliis contemiti.' Sen. Thou art not yet happy, if the rabble deride thee not: if thou wilt be blessed, learn first to contemn this, and to be contemn- ed 'of 'others. Nobody will deride or persecute us in heaven. 5. Improve your talents and - opportunities in your callings as believers; especially you that are governors. God is the original and end of government. The highest are-but his ministers ; Rom. xiii. 6. This world is but the -way unto another. Things seen are for things unseen; and government is to order them to that end ; especiallyby terrifying evil doers, and by promoting holiness in the earth. The moral, as well as the natural motion of inferior agents, must proceed from the influence of the superior. The spring and the end of every action truly good, are out of sight. Where these are not discerned, or are igndrantly and maliciously opposed, the action is vitiated, and tendeth to confusion and ruin. God is the end of all holy actions ; and carnal self is the end of sin. If Gbd. and self are infinitely distinct; you may easily see that the actions, materially the same; that are intended to such distant ends, must needs be very distant. Nothing but saving faith and holiness can conquer selfishness in the lowest of the peo- plet But where-the flesh bath more plentiful provision, 'and self is accommodated with the fullest contents of honor and pleasure
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