288 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. the assurance we speak of, and yet nothing else would . enable them .thereunto. RULE W. Continuance in wailing on God necessary to peace and consolation. Whatever be your condition, and your apprehension of it, yet continue waiting on God, and give not over through weariness or impatience. This rule contains the sum of the great example given us in this psalm. Forgiveness in God being discovered, though no sense of a particular interest therein is yet obtained, what the soul next applies itself to is diligent, careful, constant waiting on God, which is variously expressed in the 5th and 6th verses of the psalm on which our discourse is founded. The Holy Ghost tells us that " light is sown for the righteous, andgladness for the upright in heart." Psalm 92 : 11. Light and gladness are-the things now inquired after : deliverance from darkness, misappre- hensions of God, and misgiving thoughts of one's own condition. Now, saith the Holy Ghost, all this is sown for the righteous. Does the husbandman, after he casts his seed into the earth, immediately think that the next day, the next week, it will be harvest'? Does he think to reap as soon as he has sown l Or does he immediately say, I have labored In vain, here is no return, I will pull up the hedge of this field and lay it waste; or, I see a little grass in the blade, but no corn, I will give it to the beasts to devour it 2. No, his God, as the prophet speaks, instructs him to discretion, and teaches him what he must do, and how he must look for things in their season: and shall not we be instructed by him " Behold the husbandman," saith James, " waiteth for
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