AMIN 328 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. supporting persuasion of an interest in the love of God. 2. No length or continuance of afflictions ought to prevent our spiritual consolation, Take the great ex- ample of the Son of God. How long did his afflictions continue l What end was put to them 1 No longer did they abide than until he cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost. To the moment of his death, from his manger to his cross, his afflictions still increased, and he ended his days in the midst of them. Now, he was the Head of the church, and the great representa- tive of it; to a conformity with whom we are predesti- nated. And if God will have it so with us, even in this particular, that we shall have no rest from our trials un- til we lie down in the grave, that whatever condition we pass through, they shall be shut out of none, but only from immortality and glory, what have we herein to complain of 1 3. Where the remembrance and perplexing sense of past sins is revived by afflictions, separate them in your minds, and deal distinctly about them. So long as you carry on the consideration of your sin and your af- fliction jointly, you will be rolled from one to another, and never obtain rest to your souls. They will mutu- ally aggravate each other. The sharpness of affliction will add to the bitterness of the sense of sin; and the sense of sin will give an edge to affliction, and cause it to pierce deeply into the soul, as we showed in the former instances. Deal, therefore, distinctly about them, and in their proper order : so doth the Psalmist. He had both upon him, and together they brought him into the depths, from which he cries out for deliver- ance in Psalm 32 3-5. And what course does he
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