ON HOSEA XIV. -VERSE 1, 2. 57 bread ; the more suitable our prayers are to God's will, the more easy access they will have to his ear. The covenant of grace turns precepts into promises, and the Spirit of grace turns precepts and promises into prayers. It is not God's will that we should live without afflictions, but our sanctification is God's will, 1 Thess. iv. 3. The more prayers proceed from love, the more acceptable to the God of love : now prayer against judgments proceeds from fear ; but prayer for grace and favour proceeds from love. Lastly : hereby we shall more benefit ourselves ; God's grace is much better than our own ease ; it gives us meekness to submit; it gives us strength to bear ; it gives us wisdom to benefit by our afflictions. God's favour is much better than our own ease, and is a recompense for sufferings beyond all their evils. A man would be contented to be loaded with gold, so he might have it for the bearing ; though it be heavy, yet it is precious ; and God's favour turns affliction into gold. " If he gives quietness, nothing can give trouble," Job xxxiv. 29. and if he keep back his grace and favour, nothing can give peace ; neither wealth nor honours, nor pleasures, nor crowns, nor all the world, with the fulness, or rather the empti- ness thereof, can do us any good at all. Any thing which will consist with the reign of lust, with the guilt of sin, with the curse of the law, with the wrath of God, with horrors of conscience, and with the damnation of hell, is too base to be called the good of man. " To do judgment, to love mercy, and walk humbly with God, this is the good of man, Micah vi. S. to fear God, to keep his commandments, this is the whole end and happiness of man, Eccl. xii. 13. O then get remission and removal of sin, get this good of man, the oil of grace in your lamps,
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