f 5O6 NO ?AIN AMONG THE BLESSED. {DISC. IX, is one way to victory. I was dumb, says David, " and opened not my mouth, because thou didst it;'.' Ps. xxxix. 9. Our love to God, our resignation to his will, our holy fortitude and our patience find a proper trial in such smarting seasons. Perhaps when some severe pain first seizes and surprizes us, we find ourselves like a wild bull in a net," and all the powers of nature are thrown into tumult and disquietude, so that we have no possession of our own spirits; but when the hand of God has continued us a while under this divine discipline, we learn to bow down to his sovereignty, we lie at his foot- stóol calm and composed : He brings our haughty and reluctant spirits down to his foot, and makes us lie hum- ble in the dust, and we wait-with patience the hour of his release. Rom. v. 3, 4. " Tribulation worketh patience, and patience under tribulation gives us experience" of the dealings of God with his people and makes our way to a confirmed hope in his love. The evidence of our various graces grows brighter and stronger under a smarting rod, till we are settled in a joyful confidence, and the soul rests in God himself. Sometimes he has permitted evil angels to put the flesh to pain, for the trial of his children ; so Jobwas smitten with sore boils from head to foot by the malice of Satan, at the permission of God ; but " he knows the way that I take, says this holy man, and when he has tried me I shall come forth as gold.; for my foot bath held his steps, `through á.11 these!trials, neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips ;" Job xxiii, 10 -12. At other times " he suffers wicked men to spend their own malice, and to inflict dreadful pains on his own children :" Look back to the years of ancient persecu- tion in the land of Israel, under Jewish or heathen ty- rants ; review the annals of Great Britain ; look over the seas into popish kingdoms ; take a view of the cursed courts of inquisition in Spain, Portugal, and Italy;" be- hold the weapons, the scourges, the racks, the machines of torture and engines of cruelty, -devised by the barba- rous and inhuman wit of men, to constrain the saints to renounce their faith, and dishonour their Savióur. See the slow fires where the martyrs have been roasted to death with lingering torment: These are seasons of ter- rible trial indeed, whereby the malice of Satan and anti- 2
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