WHICH ÈNCOÚRAGE THE SAINT IN TROVBLr.- 579 mised to sustain me. " Cast thy burden upon the Lord, &c., This is a comfortable encouragement to this duty. Leave your sorrows with God, and he will bear them : and when he has taken away our sins he will lay no more sorrow upon us thanhe will enable us to bear. Thirdly. All my afflictions shall tend to my certain advantage in this life and that to come : In this life they shall be sanctified so far as to make me further partake of holiness; and in the world to come, I shall have a sense that, " Those light afflictions, which were but for a mo- ment, have wrought for nie a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Fourthly. Then a child of God, when he sees God does not condemn him, can meditate upon the terrible attributes of the Divine Sovereignty without terror. That which makes the devils under sorrows gnash their teeth, and that makes sorrow to them that are afar off from God so intolerable, is, that God is superior to them, and can keep them under - their sufferings for ever and ever ; tend this makes a deep impression on a sinner. But it is the delight of a soul, that can call God Father, to think of his sovereignty and dominion. You see this exem- plified in Isaiah, lxiv. 7 and 8. " Thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us because of our iniquities ;' yet they had hope in God's final and eternal pardon, there fore they could comfort themselves, and say " But thou, OLord, art our Father ;" and then they can easily say, " We are the clay, and thou art the Potter ; thou mayest do with us whatsoever thou pleasest ; but remember thou art our father." So old Eli, under that sore stroke of providence when his sons were slain in one day, said, " It is the Lord,. let him do what seemeth him good." But who of us could ever bring our minds to an acquies- cence in the sovereignty of God, if we had no hope that he was a pardoning God too ? I% thly. All those comforts and encouragements that are given to us in Romans viii. are to he applied to a soul which can see a justifying God, and know " That all things work together for good, &c." If God be for us, who can be against us ? And again in the triumphant language of verse 33. " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect ? &c."
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