68 AP NOME ATTEMPT, &e. What if God should pronounce concerning you that he would send his Spirit to strive with you no longer, and,abandon you to the madness and folly of your own hearts, and give you up to everlasting wanderings ? IX. You who have been trained up as the children of God under the divine discipline of long or sharp afflictions, what have you done more for God than others, or what have you learned more of inward piety ? The apostle, in the xiith chapter to the 'Hebrews, makes it appear that these fatherly chastise- ments of God are of great advantage to the growth of virtue, and considerably assist our improvement in godliness. It is a' message of religious profit, though it be a painful one e As many as I love, saitlt our Saviour, I rebuke`and chasten? Rev. üî. 19. The design of God in these afflictive providences is to make us partakers of his holiness. Enquire then into your own hearts, you who have had thevoice of the rod joined together with the voice of the word, have you attended duly to the divine warning, and obeyed him that speaks from heaven? And have you found your hearts weaned from those vices which your hea- venly Father designed to chasten and subdue ? You that have been long cónfined to chambers of sickness, that have been chastened upon youf beds with strong pains, and have felt the tabernacle often tottering and ready to fall into the dust, haveyou yet learned silence and submission to the hand of God ? Have you learned obedience by the things which you have suffered` in conformity to Jesus the Son of God ? Are you more weaned from this world and the love of life, whohave been so often upon the borders of the grave ? Are you more prepar- ed for death than those who never carne within the views of it ? IHas every severe shockof nature made you examine the truth and evidence of your grace, so that you have acquired a more solid and well -grounded hope ? Are you more thankful than others for some little measures of health which you enjoy, and more solicitous to improve every inch of time and every hour of ease to some valuable purposes ? Have not someof us frequently seen death entering into our own dwellings, or into the house of our friends ? Have we yet learned to die ? And have we prepared to meet that last enemy better than those who never have been so near him ? Have we learned to part with our friends without so much discompo- sure as others manifest, since we have had frequent occasion to make use of the consolations of the gospel on this account ? Do relive more upon God an ever-living and almighty Friend? lias the cutting off the streams of blessings amongst the creatures made us dwell more at the fountain, and abide nearer to God ? Perhaps some of you may have been smitten in your estate, and Lave lost a considerable part of your substance in the world ; you
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