is around us to fo many accidents and viciffitudes, for our trial and exercife. To this end haft thou ftrewn our courfe with fo many difficulties and impediments that call forth every effort, every exertion of our faculties. To this end haft thou fo closely and fo varioufly interfperfed light and darknefs, joys and forrows, progrefs and oppofition, profperity and adversity in our prefent state, leading us to our appointment one while on a plain and even path and then by rugged ways. Oh might we fuffer ourfelves always to be led and directed by thee, our Father, as obedient children! Even then fubmit to thy guidance, when it is at variance with our inclinations and defigns, when we are unable to difcover the end and aim of it! Might we ac custom ourselves to look up to thee, who difpofeft of human affairs, not with reverence only, but with confidence and joy. In the moft diftreffing and alarming fituation, may we fee thy mercy fhining through the cloud, and difcern thy hand conducting us by the various meafures of thy provi dence to regions of neverfailing happinefs! Knowing that even thy fevereft correction is the correction of a father, of the wifeft and tendereft of fathers; affuredly convinced that thy purposes can never fail, that thou best knoweft how to complete them, and that thy everlafting purpofe is and can be no other than to render us happy! Yes, in this affurance we will refign ourselves entirely to thee. →→ with filial confidence; entirely acquiefce in thee and

thy

Conducted by thee, Under thy protection

thy decrees; and thankfully receive from thy hand as benefactions, good and evil, joys and forrows. Oh lead and guide us by thy counfel! Thy counfel is ever wife and good. we shall never go aftray. and thy guidance we fhall infallibly reach the mark of our high calling. God, ftrengthen and confirm us in these pious fentiments, and grant that the meditations we are now about to begin in this view may be bleffed. These our humble fupplications we prefent unto thee as the followers of thy fon Jefus, who has taught us to know and to love thee as our common parent; and, as believers in that gofpel, which encourages all men to addrefs thee as their God and father, and to hope for thy favour in the practice of truth and righteoufnefs, we conclude them in his words: Our father, &c.

HEBREWS xii. 11.

No chatening for the prefent feemeth to be joyous, but griev ous; neverthelefs, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteoufacfs unto them which are exercited thereby.

GOD loves his creatures of the human race.

This all nature proclaims aloud. This is declared by all the capacities and powers that God has given us, all the arrangements he has made in the moral and the phyfical world. Happiness is our

true,

true, our total deftination; the deftination of all that exists and lives, and is fufceptible of happiness. To this end has he made us; to this end has he affigned us this part of his dominion for the place of our abode, and embellished it with fo many beauties and bleflings; to this end has he placed us in the various connections wherein we ftand with the material and the fpiritual world. He has likewife excited in us all a thirst, an ardent thirst after happiness; and how is it poffible that he, the Allgracious, fhould have raised in us this thirst, and not have furnished us with the means of affuaging it!

No, we are furrounded on all fides with fources of pleasure and delight, inviting us to enjoyment, no lefs diverfified than exuberant, and which we can never entirely exhauft, nor each of their feveral kinds.

*

And yet man, this creature fo beloved of God, and fo evidently ordained to happiness, frequently meets with grievous afflictions; and no one yet of all our race has ever paffed his life without having fuffered more or lefs. Are then thefe afflictions at ftrife with our deftination? Do they exclude us from the path of happiness? dency to defeat the purposes of plans of almighty goodness? No, that were impoflible; even thefe afflictions muft tend to fomething good, muft poffefs a certain value, must contribute to the advancement of our happiness: otherwife God, who loves us with paternal ten

Have they a tenour Creator, the

dernefs,

derness, and would have us happy and joyful as his children, certainly would never allow them to befall us.

And thus the matter ftands, my dear friends, even afflictions, even tribulations are good; are benefactions of our heavenly Father. They are means, harsh and unpleafant indeed, but efficacious and falutary means, for our purification, for our amendment, our higher perfection. They lead us a rough and dreary way, a way often moistened with tears and the fweat of our brows; but a way that terminates in happiness. Of this our own reafon and experience will not permit us to doubt; and the facred books confirm what they teach us, in a manner the most express. "No chastening," fays the apostle in our text, "for the prefent feemeth to be joyous, but grievous:" all feverity is repugnant and difagreeable to us while we feel it. 66 Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteoufnefs to them which are exercised thereby :" in the fequel it produces the beft effects to them who allow themselves to be corrected by it, by rendering them good and virtuous. "It is good for me," fays the pfalmift, "that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." And the apoftles of Jefus, in behalf of themselves and their fellow-chriftians, glory also in tribulations, knowing that "tribulation worketh patience; and patience experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not afhamed." May we then, my devout audience, learn to take

VOL. II.

the

the afflictions and tribulations of our lives, no less than the proper goods and fatisfactions of them, for what they are and ought to be, and employ them to the advancement of our happinefs! My defign is, by my prefent difcourfe, to give fome direction to your reflections upon them. To which purpose I fhall examine with you the value of afflictions and tribulations in regard to human happinefs, and to that end firft fhew, how and to what amount afflictions and tribulations have a real value; and then, what gives them that value, wherein it confifts, how they have a tendency to further our happiness.

Afflictions and tribulations have no value as ultimate objects, but only as means. They are not in themselves either good or wholesome, but only in regard of their effects. Afflictions are and must ever continue to be afflictions; difagreeable, painful fenfations. Tribulations are and muft ever remain tribulations; accidents and occurrences that are adverfe to our nature, and hostile to our views and defires. While they are prefent, fays our text, we think them unpleasant and grievous; and this of themfelves they actually are. They are medicines, bitter medicines, which are not prefcribed on account of the pleasantnefs of their tafte, but only as good against diseases, and which probably we must be long plagued and tormented with before we are completely recovered. They are exercifes, not enjoined us on their own account, but for the fake of their effects. The fchools confidered