all our Endeavours carry us. Blessed Apostle therefore, who greatly inforced this Precept, be the Pattern for our Imitation. He was like the Racers in the Grecian Games; and let us, like Him, be temperate in all things; let us keep our Body under, and bring it unto Subjection; like Him, let us contend earneftly for the the best Gifts and moft exalted Crowns; going on to Perfection, and forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things that are before, let us prefs towards the Mark for the Prize of the high Calling of God in Jefus Chrift our Lord. Amen. SERMON SERMON VII. JOB V. 6, 7. Although Affliction cometh not forth of the Duft, neither doth Trouble Spring out of the Ground: Yet Man is born unto Trouble, as the Sparks fly upwards. HE Greatness, the Suddenness, the Variety of Job's T Calamities did, in the Third forth into the Bitterness of fevere Complaining; he curfed the Day of his Birth, he wifhed for Death, he wished that he had never been born: This This drew from one of his Friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, a Difcourfe, wherein he cafts many unjust Reflections on Holy Job, but a Difcourfe mix'd with many ufeful Leffons relating to Afflictions in general. He charges him with want of Patience; Bohold, faith he, thou haft inftructed many, and thou haft ftrengthened the weak Hands; but now it is come upon thee, and thou fainteft; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled. He charges him with Impiety; Is not this thy Fear, thy Confidence, thy Hope, and the Uprightness of thy Ways? Who ever perished, being innocent, or where were the Righteous cut off? He intimates, that thefe Calamities did actually befal him on Account of his Tranfgreffions; I have feen, faith he, the Foolish, i.e. the wicked Man taking Root, and fuddenly I curfed his Habitation; his Children are far from Safety, and they are crushed in the Gate, neither is there any to deliver them; whofe Harvest the Hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out. of the Thorns, and the Robber jwalloweth up their Subftance. With refpect indeed to holy Job, thefe Reflections were great ly ly injurious, but they were intended to filence his Complaints, and to carry his Thoughts up to the Hand of Providence, from whom those Afflictions were poured out upon him; accordingly in the Words of the Text, he endeavours to make him conceive of Calamities under Terms of Patience and Piety, and that by reprefenting Afflictions to him in a two-fold View. I. HE declares that they are univerfal, they are the common, the natural, the neceffary Portion of all the Sons of Men: Man is born to Trouble, as the Sparks fly upwards. II. HE declares that they are providential; Affliction cometh not forth of the Duft, neither doth Trouble Spring out of the Ground. I. THEN, Afflictions are univerfal, they are the common, the natural, the neceffary Portion of all the Sons of Men; Man is born to Trouble, as the Sparks fly upwards. · THAT Afflictions are our common Portion, Experience doth moft largely and fenfibly fenfibly evince; that they are even natural and neceifary to us, is easily collected from the present State and Condition of Human Life. THAT Afflictions therefore are the common Portion of all the Sons of Men, Experience does moft largely and fenfibly evince; never was any Man exempted from them, the Air we breath is not more general than they; were any one fo abfurd as to deny their Univerfality, he might be quoted as, one Inftance at leaft against fuch his Affertion; tho' were Individuals to be quoted as Inftances our first Parents, and all their Pofterity, would make up but one general List of afflicted Perfons: Mifery is the Offspring of Sin, and the Entail of it upon Mankind is equally diffufive; nay indeed more fo, for He, who of all the Sons of Men was without Sin, was of all other, the most a Man of Sorrow, and acquainted with Grief. In what View foever we conceive of our Species, into whatever Ranks and Distinctions we throw them, we can never abftract from them the Circumftance of Calamity; High and Low, Rich and |