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fupport and shelter to one another : where one is cut down, as it happens with the trees of the foreft, others, in proportion to their proximity, must suffer by the fall.

THIS world, befides, is a state of moral difcipline; and it often happens, that a course of trials and afflictions is moft conducive to our final happiness. We know not what is beft for us, amidst the fhortness of our views and pettishnefs of froward appetites.* Many, who have coveted honour, and riches, and eafe, have found them to be fnares; and we know not, what effect they might have upon our tempers.-It pleafed GOD to vifit St. Paul with what he calls a thorn in the flesh, fome great and trying affliction. Feeling, like other men, he prayed for its removal: but the gracious

PRO bonis mala amplectimur, optamus contra id, quod optavimus, pugnant noftra vota cum votis, confilia cum confiliis. Seneca. Ep. 45.

inflicter,

inflicter, to teach him patience, and, through him, to teach all future generations the fame valuable virtue, revealed the beneficent tendency of the visitation. It was for his good: it tended to his moral improvement, and, in confequence of that, to the increase of his future reward. Here the venerable fufferer had nothing more to say: he submitted to the gracious discipline; and teaches us, by his example, the wisdom and neceffity of refignation.

BUT how happy and full of comfort must a good man be, in this gloomiest feafon of distress! He has the consciousness of being at peace with GOD; he has a confcience either unstained by fin, or cleansed by the blood of Chrift, and the tears of a fincere repentance; he has the confolations of the holy spirit, and the bleffed hopes of immortality to support his fortitude.

TRUE faith raises all the paffions above temporary accidents.

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the poor deluded finner, who confines ali his hopes and defires within this narrow fphere, grieve, bewail, and abandon himself to defpair, when his worldly comforts forfake him - They were his all they are his portion and inheritance: they are the only goods, he knows or chooses to purfue. But a spiritual creature has higher views, higher purposes, and fhould have a fuperior elevation of foul, and look down upon the revolutions of this present life, as little tranfient events, in which the man of GOD is but in a lower degree concerned. A fafe and quiet paffage to the grave, is all he requires: his final intereft lies beyond; and where his treasure is, there his heart habitually is, there his principal defires and hopes are fixed other things move only in fubordination to this higher view.

MANY men, from motives of private eafe and worldly prudence, have kept themselves from being too deeply interefted

refted in the bufy, noify, tumultuous conflicts of life: the philofophic mind thinks it neceffary to happiness to be abstracted from it, to hear its din and tumult at a safe distance, and to view the ruffled fcene with fedate undisturbed indifference. And what fhall we think then of the chriftian's choice and happiness, whose mind is capable of fuch an elevation, that he can look down upon life and all its temporary interests and evils with magnanimity and generous contempt?

age

SUCH christians have existed in every of the church: fuch a man, every one may be, by a proper use of the instrumental duties of religion.

WHETHER faith be, as fome make it, the cold deliberate affent of the mind upon a course of rational deduction, or, as others fay, the effect of Divine Grace on an honest ingenuous heart, or rather whether there be not fomething of both, in its origin and progrefs; this is cer

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tain; faith is but a dead principle, unlefs it be quickened and invigorated by frequent and habitual exercife in the various offices of religion.

AND happy the man, (to return again from this digreffion) happy he, who ftudies to have this faith, this true victory, which overcometh the world! He is prepared for all ftates, and all viciffitudes of fortune.

HE confiders himself as living under a MORAL GOVERNOR, who is conducting man to future happiness, by the various methods of his prefent Providence. Living ever under a fenfe of his authority, he receives profperity as his mercy with gratitude, and his vifitations, as neceffary remedies of his corruption, with humility and fubmiffion. Thus every thing affumes a chearful afpect around him. Difappointment, fickness, poverty, and other natural evils are confidered by him as neceffary inftruments of future glory. Kept by

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