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your most imperious lusts. Let what hath been said, then, lead you to him. Dwell on the consideration of your own vileness, till your self-confidence is entirely destroyed, and your hearts disposed to receive him as the unspeakable gift of God to man.

In this your Christianity doth consist, and on this your justification depends. This is the sum of your conversion, and the very soul of the new creature. Other things are only preparatives to this, or fruits that grow out of it. Christ is the end and fulfilling of the law, the substance of the gospel, the way to the Father, the help, the hope, the life of the believer. If you know not HIM, you know nothing; if you possess not HIM, you have nothing; and if you be out of HIM, you can do nothing that hath a promise of salvation. O then fly to him as your refuge and sanctuary, and commit your souls into his hands, that he may purify and form them for himself. Plead in the language of David, (Psal. li. 2.) "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hysop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." And look by faith for the accomplishment of that promise, (Ezekiel xxxvi. 25.) "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you." Amen.

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SERMON LXVI.

JOB XXXVI. 21.

Take heed; regard not iniquity; for this hast thou chosen rather than affliction.

THESE words were addressed to Job, who from the height of prosperity was suddenly plunged into the deepest and most complicated distress. They are the words of Elihu, the youngest, but by far the wisest and most candid of all Job's friends. The other three were indeed, as himself had styled them, miserable comforters. It was their belief, that adversity was in all cases a certain token of God's displeasure; and, upon this principle, they endeavoured to persuade this excellent servant of God, that his whole religion was false and counterfeit, that divine justice had now laid hold of him, and that he was suffering the punishment of his hypocrisy and iniquity.

At length Elihu interposes; and moved with zeal for the honour of God, and with compassion to his friend, he unfolds the mysteries of Divine Providence, asserts and proves that affliction is designed for the trial of the good, as well as for the punishment of the bad, directs Job to the right improvement of his present distress, and comforts him with the prospect of a happy deliverance from it, as soon as his heart should be thoroughly moulded into a meek and patient submission to the will of his God. At the same time, be rebukes him with a becoming dignity for some rash and unadvised speeches which

the severity of his other friends, and the sharpness of his own anguish, had drawn from him; and particularly cautions him in the passage before us, "Take heed; regard not iniquity; for this hast thou chosen rather than affliction."

The latter part of the text contains an heavy censure, for which some of Job's impatient wishes for relief had no doubt given too just occasion. But these expressions, uttered in his baste, he afterwards retracted, and finally came out from the furnace of affliction, like gold tried and refined by the fire.-What I propose, in discoursing on this subject, is to illustrate and prove the general proposition, that there can be no greater folly than to seek to escape from affliction by complying with the temptations of sin; or, in other words, that the smallest act of deliberate transgression is infinitely worse than the greatest calamity we can suffer in this life.

That the greater part of mankind are under the influence of the contrary opinion, may be too justly inferred from their practice. How many have recourse to sinful pleasures to relieve their inward distress? What unlawful methods do others use for acquiring the perishing riches or honours of this world? while, in order to evade suffering for righteouness sake, thousands make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, through sinful compliances with the manners of the world, against the clear and deliberate conviction of their own minds. These things plainly shew, that the subject I have chosen is of the highest importance; and if what may be said on it shall be so far blessed to any, as to render sin more odious, or affliction less formidable, I shall gain one of the noblest ends of my office, and we shall have reason to acknowledge, that our meeting together has been for the better and not for the worse.

In proof, then, of the general proposition, That there can be no greater folly than to choose sin rather than af. fliction, let it be observed,

I. THAT sin separates us from God, the only source of real felicity. That man is not sufficient to his own happiness, is a truth confirmed by the experience of all who have candidly attended to their own feelings. It is the consciousness of this insufficiency of the human mind for its own happiness, which makes men seek resources from abroad; which makes them fly to pleasures and amusements of various kinds, whose chief value consists in filling up the blanks of time, and diverting their uneasy reflections from their own internal poverty. But these are vain and deceitful refuges of lies. The want remains; and we have found out only the means of putting away the sense of it for a time. God alone can be the source of real happiness to an immortal soul, an adequate supply to all its faculties, an inexhaustible subject to its understanding, an everlasting object to its af fections.

Sin bereaves the soul of man of this its only portion. "Behold," saith the Prophet, "God's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." Affliction, on the other hand, instead of separating the soul from God, is often the means of bringing it nearer to him. Let a man be ever so poor, diseased, reproached, persecuted, still if he hold fast his integrity, if he be a real saint, he is near and dear to God. The eyes of the Lord are upon him, and his ears are open to his cry. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about him, and a guard of angels wait to carry his departing spirit into Abraham's bosom.

Whereas sin renders us loathsome in the eyes of God. He is angry with the wicked every day; and even their prayers and sacrifices are an abomination to him. He hath bent his bow, and made it ready; he hath also prepared for him the instruments of death. God looks on them with abhorrence, and, when conscience is awake, they think of him with horror, and dare not come into his presence, knowing that he is a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity.

II. AFFLICTION may not only consist with the love of a father, but may even be the fruit of it. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.-By this," saith the prophet Isaiah, speaking of affliction, "shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away sin." David could say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept thy word." A good man may even glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto him. But sin is always both evil in its own nature and pernicious in its effects. This contrast is very strikingly displayed by the apostle Paul. Of the one he speaks as a privilege, and a token for good to those who are exercised thereby. "Unto you," saith he, (writing to the Philippians, i. 29.) "it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." But what doth he say concerning the other, (Rom. vii. 24.) "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" If any had ever reason to complain of the burden of affliction, Paul had more in labours more 3 F

VOL. II.

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