wish for the continuation of a being to which every day brought the heavy task of misery, and to which wearisome nights were appointed? Should we not, under such circumstances, be ready to cry out with the Apostle, Who shall deliver us from these bodies of death! or with the afflicted Patriarch, to entreat that we might be hid from sorrow in the grave-in some dark and silent mansion of the earth, where we and our miseries might lie down together, and where we should no longer languish at the sight of the sun!

These are wishes, which, though inconsistent with the first great law of nature, the preservation of our being, it is, as I have observed, very natural to form under the keen anguish of affliction.

Let us go into the house of mourning, and hear the complaint of the sufferer. under the agonies of acute pain.

Hear him

Is he not ready to exclaim with the man of Uz, Let the grave open for me, and let the jaws of destruction receive her prey! O God, how long wilt thou withhold thy hand! O that I might have my request, and that God would grant me the thing that I long for; even that it would please God to destroy me: that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!

Those whom chance or charity has brought

to the couch of affliction, are no strangers to such language as this.:

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But could this be the language, you will say, of Job? Could he wish for death, who believed it to be the end of all flesh? who could say that, As the cloud is consumed, and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more? Could he who had no hopes, or, if any, but obscure hopes of immortality, wish for a dissolution of this mortal body, and to be shut up in the chambers of darkness for ever? But, what then would he have done, had he lived under the glorious light of the Gospel? Would he not have wished, with still greater impatience, to be dissolved, and to be with Jesus? or, perhaps, with the prospect of the everlasting promises, he might have endured the cross, despising the pain. Possibly, under the influence of Christian fortitude, he might have triumphed over the calamities of time, exulting in the hopes, the glorious hopes, of eternity. Probably he would have acknowledged, with the eloquent Apostle, that the sufferings of the present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

No doubt such a conduct would have been greater. Human nature never rises to such a glorious pitch of excellence, such an hea

venly dignity, as when, imitating the example of our great and god-like Master, we bear with patience the evils that are fallen upon us; when from the spirit of pure and cheerful piety we say, O God, thy will be done. This is the proper conduct, the reasonable service, of a Christian: but to attain to this perfect state of mind, requires no inferior portion either of sense or grace. It is necessary that we should be able to form a due estimate of life, to balance in an equal scale its good and evil things, and from thence to draw just reflections concerning it. This philosophical knowledge is requisite; it is expedient; but it is not alone sufficient to inspire us with Christian fortitude. The conclusions of knowledge and the resolutions of reason will shrink under the blast of affliction, and, without the concurring aid of divine grace, they will ineffectually strive to set the heart

at ease.

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Under those afflictions, therefore, which are incident to our being, let us not, like unhappy Job, importune the Almighty that we may be permitted to lay it down, but rather let us entreat him that he would give us grace and fortitude to support with patience the lot which has befallen us.

One very powerful reason why we should

do this is, that we ourselves are the cause of almost all the misery we endure. What, in general, are the evils we complain of but the consequence of some misconduct, some passion wrong-directed, some bias of the mind, or some weakness of the body, brought on by imprudence, by negligence, or by obstinacy? Should we then, thus circumstanced, hazard a desire to rush into the presence of our almighty Maker? Should we venture to complain of those evils which befal us in the common course of nature? Should we not rather beseech the Dispenser of all good things, to remove the burthen from us in the way of his providence, but still that he would permit us to continue in his service, that we might exert that gratitude which is due to him both for our creation, and preservation?

This certainly would be a conduct more becoming a Christian than that of Job.

That unhappy patriarch was but a very imperfect example of patience, compared to the Author of Christianity. When did our divine Master utter the impatient exclamations which we find in the book of Job? Father, said he, if this cup may not pass away from me unless I drink it, thy will be done. And yet this cup was a more bitter potion than the man of Uz was condemned to drink.

Remember we not the agonies that he underwent! Remember we not that the dreadful hour, when, previous to his passion, the Evangelist tells us, that he sweat as it were great drops of blood! We are assured by those who are skilled in medicinal knowledge, that this could not have been without the most exquisite torment. And I mention this circumstance to shew you the difference between Christianity and Judaism, when the highest character in the latter appears so incomparably mean, considered under the cir cumstances of affliction, with the Author of the former.

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It is from the doctrine and example of Jesus then, and not of Job, that we are to learn the virtue of patience; and this caution is the more necessary, because when the Old and New Testament come united into our hands, as the invariable word of God, we are apt to seek the rules of faith equally in the former as in the latter. This by no means ought to be. The doctrines of the Old Testament were built upon a very different foundation from those of the New. The conditions of the covenant were changed; and not only the terms of ritual obedience were varied, but the principles of moral duty were infinitely improved. It is from the New Testa