The whole system of worldly amusement is adapted to make us forget the real condition of human life, to disguise every object, and to invest the present state with a sort of theatrical glow. It is contrived, in every part of it, to banish reflection, to hide the future from the view, and to make us overlook the evils of life, and the realities of eternity. But still, as the nature of things remains the same, as the course of human events can no more be arrested than the tide, the only effect of this voluntary infatuation is, to render the stroke of calamity, when it does fall, doubly heavy, by leaving the soul without preparation and without resources. "Their fear cometh as desolation, and their destruction as a whirlwind." The lot of mankind is, sooner or later, a state of suffering, from which no past successes, no seeming stability in our station, can possibly secure. "Though a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity."t It is wisdom, then, to form a just estimate of human life; to correct the illusions of our passions; and to regulate our expectations respecting the good and evil of the present, by the result of universal observation and experience. It is Solomon, that model of a great and prosperous prince, whose [mental] attainments, exalted station, and extraordinary prosperity combined to confer upon him, as far as possible, an exemption from suffering, who, under the dictate of the Holy Spirit, penned these words, "If a man live many years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many." Let us proceed briefly to consider what improvement should be made of this view of human life, of this universal exposure to affliction. I. The first lesson it should teach us is, that we are not in the situation in which man was first formed. The original destination of man was not a state of suffering. When God first formed the world, on surveying all that he had created, he pronounced it to be "very good." If it now be very evil, there must be a change in the state and condition of mankind, since the Supreme Being is immutable. It would be utterly repugnant to his perfections to doom an innocent creature to so much suffering; and the Word of God expressly declares "he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men."§ Hence calamities are styled chastisements throughout the Scriptures, and are invariably spoken of as expressions of the Divine anger. Under the administration of a wise and holy Being, had there been no sin, there would have been no suffering. Tyrants may delight in displaying their power over their vassals, by inflicting upon them unmerited punishments; but far be it from us to suspect such conduct in "the Holy One of Israel," in Him who "delighteth in mercy."P The unspeakable calamities to which we are exposed, in our passage through life, announce our fallen state; nor is it possible to give any consistent account of them, without referring them, as the word of God uniformly does, to our original defection and departure from * Prov. i. 27. † Eccles. xi. 8. Ezek. xxxix. 7. Gen. i. 31. 66 God. In this light his conduct in inflicting them appears unexceptionably just and proper. We have forsaken the fountain of living water, ,"* and it is just that the "cisterns" to which we repair should be "broken." We have served and loved "the creature more than the Creator;" and it is just that created comforts should be imbittered. We have virtually declared, by our conduct, that there is no happiness to be found in God: how fitting is it that he should declare, " You shall find it nowhere else;" how equitable is it that he who leans upon an "arm of flesh,"‡ instead of trusting in the living God, should often [find] it to be a broken reed, which wounds him who stays himself upon it, instead of affording him support! When we consider what a scene of indescribable distress the state of the world presents at this moment; the devastation of [nations]; the sudden reverses of fortune in the highest ranks; and the penury, embarrassment, and distress in the lower;-who does not see [in these] the tokens of the [Divine] displeasure; who can fail to perceive the marks of a fallen state, and that the Lord has a controversy, by which he pleads with all flesh? 66 We have all been guilty of spiritual idolatry, and the Lord in his justice spreads our carcasses before the objects of our guilty attachment. At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves: and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the hosts of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped." Let us no longer regard the calamities of life as the offspring of chance, or the product of blind necessity, but, agreeably to the oracles of God, as the judgments of the Lord. II. Let the consideration of the universal exposure of man to calamities and sufferings prevent our being surprised or astonished when it becomes our own lot. When we are unexpectedly led into scenes of trial, we are apt to be filled with emotion, "as though some strange thing had happened unto us ;" and perhaps we are tempted to suspect that we are treated with an unjustifiable rigour. We are ready too often to draw invidious comparisons between ourselves and those who, we suppose, are dealt with in a more favourable manner; and secretly to say, Why am I thus afflicted and distressed; why am I set as a mark for his arrows? It might be sufficient, in order to repress such emotions, to remember that the Lord is a sovereign, who gives no account of his matters: shall the thing formed say to him that formed him, "Why hast thou made me thus ?" "Who art thou that repliest against God?" "Shall a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?"** We must be strangely acquainted with ourselves, if we are not aware that he has not corrected us less than our iniquities deserve. These considerations, however, though not slight, are not the only ones which are fitted to calm the tumult of the breast. We may, with advantage to ourselves, and unitedly with the most per◊ Jer. viii. 1, 2. * Jer. ii. 13. † Rom. i. 25. Jer. xvi. 5. fect benevolence, cast our eyes abroad, to contemplate the universality of distress. We are not the only or the greatest sufferers: we have innumerable companions in tribulation. Without giving scope to imagination, or quitting the realities of life, we may easily find among our fellow-creatures instances of deeper wo, and more complicated distresses, than those which we feel. Here we may see a person, like Job, flourishing in affluence, and reduced, by a sudden and unexpected stroke, to the depth of penury. There we may behold another, like the same illustrious sufferer, deprived in a very short season of all his offspring by death. There we see the widowed mother of a numerous family at a loss to still the cries of her children, who are clamorous for bread. If we turn in another quarter, we may find a poor unhappy creature wasting away under an incurable and painful disorder, where the only vigorous principle seems to be the living cancer which corrodes him. Hear the bitter lamentation of Job: "Even to-day is my complaint bitter, and my stroke heavier than my groaning.' "When I lie down I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? I am full of tossings to and fro."+ "Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!" "therefore my words are swallowed up." "For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit." Hear the man after God's own heart exclaim, "I water my couch with my tears, and mingle my drink with weeping." "By reason of grief my flesh is dried up, and my heart is withered as grass." Look at the history, not of the enemies only, but of the most eminent servants of God, and you will generally find their trials as conspicuous as their piety: so true is it that the high road to heaven is through suffering; and that "through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom.”** If we are tempted to repine at seeing others in peace and prosperity, while we are harassed and distressed, we form a most inadequate and premature judgment. Their period of trial will arrive; their day of calamity is also approaching; the mildew that blights their enjoyments is prepared; and from the evil omen of adversity it will be impossible for them to escape, more than ourselves. "If a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many." III. Here we learn the propriety of not looking for happiness on earth."This is not our rest: it is polluted."tt A state exposed to so much calamity can never have been designed as the scene of enjoyment; it must have been calculated for the purpose of trial. It is not Canaan; it is the wilderness through which the chosen tribes were destined to pass in their way to it; it is a vale of tears, [along] which the Christian pilgrim toils and struggles in his passage to the heavenly kingdom. Let us understand the real nature of our present condition; let us learn that nothing belonging to it is merely or principally intended for our gratification; that it is well suited to be the abode of a sinful creature upon trial, under a dispensation of mercy; where there is just enough of good to support under evil, and those prospects of greater good afforded in a future state which are sufficient to dispel despondency. It is a condition characterized by vicissitude, by danger, by suffering, and by hope; and he is to be esteemed the happiest man who most surmounts its tempests, escapes its pollutions, and is sanctified by its trials. Are you at present in circumstances of ease and comfort? be thankful for it, but place no reliance on its continuance. Enjoy with moderation whatever is gratifying in your lot, but let it not engage your heart, let it not deeply entangle your affection. By an intimate converse with the promises of the gospel, learn to live above [the world], and consider it not as [constituting] your portion or your happiness. Study, indeed, to the utmost to be dead to the world, and alive to God; that "when he who is our life shall appear, ye also shall appear with him in glory."* IV. Let us all be engaged to lay in a suitable preparation for the days of adversity. Let us be aiming to acquire, by faith and prayer, and the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, those principles which will effectually support us in the dark and cloudy day. The Christian character is [formed] of such dispositions as are, each of them apart, and still more when combined, adapted to support the soul amid the severest trials. Under the influence of these, the Christian believer fears none of those things that may happen. Faith, by elevating the attention to a future world-to the glory to be revealed, by imparting to the real Christian a living sense of that atonement which is given in the gospel, is a principle of primary efficacy. The habitual disposition to look upon this present state as a passage and a pilgrimage, which is deeply wrought into the Christian character, is of itself an admirable preparation for suffering. The solemn renunciation of the world included in this [impression] of the [mind] tends immediately to the same effect. Thus the joys of faith, the consolations of the Holy Ghost, raise the soul to a surprising elevation above the storms and trials of life. XXVIII. ON CHASTISEMENT RESULTING IN PENITENCE. JER. XXXI. 18.-Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned ; for thou art the Lord my God. THIS chapter contains great and gracious promises made to the people of Israel upon the prospect of their true repentance. They are assured, that notwithstanding the severe rebukes of Providence, the • Col. iii. 4. Lord had mercy in reserve when their afflictions had answered the purpose for which they were appointed, in humbling and reforming them. Before God visits his people with consolation he prepares them for it by inspiring a penitential spirit, well knowing that to indulge them with his smiles while they continue obstinate and unreclaimed would neither comport with his character nor contribute to their good. His benignity and condescension are sufficiently evinced in his "waiting to be gracious;" in the promptitude with which he pardons the humble penitent. He shows himself attentive to the first movement of the contrite heart, agreeable to his declaration in the passage before us, "I have surely heard Ephraim." In these words we have the picture of the inmost feelings of an humble and penitent heart. We behold it in the deepest retirement, without the least disguise, pouring itself out before God. In these remarkable words we have an acknowledgment and a prayer. I. These words contain an acknowledgment-" Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke." 1. This expression we conceive to denote the inefficacy of former corrections. In the Septuagint it is rendered, "As a bullock, I was not taught thou didst chastise me, and I was chastised." This was all; and no other effect ensued than the uneasy pain which chastisement necessarily imparts. Ephraim is represented as conscious that former corrections had answered little purpose. He laments the little improvement he had made, and prays for such an interposition of Divine power and grace as may work an efficient conversion: "Turn thou me, and I shall be turned." The rebukes of Providence are often represented in the Scriptures in this light." And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Since afflictive dispensations "spring not from the dust," but are ordained of God, who takes no pleasure in the sufferings of his creatures, nor "willingly afflicts the children of men ;"†-since a state of innocence would have included an exemption from every sorrow on the one hand, and the sufferings of life are not for the most part destructive -there is no light in which it is so natural to consider them as chastisements; which are effects of displeasure, but not of a displeasure intended for the destruction of its object, but the amendment. 2. Though corrections are calculated to produce amendment, though such is their tendency and design, it is evident, from observation and experience, they often fail in accomplishing the effect. It is not uncommon to see men hardened under rebukes, and to grow more bold and presumptuous in the commission of sin, after having experienced severer trials than before. This melancholy fact is of no recent observation; it is frequently described and lamented in the word of God. |