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my text is daily and remarkably fulfilled in the experience of those Christians who are animated by a sincere piety. Like the steel which destroys life by inflicting the deadly wound, or saves life by amputating the mortified limb, adversity produces effects fatal or salutary according to the characters and dispositions of those to whom it is appointed. In the carnally-minded its influence is fatal. For when affliction is not sanctified, but meets with a stubborn spirit, its effects are dreadful; then distress excites impatience, impatience causes perplexity, perplexity despair, and despair confusion and perdition. But to the Christian "sweet are the uses of adversity." For though affliction, which is evil in its own nature, cannot bring forth good, yet it is a revealed truth that God can and does bring forth good out of evil, light out of darkness, and make the worldly distresses and afflictions of such as trust in him the means of purifying their hearts and weaning them from this world, of spiritualizing their affections, and of exercising and preparing them on the waves of a troublesome world for the land of everlasting peace and comfort. The statutes of God are indeed best learnt in the school of affliction, for there the great obstructions to our learning them are removed: distress of circumstances subdues

pride and extinguishes concupiscence. On the contrary, in the downy lap of prosperity the mind is unnerved, the moral faculties grow torpid, and a thousand vain desires and corrupt imaginations spring up like noxious weeds in a neglected soil. Such demoralizing effects of a prosperous fortune even good men have experienced and lamented. "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word." This was the confession of the holy Psalmist; and the inference from it is, that as prosperity is the natural parent of sin and irreligion, so is adversity as naturally the nursing mother of virtue and piety. On this subject I shall quote without apology a passage from the writings of a celebrated infidel, because the sentiments it conveys are such as would do honour to the pen of the most devout Christian. "When afflictions fail to have their due effect, the case is desperate. They are the last remedy which indulgent Providence uses; and if they fail, we must languish and die in misery and contempt. Vain men! how seldom do we know what to wish or pray for! When we pray against misfortunes, and when we fear them most we want them most. The shortest and the best prayer, which we can address to Him who knows our wants and

our ignorance in asking, is this, "Thy will be done."

The assertion of the apostle then that all things work together for good to them that love God, may be considered peculiarly as addressing words of comfort and encouragement to those sincere Christians who are suffering under his afflictive dispensations. Heavily though they may press upon them, yet if they assuredly know that all things which occur in the course of divine Providence, either in their present and immediate, or future and remote consequences, do and shall work together for real and everlasting good to them that sincerely and prevailingly love and obey the blessed God, then may they infer that times of difficulty and trial are not so deplorable and appalling as the world in general represents them; they bring serious thoughts of God into our minds, who are too prone to forget both God and ourselves in the season of prosperity and abundance. And though, in the words of the apostle, "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous;" "nevertheless," he adds, "afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." God never fails to temper judgment

with mercy, and by his appointment the season of affliction is a time of serious reflection, a time of awakening, a time of instruction, a time of repentance. Therefore blessed are they whose temporal evils are the gracious means of delivering them from spiritual evils, and whose worldly crosses prepare and qualify them to wear a crown of glory. It is religion alone, it is the religion of Jesus alone, that can reconcile us, my christian brethren, to all the changes and chances of this mortal life, to its cares and labours, and trials and afflictions; so that, "though troubled on every side, we are not distressed; though perplexed, we are not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed. For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Let us now consider the character of the persons to whom the text appropriates the privilege of having all things work together for their good. They love God, and evidence their love of him by their delight in his service, by their desire

of his favour, and by their ardent aspiration after the final and eternal enjoyment of his beatific presence. What ground of assurance then have we, my brethren, on which we may rely that all things shall work together for our good? Alas! blest as we are with the purest light of the gospel, and the purest ordinances of christian worship, with what profound confusion should we confess the deadness of our hearts and the coldness of our affections towards our God and Saviour, and our proneness to prefer the vanity of earthly enjoyments to his service which is perfect freedom, and to his favour on which depends the salvation of our immortal souls. With such disqualifications for the privileges of God's good and faithful servants, how can we trust that they shall be ours? How can we expect that God should take the burden of our cares, and order all things to work together for our good, whilst we deny him our hearts, and even oppose him with the very gifts of his bounty, and blessings of his providence? Let us awaken, my brethren, to a more lively concern about our eternal interests, and not suffer a restless anxiety about our worldly circumstances to render us grossly and unpardonably negligent of the things that belong to our eternal peace. Let us turn all our solicitude into