us. How often does it happen that those which are enamoured of themselves, dote upon their own features, do meet with some disease or accident which blasts their beauty, withers that fair flower, and makes their winter overtake their spring! So in our friends and relations, it is usually seen we soonest lose those for whom we have the greatest, the most immoderate passion. If there be one fondling among our children, it is odds but that is taken away, or made as much the object of our grief and sorrow as ever it was of our joy and love. When God sees our hearts so excessively cleave to any transitory thing, he knows it is necessary to sever them; for whilst we have such clogs upon us, 66 our souls will cleave to the dust" (Ps. cxix. 1), will not be able to soar up to the higher region for which they are designed.

8. In a word, God so loves us, that he removes whatever he sees will obstruct that intimate union which he desires with us: and sure this is so obliging, that though he should bid us to our loss, though he could not recompense us for what he takes from us, yet we must be very ill-natured, if we can be angry at so much kindness. But when to this is added, that all this is principally, nay, solely designed for our advantage; that God takes from us all these empty, delusory contentments, merely that he may instate us in solid and durable joys,—we betray as much ignorance of our interest as insensibleness of our obligation, if we repine that God makes us so*

much his care. It is true, indeed, the things to which we have so inordinately adhered do stick so close, that they cannot be pulled away without some pain; yet for our corporal security we can endure the sundering of parts that do not only cleave, but grow to us. He that has a gangrened member suffers it to be cut off to save his whole body, and does not revile, but thank and reward the surgeon; yet where our souls are concerned, and where the things have no native union with us, but are only cemented by our passions, we are impatient of the method, and think God deals very hardly with us not to let us perish with what we love. The sum of all is this, God, though he be abundantly condescending, yet he will never stoop so low as to share his interest in us with the world: if we will devote ourselves to it, it is not all our empty forms of service will satisfy him; if we cannot divorce our hearts from it, he will divorce himself eternally from us: and the case being thus, we are sure very ill advised if we do not contentedly resign ourselves to his methods, and cheerfully endure them, how sharp soever. The only expedient we have for our own ease, is to shorten the cure by giving our assistance, and not by strugglings to render it more difficult and painful. Let us entirely surrender our wills to him; and when we have done that, we may without much pain let him take any thing else. But the more difficult we find it to be disentangled from the world, the greater should our caution be

If our escape

against all future engagements to it. hath been, as the apostle says, so as by fire" (Jude 23), with much smart and hazard, let us at least have so much wit as the common proverb allows children, and not again expose ourselves; let us never glue our hearts to any external thing, but let all the concerns of the world hang loose about us by that means we shall be able to put them off insensibly, whenever God calls for them; or perhaps we shall prevent his calling for them at all, it being for the most part our too close adhesion to them which prompts him to it.

9. A third advantage of afflictions is, that it is a mark and signature of our adoption, a witness of our legitimation. "What son is he," saith the apostle, "whom the father chastiseth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons" (Heb. xii. 7, 8). Jacob clad his darling Joseph in a particoloured coat; and God's favourites do here wear a livery, interwoven with a mixture of dark and gloomy colours; their "long white robes" are laid up for them against they come to the "marriage of the Lamb" (Rev. xix. 7). Indeed, we much mistake the design of Christianity, if we think it calls us to a condition of ease and security. It might suit well enough with the votaries of the golden calf to "sit down to eat and drink, and rise up to play" (Exod. xxxii. 6); but the disciples of the crucified

Saviour are trained to another discipline; our profession enters us into a state of warfare; and accordingly our very baptismal engagement runs all in military terms, and we are not only servants of Christ's family, but soldiers of his camp. Now we know in a war men must not expect to pass their time in ease and softness, but, besides all the dangers and difficulties of the combat, have many other hardships to endure hunger and thirst, heat and cold, hard lodgings and weary marches; and he that is too nice for those will not long stick to his colours. And it is the same in our spiritual warfare,

- many pressures and sufferings are annexed to it; and our passive valour is no less tried than our active. In respect of this it is, that our Saviour admonishes his proselytes to compute first the difficulties incident to their profession: and that he may not ensnare us by proposing too easy terms, he bids us reckon upon the worst, and tells us, that he" that forsakes not all that he hath shall not be his disciple" (Luke xiv. 26); " and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts xiv. 22). Indeed, it were very absurd for us to expect easier conditions, when these are the same to which our Leader has submitted. The "Captain of our salvation was perfected by sufferings” (Heb. ii. 10); “and if it behoved Christ to suffer before he entered into his glory" (Luke xxiv. 46), it were insolent madness

for us to look to be carried thither upon our beds of ivory, or from the noise of our harps and viols be immediately rapt into the choir of angels.

10. This has been so much considered by pious men, that they have looked upon their secular prosperities with fear and jealousy; and many have solemnly petitioned for crosses, as thinking them the necessary attestation of their sonship, and means of assimilation to their elder Brother. Why, then, should that which was so desirable to them appear so formidable to us? or why should we so vehemently deprecate what they so earnestly invited? If we indeed think it a privilege to be the sons of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, why do we grudge at the condition? The Roman captain tells St. Paul, that he obtained the immunities of a Roman "with a great sum" (Acts xxii. 28); and shall we expect so much a nobler and more advantageous adoption perfectly gratis,-look that God should change his whole economy for our ease-give us an eternal inheritance, discharged of those temporal incumbrances himself has annexed to it? This were sure as unjust a hope as it would be a vain one. When David had that ensnaring proposal made him, of being the king's son-in-law (1 Sam. xviii. 21), he set such a value upon the dignity, that he despised the difficulty of the condition: and sure we must have very low abject souls, if, when so infinitely a higher advancement is sincerely offered us, we can suffer any apprehension of hardship to