there will be reason to bless Him for all this time of severe and heavy trial.

But affliction is perhaps sent to some other, who having had far better opportunities of knowing the truth, is too wayward to follow it. God has long been speaking to him by his providence, by the example and by the ministry of others, by his holy word and sacraments; and his voice has been disregarded. For here is an open understanding but a closed heart, and a rebellious and disobedient will. With all the great truths of which mention has just been made, he is quite familiar; his conscience is not asleep; and he is far from happy; knowing himself to be in doubtful and dangerous circumstances, but still resolved that he will not, at least for the present, relinquish what he loves so much better than he loves God. Yet because he dares not look down into that abyss, upon the edge of which this disobedience places him, he interposes some slight screen of moral respectabilities and religious observances; he half persuades himself that the peril is not imminent, and would rejoice if in his inmost heart he could only arrive at some settled belief that his duty to himself or to others justifies the risk.

Expostulation is idle here; the ear that is closed against the voice of God will not be open to that of man. To such an one it is vain to plead the cause of Him to whom all pure intelligences throughout the range of unnumbered worlds bow and obey. The clear under

standing, so strong in argument, so ready with illustration, so keen in detecting sophistry, is here all darkened and confused. He can but feebly strive to defend his false position with reasonings of which he more than half perceives the hollowness. He can but speak of what society-(which means his fragment of society)—and its usages demand: for these usages form his gospel,-what is written there he will believe and obey. He dares not stand alone in wrong doing, but finds great sense of security in a crowd. And yet when did their multitude ever protect offenders from the wrath of God? It did not amongst the angels which sinned; it did not when the Lord overthrew the cities of the plain.— He is, however, glad (for his convictions are all on the side of religion) that his associates, in breaking down the distinctions between right and wrong, and confounding the evil with the good, do so only in pursuit of pleasure, and not in deliberate and proclaimed hostility to God. He has heard, indeed, the solemn command, "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil," but it is inconvenient to him to believe, and therefore he will not believe that this can refer to the brilliant throng by which he is surrounded.

The gracious God, who willeth not the death of a sinner, has visited him ere now with the discipline of affliction. Heavily it has fallen upon him once and again. Under the pressure of his calamity, and when other objects were excluded, he turned to God. And ever, with restored health or recovered spirits, he went back again to his idol worship: and so he has

lost the blessing of these visitations, and grieved the Holy Spirit, who would have wrought in the midst of them. Once more, now-and perhaps for the last time-God has come to him with the merciful severity of suffering; and our best hope for him isalas that we should say so!-that whether it be the wasting power of some lingering and sore disease, or the ruin of his best earthly good-it may not pass away, until he be turned to Him whom he might have served in joy and gladness. For otherwise what remains for him, if it be not that fearful sentenceonly less fearful than the final judgment doom— "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone ?"

In the first of the two instances just given, God's service had been neglected from ignorance, from pre-occupation of the time and thoughts, and unbroken prosperity.

In the second, there was no such ignorance, nor had the sunshine of life been always unclouded. The strong love of the world, the hunger and thirst after pleasure, as the chief good, (next to which the love of God had leave to stand, if it could,) these, stimulated by success in society, and the consciousness of being supported by the multitude, had led away the heart from God; though the desire of doing right, when the cost was not too great, had never wholly been relinquished.

Take, however, a third case, differing in many respects from these. It is that in which affliction

lights upon one who has lived hitherto a life of selfish ungodliness, pursuing unchecked a course of manifest evil doing. It may be, and too often it is so, that affliction drives such a man still further from God. But on the other hand it may be the beginning of a most blessed change.

Imagine him to have passed on hitherto through life in bold and undoubting confidence, giving himself up to every solicitation of evil which promised him present enjoyment; and if thoughts of death and eternity ever crossed his mind, putting them easily from him.

All

Suddenly, at the stroke of this calamity, at the first sight perhaps of approaching death, all his confidence forsakes him. He cannot shake off the fearful thoughts and clinging apprehensions which now for the first time have taken hold of him. that sustained him hitherto is gone, he knows not how. From the height of that confident security where he soared, he feels himself falling suddenly, as with a smitten wing, down into utter and irretrievable ruin.

What has his life been? In his baptism he was made "a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." His whole life has been one continued practical denial of this relationship, one practical assertion, begun how soon, continued, alas! how long, that he is his own, and that he need render no service to any: ignorant that no one can be truly his own but as he belongs to Christ, "whose service is perfect freedom." In

deed his has hitherto been a slavery of the worst kind," serving divers lusts and pleasures," yet not perceiving his chains, but dwelling willingly "in the tents of these so miserable felicities." He has lived far from God, and has met the efforts of those who would have brought him back, perhaps with fierce anger, perhaps with careless contempt. As this affliction now comes upon him, there is much more to awaken in us fear than hope: not from any doubt of the infinite mercies of God, but lest these mercies should again be despised; lest the purpose of this visitation should not be recognized. So much has already been done for him by God, which he has never acknowledged, so many calls to repentance have been slighted; his heart has grown so hard, his alienation from God so confirmed.

How widely different would it have been with him, had he from the beginning cast himself upon the covenanted fatherhood of God, taken his assigned place in Christ's kingdom, and claimed the continued guidance and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, as a right purchased for him by the precious blood of Christ, out of which, were he but faithful, he could be kept neither by earth nor hell,-neither by men nor devils!

Yet if he will even now turn to his Father with a penitent heart, he will be met with a gracious welcome. The history of the Prodigal in the Gospel is given him for both guidance and encouragement. His first act was to break away altogether from his father, as soon as it became possible to do so, with