SERMON XII.

ON PATIENCE IN AFFLICTION.

JOB XLII. 12.

So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.

AMONG the various annals of the Old Testament, there are some histories which fix upon the human mind with an avidity, and adhere to it with a pertinacity, which it would be difficult, even if it were eligible, to resist. Some of these are calculated to strike the soul with admiration by the splendour of their imagery and by the sublimity of their doctrines; some to animate the spirit by their examples of patriotism, honour, and fortitude; and some to melt the heart with all the tenderness of love and pity, which their pathetic narratives so frequently contain. But in all, the considerative reader will observe this striking and excellent characteristic, which distinguishes the Bible from every profane history; that the crimes of the wicked receive their adequate punishment, or we are made acquainted

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with the reasons for which that punishment was remitted, and we are never left to murmur at the dispensations of God with regard to the just, since the same volume which records their sufferings has brought to light the exceeding greatness of their reward.

In the biography of which the words of my text intimate the completion, there is a variety and a richness of instruction which it would not be easy to parallel; whether we look to the differing events of the life of Job, to the contrast of his high and happy situation with the miserable destiny which he subsequently encountered, whether we enter into those heavenly feelings which were his portion when the "widow's heart sung for joy" at his approach, or mourn with him when in the bitternes of his affliction he invoked a curse upon his natal hour, whether we listen to the touching pathos of his complaints or to the irrefutable arguments with which they were answered, or lastly if we ponder on the exquisite moral of the tale itself, we must pronounce it one of the finest compositions ever perused by man. And it is, My Brethren, that Christian patience and long-suffering which will result from the consideration of this moral, that will render it practically useful to you on many occasions in life, and will assure the end of every Disciple of Christ who practises it " to be more blessed than his beginning."

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Job was a man perfect and upright; one that feared God and eschewed evil;" he was possessed of much wealth, and it appears that he made the right use of it by assisting the needy, consoling the afflicted, encouraging the industrious, and diffusing charity and plenty around him. But this man who acted so nobly in prosperity, it pleased God to make trial of in another situation. He stripped him of his riches and his honours, he afflicted him with a loathsome leprosy, he sunk him to the lowest pit of disgrace and penury, caused his wife and bosom friends to be a curse to him, and oppressed him with a variety and intensity of wretchedness, which he must have felt the more poignantly from the recollection of his former felicity. Yet him, who had "made his bed in darkness" and marked "the grave for his house," him who had "said to corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm thou art my mother and sister," him, who considered all his days as past, and" the purposes and thoughts of his heart as broken," him, fallen from his high estate and stricken beyond the reach of human restoratives, it was in the power and design of Providence to raise up, and make his latter end more blessed than his beginning. Such, my Friends, is the history which I have chosen for the illustration of the lesson which I would this day convey; a Jesson of content, of patience, and of fortitude,

which challenges the attention not only of the child of present calamity, but of all whom danger constantly surrounds, whom temptations daily beset, and over whom misfortune hourly impends.

Difficult, dreadfully difficult will it be for him to bear affliction, whose sorrows have been caused by his own obvious wickedness, and who has not habituated himself to a trust in God. It is this trust combined with purity of conscience, that form the very essence of the martyr's fortitude; it is on these principles he stands unappalled by power and unshaken by persecution: it is on the strength of these principles that he rests himself on his Bible like a rock in the ocean, which firmly supported by its base defies the anger of the storm. Without conscious innocence, then, there can be no efficient fortitude; and without fortitude the Christian character will be incomplete; without fortitude what security have we for the soundness of a man's intentions which we know terror can daunt, and calamity can alter? He may mean well, he may talk well, he may devoutly wish well to his neighbour, but he will never be able to carry his designs into execution, unless he has strength of mind to endure reproach and to repel aggression.

The foundation of this virtue so requisite for the perfection of the Christian, and for the hap

piness of the man, is to be laid in early life, and to be preserved equally in prosperous and in adverse circumstances. Is the Christian in the first condition of Job; is he high, and honourable, and healthy, with all the competence and comforts of the world around him? let him read the history of his prototype, and not forget that he too is a man. Let him remember the frailty of his frame, the infidelity of worldly friendship; let him consider that health may forsake him in an hour, and that "riches make to themselves wings and flee away." Let him recollect that now is the time for instituting that purity of heart and righteousness of conduct which shall set him above the malevolence of fortune; that now is the time for cultivating that spirit of prayer and praise and humble dependance upon God, which will arm him against a reverse; that now is the time, perhaps the only time, when standing on the pinnacle of life, he commands all that is material in his own destiny, and can create to himself a potency of mind which the storms that blast his temporal prosperity can never wither.

But man is called upon not only to acquire, but to exercise patience and fortitude even in the height of human felicity; show me where is that felicity so perfect as to enfranchise its possessor from all sufferance! Show me the state of humanity on which no sorrows dare to intrude; which is altogether exempted from the