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Let that

and

all our Endeavours carry us. Bleffed Apostle therefore, who gave greatly inforced this Precept, be the Pattern for our Imitation. He was like the Racers in the Grecian Games; and let us, like Him, be temperate in all things; let us keep our Body under, and bring it unto Subjection; like Him, let us contend earneftly for the the best Gifts and most exalted Crowns; going on to Perfection, and forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things that are before, let us press towards the Mark for the Prize of the high Calling of God in Jefus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SERMON

SERMON VII.

6,7.

JOB V. 6, 7.

Although Affliction cometh not forth of the Duft, neither doth Trouble Spring out of the Ground:

Yet Man is born unto Trouble, as the Sparks fly upwards.

T

HE Greatness, the Sudden-
ness, the Variety of Job's
Calamities did, in the Third
Chapter of this Book, break

forth into the Bitternefs of

fevere Complaining; he curfed the Day of his Birth, he wished for Death, he wifhed that he had never been born: This

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This drew from one of his Friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, a Difcourfe, wherein he cafts many unjust Reflections on Holy Job, but a Difcourfe mix'd with many ufeful Leffons relating to Afflictions in general. He charges him with want of Patience; Bobold, faith he, thou haft inftructed many, and thou haft ftrengthened the weak Hands; but now it is come upon thee, and thou fainteft; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled. He charges him with Impiety; Is not this thy Fear, thy Confidence, thy Hope, and the Uprightness of thy Ways? Who ever perished, being innocent, or where were the Righteous cut off? He intimates, that these Calamities did actually befal him on Account of his Tranfgreffions; I have feen, faith he, the Foolish, i.e. the wicked Man taking Root, and fuddenly I curfed his Habitation; his Children are far from Safety, and they are crushed in the Gate, neither is there any to deliver them; whofe Harveft the Hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the Thorns, and the Robber fwalloweth up their Subftance. With refpect indeed to holy Job, thefe Reflections were great

ly

ly injurious, but they were intended to filence his Complaints, and to carry his Thoughts up to the Hand of Providence, from whom thofe Afflictions were poured out upon him; accordingly in the Words of the Text, he endeavours to make him conceive of Calamities under Terms of Patience and Piety, and that by reprefenting Afflictions to him in a two-fold View.

1. HE declares that they are universal, they are the common, the natural, the neceffary Portion of all the Sons of Men: Man is born to Trouble, as the Sparks fly upwards.

II. HE declares that they are providential; Affliction cometh not forth of the Duft, neither doth Trouble Spring out of the Ground.

I. THEN, Afflictions are univerfal, they are the common, the natural, the neceffary Portion of all the Sons of Men; Man is born to Trouble, as the Sparks fly upwards.

THAT Afflictions are our common Portion, Experience doth moft largely and

fenfibly

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fenfibly evince; that they are even natural and neceffary to us, is easily collected from the prefent State and Condition of Human Life.

THAT Afflictions therefore are the common Portion of all the Sons of Men, Experience does moft largely and fenfibly evince; never was any Man exempted from them, the Air we breath is not more general than they; were any one fo abfurd as to deny their Univerfality, he might be quoted as one Instance at least against fuch his Affertion; tho' were Individuals to be quoted as Inftances our first Parents, and all their Pofterity, would make up but one general Lift of afflicted Perfons Mifery is the Offspring of Sin, and the Entail of it upon Mankind is equally diffufive; nay indeed more fo, for He, who of all the Sons of Men was without Sin, was of all other, the most a Man of Sorrow, and acquainted with Grief. In what View foever we conceive of our Species, into whatever Ranks and Diftinctions we throw them, we can never abstract from them the Circumftance of Calamity; High and Low, Rich and

Poor,

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