and the new song was put into his mouth; at these seasons he thought that his mountain stood strong, and said, in his prosperity, he should never be moved; yet, afterwards, the Lord saw meet to permit that he should be so far tried, that he concluded himself forsaken, and in this humble, plaintive language, queries, "Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will He be favourable no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? doth His promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Having thus, in the heights and in the depths, experienced preservation and deliverance, this righteous man was instructed to serve the Lord with fear, and to rejoice with trembling; and having witnessed the sufficiency of the Almighty arm, so repeatedly stretched out for his deliverance and protection, he was enabled to say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me." And therefore, when the Lord saw meet to hide His face from him, and suffer fresh probations to attend him, we find him availing himself of

that mercy he had so often experienced; and though he felt deeply at times, and was greatly dejected, yet his faith was so strengthened in Him who had raised him from the sheepcot to be His servant, (and though his house was not so with God, yet He had made with him an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure,) that he could thus address himself in times of deep probation: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God."

Alas! why should that wholesome discipline, which consummate Wisdom hath ever exercised upon those whom He hath made willing to bear every refining operation and turning of His holy hand, seem strange to any of us? Gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity; and indeed, if "it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings;" if He was "a man of sorrows

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and acquainted with grief," is it not “enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord ?"

There are various causes of suffering; there are various baptisms, buffetings, and trials; our different conditions require a different discipline, and the different designs of God upon us require, or make it necessary for us, to be brought under different operations. All the faithful in the several generations wherein the prophets lived, were not brought under those particular, and (for the present) grievous exercises which the prophets were, in order to prepare them for the work whereunto they were called, unto which many learned obedience by the things which they suffered.

It is true, the judgments of the Lord are many times unsearchable, and his ways past finding out. "Who," saith the apostle, "hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor ?" secret things belong to Him; but things which are revealed, to us and to our children. But if all the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs and confessors of Jesus, have, like their

blessed Lord, been men of sorrows and acquainted with grief and entered the kingdom through many tribulations; can we doubt whether the particular trials, siftings, and probations, which God only wise permitted or appointed unto them, were not, to every one of these to whom he appointed them, mercies, mercies, mercies in disguise? Were they not made a means of preservation in His fear, made a means of bringing them nearer to Him, to trust more firmly in, and to rely more entirely upon Him, the only refuge of the righteous in times of trouble? Have not all the afflictions of the righteous been thus sanctified? and will not the endless hallelujah, which these shall have to sing, be unto Him who hath redeemed their souls out of all adversity, and made their garments white in the blood of the Lamb?

Many now, as well as formerly, are the afflictions of the righteous, and from different causes, different in their nature, and different in their degree; but, though hid from mortals, they are all known to God, who careth for them, by whom the very hairs of their head are all numbered, and not one of

them shall fall without Him. Their sighs are all numbered by Him, and their tears are all sealed up in His bottle; why then should Sion say, or why should the watchers on her walls say, "The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me? can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget," saith the Lord, "yet will I not forget thee: behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me." No, verily, "the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers." However unmindful He may seem to be of the distress and danger which threaten them, when the tempest arises, and the enemy breaketh in as a flood, yet in His own time, and that surely is the best time, will He arise, and rebuke both the wind and the waves, and the enemy, for their sakes; and by the effective word of His power, who speaketh and it is done, once more say, "Peace, be still."

But should it seem best to Him, who is wonderful in counsel, and doeth all things