walking closely with him, doth mightily disappoint the expectation of those who wait for their halting, that they may blaspheme, and when God's people see how the expectations of their enemies are disappointed, it causeth them more abundantly to magnify sustaining grace, and to give glory to God. Now it brings also great glory to Christ: for Christ is the way in which true faith loveth to walk in all holy obedience. 2d. It tends to give God's people great joy and peace in believing. When the husbandman soweth, he hopeth to reap. The Christian also hath the promise to reap, if he faint not. Many are the evils which make up the appointed lot of a Christian here below. Now a close walk with God, gives him to see an end in all those evils, and a blessed fruit arising from them: for "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bear"ing precious seed, shall doubtless come again "with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him," Psalm. cxxvi. 6. Doth the world know any thing of a godly sorrow, producing fruit unto life everlasting? By no means. It is the privilege of Christians: it is their privilege to pray for it. It is their privilege to have it in answer to those prayers which rise up in faith on the sufferings of the cross. Now this closer walk with God here below, is productive of another blessed effect, which is another worthy subject of our prayers; viz. B b 9th. We may pray for a brighter prospect of being with God hereafter. Death is a solemn thing even when contemplated in its mildest forms. Doth a man form prospects, schemes and plans for future years? Death stares him in the face, and stops him with repeated warnings of its approach. It blasts his prospects, counteracts his schemes, overturns his plans, and strikes him with awe at the thoughts of dissolution. Doth even the good man lay plans for more glorifying God, and doing more general good; death speaks that time may not be granted; nay, sometimes comes and takes its planning victim. But the righteous hath hope in death. If the wicked contemplate God with any awe of his moral excellencies, they tremble, and either believe or desire that there be no future being. But God's people hope. O blessed hope; full of immortality and eternal life. This animates their addresses at his throne, sooths their sorrows, comforts their hearts, and smooths the rugged path of life in which they tread. Lastly, We may pray in the name of Christ for the realising of that bright prospect for ever and ever. What God hath given through the covenant of grace in Christ Jesus, is irreversibly given to all Christ's seed. Yet the remains of sin in God's people, often make faith to waver, hope to hang its head, and joy to hang its harp upon the willows; and if renewed visitations of God's Spirit, did not retouch their expiring graces, the sun of their peace would soon set for ever. But this, God graciously doth in the hearts of his people. Now if the irreversibility of God's gifts to his people, be considered, what joy for those who feel within a wicked heart. O blessed truth, I rest upon it. It is the joy and rejoicing of my sinful soul: hear it stated: " For this is the covenant “that I will make with the house of Israel after "those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws "into their mind, and write them in their hearts; " and I will be to them a God, and they shall be "to me a people. And they shall not teach every "man his neighbour, and every man his brother, "saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be "merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins "and their iniquities will I remember no more," Heb. viii. 10, 11, 12. Now if our sins and iniquities are to be remembered no more, we have every ground to expect the realising of the prospect of being with God for ever and ever. Yet as I observed just before, seeing that faith and other divine graces do often droop because of the remains of sin, so we may pray for the realising of this prospect, not because it can be lost and regained, forfeited and merited, by every act of sin, or of holiness; (for then we could be not safe till death, and if after a Christian's toil, his last act was an act of sin, he must experience the pains of hell for ever; but what is given of God is irreversibly given, as observed before, settled eternally, so that our prayers cannot bring it to us); but we pray for the realising of it, that we through the Spirit, may pray down unbelief, and all the works of darkness striving in us: believing that if God hath given a little light, it is the earnest of an eternal day; a little liberty it is the foretaste of perfect freedom: a little peace; it is the dawning of those pleasures which are at his own right hand for evermore. 21st. Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. John xvi. 20. Sorrow has in it something uncongenial to the mind of man. In a state of innocence it must be so: for sin is the only source of sorrow, whether in man or fallen angels. When Adam beheld the face of his God walking among the trees of the garden, and beheld it in the conscious integrity of his own heart, what could he feel of sorrow, either of body or mind? Sorrow is a curse entailed both upon Adam and Eve. "Unto the woman he said, I will "greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy concep"tion; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast "hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast "eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, 66 saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of "it all the days of thy life," Gen. iii. 16, 17. Now a few words shall be spoken of sorrow as a curse, before I speak of a Christian's sorrow and his happy deliverance therefrom. Sorrow sent as a curse must heighten sorrow :' and none but those who are callous in unbelief and, hardness of heart, but must feel their sorrow heightened by the curse that attends it. Take for instance, sickness and bodily pain; the mind feels the sore; the spirits sink under the anguish of the body. This is sorrow: but the mind reflects: this sorrow This is redoubled and the knowledge it Now of sorrow as a curse, these two things may be briefly spoken. It is, 1st. Entailed upon all our first parent's descendants; and 2d. On the ground, and on all its productions. 1st. Upon all their descendants. Now as the woman was first in the transgression, so this part of the curse more particularly falls on man, through Eve. And be it observed also that by this means, no one of the human race can escape its influence; " in sorrow thou "shalt bring forth children." Now if this sorrow was the fruit of sin, and Eve was then a sinful as well as sorrowful woman, it follows that all her offspring must be brought forth in sin, as well as in sorrow: for how can the same effect be produced |