Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON XTI. RESIGNATION JAMES IV. 7. SUBMIT YOURSELVES THEREFORE UNTO GOD. There is no view in which Christianity appears more interesting, than in its adaptation to a state of frequent disappointment an'd affliction. There is in it nothing of proud and cold indifference. It calls us not to annihilate our feelings, but only to regulate them; and it meets them, when wounded, with healing and consolation. We are nowhere taught that grief is forbidden, or that sorrow is criminal. Insensibility is never represented as a virtue; tears were not given us never to be shed; friends were not bestowed to be received without affection or be lost without regret. We are not either ungrateful or reprehensible because we mourn when the hand of God is upon us. The character of Jesus was not stained when he wept over the tomb of him whom he loved; and like him, we may xa?j YYa.V,S£ .te. possible,ie cup of suffering may pass from us, if we in add like him, " Not my will but thine be )ne." This is the temper which Christianity rjoins, and which in affliction we ought to laintain: neither to despise the chastening of le Lord, nor to faint in despair under his re- uke ;—but to look up to God, though it may e with a broken heart, yet with feelings of evout submission, and humble confidence and ope. Do you ask why we ought in suffering to herish such a temper? 1. Consider, in the first place, the character nd providence of God, and you will see the rea-. Jnableness of a filial resignation. To whom are re exhorted to be submissive ? Not to a Being rhose character we know not, whose good- ess we may doubt, or whose mercy we have ever experienced; but to the Creator and ather of all. Look abroad on his works, and Jarn in what character he manifests himself to is creatures. Observe with wha...