follow me and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.” (John x. 27.) ---Now, if Satan rage, and sin grow strong, we are not at all dismayed: "for," "for," as the Apostle said before us, "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have cominitted to him against that day" (2 Tim. i. 12)-as if he had said, If the devil can conquer Christ, and pluck him from his throne in heaven, then I shall think myself in danger; but till then, I bid defiance to all his power and malice: the great Captain of my salvation will bruise Satan under my feet shortly, and deliver me, not only from danger, but from my fears too. Great encouragement this to tempted Christians! You have a friend in heaven, who ever liveth, making intercession for you. While you are struggling below, Christ is praying for you above. The storm is gathering sometimes a great while before it falls; but we think nothing of it, and go on quite thoughtless and secure, till it darts over our head and surprises us at a disadvantage; and the consequences would be fatal, if our ever-watchful Guardian did not foresee the intended mischief, and counterwork the designs of our enemy: "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." (Luke xxii. 31.) 3. Heavy afflictions. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, per sonal, family, and public. Sometimes God visits them with one, sometimes with another; and sometimes they come altogether, and threaten to "overturn, overturn, overturn," till they have not left one earthly comfort upon another that shall not be thrown down.-In such trials, what have the generality to trust to? Why, if it be bodily sickness they are visited with, they trust to the physician: Oh, he is one of the most skilful men of his profession I can safely trust my life in his hands. He is particularly famous for this disorder under which I now labour; and I do not doubt but he will cure me.' In other trials, they say unto gold, Thou art my hope; and to fine gold, Thou art my confidence: let what will happen, so long as I have money I do not fear buying comfort.' In the prospect of national calamities, they trust to their fleets and armies: So many ships here-so many there the enemy dare not invade us!' Experience, dear-bought experience, hath often proved all these to be refuges of lies: and yet we trust them again. Depend upon it, the only safe hiding-place in troublesome times is, The man Christ Jesus. I do not mean that he will always screen you from trouble, or presently deliver you out of it; there is a "need be," sometimes, that you should be" in heaviness, through manifold temptations." Many, when they are smarting under the rod, are apt to say, If God had taken away any other of my comforts, I could have borne it. If it had not been for this, or that, circumstance in my trouble, I should not have minded it.' Why, then the afflic tion would have done you no good: you would have despised the chastening of the Lord; or, at least, you would not have been rouzed by it to that humble dependence upon God, and that thorough knowledge of yourselves, which this smarting trial was intended to bring you to.-Afflictions show both sin and duty; and surely it is a mercy to have them pointed out to us now, while we have time and means to set things to rights. Christ, therefore, might well say, though sometimes we find it hard to receive it, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." (Rev. iii. 19;) for though he gives them pain, he never does them hurt. If sufferings for Christ abound, our consolations by Christ abound so much more: insomuch that the Apostle could say, "Therefore I take pleasure, in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong," (2 Cor. xii. 10.) And many afflicted saints have thought and said so too: when deep called unto deep, and all God's waves and his billows threatened to go over them, they betook themselves to Christ; and there, as in an ark, they were safe and comfortable. The true believer can see this and the other comfort taken from him, or so embittered that he can take no pleasure in them; yet, with Christ in his arms, he can smile, and sing, "I have all, and abound;" and, whilst he stands on the embers of the burnt world, he claps his hands, and with exultation cries, I have lost nothing!' 4. The hour of death. That is a trying time, which we must all pass through. If we should escape all the other storms that have been mentioned, we must come to Jordan has meosque suT །། at last. And the passage is many times tedious and tempestuous: many things concur to make it so: "The pains, the groans, the dying strife;- the parting with houses and estates, with family and friends, and every thing we loved in this life; -and, what is of infinitely greater consequence, the thought, that, in a few hours, we are to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to give an account of the things done in the body, and to receive according to what we have done, whether it be good or whether it be evil.-To those that die in their sins; who are total strangers to renewing and sanctifying grace; who never knew any thing about repentance or forgiveness; who never thought it worth their while to seek an interest in Christ, and who, therefore, have no Advocate to speak for them at the bar of God:-to them, the hour of death must be dreadful indeed!-And even real Christians often find it a severely trying season: for, besides all the pains and faintings of nature, the enemy, taking advantage of their weakness and confusion, throws in his fiery darts; revives old charges; accuses them of old sins, which they know they did commit, but which they hoped had been forgiven. He holds these up with infernal malice, as if he hoped thereby to prejudice the Judge of all the earth against them; he endeavours to raze foundations; persuades them that they were never truly converted; that God was never thoroughly reconciled to them; that Christ was never formed in them; and that they have been all this while building upon the sand, walking in a vain show, and have disquieted themselves in vain. The uproar and anguish that these suggestions have caused in many dying saints is inexpressible.Now what is the best covert in this tempest? Whither must a person in the agonies of death look for comfort? The world cannot help him if he had his house full of gold it would not give so much as a momentary ease to his tortured body or his aching heart. Friends cannot help him: they pity him, they weep over him, they wish him safely through; but their tender soothings only serve to increase his distress. No: he looks on his right hand, and on his left, but refuge fails him ;-but-" a man shall be a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest:" "Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are; And breath my life out sweetly there." "O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law: but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. xv. 55.)—Yes; Christ hath taken out the sting; and, from a curse, turned it into a blessing, to all his followers. The soul need not be afraid of death; for it is thereby brought nearer to Christ, and introduced to infinitely greater honour and happiness than in this world it could enjoy— absent from the body, and present with the Lord: And the body need not be afraid of death ; "for our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to |