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that this

to attend God's

may stir you up worship, and may the Lord give you to know the day of your visitation, that to day ye may hear Christ's voice, and harden not your hearts! I turn from this most awful theme; praying the Lord may accompany the subject with the power and energy of his. Spirit to your hearts, to contemplate the happiness of such as have their portion in Christ, and his rich grace.

Believers in Jesus having him for their portion, and an enjoyment in their own souls of his rich mercy and grace, they are blessed in their persons, souls, and bodies, which are united to the person of Christ, God-man; who has washed them in his own blood from every spot and stain of sin; presents them in his own righteousness before the throne; and has obtained eternal peace and pardon for them. Their blessedness consists in their being one with Christ, and in his being one with them. Their safety consists in having him their friend, their shield, and defence, in their being saved in him, as well as by him, with an ever

lasting salvation. Under the purple covering of Christ's most precious blood, as wrapt up in his consummate robe of righteousness they are proof against sin, Satan, death, and hell: they live in Christ, and he lives in them, he is to them their beloved friend, their all in all. They in due season die, drop the mantle of mortality, which gives them pleasure. In their dying moments they generally find Christ hath swallowed up death in victory; and that precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Mr. Romaine tells us, never was a day like the present for believers dying in the triumphs of faith, as conquerors over death, their last enemy.' A saint, who lately left this county by death, shouted, "Thanks, everlasting thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory,through our Lord Jesus Christ." Believers die in union with Christ. The Holy Ghost saith "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." Being entered eternity, Jesus presents them before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. When they enter heaven then they see

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Jesus face to face, and inherit glory: their joys are ineffable! and their bliss will increase every moment in eternity. They live in the presence of Christ, see him as he is, have full, uninterrupted communion with him, in the vision of his person as God-man, who is their ordinance to eternity, and who will fill them with all the fulness of God, which will be the perfection of their happiness. I conclude therefore in congratulating you, ye children of the Most High, saying in the words of Moses: "Happy art thou O Israel, who is like unto thee O people, saved of the Lord!" May the Lord the Spirit bless what has been delivered agreeably to his will. Amen.

307

SERMON XIII.

:

JOB VII. 17, 18.

WHAT IS MAN, that thoυ SHOULDEST MAGNIFY HIM? AND THAT THOU SHOULDEST SET THINE HEART UPON HIM? AND THAT TIQU SHOULDest visit hiM EVERY MORNING, and try HIM EVERY MOMENT?

As there is no sort of evil but sin is the cause of it, the introducer of it, and the cause of its continuance in the moral world; so there is no disease, pain, sickness, or affliction, but the people of God are equally liable to it as well as others: nor is there any kind of temporal distress, or malady, but one or other of the Lord's children have been, or are groaning under.

The Lord hath provided salvation for us in Christ Jesus, and hath sent him to take away sin, which is the cause of all sorrow; and it is witnessed of him by the

evangelist, "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Which expresses thus much to us, that as he by bearing sin, bore it off, and away from the persons of his people; so he hath also removed from them all the real evil contained in affliction; as he turns it into a real blessing, by supporting them under it, sanctifying it unto them, making it sometimes a most instructing, a profitable ordinance unto them.

That the real children of the Most High, his favourites and peculiar friends are not exempted from chastisement, affliction, pain, and grief, Job, (who gives title to the book so called, because it treats of him) bears testimony.

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He, though one of God's worthies, a man of whom God himself boasts; though a righteous, holy, and eminent saint, is in the chapter before us represented as peculiarly afflicted. And we have him represented to be, what the Lord's children sometimes are, fretful, impatient, murmuring, and complaining. We are apt, when we hear that the rod of God is upon a believer, to expect of

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