you are

suspend more, than on its whole previous existence. What will be its issue? what counsels shall prevail? those of earth, or heaven? What power will triumph? the power of nature, or of grace? What shall be the result? What shall that man do? Afflicted saint, is this your case? are you at this time in that condition of trial on which your whole future happiness or misery may turn? What will you do? Refuse to bear aright the day of trouble,-let the old man prevail,— accuse God of unkindness and severity,-harden your neck against him, and from this day your ruin begins; you will grow worse and worse, till you perish in your affliction. But if, on the other hand, "dumb with silence," or open your lips only to say, "It is the Lord; let him do as seemeth him good"-if chafed and maimed, humbled and bowed down, as you may be, you still refuse to forsake or to deny God, and rather from the heart shall say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him;" then your piety is proved; you are safe; you are one with God; your faith and submission make and show you to be one. It is the proper attitude of a creature who is nothing before God, who is all in all; and you have within you an element of life and blessedness, which, though depressed at present, shall, through that union with him, expand in immortality and bring forth Divine and enduring fruit.

But it is a very important inquiry to make, can such an issue be secured, and how? We venture, my brethren, to affirm it may. Not by any virtue we possess; nor by any strength we can muster. Paul tells us that of ourselves we can do nothing. Peter thought he could walk on the water; he tried in self-reliance, and began immediately to sink. Again, he imagined his love to his Master could not fail, and boasted to what length his constancy would go; but soon denied him with an oath. The Psalmist acknowledges, that if he had had no succour from without, his afflictions would have destroyed him. And are we better, are we stronger than they? By no means. What then are we to do,-where are we to look?

I reply, that He who appoints or sends our trials, alone can enable us to bear them well, and to him we must go. "I cried unto God with my voice. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord.” Christian reader, let it never be forgotten, that it is God that orders the day of trouble, and God that gives the grace by which it is sanctified. A perverse or unbelieving mind may inquire, What then is the use of trial, if the help must come from God; and imagine that he might release us from its endurance, and yet bestow upon us the benefit. Now we acknowledge that one of the great mysteries of moral government is here involved, and that it is in vain for us to attempt to solve the metaphysical difficulty; but the same difficulty attaches to every question of goodness, whether among angels or men; and though we cannot explain it, yet we can see that it must be so. If God be God,

and man be man, he must be the author of all strength, and all grace, and we the recipients. We cannot be independent of him. We could not, if we had never fallen, how much less in an apostate condition! whilst, as a practical matter, nothing is more certain, than that if we were to be exempted from trial,-if we were to have no personal experience of the bitter and the sweet,-of the evil and the good,-of the powers of darkness and of light,-of hell, and earth, and heaven,-but whilst we lay perfectly passive, grace were to be infused into us, as water is poured from vessel to vessel,—the result would yield us no pleasure; the virtue would have in it no excellence or worth. It is the trial of our faith that worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: so that whilst the day of trouble itself is necessary, it is equally necessary that God shall help us in it.

"I cried unto God. . . . in the day of my trouble I sought the Lord," says the Psalmist. This must be our course; we must lay our case before him, as Hezekiah did. We must look beyond human instruments and second causes, and acknowledge, like David, when the reproaches of the wicked fell upon him, God's own hand. We must humble ourselves under his rod, confess our unworthiness and guilt, adore his righteousness, and own his power. Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? we must pray to him and SEEK him. Show me wherefore thou contendest with me! If it be possible, remove this stroke far from me; if it be not possible, help me to bear it, help me to profit by it,-help me to glorify thee under it. But "thy will be done." Our cry must be earnest, our spirit patient. There is no inconsistency here; calling upon God is a solemn duty, and the day of trouble a special season when that duty becomes urgent; and we must not let him go, until he bless us. But with respect to the trial itself, its continuance, its severity, that must be left to his wisdom and goodness; and it is our part patiently to wait, and quietly to hope for salvation from it.

The Psalmist says, "and he gave ear unto me." Nor shall we in like circumstances have cause to complain. "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." He will do "exceeding abundantly for us, above all we ask or think." For a time, the day of trouble may continue dark and gloomy. The mind may be fretted, and the heart may faint. Not only may it seem to be fruitless of the favourable spiritual results, but it may appear to produce in their stead, only rebellion and unbelief, confusion and dismay. But this is only the preparatory process. It is that conflict of winds and waves that precedes the quieting of the waters. Soon the storm will be allayed, the spirit regain its composure, and you will see the Chris

tian gradually brought into that state of enlightened, profound, and holy submission to God, which is above all price. The Holy Spirit, the Divine word, together with the trial through which he is made to pass, are co-operating mysteriously, but certainly, to produce it.

And not only so, but in maturing other graces, and subduing the various evils of the trial, that have hitherto stood in their way. The pride of the heart is subdued, its impatience and fretfulness allayed, its fickleness cured, and its worldliness abated. Faith, at the same time, is established. Divine things are made to grow in our esteem,-Christ is brought more into our thoughts and hearts,-the affections become spiritual and heavenly, and all we now want is, that his mind may be in us, and his image impressed upon us.

This we often see, and admire; but, probably, what affliction does for us here, is but a small part of what it is destined to do. Look at that widow,—she had a son, an only son; a year ago, she followed him to the grave. Then began her day of trouble. From that hour she has never looked up. True, she seems humbled, and submissive; yet how she longs to follow him! and sometimes expresses the fear, that though she feels resigned, the trial has not had upon her the sanctifying effect it ought. But it has not finished its work. She is going to another state; and should we meet her there, we shall probably see, that it wrote a lesson on her heart, which could not be read on earth and that the full effect of such a visitation can be exhibited only in that state, where flesh and blood have no power to hinder our advancement, and to hide from us the glory of God.

Reader, are you a child of God? then

1. Do not hastily conclude that you have no need of a day of trouble. If the things of this life possess so much power over you, that the loss of them irritates your mind, disturbs your peace, and excites discontent, be assured you are not yet fit for your Father's house, and require to be tried.

2. Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing had happened to you. Remember it is said of all those that were "arrayed in white robes," that "they came out of great tribulation."

3. Shrink not like the timid or cowardly child from the needful discipline. Endure hardness as a good soldier. Learn to suffer with Christ.

PATRIMONIAL TRADITION; OR, HOME-MADE PUSEYISM.

"TRADITION! traditions of men! traditions of the elders! traditions of the fathers!" some may exclaim: "what care we about tradition? We are neither papists nor Puseyites, and never read a line of the Oxford tracts, or of the ancient fathers; and what is more, we neither wish, nor intend, to meddle at all with such questions. What we want

to read and hear is, apostolic truth, as it stands in the New Testament. Tradition, if it contradict the apostles, is a liar; and if it either add to, or take away, from their writings, it is a cheat. Besides, our great object is, to get good to our souls from both books and sermons. We have, therefore, neither time nor taste to read tradition, nor to hear it refuted !"

All this would be said by many Christians, and it ought to be said by most; for very few have either scholarship or leisure enough to take any useful part in the present controversy on the subject. I, for one, have not. There is, however, a kind of tradition, to which we are all, more or less, slaves, just as the Jews are to the traditions of the elders, and the papists to the traditions of the Greek and Latin fathers. We inherit some maxims and proverbs from our own fathers, which, although neither heretical nor superstitious in the sense in which Roman or Jewish traditions are so, and although never called traditional, have yet the same kind of bad influence over us. Names, be it remembered, do not alter things; nor denials disprove facts. The law of God is made void or vague in something, and the grace of God abused or misimproved in some way, by every one at times. We do not understand either the spirituality of the eternal law, or the holiness of the glorious Gospel, if we doubt this, or hesitate to confess it with shame and grief. We do confess it, whenever we say that "in all things we sin, and come short of the glory of God." Now, what if some of this sin and shortening arises from false maxims and sophistical excuses, "received by tradition from our fathers?" More of it, no doubt, arises from our own hearts and Satan's temptations; and none of it, certainly, can be excused or palliated by tracing it to either the maxims or example of our fathers. Still, although none of our sins or imperfections can be excused by family tradition, some of them may be accounted for; and, what is better, cured, too, the sooner, by tracing them to their real cause; for whilst all sin has its tap-root in the heart, its stay-roots are habits, examples, and popular maxims.

Did you ever observe, that the faults and defects of our personal character are not very singular, or peculiar to ourselves? Even our besetting sin does not distinguish us from everybody else. Indeed, a habit or a temper which did that, would both startle and terrify us. We could not allow ourselves to act a part in religion, which no one else had even ventured to do. Treacherous as conscience is, and strong as temptation may be at times, neither of them can induce a man to make himself a gazing-stock to his neighbours, by the singularity of his faults. Hardly any one ventures upon an unheard of, or uncountenanced sin, who has any character to lose. We, thus, rather imitate than invent, when we allow ourselves to do wrong. Look at this fact more closely, as I place it in a clearer light. Had we never

seen nor heard of any Christians who took undue liberties with the sanctity of the Sabbath, by worldly conversation, or indulgence,would you or I be the first to introduce business, news, or banqueting into our conversation on the Lord's-day? Had neither a black nor a white lie ever been told in trade, or company, what Christian would venture to tell the first falsehood, even in order to extricate himself from a difficulty? Had no one yet ever ate or drank, but just "to the glory of God," what Christian would venture upon more at table than health required? Had "a dear lover of his money” never yet been seen in the church, who would have the hardihood to set the first example of earthly-mindedness? Had no one, making any pretensions to be a Christian, ever lived in the neglect of the Lord's supper, or kept out of the fellowship of the church, who would like or dare to be the first rebel against the authority of Christ? Had there never been a church in which social prayer was either neglected or thinly attended by the communicants, what church would have the effrontery to set the first example of despising prayer-meetings? Had there never been a dispute in a church, nor a quarrel between brethren, who would feel it safe to be the first peace-breaker in a Christian society?

Now there are both temptations and tendencies to all these sins; but we feel that, however strong they may be, we should not like to be first, nor to lead the way, in any one of these sins. Why, then, are some of them so common? Evidently, because long custom, as well as inherent depravity, keeps them somewhat in countenance. They are ventured upon, because they have always been so, more or less, by many who were, otherwise, not unchristian in their general character.

Thus we, too, as well as papists and Jews, have received not a little of our "vain conversation by tradition from our fathers." In this sense, then, it is still true that "the children's teeth are set on edge, because their fathers have eaten sour grapes." That proverb, God has, indeed, abolished even by oath, so far as the death of the son sprang from the sin of the father. Ezek. xviii. 2; Jer. xxxi. 29. The proverb, however, is only too true, in reference to our tendencies to imitate our fathers, and to imagine that we may safely do what they seem not to have been punished for doing. Oh, how greedily and gladly, alas, we catch at the apparent fact, that certain wrong points in the character and spirit of our fathers, did not unchristianise them in the church, nor seem to prove fatal to them on their death-bed!

If you feel the truth of these hints, and regret for yourself that homemade tradition has betrayed you into habits and tempers which both law and Gospel condemn, do congratulate yourself, and thank God, that patristic tradition, such as the Jewish and popish, or even such as Puseyism is now reviving and commanding, has not betrayed you into doctrinal errors, which would confirm the practical evils entailed on you by popular example and custom. Remember, too, that one part