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greatest pleasure and delight. Obleffed and glorious day! when every vicious appetite fhall be extirpated out of our fouls; when nothing fhall remain in us that is oppofite to God, but we shall be perfectly conformed to his holy nature and will! Who would not long for fuch a time? and who would not rejoice in the expectation of it? Well may our apostle call upon chriftians to rejoice evermore; who are begotten again unto a lively hope, through the refurrection of Jefus Chrift from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, referved in heaven for them.

I will conclude this difcourse with an addrefs to two forts of perfons: firft, to christians who are full of trouble and forrow: and fecondly, to wicked and unregenerate men.

I. To chriftians who are full of trouble and forrow. What can you plead in your own defense? Put your felves in the moft miferable condition that you will; yet you are not exempted from an obligation to rejoice. I know of no cafe more wretched than that of perfecution for righteousness fake:

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and yet even in that cafe our Saviour pronounces his followers bleed, and commands them to rejoice, Matt. V. 10-12. Blessed are they who are perfecuted for righteousness fake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Bleffed are ye when men fhall revile you, and perfecute you, and fhall fay all manner of evil against you falfly, for my fake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven. And the apostle Peter putting the fame cafe, inculcates the fame duty. 1 Pet. IV. 12. Beloved, think it not ftrange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though fome frange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Chrift's fufferings.

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Now if chriftians are to rejoice, even under perfecution; then to be fure they fhould do fo under any calamity that is inferior to it: if under greater evils, undoubtedly under those which are less. Poverty fhould not prevent the chriftian's joy. What tho thou art poor in this world: yet thou art rich in faith, and an heir of the kingdom which God hath promifed to them that love him? Tho thou haft no treasure upon earth; yet thou haft a treasure in heaven, where G 4 neither

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neither moth nor ruft doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor fteal. Therefore thou shouldest take up the fong of the holy prophet Habakkuk: and fay, Although the fig-tree shall not bloffom, neither hall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive fhall fail, and the fields fhall yield no meat; the flock ball be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the ftalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my falvation.

Again: Chriftians fhould rejoice, tho they are flighted and defpifed by their fellow creatures. Let the world treat you with as much contempt as it will,

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If

ftill you are beloved of God; he is not ashamed to be called your God; nor Christ afhamed to call you brethren. you serve Chrift, you may depend upon it that you fhall, be honoured of God for our Lord exprefly fays, If any man ferve me, him will my father honour, John XII. 26.

Again: Put the case that you labour under bodily pains and diseases; yet still you cannot plead an exemption from this duty of rejoicing for God defigns these things for your good, and doth hereby manifeft his paternal affection

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for you: For whom the Lord loveth be chafteneth, and Scourgeth every fon whom be receiveth. If ye endure chaftening, God dealeth with you as with fons, for what fon is be whom the father chaften

eth not?

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Once more: If have loft any dear and useful, friends, yet ftill it is your duty to rejoice for God is your portion and happiness, and with him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. In a word, let your circumstances in this world be what they' will, yet it can never be unsuitable for you to rejoice; because you are interested in all the great and precious promises of the gofpel; and neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, fhall be able to Separate you from the love of God which is in Chrift Fefus your Lord.

But there are fome chriftians who are full of doubts and fears; they are in great uncertainty about their spiritual state and condition, and can fcarce tell what clafs to put themselves in, whether that of the converted or unconverted. Sometimes they entertain pleafing imagina

tions concerning themselves, accounting themselves to be the children of God; and at other times they write bitter things against themselves, fufpecting that they are the children of the devil: therefore being so unsettled and divided in their opinion of themselves, they cannot arrive at any settled and habitual joy.

Now I would afk fuch perfons how they expect to have their doubts refolved, and to be fatisfied in this important affair. Do they hope for this in fome extraordinary way; as by a voice from heaven, or by an angel fent on purpose to reveal it unto them, or by fome fecret and powerful impreffion made upon their minds, which fhall fatisfy them of it beyond all poffibility of doubting? If they expect to get information about this matter in any of these ways, they are much mistaken; for God doth not now-a-days make use of fuch methods as these to discover things to his creatures: and with regard to that which we are now fpeaking of, I am fure there is no need that he fhould; because a man may come to the knowledge of it eafily enough, without any fuch methods of difcovery. The word of God furnishes

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