are all making for you ; your good is al- ready working by all these things. See, Christians, what an harvest of blessednesa is growing up to you, out of this promise. The seed is already sowing, — your good ia already working, — God is at work, the whole creation is at work, — men and angels, — good men and bad men, — friends and e- nemies, — heaven, and earth, and hell, — are already engaged to work your good.
(2.) They work together, that is, as soma understand it, they work together with God. All these second causes work togeth- er with the first cause: or as others, they work together amongst themselves. There is such a concatenation and concentring of all these second causes, in the same design, that however they seem to thwart, and cross, and destroy some of them, what the others build and advance, yet they are all united in their end ; they jointly contribute to the weal of the saints. Though, if I mistake not, this latter be the best sense of the two : yet I know no reason, why both may not be understood. In the hand, and under the conduction of providence, all these lower things concur and co-operate in the good of the church. By the way, observe what an harmony there is in all the works of providence. The most cross and thwarting occurrences do all conspire, and go hand in hand, to bring about the same end. As the diff"ering virtues of va- rious drugs do all concur to make up the
crites, to purge out the chalf from the wheat, j medicine : as the differing sounds of several
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SELECT SERMONS.
strings or instruments, do ultogetlier make up the melody: as the differing colours in a picture, the dark as well as the brighter, do jointly contribute to the beauty of the piece : no less do the most contrary, and contradictory actions and events, both make up the beauty of providence, and jointly subserve that one end, to which, by an un- seen hand, and an all-seeing eye, they are directed and intended.
2. The evil things that befall the saints, come upon them to keep out worse things. Wherever the cross comes, if it had not come, something worse might. The cross may be a means to secure from the curse ; the curse was slain on the cross of Christ, and our cross also hath its use, to the de-
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livering us from it : 1 Cor. xi. 32. are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world," Perisu7n nisi periise?n, — I had died, if I had not suf- fered. It is more men's cases, besides his that spake it ; it is no bad exchange to have a cross instead of a curse.
3. The evil things of the saints prepare them for bettor things ; that they may work good for them, they are working them to good; working out their sin and iniquity, wearying tliem of sin, Hosea ii. 6., " I will liedge up her way with thorns, then shall she say, I will return." Sin brought in afflictions into the world, and afflictions help to carry sin out ; the cross, to which sin was once nailed, is now nailed to sin ; the saints can seldom be meddling with sin, but they find it too heavy for them. Our Lord beats the devil with his own weapons ; by those very means purging his saints, by which he endeavoins to pollute them ; mak- ing those very persecutions, by which he labours to force them from holiness, to fix them in it. Christians, comfort your hearts ; those floods that are cast against you, shall but wash you the whiter, and make you more meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light ; your purgatory pre- pares you for your Paradise. No unclean thing must enter in thither ; and you are not like to be made so clean, as by falling into the hands of the unclean. The saints never look so well, like sheep come from the washing, as when they come up from tlie pots, their very black makes tliem comely.
O Christians ! what a comfort would it be, if your experiences might come in, and sea, to this truth ; if you could say, thus it hath been with me ; " Before I was afflicted I went astray :" I was proud, and vain, and wanton, and slothful, and caj'nal, " but now have I kept thy word."