appear even from our text : for Heman, who was eminent for Ins piety, declares, that he had been so " afflicted from his youth up.'^ And where did he attain this extraordinary piety, but in the school of affliction ? Whilst others were intent on pleasure, he, by his troubles was led to study his own heart, and to seek an acquaintance with his God ; and thus he gained a knowledge which well repaid him for all that he endured. And it is a well- known fact, that those who are most exercised with spiritual troubles, are usually best instructed in " the deep things of God."
It is evident, then, that pious souls may be reduced to great distress, and that, in fact, many in every age are really so re- duced ; some through constitutional infirmity ; some by means of accumulated offiic ions; and some by an irretrievable loss of character consequent on some heinous transgression : some are brought into it by the assaults of Satan, and some by the wise and gracious appointment o/' their God.']
Let us now turn our attention to,
II. The reflections wiiich naturally arise from the subject —
And,
1 . How great is the evil and bitterness of sin — [If there had been no sin, there would have been no sorrow. Sorrow is the fruit of sin ; the fruit which immediately sprang up, as soon as this root of bitterness was planted in the human breast. Till Adam fell, he enjoyed the sweetest intercourse with his Creator : but, after his transgression, instead of going forth as before to meet his God, he fled from his face, and strove to hide himself. From that moment has the whole world become a " Bochim," a land of weeping and of mourning^. Sorrow is that inheritance to which every child of man is born : and, even if any be truly converted unto God, still, as long as they con- tinue in this vale of tears, they will, at a greater or smaller di- stance, be followed by two inseparable attendants, " sorrow and sighing :" and it is only when they shall arrive at the portals of heaven, that joy and gladness will be their sole companions : then indeed, but never till then, will that Scripture be fulfilled, "They shall obtain joy and gladness; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away'." How fearfully the minds even of good men may be oppressed, by a sense of God's displeasure against sin, will appear from the experience of David ; who " ate ashes like bread, and mingled his drink with weeping, because of God's in- dignation and wrath''." And it yet more forcibly appears from the complaints of Job : " Thou scarest me with dreams, and ter-
rifiest
*' Judg. ii. 4, 5. ' Isai. xxxv. 10.
" See Ps. xxxviii. 1, 2. & cii. g, 10.