more perfectly. We should, therefore, go to God under our trials, and ask him " wherefore he contendeth with ush." " In the day of adversity we should consider1;" and be more anxious to derive benefit from the affliction, than to obtain a premature deliverance from its pressure. If we may but be purged from our dross, and come out of the furnace purified as gold, it should be deemed an ample compensation for all our pains ; and should make us thankfully to acknowledge, that " God in love and faithfulness has afflicted usk."]
3. Amendment of life —
[This should be our object, under all the diversified cir- cumstances of our lives. Nothing should be of any importance to us in comparison of this : nor should any pain be deprecated, which may be sent to " purge away our iniquity1, and which may render us, in a more perfect manner, " partakers of God's holiness111." If our " tribulation may but work patience, and experience, and a hope that shall not make us ashamed, and prove an occasion of the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts, we should even rejoice and glory in itn." Nor is it merely the mortification of any besetting sin that we should aim at, but an entire conformity of mind and will to God. We should desire to be " made perfect through our sufferings," even as the Lord Jesus Christ himself was0: and, whether our tribulation be more or less painful in this world, we should be contented to pass through it as " our appointed way to heaven? ;" and be well pleased to " suffer with Christ, that we may hereafter dwell with him, and be glorified together01."]
'» Job x. 2. » Eccl. vii. 14. k Ps. cxix. 75.
1 Isai. xxvii. 9. m Heb. xii. 10. n Rom. v. 3 — 5.
0 Heb. ii. 10. p Acts xiv. 22. <J Rom. viii. 17.