THE SECURITY OF ALL GOd's PEOPLE.
Amos ix. 9. Lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve ; . yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
THOUGH God does not see fit to preserve his people wholly from national calamities, yet he inter- poses, either to lighten their afflictions or to sanctify them to their good. Daniel and the Hebrew youths were carried captive with their nation ; yet were they eminently protected by that God whom they served : and Jeremiah, though not raised to any exalted sta- tion, was on many occasions marked as an object of God's incessant care and attention. The Prophet Amos was commissioned to foretell the dispersion of Israel which began in the Assyrian captivity, and was completed at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans : but the God of Abraham promised by him, that he would be mindful of " his hidden ones," and deliver them from the evils to which the profligate and secure should surely be exposed.
There are now, as well as in former ages, sifting times, (if we may so speak,) both to the Church at large, and to the individual members of it : and the same distinguishing regard is still, though less visibly, manifested by God to his dear children ; not the smallest of whom shall ever be overlooked. To illustrate this truth we shall shew,
I. By what methods God sifts his people —
God sees that a state of perfect ease would by no means conduce to his people's welfare ; and therefore he suffers them sometimes to be agitated,
1. By outward afflictions —
[Persecution is the common lot of all who live godly in Christ Jesus : and this, together with other trials common to the world at large, is made use of to separate the godly from the ungodly, and to purify them from the corruptions that cleave to them in their present state. While the world smiles upon us we are too ready to seek its friendship by sinful com- pliances; and when wc enjoy an entire freedom from troubles,