may be found in him to the utmost extent of our necessities. Nothing but mercy properly flows from him: "judgment is his strange act," which is never called forth, till mercy has been as it were exhausted. Judgments are his servants ; but mercies are his children, in whom is all his delight*^. As for comfort, he is the God of it, " the God of all comfort." Were his will complied with, there would be nothing but comfort in the whole universe : it would flow from him as light from the sun; so free, so rich, so abundant would be his communications of it to every soul. Let the afllicted, of every name and every class, only go to him, and he will approve himself " the com- forter of all them that are cast down," and " the God of that particular comfort" which they need; as if all his perfections and all his powers centered in that point alone, and were exerted to their utmost extent for the relief of their particular wants.
Such is the view which we should at all times have of the Deity. If we regard him only as a Lawgiver and a Judge, we have no better apprehensions of him than Satan himself has. It is our privilege to know him, not merely in the terrors of his majesty, but in all the endearments of his love and mercy.]
With this beautiful description of the Deity the Apostle combines,
IL His thanksgiving to him —
Great and manifold were the tribulations which he was called to sustain —
[The whole world, both of Jews and Gentiles, seemed to be confederate against him. Every man, with the exception of those who were converted by his ministry, was his enemy, and sought his destruction ; insomuch that he was in daily, and hourly, expectation of a violent death ^ From the Church itself too he endured much. The false brethren, who laboured incessantly to undermine his influence, and to create dissensions in the Church, were a source of continual sorrow to his mind. Nor was he free from internal trials also, which caused him great uneasiness. What " the thorn in his flesh" was, we do not exactly know : but he regarded it as a " messenger of Satan, sent to buffet him ;" nor could he find any relief from the anguish it occasioned, till he was assured, in answer to his repeated and earnest cries, " that a sufficiency of grace" should be imparted to him, and that " Christ's strength should be perfected in his weakness."
Not that these trials were peculiar to him: he felt them
<> Mic. vii. 18. el Cor. xv. 30, 31.