solations of faith. The same sensibility which renders our heart susceptible of chagrin, should open it to grace which soothes and supports it. A good heart has many more resources against afflictions, in consequence of grace finding easier access to it. Immoderate grief is rather the consequence of passion than of the goodness of the heart; and to be unable to submit to God, or to taste consolation in our troubles, is to be, not tender and feeling, but intractable and desperate.
Moreover, all the precepts of the gospel require strength, and if you have not enough to support with submission the crosses with which the Lord pleaseth to afflict you, you must equally want sufficient for the observance of the other duties prescribed to you by the doctrine of Jesus Christ. It requires strength of mind to forgive an injury; to speak well of those who traduce us; to conceal the faults of those who wish to dishonour even our virtues. It requires fortitude to be enabled to fly from a world which is agreeable to us; to tear ourselves from pleasures toward which we are impelled by all our inclinations; to resist examples authorized by the multitude, and of which custom has now almost established a law. Strength of mind is required to make a Christian use of prosperity; to be humble in exaltation, mortified in abundance, poor of heart, amidst perishable riches, detached from all when possessed of all, and filled with desires for heaven amidst all the pleasures and felicities of the earth. It is required to be able to conquer ourselves; to repress a rising desire; to stifle an agreeable feeling; to recall to order a heart which is incessantly straying from it. Lastly, among all the precepts of the gospel, there is not one which does not suppose a firm and noble soul; every where self-denial is required; every where the kingdom of God is a field to be brought into cultivation, a vineyard where toil and the heat of the day must be endured, a career in which continual and valiant combating is required; in a word, the disciples of Jesus Christ can never be weak without being overcome; and every thing, even to the smallest obligations of faith, requires exertion, and bears the mark of the cross, which is its ruling spirit; and if you fail but for an instant in fortitude, you are lost. To say then that we are weak, is to say that the entire gospel is not made for us, and that we are incapable of being not only submissive and patient, but likewise of being chaste, humble, disinterested, mortified, gentle, and charitable.
But however weak we may be, we ought to have this confidence in the goodness of God, that we are never tried, afflicted, or tempted beyond our strength; that the Lord always proportioned the afflictions to our weakness; that he dealeth out his chastisements like his favours, by weight and measure; that in striking he meaneth not to destroy, but to purify and to save us; that he himself aideth us to bear the crosses which he imposeth; that he chastiseth us as a father, and not as a judge; that the same hand which strikes, sustains us; that the same rod which makes the wound, bears the oil and the honey to soften its pain. He knoweth the nature of our hearts, and how far our weakness
