ed a snare to many, prosperity to more. Hazael was amazed to hear that as a monarch he would do that, which as a subaltern he abhorred, and indignantly replied to the weeping Seer, "Is thy "servant a dog that he should do such a thing?" But elevated by success, as the chaff is raised by the wind, he became vain and violent, and his character and comfort were driven as before the wind; and notwithstanding his loud professions, he was found wanting and worthless.*

The man after God's own heart, was tossed and agitated by the astonishing changes in his circumstances; sifted as corn in a sieve, he rose and rapidly fell, and rose again; but as the true grain, he was preserved, and in a sense, well understood by the sinner, but difficult to explain to the uninitiated in experimental godliness, he could appeal to the searcher of hearts, and say, "I have not wickedly departed from my God."

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There are temptations which chiefly affect the mind-Satanic assaults, which can only be referred to intelligently by such as have known the hour and power of darkness; the inward conflict, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers; with the rulers of the darkness of this world; with

* 2 Kings, viii. 10.

spiritual wickedness in high places. In this warfare, many strong men have fallen; yet have they risen again, nor has their enemy long rejoiced over them. He who tempted our Lord, will not fly from us his feeble servants, and if such things were done in the green tree, what is it not, that our fears suggest, may occur in the dry ?

Revert, my experimental hearers, to those seasons of woe, when the waters of a full cup were wrung out unto you; the bitterness of the wormwood and gall your souls have ever in remembrance. The enemy came in as a flood; terrors assailed you on every side; your iniquities went over your head; He that you expected would have comforted you, was far away; it was indeed dark, and Jesus was not come unto you; oppressed with corporeal infirmity, bowed down with mental dejection, and overwhelmed with spiritual distress, you were even tempted to draw the sword and kill yourself;-at least, though detained from the awful act, your soul chose strangling rather than life; Satan sifted you as wheat ;-but interested in the effectual fervent prayer of the Righteous Man which ever availeth; cheered by the voice that in the interval of the stormy blast which fulfilled his word; said, "It is "I, be not afraid:" now, extricated from every difficulty, you smile at dangers passed, and gratefully acknowledge, that though winnowed as wheat,

you, even you—the least grain (and such are you in lowly self-estimation) have not fallen to the earth.

III. Adverse occurrences-trouble to which man is born, as sure as wheat is destined to be winnowed, may next be considered as the sieve by which Israel is sifted.

Personal adversity tries the character; as for me my feet had well nigh slipped. "For I was envi"ous at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of "the wicked. Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.

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Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and "washed my hands in innocency. For all the day "long have I been plagued, and chastened every "morning. If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I "should offend against the generation of thy chil"dren. When I thought to know this, it was "too painful for me, until I went into the sanc"tuary of God; then understood I their end."* A wound which brings a domestic animal to our feet, will make the wild, fly into the thickest recesses of the forest. One and the same occurrence and address induced Orpah to leave the disconsolate Naomi, called Mara, in memorial of her grief,

* Psalms, lxxiii. 2, 3, 12—17.

and Ruth to say, "Thy people shall be my people, " and thy God my God." * Of two who occupied the same bed, adversity carried one, by the violence of its blasts, so far as to say, "Curse God and die:" while the other rested on the Lord and declared, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."†

Relative afflictions winnow our families, and we learn who are truly the Lord's chosen, and who, when he arises, shall be driven as chaff before the wind. "And it came to pass after these things, "that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, "Abraham. And he said, Behold, here I am. And " he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, "whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of "Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering "on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. "And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and "saddled his ass, and took two of his young men “with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood "for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto "the place of which God had told him. Then on "the third day Abraham lifted his up and saw eyes, "the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his

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young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I "and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come "again to you. And Abraham took the wood of

"the burnt-offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son ; " and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and "they went both of them together. And Isaac "spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My fa"ther: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he "said, Behold the fire and the wood; but where is "the lamb for a burnt-offering? And Abraham "said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb "for a burnt-offering: so they went both of them

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together. And they came to the place which "God had told him of: and Abraham built an altar "there, and laid his wood in order; and bound "Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the "wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, "and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel "of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and "said, Abraham, Abraham! And he said, Here am ❝I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, "neither do thou any thing unto him: for.now I "know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not "withheld thy son, thine only son, from me." Instances on this subject multiply to every recol

lection.

Churches have their winnowing times;-unholy doctrines; splendid talents, unaccompanied with personal purity in her priests, and those who

* Genesis, xxii. 1-12.