“God is love;” and when the veil of the flesh is laid aside, and we are admitted into His glorious presence, “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is;” { 152} then will our felicity be complete, complete for ever; then, in the fullest sense of the words, we shall be “made perfect in love.” Here then, without a question, our true happiness lies; here is our all: let us pray that we may never lose sight of it; that the desire, now kindled, may never be extinguished; that every “heart may there be fixed, where true joys are to be found, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
SERMON IX. HUMBLE YOURSELVES UNDER THE MIGHTY HAND OF GOD.
_Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God_, _that He may exalt you in due time_.
THERE is nothing, which more peculiarly marks the character of the faithful Christian, than the manner in which he submits himself to the appointments and dispensations of his God. The worldly and carnal spirit either frets and repines under the visitations of misfortune, or is disconsolate and cast down; or, at the best, bears up with a mere animal fortitude against them: it finds no comfort to flee unto, but such as is afforded by the vain world, in which it has already met with vexation und disappointment; and if the world is unable to secure a continuance in prosperity, still less is it able to provide a refuge in the dismal days of sorrow.
So lamentably indeed has this truth been experienced by many, that they have been driven to the fallacious and fatal expedient of attempting at once to drown their cares in intemperance; they have found nothing in the world sufficient to satisfy their reason, or to soothe their irritated feelings; and therefore have destroyed their faculties, that they might not reflect; and cut short the thread of that life, which they imagined themselves unequal to support: and some indeed have had recourse to a more speedy and awful means of delivering themselves from the burden of mortification and grief; ill prepared as they were, their own hand of violence has hurried them into the presence of their Judge. And even they, who have been preserved from these most miserable extremities, have sufficiently testified by their conduct, that the world has nothing satisfactory to offer, for the healing of a wounded spirit, or the removal of a load of sorrow.