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النشر الإلكتروني

On the Duty of Refignation.

In two SERMONS.

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JOB II. 10.

Shall we receive Good at the Hand of God, and fhall we not receive Evil?

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HESE are the Words of Job, SER. XII. when reduced from the Height of Profperity, to the lowest Depth of Mifery. When Calamities, a dire Train, fucceeded one after another his Wife, haraffed by Misfortunes, advises him to put an unnatural Period to his Life. But he, with that unconquered Spirit, which neither his former Profperity had foftened, nor his present Misfortunes had broken, replied, Thou talkeft like one of the foolish, or irreligious Women: For fhall we, Beings of a mixed Character, expect pure VOL. I.

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and

SER. XII. and unmixed Happiness from our Creator?

Shall we, who de fo much Evil, refufe to fuffer any which he fends? Shall we receive Good at the Hand of God, and shall we not receive Evil?

How mean and unmanly, in Comparifon of Job's, is the Behaviour of that gloomy Race of Mortals, who have Recourse to the Inftruments of Death under any fevere Affliction, who launch out into another World, weary of the Pleasures, or impatient under the Pains of this? Who without Understanding the Value of Life, or the true Ends of Living, contemptuously return back to God the Prefent, which he has made: As if, what he, the Author of every good Gift, had beftowed, was a Trifle not worth the keeping?

Their Friends may view with weeping Eyes, and even an unrelenting Crowd with fome Concern, a mangled and disfi gured Carcafe: But Men of larger Views will extend their Reflections farther, and lament the Miseries of a wounded Spirit, which has rushed unprepared into the Prefence of an incenfed Deity. A ghaftly Corpfe will give them the leaft Touches of Compaffion: But to confider the Cafe of

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a Soul, that has done a Fact which leaves no SER. XII. Room for Repentance, that has plunged itself into an Abyfs of endless Mifery; to confider that a new Light is probably let in upon the unbodied Mind, a Light more sharp, powerful, and piercing, than even that Inftrument, which diffolved the vital Union, and divorced the Soul from the Body; this is what will make the deepeft Impreffions upon any thinking Spectator. God has joined Soul and Body together: And what he has joined together, let no Man, unauthorised by him, put asunder. Ta commit Self-Murder is an abfolute Defiance, or a defperate Disbelief of his Providence. It is to difmifs ourselves from this ftate of Probation, before God thinks fit to difmifs us: It is in Effect to tell him, we will not patiently endure the Chastisements, which he wifely inflicts.

Not fo holy Job: He confidered, that he, who fent him into the World, alone knew when he had fulfilled thofe Ends, for which he fent him: That he alone therefore was a competent Judge, when he was to be discharged from any further Service here, and to be admitted to a better State. All my appointed Time, fays he, X 2

will

SER. XII. will I wait, till my Change come.

It is a

hard Matter to determine, whether in Profperity he relieved the Wants of others more generously; or in Adverfity bore his own Miseries more patiently. In the former Cafe, he was a Father to the Fatherlefs, he made the Bleffing of him that was ready to perish, come upon him: And in the latter Cafe, he could reflect; Naked came I into the World, and naked fhall 1 return: The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

To fuffer undauntedly, fhews a greater Strength of Mind, than even to act greatly. For to act greatly depends upon a brifker Flow of Spirits, and a warmer Ferment of the Blood: But to fuffer undauntedly, requires an uncomplying Integrity, and a determinate Firmness of Mind. And therefore we have Examples of those, who have dared nobly in the Field of Battle, and yet have shewn a cowardly Dejection of Mind, when Death has approached them flowly and gradually in all it's Pomp of Terrors upon a fick-Bed or a Scaffold. A fudden Flush of Courage might animate them in the former Cafe:

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