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LECTURE LIX.

ROMANS, viii, 28.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

He recurs again in this verse to the topic that he introduced in the eighteenth verse, even to the sufferings of the present time; and, after having contrasted them with the glory and the enlargement of their future prospects, and having adverted not merely to the hope that will be realised then but also to the help that is administered now, he, as a last argument for reconciling his disciples to all the adversities of their earthly condition, affirms that they all work together for their good; that even the crosses and disasters of life are so many blessings in disguise; and that the whole machinery of Providence, in fact, is at work for the accomplishment of a great and beneficent purpose towards them. It, in the first place, is abundantly obvious of many a single adversity—that a great and permanent good may come out of it. This is often verified on the ground even of everyday experience-when the disease brought on by intemperance hath been known to germinate a course of determined sobriety; and the loss by a

daring speculation hath checked the adventurer on his hazardous path, and turned him into the walk of safe though moderate prosperity; and the felt discomfort of a quarrel hath made him a far more patient and pacific member of society than he else would have been; and many other visitations, unpalatable on the instant but profitable afterwards, have each turned out to have in it the wholesomeness of a medical draught as well as its bitterness. Apart from Christianity, or from the bearings which our history on earth has on our preparation for heaven-Man has often found that it was good for him to have been afflicted-that, under the severe but salutary discipline, wisdom has been increased, and character has been strengthened, and the rough independence of human wilfulness has been tamed, and many asperities of temper have been worn away; and he, who before was the boisterous and implacable and unsafe member of society, has been chastened down into all the arts and delicacies of pleasing companionship. And so of many a single infliction on the man who is viewed, not as a citizen of the world that is below, but as a candidate for the world that is above. The overthrow of his fortune has given him a strong practical set for eternity. The death of his child has weaned him from all the idolatries of a scenewhereof the family, the home, the peace and shelter of the domestic roof, formed the most powerful enchantments. Even the dreariness of remorse hath given a new energy to his spiritual frame, and

made him both a more skilful and a more vigilant warrior on the field of contest than before. The tempests of life, if so withstood that they have not overthrown him, will have fastened him more stedfastly to the hold of religious principle. It is thus that the traveller through life is nurtured for the immortality beyond it. He is made perfect by sufferings. He sits more loose to the world, in proportion as he finds less in it to fascinate and detain him. Its very disappointments have the effect of throwing him upon other resources; and, casting away the desires and the delusions of the hope that perisheth, he clings as to the alone anchor of his soul by the hope that abideth for ever. On the scale of infinite duration, a present evil becomes a future and everlasting benefit; and we are at no loss to perceive, how even a calamity, that to the eye looks most tremendous and would overwhelm one of the children of this world in ́despair-how it may work for the good of one of the children of light, by working out for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

But these adverse visitations do not always come singly. The apostle supposes otherwise, as may be gathered from the phrase of all things working together. He supposes in the text, not one single influence from one event alone; but he supposes the mutual or the concurrent influence of two or more events, all verging however towards the one result of good for him to whom they have befallen. It has often been said that misfortunes seldom

come by themselves; and there is no doubt that it often occurs, when one passage of our history is signalised by an accumulation of ills-when, instead of being called upon to measure our strength with one calamity, our attention is shared and distracted among several-when the boding dread of disaster and distress lowrs upon us from more than one quarter of that visible sphere by which we are surrounded-and when we are made the subjects, not of one, but of manifold tribulations. It has often been alleged that the pressure of each distinct calamity is lightened, when the anxiety is thus dispersed and divided among several. I do not think so. I hold it easier to meet with the summoned intrepidity of the bosom one great and nearly overwhelming misfortune,-than it is to have a constant tumult kept up in the spirits, by the ceaseless play of so many petty yet interminable harassments. I hold it a less ineligible condition, to have all the energies of the soul collected and prepared for a mighty shock of adversity, than to have them wasted in the skirmishes of a lighter yet more complicated warfare. I hold it not only an occasion of greater glory, but positively an occasion of greater ease, when one tremendous combatant approaches on whom there hangs the fearful issues of life, or of that which than life is dearer -than when doomed by the stings of an insect tribe to die by inches, or to spend in perpetual annoyance the remainder of your days. And therefore it is well, that, for the comfort of exercised

humanity, deliverance is promised out of six and of seven troubles; and when we are told that the afflictions of the just are many, but that God will extricate out of them all; and when we are bidden to count it all joy, though we should fall not into one but into manifold temptations; and lastly, when we are assured by the apostle that, not merely one, but that all things work together for good unto those who love God. For it is the compounding of one evil thing with another that aggravates so much the distress of each of them; and the sensation of plague or of perplexity increases in a much faster proportion, than the number of them; and, like the problem of the three bodies, one additional element of distress more might make the line of prudence far more difficult, and every plan and every prospect far more inscrutable than before: And thus though each of his cares might be easily provided for, could one meet each with undivided strength, and bend upon it the whole force of his anxiety-yet, from the very multitude of them, might there ensue a general helplessness, that needs to have the precise consolation which is now before us. The mechanism of Providence is made up of so many parts, as often to baffle the comprehension of man-yet all is clear to the eye, and under the sovereign hand of Him who works it; and when we are lost in the bewilderments of a history that we cannot scan, when we are entangled among the mazes of a labyrinth that we cannot unravel, it is well to be told that all is ordered and that all worketh for good.

VOL. III.

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