partakers of his holiness." And which of the saints hath not received
benefit from it? Who among them hath not sometimes been ready to adopt
the language of the psalmist, "It is good for me, that I have been
afflicted."

"Born of the earth, we are earthly"--our afflictions naturally
descend. We are prone to set our affections on temporal things, and
set up our rest where there is no abiding. Therefore do we need
afflictions to keep us mindful of our situation. Such remains of
depravity are left in the renewed, that prosperity often corrupts
them. But for the sorrows and sufferings ordered out to them, they
would forget God and lose themselves among the deceitful cares, and
infatuating allurements of this strange land.

Intervals of comfort are also needful for them. Were these denied
them, "the spirits would fail before God, and the souls which he hath
made." And intervals of light and joy are given to refresh and cheer,
and animate them to the duties required in this land of darkness and
doubt. But they are not intended to satisfy. They answer like ends to
the Christian during his earthly pilgrimage, as the fruits of Canaan,
carried by the spies into the wilderness did to Israel while
journeying toward the land of promise--serve to give them a glance of
the good things prepared for them, to increase their longings after
them, and animate them to press forward and make their way to the
possession.

Such may be some of the reasons of those varied scenes through which
the people of God are doomed to make their way to glory.

Often the saints find themselves unable to penetrate the design of