it.* While, at the same time, we have his solemn assurance, that all aberrations from purity are sin, and that their termination is in misery and ruin— When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.t-Now to Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity-The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be glory and honor, and blessing, and thanksgiving, for ever and ever. Amen. * 1 Cor. x. 13. † James i. 15. LECTURE III. ACTS VII. 9, 10. But God was with Joseph, and delivered him out of all his affliction, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharoah king of Egypt; and made him governor over Egypt and all his house. DARK and mysterious are the ways of Providence; so dark, as to evade the search of human eye, and so mysterious, as to exercise the faith of the most distinguished of the saints. But, amidst all the secret operations of God's government, while his paths are in the great deep of unrevealed wisdom, and "his ways past finding out," this one truth at least we know That all things work together for good to them who love him,* and walk in his commandments. * Rom. viii. 28. If this life were to complete the journey of the human soul-if the seal of death were never to be broken, and the stone from the door of the sepulchre never to be rolled away—then, indeed, we might be led to deprecate many of the decrees of the Almighty, and it might astonish us, that we should ever see his holiest servants in trouble and adversity. But Revelation hath made us wiser, in teaching that the career of mortality is but a race, in which the prize of immortality is to be won-that the life of man is but a short state of trial and probation, to fit him for the enjoyment of a better and more exalted nature; so that affliction itself is thereby converted into a blessing, and happy is the man whom God correcteth, for we know, and are assured, that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every soul whom he receiveth.* Even things in the natural * Hebrew xii. 6. |