SERM. adversity, shall meet with our esteem and I. approbation. The truth indeed is, the value of this bleffing, like that of every other, is found only by its abfence; and we seldom know the true value of humanity and compaffion, till we come to feel the want of them. But laftly, and to conclude. If we are kind, tender, and affectionate to our friends and neighbours in the trying hours of sickness and adverfity, we shall not only meet in return with their pity and attendance on us, when we fall into the like calamity, but we shall alfo find a better and more powerful friend than this world can afford to aid and support us. Our bleffed Saviour hath himself affured us, that in as much as we fhew this tenderness and humanity towards our fellow-creatures, we fhew it unto I. unto him. If the naked whom we have SERM clothed fhould not remember the benefit bestowed, he will himself discharge the debt, and repay us for them. If the fick whom we have vifited, when restored to health, ungratefully forget the friendly visitor, he will not forget, but will come himself to return the obligation; the Lord himself will make our bed in sickness; he will enable us with courage to bear with strength, perhaps to conquer, the disease, when we have ftruggled through forrow, pain, fickness and adverfity. He will lead us to a bleffed habitation, where there fhall be no pain or adverfity, no diseases to afflict the body, no forrow to deprefs the mind, where joys untainted and incorruptible fhall meet, where health unimpaired and uninterrupted fhall finally and everlastingly reward us. SERM. I. To thofe glorious and eternal mansions of celestial happiness, after all our fickness, pain, and forrow here, may the God of peace, health, and joy, conduct us all, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Lord. |