different
descriptions may yet all turn to nourishment, and minister to health
and bodily strength; so, in the healthy mind, purified and
strengthened by the grace of God's Holy Spirit, every thing that meets
it is converted to its advantage, and adds in some way to its
improvement and its happiness. There is ever a colour cast upon
outward circumstances from the complexion of the inward soul. The vain
man, on his part, the ambitious, the sensual, the gainful, well know
how to turn all to the advancement of their sinful objects; and no
less does the good man turn all to the enlargement of his goodness,
and the lover of his God to the increase and exercise of that love.
Viewing every thing in the glass, or by the lamp of God's word, he
ingeniously, so to speak, finds in every thing a reason for loving and
fearing, serving and obeying God. Every event works for his good,
because he is resolved it shall do so; and every result satisfies,
pleases, rejoices him, because he is persuaded it ought to do so.
Loving God, he has a confidence that he is beloved of God; and then,
feeling himself in a world made by God, and proceeding forward under
his guidance and permission, he never will believe that any thing
falls out in it but what is intended to make him both good and happy.
Happy then he will be, if God intends he should be so; and holy he
will be encouraged to become, under the consciousness that God intends
his holiness.

Dispositions like these will indeed work for their possessor even upon
the hardest materials, and will, by the very force of a new and
spiritual nature, convert all into "servants to righteousness unto
holiness." Faith will be a hand, bringing together the events of life
and the framer and guide of all life and all existence; and the result
will be a solemn and heart-satisfying conviction, that "all things
work together for good to them that love God."

Nor, next, will such a faith prove to be groundless; for surely there
is a _power engaged_, there is a pledge in the gospel, a sure word of
promise, and even of covenant, that all things shall be ours;--"All
are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." The trial of our
faith lies indeed very much upon this one point. Can we, for a moment,
believe that God permits all the disorder and confusion which appears
to us in the world--the prosperity of wickedness, the trials and
adversity of the righteous, in order to raise a doubt on our minds
whether