urs to that end, they should be able to turn to good
all the events of this mortal life. If _he_ do not temper the trials
of his servants, how in truth shall they overcome them? If _he_ do not
controul their enemies, how shall they ever escape them? Figure to
yourself any place, or time, or circumstance, where God is not, or
where he _can_ be spared from the concerns of his people, either
temporal or spiritual: but, if none can be imagined or assigned, then
is it but justly and essentially true, that, by his especial order and
his immediate appointment, "all things work together for good to them
that love God."

III. But we may proceed, lastly, to show, in a practical manner, _some
of those very things_ which shall thus work together for good. Take
the most unpromising and most unfavourable case, for instance, that of
_great prosperity_. None will deny it to be a case of many others the
most trying to the graces of the true Christian. Yet even shall the
temptations arising from worldly honours and successes, to a man armed
with the love of God, work together for good. Graces rarely exercised
in exalted stations, shall be found to shine the more conspicuously in
his instance. The grace of humility, and tenderness of spirit, shall
be the more eminently illustrated in that station, where, too often,
there is only pride and hardness of heart. If he be found, in a sober,
self-denying spirit, setting little value on those things so commonly
called good amongst mankind--using this world without abusing
it--shall not the grace of God be more abundantly magnified? When not
overcome, as Agar feared he might be, saying, "lest I be full, and
say, who is the Lord?"--but rather, when led by fulness to more
gratitude, and by a lofty station to deeper humility, and to a more
lowly submission to God, and meekness to man--how will he by such
prosperity as this testify to the reality of Christian principles: how
will he, in giving freely where he has freely received, esteeming even
his highest gains as loss for Christ's sake, and returning upon others
all that mercy which has been exercised towards himself, prove that
_he_ has not received the grace of God in vain; but that even
prosperity has "worked together for good to them that love God."

Or, suppose the case of _deep adversity_--suppose the Christian
stripped, like Job, of great honours and possessions at a single
stroke; betrayed and sold like Joseph, even by brethren, into bondag