Who is weak,

care of all the churches. and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things, which concern mine infirmities. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not "."

.

From a man, thus constituted, and thus circumstanced, the declaration in my text comes with peculiar efficacy. Had it been delivered by such persons, as those with whom we have been contrasting St. Paul, any one disposed to question its value, might have found a ground for his carelessness with respect to it, in the character or condition of the speaker. In the man of pleasure or the man of retirement he might have attributed it to an ignorance of what human sufferings are; in the Stoic he might have ascribed it to a real or affected insensibility to them. But when he, who from the circumstances of his situation was peculiarly exposed to affliction, and from the constitution of his nature was

2 Cor. xi. 21-31.

peculiarly sensible of it, declares, that to him all human sufferings appear light and of no serious moment; we cannot but attach to the declaration the value which it then seems to deserve, and contemplate with admiration that glorious recompense, the very hope of which could effectually blunt the sting of the keenest sufferings in a mind of the most lively sensibility.

And in truth although this holy Apostle displays such uncommon fervour, when he speaks of that eternal and glorious reward "which God hath prepared for them that love him ;" and although it may not fall to the lot of many even of the most pious and devout Christians, to be able to speak of and to endure with such perfect indifference "the sufferings of this present time;" yet strange indeed must be that judgment, which does not think every earthly affliction more than overbalanced by the promised recompense; and dull indeed must be that heart, which, when it seriously contemplates the reward as held out to us in the Gospel, does not glow with a heavenly exultation; and feel itself elevated

above too fond and anxious a concern for the perishable things of this world.

If however, in order to illustrate the subject, we consider only the state of man upon earth, and confine ourselves for a few moments to a reflection on the sufferings and enjoyments, of which he here partakes; we may be led to entertain an opinion, that a future state of happiness might be proposed to him, which should consist of enjoyments the same in kind with those that he is blessed with here, but superior to them in degree; and which should afford him a compensation, not utterly inadequate to the sufferings, which he might here have endured.

Thus for example; of our bodily sufferings, those which are the most generally felt of all, and are perhaps as keenly felt as any, are want and labour, sickness and pain. Of these want and labour are the necessary portion of many, very many of the inhabitants of the earth; and pain and sickness frequently fall to the lot of very many more. Yet we may observe,

that these sufferings, keenly as they are felt at times, lose the sharpness of their sting in moments of relaxation; and are entirely forgotten, or remembered only with pleasure, when succeeded by the opposite enjoyments. He, whose ordinary and never-ending portion is poverty and toil, loses the remembrance of his hardships in the hours of rest and refreshment; whilst many undertake a life of voluntary poverty, and willingly submit to a temporary deprivation of the comforts and conveniencies of life; and many again expose themselves willingly to labours, difficulties and dangers; persuaded that when they shall have attained the object of their endeavours, and placed themselves in a situation of opulence and rest, they shall no longer feel the sufferings, through which they may have passed in their way. In the same manner, actual pain is no longer remembered, or if remembered is thought upon with pleasure, by him, who is restored to ease; and the wretch, who has long tossed on the bed of sickness, so far from retaining an unpleasing recollection of his sufferings, recollects them

only to derive from them new subject of joy, amidst the exultation which he feels on the re-establishment of his health and vigour.

And this remark, which is so true of the bodily sufferings to which man is subject, is no less true when applied to the sufferings of the mind; to those at least, which are not caused by our own folly or wickedness. Indeed the more bitter any affliction is, the more delightful is the opposite blessing, and the higher the enjoyment derived from the change. Thus the anguish of slavery and of the loss of friends, the severest afflictions, which the generous and feeling mind can suffer, would be swallowed up in the delight of him, who should recover the friends, whom he thought that he had lost, or the liberty, of which he had been deprived: as we no longer think of the silent and gloomy winter, that preceded, when our eyes are refreshed with the verdure, and our ears charmed with the melody, of spring.

If now there were to be proposed to us a future state of existence, composed of