If we do that, and give God the
glory, it may be with us, after all, as it was with Job, when God
gave him back sevenfold for all that he had taken away, wealth and
prosperity, sons and daughters. For God doth not afflict willingly,
nor grieve the children of men out of spite. His punishments are
not revenge, but correction; and, as a father, he chastises his
children, not to harm, but to bless them.
And God grant that if that day, too, comes--if after sorrow comes
joy, if after storm comes sunshine--we may not forget God afresh in
our prosperity, nor go our ways like those dull-hearted Jews, after
they were cleansed from their leprosy: but, like the Samaritan,
return, and give glory to God, who gives, and delights in giving;
and only takes away, that he may lift up our souls to him, in whom
we live, and move, and have our being: and so, knowing who we are,
and where we are, may live in God, and by God, and for God, in this
life, and for ever.
SERMON XXIX. PARDON AND PEACE
(Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity.)
Psalm xxxii. 1-7. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord
imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When
I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day
long.
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