n shame and repentance,
entreating Him to inform their thoughts, and guide their wills, and
gather them to Him as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, that
they may never more wander from Him, their life, their light, and their
Saviour. Then, sometimes, if His children forsake His laws and break His
covenant, He visits their offences with the rod, and their sin with the
stripes of the children of men. That is, He punishes them as He punishes
the heathen, if they sin as the heathen sin. He lets loose upon them His
wrath, war, disease, or scarcity, that He may drive them back to Him.

And all the while He will have them _labour_. He will make them try
their strength, and use their strength, and improve their strength of
soul and body. By making them labour, Christ teaches His people
industry, order, self-command, self-denial, patience, courage, endurance,
foresight, thoughtfulness, earnestness. All these blessed virtues come
out of holy labour; by working in welldoing we learn lessons which the
savage among his delicious fruits and flowers, in his life of golden
ease, and luxurious laziness, can never learn.

And all this Christ teaches us because He loves us, because He would have
us perfect. His love is unchangeable. As He swore by Himself that He
would never fail David, so He has sworn that He will never fail any one
of His Churches, or any one of us. Lo, said He, I am with you always,
even to the end of the world. Nothing shall separate us from the love of
Christ; neither battle nor famine, nor anything else in heaven or earth.
All He wants is to educate us, because He loves us. He doth not afflict
willingly nor grieve the children of men. And because He is a God of
love, He proves His love to us every now and then by blessing us, as well
as by correcting us; else our spirits would fail before Him, and the
souls which He has made. When He sees our adversity, He hears our
complaint, He thinks upon His covenant and pities us, according to the
multitude of His mercies. "A fruitful land maketh He barren for the
wickedness of them that dwell therein, yet when they cry unto the Lord in
their trouble, He delivereth them out of their distress. He maketh the
wilderness standing water, and water springs of dry ground, and there He
setteth the hungry that they may build them a city, that they may sow
their lands and plant vineyards, to yield them fruits of increase. He
blesseth them, so that they multiply