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Such resignation is all too rare. The words of resignation may be on the lips, but impatience may be in the heart. To provide against, such evil we must study to be real disciples of Christ; and we must have our minds turned to those doctrines and habituated to those exercises of religion, which help us to submit amid the calamities of life. Without such aid we are overcome when calamity falls upon us. Let us consider some of these aids to resignation.

I. THE REMEMBERING THAT WHEN GOD VISITS US WITH BEREAVEMENTS, HE ONLY TAKES AWAY WHAT IS HIS OWN. Now, if we will take this view, if we not only speculatively assent to it as an abstract truth, but have it as a part of our practical creed, it will lead us to surrender any comfort whatever, and to make the surrender with patience and readiness into the hands of God, from whom we at first received it.

II. THAT GOD ACCOMPANIES OUR BEREAVEMENTS WITH CONSOLATION AND SUPPORT. How much is still left to us of good. All is not lost. Has it not often happened in the case of the afflicted that "their latter end," like that of Job, has been "much more than their beginning"? In all this there is something that is well fitted to inspire us with patience and contentment. Whatever we suffer is much less, and whatever we enjoy is much more, than we deserve. But He gives us consolation and support of a spiritual kind, far more precious and far more efficacious still. The Bible, prayer, ere.

III. In the third place, we should be resigned to the will of God when He afflicts us, because AFFLICTION IS FOR OUR GOOD. To mere worldly persons there is nothing good but that which gives them much pleasure. But to true Christians that, and that alone, is good, whatever it may be, which promotes their spiritual and immortal interests; which tends to make them wiser and better. There is still another consideration by which we ought to be influenced when involved in affliction.

IV. God who sends it is entitled to our patient acquiescence, our cheerful submission, BECAUSE AT THE VERY TIME THAT WE ARE SUFFERING UNDER HIS HAND, HE HAS IN RESERVE, AND IS PREPARING FOR US, THE HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN AND IMMORTALITY.

(A. Thompson, D. D.)

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KJV: I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.

WEB: I was mute. I didn't open my mouth, because you did it.