And then he says, ’O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.’  God meant all along to receive me, and make me live.  He chastened me, and brought me low, to shew me that my own faith, my own righteousness, was no reason for his saving me:  but that his own love and mercy was a good reason for saving me.  ‘Behold,’ he goes on to say, ’for peace I had great bitterness:  but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption:  for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.’

And, my dear friends, what Hezekiah saw but dimly, we ought to see clearly.  The blessed news of the Gospel ought to tell us it clearly.  For the blessed Gospel tells us that the same Lord who chastened and taught, and then saved, Hezekiah, was made flesh, and born a man of the substance of a mortal woman; that he might in his own person bear all our sicknesses and carry our infirmities; that he might understand all our temptations, and be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that he himself was tempted in all points likewise, yet without sin.

Oh hear this, you who have had sorrows in past times.  Hear this, you who expect sorrows in the times to come.

He who made, he who lightens, every man who comes into the world; he who gave you every right thought and wholesome feeling that you ever had in your lives:  he counts your tears; he knows your sorrows; he is able and willing to save you to the uttermost.  Therefore do not be afraid of your own afflictions.  Face them like men.  Think over them.  Ask him to help you out of them:  or if that is not to be, at least to tell you what he means by them.  Be sure that what he must mean by them is good to you:  a lesson to you, that in some way or other they are meant to make you wiser, stronger, hardier, more sure of God’s love, more ready to do God’s work, whithersoever it may lead you.  Do not be afraid of the dark day of affliction, I say.  It may teach you more than the bright prosperous one.  Many a man can see clearly in the cloudy day, who would be dazzled in the sunlight.  The dull weather, they say, is the best weather for battle; and sorrow is the best time for seeing through and conquering one’s own self.  Therefore do not be afraid, I say, of sorrow.  All the clouds in the sky cannot move the sun a foot further off; and all the sorrow in the world cannot move God any further off.  God is there still, where he always was; near you, and below you, and above you, and around you; for in him you live and move and have your being, and are the offspring and children of God.  Nay, he is nearer you, if possible, in sorrow, than in joy.  He is informing you, and guiding you with his eye, and, like a father, teaching you the right way which you should go.  He is searching and purging your hearts, and cleansing you from your secret faults, and teaching you to know who you are and to know who he is—­your Father, the knowledge of whom is life eternal.  By these things, my friends—­ by being brought low and made helpless, till ashamed of ourselves, and weary of ourselves, we lift up eyes and heart to God who made us, like lost children crying after a Father—­by these things, I say, we live, and in all these things is the life of our spirit.