BRIEF PRACTICAL THOUGHTS.
THE END OF LABOR AND TOIL.
SOMETIMES it seems that this will never come. Yet, all the time it is approaching as with swiftness almost inconceivable. It is not only sure to come, but it is certain to come in a brief period. Time flies swiftly. The Judgment is hastening. Ere long, the work will close up forever. It is no time to stand idle in the vineyard. It is an act of folly to sit down and complain of our toil. Work while the day lasts. The night cometh in which no man can work. Rest will come soon enough, and will never end. Courage in the Lord. Our toil shall end. Yet let it last as long as our Master wills. It is his to assign our work and fix its duration. It is ours to do the work well. The reward is infinite, and the time of its bestowal will not delay. God forbid that we murmur. Christ is formed within when the Holy Spirit has wrought in us all the excellent graces of his character. Our evil natures being put away by genuine conversion, and every wrong being taken from us by the successive steps or acts of conversion, in their place the excellent graces of the Spirit of God one by one are formed in us. These make us like Christ. When the whole work is wrought in us, we are then wholly like him. And those who in character are thus like him, shall certainly be with him in due season. And thus being received into his presence, we shall bear his image in our outward being, as well as in our inner man. For Christ, beholding in us his own character, shall give us his own immortal life. It is all wicked and inexcusable to murmur against God. 1. Because God has the right to chasten us, and because our sins richly deserve and even demand such chastening. 2. Because in all our afflictions God designs our good. He is at work for our salvation. It is then foolish and ungrateful in us to utter one word of complaint. Certainly God is good, and every feeling of our hearts should be mingled with deep gratitude to him for his infinite goodness. Let us forever desist from complaints and murmurings. It is all wicked and unjust and ungrateful.