Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/51

Rh would "rather suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Ah! how true it is, that the pleasures of sin are but for a season—they are momentary. And besides, they leave an 'aching void' within. They leave nothing to which the mind can recur with pure and pleasing delight. Not so with the peace of God. The sweet tranquillity the believer enjoys from a sense of pardon and acceptance with his Maker, is rendered doubly precious from the fact, that it is a pledge, a foretaste of that eternal " rest that remains for the people of God." Hence it is said to be 'a peace that flows as a river.' As a river flows onward and becomes wider and deeper as it approaches the ocean into which it is ultimately lost; so does the peace which Jesus gives, flow on pleasantly in the soul, increasing in its depth, expanding in its onward course, until it