himself at his inn; and, as soon as ever he comes thither, he is set upon, stabbed, and cruelly murdered: does not such an one, think we, die with a strange horror and surprise? So the hypocrite cannot pass the stage of this world, but he will meet with many crosses and discouragements, under which he is apt to think, through the flattery of his hopes, that he shall find an end of all these sorrows in another world. But then, alas! they chiefly begin; then he enters upon them in their height, fulness, and perfection. Hopes of heaven therefore, by those that either tender their own happiness, or dread the extremity of misery, are to be entertained warily; for if they are not genuine, and of the right stamp, they will only end in a greater load of sorrow and confusion. They may indeed for a little time support and keep us up in this world: just as a man's clothes, when he falls into the water, will for a while hold him up from sinking; but when they are once thoroughly wet and heavy, then they drown and sink him so much the faster and deeper.

This we may observe, that those appetites and desires, the satisfaction of which brings the greatest delight; the defrauding or disappointment of them, according to the rule of contraries, brings the greatest and the sharpest misery. Now a strong hope, suitably and luckily answered, comes, as it were, rushing into the heart with a fulness of content; it bears in upon it like a favourable wishedfor wind upon a spread sail. It is, according to Solomon's expression, health to the navel, and marrow to the bones. Satisfaction added to a longing expectation, is like a refreshing shower upon a dry, gaping, thirsty ground. Nothing so comfortable

as hope crowned with fruition; nothing so tormenting, as hope snapt off with disappointment and frustration. And were it lawful to wish an enemy completely miserable, I would wish that he might vehemently desire, and never enjoy; that he might strongly hope, and never obtain.

Now, from what has been delivered, I think we may truly conclude, that of the two, the despairing reprobate is happier than the hoping reprobate. They both indeed fall equally low: but then he that hopes has the greater fall, because he falls from the higher place. He that despairs goes to hell, but then he goes thither with expectation; though he is damned, yet he is not surprised: he has inured his heart to the flames, and has made those terrors familiar to him, by the continual horror of his meditation; so that when he dies, he passes but from one hell into another; and his actual damnation is not the beginning, but the carrying on of his former torIn short, to express the wretchedness of the hypocrite's hope, I shall only add this, that certainly that must needs be exceeding dismal, in comparison of which despair is desirable.

ment.

And now, O God, thou that requirest truth in the inward parts, cleanse us inwardly and thoroughly from the leaven of hypocrisy; sanctify us by thy truth; thy word is truth; and let our obedience to thee justify our hopes in thee, that so trusting in thee, we may never be confounded.

To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON XLV.

PSALM XXXix. 9.

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

F we would give one general account of all the duties that are incumbent upon a Christian, we shall find them reducible to these three, faith, obedience, and patience; and the vital principle that animates and runs through them all is submission. Faith being a submission of our understanding to what God commands us to believe: obedience being a submission of our will to what God commands us to do; and lastly, patience being a submission of the whole man to what God commands us to suffer. Concerning which excellent virtue, glorious things are every where spoken, not only by the penmen of holy writ, but also by the sons of reason and philosophy: and great elogies of it might be drawn, both from their writings and examples. But, as we need not, so we shall not seek for any beyond the compass of the church. And here we have this virtue represented to the full, in that great hero in the ways of God, king David; a person signalized with that eminent character, of being the man after God's own heart, and therefore certainly a most fit example to make an impression upon ours.

It is impossible that a discourse of patience should ever be unseasonable: for to such as are in adver

sity, it will be a cordial to support them; and to such as are in prosperity, it will be an amulet to preserve them. For since no mortal man can be so happy, as to hold his happiness by a lease for life, every Christian, even in the height of his enjoyments, ought in habit, and disposition of mind, at least, to be a sufferer; that is, to have cast his resolutions into such a well ordered, confirmed posture, as no calamity, how sudden or great soever, shall be able to surprise or shock him, either in point of courage or submission. It is one of the arts of patience still to be beforehand with an affliction, and to expect that at all times which a man may endure at any; and since the healthiest of men may be sick, it is but prudence, while they are well, to have a remedy about them.

In the text we have these two general parts.

1. David's submissive deportment under a sharp affliction; I was dumb, I opened not my mouth.

2. The ground and reason of such his deportment, which was the procedure of that affliction from God; I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it.

And thus, the words being a full lecture of patience, recommending it to us by a great pattern, and consequently being designed to argue us into an absolute submission to the divine will, in our most pressing and severe distresses, we shall endeavour the prosecution of them in these two following things.

I. In declaring the nature and measures of this submission. And,

II. In shewing the reasons and arguments for it, as the suffering person stands related to God. And,

I. For the nature of this submission; which I shall declare,

1st, Negatively, by shewing wherein it does not consist; and,

2dly, Positively, by shewing wherein it does.

As for the negative part, that we may distinguish this great virtue from all false and mistaken resemblances of it, we shall observe first of all, that this submission, or rather submissive frame of spirit, consists not in an utter insensibility of, or an unconcernment under an affliction. For God, who gave us a being, did therewithal give us a connate desire to a well-being; which every affliction in some measure robs us of, and, as it were, rends away a piece of our happiness; the entireness of which consists, not only in a freedom from sin, but also from sorrow. It can be no man's duty to be above the laws of his creation, and to contradict his nature, by a senselessness in the midst of those sufferings which oppress it. We read in Ecclesiastes of a time to mourn; a time in which mourning is so peculiarly in season, so proper, and so decent, that the contrary is absurd and unnatural. God, who calls and commands us to sympathize with our friends in their distress, surely will not forbid us to sorrow for our own. It was noted for one of the most inhuman pieces of tyranny in a Roman emperor, that when he had cruelly put some to death, with a greater cruelty he forbade their relations to lament for them: thus, by the former act destroying the men; by the latter, humanity itself.

A pensive consideration therefore of the sharpness of an affliction does not at all lessen our submission to it for God never heaps such loads of