own will: for sic volo, sic jubeo, howsoever harsh and tyrannical it may sound from a sinful man, like ourselves, though never so great; yet from God, who is as essentially good as he is great, it is the highest reason and the most rational divinity: upon which account, let every man silence the disputes of his froward reason, not only with an ipse dixit, as the very disciples of Pythagoras could do, but also with an ipse voluit: an answer and a solution becoming the most improved and eminent proficients in the school of Christianity.

For what was it that raised Job to such a degree of insolence and indiscretion, as to venture to hold an argument with his Maker, and to dispute the case with the Almighty, but the sturdiness of his blind and saucy reason, falsely so called, that could not subscribe to the equity of those severe usages which he smarted under? He could not comprehend how the divine justice could degrade so much uprightness and integrity to a dunghill; and to all the miseries that a diseased body, a distressed mind, and a desperate fortune could reduce him to: no, he thought he had holiness enough to have prescribed gentler methods to Providence. But at length, when religion had cooled the boilings of his passion and discontent, and taught his reason more sober discourses, then he sinks many notes lower, and utters himself in a quite differing strain; in Job xl. 4, 5, Behold, says he, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer.. And thus, what conviction and satisfaction he could not gain by disputing, he arrived to by obeying submission was his casuist, and patience the best re

solver of his doubts. And indeed, what can we account disputation in such a case, but the hostility of the mind, and a kind of rebellion of the soul against God; opposing reason and argument, or rather argument without reason, to Providence? So that a man can never be said truly to submit, till he lays down these arms, and acknowledges a sufficient reason of any dispensation in the sole good pleasure of the dispenser; and, in the midst of all his misery, can confess that things ought to be so, because actually they are so. And thus much for the submission of the understanding.

(2.) This submission requires in the will also a perfect acquiescence, and resignation of itself to God's will. For the will being properly the seat both of sovereignty and activity, the resistance which this makes must needs be the greatest and most considerable. The reluctancy of the understanding, in opposing God, and complying with sinful objects, is like Adam's seeing the forbidden fruit and liking it but the will's embracing them, is like Adam's putting forth his hand and taking it. So that by our submission of the former to God, in any of the perplexing passages of our lives, the soul may be said, as it were, to keep silence; but by this latter, it also gives consent. By that it confesses the reasonableness, by this also the suitableness of the dispensation. By the former it could say, it is just; by this latter it can say also with David, it is good that I have been afflicted.

And how necessary an ingredient of our submission this is, will appear to any one who shall consider the absoluteness and autocracy of this faculty; whereby the will is free either to follow or not to

follow the advice of the understanding; so that when that has done its utmost in the way of counsel and instruction, the issue of the execution follows wholly the resolves of this. For it is this which commands and lords it in the soul; every thing that a man does or desires being entirely at its beck.

Upon which account it is, that the overpowering efficacy of the Spirit of God, in the conversion of a sinner, appears in nothing so much, as that it conquers and subdues this free, self-governing faculty to a perfect compliance with all its motions; and that without the least intrenchment upon its freedom. For it makes us willing, and draws us in that manner, that we yet follow of our own accord. Now such a readiness is here required in the business of our submission: it must be perfectly free and voluntary; and that not only as to an exclusion of all force, but also of the servilities of fear and terror; which take off some of the perfection of our freedom in respect of the motive or inducement to an action, though they cannot in respect of its productive principle. As when a man throws his rich wares into the sea, to prevent a wreck, and to save his life, he does indeed will what he does, but yet it is with an unwilling kind of willingness: for though the will absolutely commands the thing to be done, yet still the motive of doing it is full sore against its inclination.

But such a submission to the hand of God will not suffice us here, nor turn to any account in the reckonings of Heaven: where every performance is rated chiefly by the manner of it; and the spring or principle as much considered as the object. God regards not that submission that is not out of love to him.

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And perfect love, we know, casts out fear; that is, God will have us submit not as slaves, but as sons: so as to kiss the rod that corrects us; and, knowing from whom the blow comes, to receive it not only with quietness, but complacency. And thus to demean ourselves in our sufferings is the very soul and spirit of a filial submission.

(3.) There is required also a submissive composure and serenity in our passions and affections. For naturally these are the most unruly and outrageous faculties of the soul; and such indeed as set the whole world in a combustion. For how insolent is pride, how intolerable is anger, and how noisome and imperious is lust! No confusion in human affairs ever falling out, but the cause of it always lies here; and still the commotion begins in the fury and violence of the affections, those great masters of misrule, which, like the waves of a troubled sea, swell and rage, and rise up against heaven, when any thing from thence blows rough and hard upon them. It is impossible that either a proud, a lustful, or an angry man, so continuing, should be patient; forasmuch as the same frame of spirit, which disposes him to one, directly indisposes him to the other. Patience is the effect and consequent of self-denial and mortification; and the passions and affections are the proper objects of that, they are the things that are to be denied and mortified; so that a man must have passed many stages in this excellent course, before he can arrive at the perfection of making the duty of submission his practice, and much less his pleasure. For how hard is it to maintain a smooth and equal temper in one's mind, when there is nothing but cross and rugged accidents in the whole affairs of a man's life!

How hard is it to see and feel great disturbances without, and yet to keep all quiet within! to behold the prosperity of the wicked, the false, and the treacherous, and not to say in our haste, that we have cleansed our hands in vain, and retained our innocence to no purpose! It is infinitely difficult so to conquer and keep down the insurrections of a furious passion, as to command and hold it within compass, when it meets with fuel and provocation.

The faculties of the soul do much resemble the economy and constitution of a commonwealth, in which the passions are like the vulgar rout, or meaner sort of people, who are always the most impatiently sensible of any the least burden; and when the government imposes any thing upon them, are presently apt to tumultuate, to rise, and to rebel: so when the least chastisement from God pinches us, forthwith the unruly passions are apt to clamour, and cry out grievance and oppression. But now God will have all these clamours hushed, all these resistances quelled, and an humble subjection paid to the most grating edicts of his will, proclaimed and made known to us by the events of his providence.

And indeed thus to compose and master our rebellious passions is a duty that may commend itself to us, not only from the necessity of a strict command, but also from the excellency of the work itself. For it was this alone, which the greatest philosophers, and particularly the Stoics, placed their highest happiness and perfection in; namely, to regulate and subdue their passions to such a degree, as to bring themselves to a perfect apathy, to stand fixed and unmoved, when any thing thwarted either their interest or desires; which glorious (and perhaps more