Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions

Impatience has always these two ill ingredients in the very constitution of it, pride and anger and can any thing possibly be more indecent, more absurd, and more to be exploded, than a proud beggar, an aspiring lump of dirt? or can there be a greater paradox in manners, than at the same time to be saucy, and to depend; to be arrogant, and yet indigent? And then for anger, it is a monstrous, irregular, unbecoming passion, even when it shews itself against an equal; but how much more against a superior; and yet incredibly, unconceivably more when it fumes and rages against the immense power, and the unquestionable prerogative of the supreme Sovereign of all things, whom our anger cannot reach, but the least spark of whose anger can for ever consume us! What a discomposure does this ungoverned affection work in the whole intellectual frame, turning the mind topsyturvy, clouding its apprehensions, entangling its counsels, and confounding its reasonings, till it has turned that little light which is in it into darkness, and so quite blown out the candle of the Lord. And can this be a disposition of mind becoming a rational nature? a nature that God has made but one pitch lower than that of the angels?

But so much the more intolerable is such a stubborn, unsubmissive frame of spirit in men, when the whole host of the creation besides are, with the highest readiness and alacrity, continually intent upon the execution of their great Master's commands. The whole 104th Psalm, that noble and sublime piece of sacred poetry, is a full description of, and á panegyric upon the creature's readiness to

serve their great Lord; in ver. 6, 7. The waters, says the Psalmist, stood upon the mountains; but at thy rebuke they fled, and at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. Nothing to be seen but absolute obedience, even in these inanimate creatures, which, it seems, can obey a command, though they cannot so much as hear it. And then for other creatures, endued with a bare principle of life and sense, they also act in a constant compliance with the divine will, and that sometimes against the most natural inclination of their own. What more ravenous than an hungry lion? and yet he shall restrain his furious appetite when God commands him not to touch a Daniel. What more devouring than the ravens ? and yet even they shall part with their own food to an Elijah, when God bids them purvey for a servant of his in distress. And shall men, after all this; man, that has been so signally obliged by Heaven above all the rest of the creation; shall he, I say, be the only thing that shall resist and oppose the proceedings of the Almighty, by fretting and striving against every passage of Providence that comes athwart either his desires or designs? If this be not the highest transgression of the rules of decency, then surely there is no such thing as decency or regularity, order or proportion, in the whole frame and economy of this visible world.

And thus having farther enforced this grand duty of submission upon these three several accounts; to wit, of its absolute necessity; its high prudence and policy; and lastly, its great decency: I suppose there can need no other arguments to bind it fast upon the consciences of those who, besides their in

dispensable duty to God, hold it their no small concernment to acquit themselves to the world also, in all these considerations.

In the mean time, the foregoing discourse may teach us an art that all the wisdom of the world cannot teach; which is, to know how to make ourselves happy in the most afflicted, abject, and forlorn condition of life: and that is, in short, to acquiesce cheerfully and entirely in the good pleasure of Almighty God, whatsoever our estate or condition in this world falls out to be: for, to put all into, one word, could men be but willing to do what God commands, and to suffer what God inflicts, there could be no more room for any such thing as discontent or misery in the whole course of things here below. The killing force of the greatest and the fiercest judgments is even broke by yieldance and submission; for still it is opposition that strengthens a calamity. And when the creature will needs wage war with God, God acts with the greatest reason and equity that can be expected, even from men warring against men: those that will fight it out, he kills; and those that will yield, he spares.

The felicities and miseries of this world are dispensed by God variously, and the changes of our lives are, for the most part, much more numerous than the years of them so that he who now flourishes with all the plenty and glory that Providence can heap upon him, may, in a short time, see himself stripped and disrobed of all; and then the use, the worth, and value of a patient, submissive spirit will come to be understood; since, without it, it will be impossible so to behave ourselves under

provocation, or to fall under one calamity without making it the occasion of another.

Which consideration surely should be sufficient to beget in us a readiness, not only to bear, but even to take up our cross; and to make every suffering free and voluntary, by a subsequent act of choice, looking unto Jesus, our great pattern and example, who, in obedience to his Father's will, endured the cross, and despised the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God.

To which he, of his mercy, vouchsafe to bring us all; to whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

END OF VOL. VI.

The following alterations have been made by conjecture.
See the Advertisement in the 5th volume.

P. 23. 1. 13. tends] The original edition reads tend