crook, than the crook evened to your heart's desire? Rom. vii. 22, 23. And do you not sincerely endeavour to submit, notwithstanding the reluctancy of the flesh? Gal. v. 17.

Ans. 2. Where is the Christian self-denial, and taking up the cross, without submitting to the crook? This is the first lesson Christ puts in the hands of his disciples, Matt. xvi. 24. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Self-denial would procure a reconciliation with the crook, and an admittance of the cross: but while we cannot bear our corrupt self to be denied any of its cravings, and particularly that which God sees meet especially to be denied, we cannot bear the crook in our lot, but fight against it in favour of self.

Ans. 3. Where is our conformity to Christ, while we cannot submit to the crook? We cannot evidence ourselves Christians, without conformity to Christ. "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." 1 John ii. 6. There was a continued crook in Christ's lot, but he submitted to it, Phil. ii. 8. "And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Rom. xv. 3. "For even Christ pleased not himself," &c. And so must we, if we will prove ourselves Christians indeed. Matt. xi. 29. ; 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12.

Ans. 4. How shall we prove ourselves the genuine kindly children of God, if still warring with the crook? We cannot pray, Our Father-Thy

will be done on earth, as, &c. Matt. vi. Nay, the language of that practice is, We must have our own will, and God's will cannot satisfy us.

Motive 4. The trial by the crook here will not last long. 1 Cor. vii. 29-31. What though the work be sore, it may be the better comported with, that it will not be longsome; a few days or years at farthest, will put an end to it, and take you off your trials. Do not say, I shall never be eased of it; for if not eased before, you will be eased of it at death, come after it what will. A serious view of death and eternity might make us set ourselves to behave rightly under our crook while it lasts.

Motive 5. if you would, in a Christian manner, set yourselves to bear the crook, you would find it easier than you imagine, Matt. xi. 29, 30. "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and ye shall find rest to your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Satan has no readier way to gain his purpose, than to persuade men it is impossible, that ever their minds should ply with the crook; that it is a burden to them, altogether insupportable; as long as you believe that, be sure you will never be able to bear it. But the Lord makes no crook in the lot of any, but what may be borne of them acceptably, though not sinlessly and perfectly. Matt. xi. 30. For there is strength for that effect secured in the covenant, 2 Cor. iii. 5; Phil. iv. 13, and being by faith fetched, it will certainly come, Psal. xxviii. 7.

Motive 6. If you behave Christianly under your crook here, you will not lose your labour, but get

a full reward of grace in the other world, through Christ. 2 Tim. ii. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 58. There is a blessing pronounced on him that endureth on this very ground, James i. 12. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for, when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." Heaven is the place into which the approved, upon the trial of the crook are received, Rev. vii. 14. "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." When you come there, no vestiges of it will be remaining in your lot, nor will you have the least uneasy remembrance of it; but it will accent your praises, and increase your joy.

Motive 7. If you do not behave Christianly under it, you will lose your souls in the other world, Jude 15, 16. Those who are at war with God in their lot here, God will have war with them for ever. If they will not submit to his yoke here, and go quietly under it, he will wreathe his yoke about their neck for ever, with everlasting bonds that shall never be loosed. Job ix. 4. Therefore

set yourselves to behave rightly under the crook your lot.

in

If you ask what way one may reach that; for direction we propose,

PROP. III. The considering the crook in the lot, as the work of God, is a proper means to bring one to behave rightly under it.

1. What it is to consider the crook as the work of God. We take it up in these five things:

First, An inquiry into the spring whence it rises. Gen. xxv. 22. Reason and religion both teach us, not only to notice the crook, which we cannot avoid, but to consider and inquire into the spring of it. Surely, it is not our choice, nor do we designedly make it for ourselves and to ascribe it to fortune is to ascribe it to nothing: it is not sprung of itself, but sown by one hand or another for us. Job v. 6. And we are to notice the hand from whence it comes.

it.

Secondly, A perceiving of the hand of God in

Whatever hand any creatures have therein, we ought not to terminate our view in them, but look above and beyond them to the supreme manager's agency. Job i. 21. Without this we shall make a God of the creature that is instrumental of the crook, looking on it as if it were the first cause, which is peculiar to God, Rom. xi. 36, and bring ourselves under that doom, Psalm xxviii. 5. "Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up."

Thirdly, A representing it to ourselves as a work of God, which he hath wrought against us for holy and wise ends, becoming the divine perfections. This is to take it by the right handle, to represent it to ourselves, under a right notion, from whence a right management under it may spring. It can never be safe to overlook God in it, but very safe

to overlook the creature; ascribing it unto God, as if no other hand were in it, his being always the principal therein. "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." 1 Sam. iii. 18. Thus David overlooked Shimei, and looked to God in the matter of his cursing, as one fixing his eyes, not on the axe, but on him that wielded it. Here two things are to come into our consideration.

1st. The decree of God, purposing that crook for us from eternity; "for he worketh all things after the counsel of his own will," Eph. i. 11, the sealed book, in which are written all the black lines that make the crook. Whatever valleys of darkness, grief, and sorrow, we are carried through, we are to look on them as made by the mountains of brass, the immovable divine purposes, Zech. vi. 1. This can be no presumption in that case, if we carry it no further than the event goes in our sight and feeling: for so far the book is opened for us to look into.

2dly. The providence of God bringing to pass that crook for us in time. Amos iii. 6. There is nothing can befall us without him in whom we live. Whatever kind of agency of the creatures may be in the making of our crook, whatever they have done or not done towards it, he is the spring that sets all the created wheels in motion, which ceasing, they would all stop: though he is still infinitely pure in his agency, however impure they be in theirs. Job considered both these, ch. xxiii. 14.

Fourthly. A continuing in the thought of it as