the same indolence, indisposedness, and distaste to ́serious things! Happy, if we do not find, that we prefer not only our pleasures and enjoyments, but, I had almost said, our very pains, and vexations, and inconveniences, to communing with our Maker! Happy, if we had not rather be absorbed in our petty cares, and little disturbances, provided we can contrive to make them the means of occupying our thoughts, filling up our minds, and drawing them away from that devout intercourse, which demands the liveliest exercise of our rational powers, the highest elevation of our spiritual affections! Is it not to be apprehended, that the dread of being driven to this sacred intercourse, is one grand cause of that activity, and restlessness, which sets the world in such perpetual motion?

Though we are ready to express a general sense of our confidence in Almighty goodness, yet what definite meaning do we annex to the expression? What practical evidences have we to produce, that we really do trust him? Does this trust deliver us from worldly anxiety? Does it exonerate us from the same perturbation of spirits, which those endure, who make no such profession? Does it relieve the mind from doubt and distrust? Does it tranquillize the troubled heart, does it regulate its disorders, and compose its fluctuations? Does it sooth us under irritation? Does it support us under trials? Does it fortify us against temptations? Does it lead us to repose a full confidence in that Being whom we profess to trust? Does it produce in us "that work of righteousness which is peace," that effect of righteousness, which is" quietness and assurance forever? Do we commit ourselves and our concerns to God in word, or in reality? Does this implicit reliance simplify our desires? Does it induce us to credit the testimony of his word and the promises of his Gospel? Do we not even entertain some secret suspicions of his faithfulness and truth in our hearts, when we persuade others and try to persuade our selves that we unreservedly trust him?

In the preceeding chapter we endeavoured to illustrate our want of love to God by our not being as forward to vindicate the divine conduct as to justify that of an acquaintance. The same illustration may express our reluctance to trust in God. If a tried friend engage to do

us a kindness, though he may not think it necessary to explain the particular manner in which he intends to do it, we repose on his word. Assured of the result, we are neither very inquisitive about the mode nor the detail. But do we treat our Almighty friend with the same liberal confidence? Are we not murmuring because we cannot see all the process of his administration, and follow his movements step by step? Do we wait the developement of his plan, in full assurance that the issue will be ultimately good? Do we trust that he is as abundantly wil. ling as able, to do more for us than we can ask or think, if by our suspicions we do not offend him, if by our infi delity we do not provoke him? In short, do we not think ourselves utterly undone, when we have only but Providence to trust to?

We are perhaps ready enough to acknowledge God in our mercies, nay, we confess him in the ordinary enjoy. ments of life. In some of these common mercies, as in a bright day, a refreshing shower, delightful scenery; a kind of sensitive pleasure, an hilarity of spirits, a sort of animal enjoyment, though of a refined nature, mixes it. self with our devotional feelings; and though we confess and adore the bountiful Giver, we do it with a little mixture of self-complacency, and of human gratification, which he pardons and accepts.

But we must look for him in scenes less animating, we must acknowledge him on occasions less exhilirating, less sensibly gratifying. It is not only in his promises that God manifests his mercy. His threatenings are proofs of the same compassionate love. He threatens, not to pun ish, but by the warning, to snatch from the punishment:

We may also trace marks of his hand not only in the awful visitations of life, not only in the severer dispensations of his providence, but in vexations so trivial that we should hesitate to suspect that they are providential appointments, did we not know that our daily life is made up of unimportant circumstances rather than of great events. As they are however of sufficient importance to exercise the Christian tempers and affections, we may trace the hand of our heavenly father in those daily little disappointments, and hourly vexations, which occur even in the most prosperous state, and which are inseparable from the condition of humanity. We must trace that same beneficent hand, secretly at work for our puri

fication, our correction, our weaning from life, in the imperfections and disagreeableness of those who may be about us, in the perverseness of those with whom we transact business, and in those interruptions which break in on our favourite engagements.

We are perhaps too much addicted to our innocent delights, or we are too fond of our leisure, of our learned, even of our religious leisure. But while we say it is good for us to be here, the divine vision is withdrawn, and we are compelled to come down from the mount. Or, perhaps, we do not improve our retirement to the purposes for which it was granted, and to which we had resolved to devote it, and our time is broken in upon to make us more sensible of its value. Or we feel a complacency in our leisure, a pride in our books; perhaps we feel proud of the good things we are intending to say, or meditating to write, or preparing to do. A check is necessary, yet it is given in a way almost imperceptible. The hand that gives it is unseen, is unsnspected, yet it is the same gracious hand which directs the more important events of life. An importunate application, a disqualifying, though not severe indisposition, a family avocation, a letter important to the writer, but unseasonable to us, breaks in on our projected privacy; calls us to a sacrifice of our inclination, to a renunciation of our own will. These incessant trials of temper, if well im proved, may be more salutary to the mind, than the finest passage we had intended to read, or the sub. limest sentiment we had fancied we should write.

Instead then of going in search of great mortifications, as a certain class of pious writers recommend, let us cheerfully bear, and diligently improve these inferior trials which God prepares for us. Submission to a cross. which he inflicts, to a disappointment which he sends, to a contradiction of our self-love, which he appoints, is a far better exercise, than great penances of our own chusing. Perpetual conquests over impatience, ill temper and self-will, indicate a better spirit than any self-imposed mortifications. We may traverse oceans and scale mountains on uncommanded pilgrimages, without pleas ing God; we may please him without any other exertion than by crossing our own will.

Perhaps you had been busying your imagination with some projected scheme, not only lawful, but laudable.

The design was radically good, but the supposed value of your own agency, might too much interfere, might a little taint the purity of your best intentions. The motives were so mixed that it was difficult to separate them. Sudden sickness obstructed the design. You naturally Jament the failure, not perceiving that, however good the work might be for others, the sickness was better for yourself. An act of charity was in your intention, but God saw that your soul required the exercise of a more difficult virtue; that humility and resignation, that the patience, acquiescence, and contrition, of a sick bed, were more necessary for you. He accepts the meditat ed work as far as it was designed for his glory, but he calls his servant to other duties, which were more salutary for him, and of which the master was the better judge. He sets aside his work, and orders him to wait; the more difficult part of his task. As far as your mo tive was pure, you will receive the reward of your nnperformed charity, though not the gratification of the performance. If it was not pure, you are rescued from the danger attending a right action performed on a world ́ly principle. You may be the better Christian, though one good deed is subtracted from your catalogue.

By a life of activity and usefulness, you had perhaps attracted the public esteem. An animal activity had partly stimulated your exertions. The love of reputation begins to mix itself with your better motives. You do not, it is presumed, act entirely, or chiefly for human ap plause; but you are too sensible to it. It is a delicious poison which begins to infuse itself into your purest cup. You acknowledge indeed the sublimity of higher motives, but do you never feel that, separated from this accompaniment of self, they would be too abstracted, too speculative, and might become too little productive both of activity and of sensible gratification. You begin to feel the human incentive necessary, and your spirits would flag if it were withdrawn.

This sensibility to praise would gradually tarnish the purity of your best actions. He who sees your heart as well as your works, mercifully snatches you from the perils of prosperity. Malice is awakened. Your most me ritorious actions are ascribed to the most corrupt mo tives. You are attacked just where your character is least vulnerable. The enemies whom your success rais

éd up, are raised up by God, less to punish than to save you. We are far from meaning that he can ever be the au thor of evil; he does not excite or approve the calumny, but he uses your calumniators as instruments of your pu rification. Your fame was too dear to you. It is a costly sacrifice, but God requires it. It must be offered up. You would gladly compound for auy, for every other of fering, but this is the offering he chuses: and while he graciously continues to employ you for his glory, he thus teaches you to renounce your own. He sends this trial as a test, by which you are to try yourself. He thus instructs you not to abandon your Cbristian exertions, but to elevate the principle which inspired them, to defecate it from all impure admixtures.

By thus stripping the most engaging employments of this dangerous delight, by infusing some drops of salutary bitterness into your sweetest draught, by some of these ill-tasted but wholesome mercies, he graciously compels as to return to himself. By taking away the stays by which we are perpetually propping up our frail delights, they fall to the ground. We are, as it were, driven back to Him, whe condescends to receive us, after we have tried every thing else, and after every thing else has failed us, and though he knows we should not have returned to him if every thing else had not failed us. He makes us feel our weakness, that we may have recourse to his strength, he makes us sensible of our hitherto unperceived sins, that we may take refuge in his everlasting compassion.

CHAP. IX.

CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL IN ITS REQUISITIONS.

It is not unusual to see people get rid of some of the most awful injunctions, and emancipate themselves from some of the most solemn requisitions of Scripture, by affecting to believe that they do not apply to them. They consider themás belonging exclusively to the first age of the Gospel, and to the individuals to whom they were immediately address ed; consequently the necessity to observe them does not H