the greatest part of the trouble were over: for the main difficulty of repentance lies in forming our resolution. This indeed will exact great consideration and vigorous struggling with the wicked habits and inclinations of our own natures. But when we have so far overcome ourselves, as to obtain a full and clear consent and resolution, we have passed the main brunt of our spiritual warfare: and if we have but the courage to keep our ground, we shall soon be crowned with the joys of victory; and that which seemed at first so frightful and terrible to us, will presently grow tolerable, and soon after easy, and after that, by degrees, so pleasant and delightful, that we shall prefer it before all the pleasures of sense, and feel ourselves infinitely more blessed and happy in it, than ever we were in the midst of the highest ravishments of our sinful delights. Come then, my brethren, let us stand no longer amusing ourselves with difficulties, but let us seriously consider the indispensable necessity of it, the great assistance God hath promised us, if we will speedily undertake it, and the immense rewards he proffers to encourage us to it; and let us never leave pressing ourselves with these considerations, till we have obtained of ourselves a full and free consent to it, and wrought our wills into a serious and hearty resolution. And when we have prevailed thus far, we have gotten over the greatest difficulty that lies between us and heaven; and if we do but vigorously pursue our resolution, our work will every day grow easier and easier, and so at last it will be our recreation, and we shall reap from it so much peace of conscience, so much joy in the Holy Ghost, such a calm and sweet enjoyment of ourselves, and such a

glorious hope of a future blessed immortality, as will carry us with unspeakable vigour through all the weary stages of our duty, till we are arrived to our journey's end, where all the sorrows of our repentance shall be swallowed up in everlasting joys and triumphs.

-nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. THESE words are a part of our Saviour's prayer in his agony; in which his soul being at present under a mighty contest with the powers of darkness, and under a vigorous apprehension of his approaching passion on the cross, expresses an earnest but yet natural and innocent desire of deliverance; Father, if thou be willing, saith he, remove this cup from me. For his humanity, being now in a great measure deprived of the supports and comfortable influence of his divinity, and left alone to grapple by its own single strength with the powerful malice of men and devils, and being under a piercing sense of those mighty evils they intended against him, began to recoil and shrink, out of a natural desire to preserve itself: but yet this natural desire being perfectly under the government of his reason, and that as perfectly under the government of God, he does to this effect address himself to God; " Father, if it "be thy will, remove this cup from me. I do not "desire in the least to control or cross thy blessed "will in any thing; no, rather than thou shouldest "suffer the least disappointment in thy blessed in

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tentions, I am ready to undergo the utmost that "the malice of men and devils can inflict upon me : "but, alas! the evils that I feel and fear are so exceeding grievous unto flesh and blood, that, if it

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might be without contradiction to thy will, or prejudice to thy gracious intentions to a sinful world, "I cannot but earnestly desire that they might be " removed from me. But if there be any the least competition between thy designs and my desires, so that they do not fairly agree and perfectly con"sist with one another, whatsoever I endure, not my will, but thine be done!"

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Behold here a perfect pattern of submission to the will of God, and that under the most dismal and dif- · ficult circumstances. When he plainly saw it was the will of his Father to expose him to the utmost extremity of human misery, to object his naked breast to the utmost malice of men and devils; when, by the force of a most powerful instinct, his nature recoiled at the apprehension of it, and would fain have been excused; then did he supplicate on his bended knees, that his Father would not listen to the innocent language of his natural fears and desires, but that he would fully execute his own severe and terrible will upon him; not my will, O Father, i. e. not the will of my natural fear, and desire of self-preservation, but thy will be done; though it be to inflict on me the utmost misery that a poor innocent, as I am, can be exposed to. The words being thus explained, do naturally resolve themselves into this proposition:,

That God's choices for us are much better than our own; and consequently, that, if it were in our power to determine which of the two would take effect, it would be very unreasonable not to choose what God hath chose for us.

The truth of which will evidently appear, if we consider these two things:

I. That God doth as really and heartily will what is good for us, as we do for ourselves.

II. That he knows much better what is good for us than we.

I. That God doth as really and heartily will what is good for us, as we do for ourselves; i. e. so long as we are proper objects of his good-will, and have not sinned ourselves into an utter incapacity of being beloved by him: for then the case quite alters, and that good-will, which he formerly bore us, converts into a severe resolution of making us dreadful examples to others; that so, when through our own obstinacy and incorrigibleness he can do no more good upon us, he may do good to others by us, and warn them not to imitate our actions by the fearful example of our sufferings. But so long as there is any hope of doing good upon us, he declares himself as heartily inclined to do good to us, as ever any man was to do good to himself. For what mighty designs hath he set on foot? what expensive methods hath he used to save us? in what passionate strains hath he expressed his good-will towards us, and with what restless importunity doth he court us to be happy? He swears by his own life that he desires not our ruin, but rather that we should return and live; and solemnly professes, that he would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. And when, with all his courtships and addresses, he cannot prevail upon our obstinacy, to dissuade us from ruining ourselves, he puts on the passions of a mournful friend, and with yearning bowels laments our fatal folly by all which tender expressions he plainly declares, that he doth as heartily will our welfare, as we can do our own. But because a firm belief of