trade; in your connections; in a variety of pursuits; and "your heart frets against the Lord." What a mercy it is to you to be cut off from all your schemes of bliss, in every quarter, but one, time will show. In the mean time, submissively wait the event, and recollect what you daily pray for, that God's " will may be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Consider it is " your own foolishness that has perverted your ways." Why did you expect great things from the world? When the Lord told you, " in the world ye shall have tribulation," saying also "in me ye shall have peace:" When he has taught you by the Apostle to the Hebrews to live as persons " who have here no continuing city, but who seek one to

come."

Unreasonable expectations of divine comforts in this life form another fruitful source of the evil mentioned in the text. That all God's children shall have peace, great peace, is promised. But when, and to what degree, is entirely an affair of God's pleasure. Many, hearing of the extraordinary consolations of some, pray for the same, and obtain them not. Hence their " hearts fret against the Lord," and they feel a spirit of envy against the brethren. Thus do they miss of that which they might obtain; because they expect that which the Lord has not promised. He that would live in peace, and fruitfulness here, will do well to refer the quantity, and degree of his comforts to the Lord's pleasure; to be ever jealous, and watchful to be found in the way of duty; and to derive his strongest, because they are the most solid comforts, from the prospect of the exceeding and eternal weight of glory which he shall receive, when Jesus who is now his

life shall appear, and he shall appear with him in glory.

The self-sufficient spirit natural to man is another exceeding fruitful source of the evil under consideration. Such and such difficulties lie in the believer's way: he is tempted by the flesh to help himself. Impatience, and unbelief, and self-confidence direct all his steps. Nor is he, by repeated expреrience, reclaimed; though the result of that experience uniformly is always bitter disappointment, and vexation of spirit. He thinks his case hard, and blames the Lord; but, in reality, it was his own folly that " perverted his ways" from the first. He should have "committed his ways to the Lord," as a poor blind helpless creature, and then, as it is written, "his thoughts should be established." But in order to this, there is need for him to grow in the experience of his own nothingness, and of the Lord's all-sufficient grace.

Thus, brethren, we see, in various cases, how apt even converted men are to lead themselves into mischief, and in their hearts " to fret against the Lord." What a view does this give us of the goodness of the Lord to his people! Surely, when, notwithstanding all their self-sufficiency and unwillingness to be directed by him, he has at length perfected that which concerneth them, and received them with glory, one most fruitful source of everlasting praise and admiration will be, this unwearied patience of the Lord amidst all their perverseness.

Persons, who know nothing of themselves, may wonder that we should charge so many mistakes, so much impiety of heart, on the Saints of the Lord. Nevertheless so it is: and so you will find it, if ever

you awake out of sleep, and come indeed to know the Lord and yourselves, and to taste his gracer When you begin, indeed, to live aright to God, you will entertain a vile opinion of yourselves, and discover infinite depths of wickedness in your hearts by which you are at present enslaved, although you are not conscious of it.

What a state then must you be in now! How do those, who by believing in Jesus "have passed from death unto life," pity your blind, dead, stupid condition! Will you not, at length, pray for divine light, by which to see yourselves? Will you not, at length, take notice of those alarming hints of your own conscience which whisper to you the truth of those charges which in very charity I am making against you? O Saviour of sinners! whether we are converted or unconverted, do thou pity and spare us. Teach us to flee, indeed, to thee, as our strength and refuge!

To conclude. Till we are impressed with a sense of our prodigious sinfulness, an Almighty Saviour and deliverer can appear to us no suitable foundation of hope. However, through him, and by faith in his blood alone it is, that the guilt of all the perverseness and impiety we have mentioned can be taken away, and the souls of men brought into a state of acceptance with God. Thus are they taught that meek, submissive resigned temper, whereby alone they can enjoy God's salvation in their souls here, and at length enjoy it to perfection hereafter.

SERMON XV.

THE FOLLY OF ATTEMPTING TO MAKE THAT STRAIGHT WHICH GOD HAS MADE CROOKED.

Eccles. vii. 13.

Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?

THE great design of this book of Solomon is to enable us to form a just estimate of human life, and thence to teach us how to pass through it in the most prudent manner, so as to obtain the greatest comfort from it possible in our way to a better. On this account the wise author was divinely directed to inculcate the vanity and emptiness of all worldly things, which he does repeatedly. He confirms and illustrates his point by a variety of cases and instances, to teach us-what we are all very slow to learn, what young people have scarce any idea of that the world is a world of emptiness and misery. This is absolutely necessary to be known, not only to dispose us to seek for the blessedness of the next life, but to enable us to pass with any tolerable cheerfulness through this. For if we expect nothing else but vanity, and a variety of crosses, we shall be prepared to use those wise rules for their mitigation, of which this book of Ecclesiastes is full, and may make the care of the soul the one thing needful. But if we have a wrong estimate of life as most have during the greater part, if not the whole of their days and keep continually expecting happiness from it, what must be the effect? Surely bitter disappointment will ensue, besides the unspeakable misery of losing our soul for ever.

But, I say no more of the plan of Solomon's book. He who, under a divine influence, attends to it carefully throughout, may see, that one thing runs through it. It teaches us never to expect any thing from the world to set our heart upon. Solomon has written another book, commonly called his Song, to teach us what the heart ought to be set upon, even Christ Jesus as the true husband of the soul, in whose supreme, and unrivalled love, we may here taste the beginning of bliss, and be led to the fulness of it hereafter. The Lord is a jealous God, and as he will not fail to bless us, if we cleave to him in faith and love; so if he see us shy and cold, and more disposed to cleave to other persons and things than to him, we shall be sure to suffer for it. But let us now dwell upon the peculiar doctrine of the text. "Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?"

The world, and our lot in it, is not straight, but crooked. There is always something rough and perverse in all its concerns. We can meddle with nothing that fully answers our wish. Most people, upon finding this in some particular object of desire, try some other scheme; but every fresh trial leaves them just where they were, always disappointed. They are ready to blame this and that hinderance. "If it had not been for such a person's folly, or such an unlucky thing happening, I should have