himself. Disquietude of mind is a natural consequence of depravity of manners; and can anything be more preposterous than taxing the Almighty as the author of this evil, when its removal is so obviously within our own power? Suppose we admit it to be the punishment of sin; we have still only to remit the cause, and the penalty naturally ceases. Abstain from evil, and good must necessarily follow.

Nor is this by any means an insurmountable difficulty; since what one man can do, as far as regards spiritual determinations, may undoubtedly be done by another. And if Enoch and Elijah became sufficiently pure from spiritual defilements, to be translated from earth to heaven, without undergoing the pangs of dissolution, it is not beyond our power to become equally the objects of divine favour. "Oh Elias! how wast thou honoured in thy wondrous deeds! and who may glory like unto thee!" It is true, that both these men were great and mighty in their generations, "fearing the Lord and walking in his ways." Let us, however, remember, that the means of becoming good men, with which they were furnished, were not greater than those which we enjoy. "They were men of like passions with ourselves. They were tempted like as we are," and both lived in times/ of peculiar depravity; the latter especially was exposed to great difficulty and danger. They had the same "lusts of the flesh" to overcome, and only

the same motives to obedience as we have. They were exemplary in the midst of an evil generation: so may we be. They each lived under a dispensa tion far more imperfect than has been vouchsafed to us, and yet they walked with God, and were obedient to his laws. They were not without their afflictions: Elijah particularly endured much and often; but he bore his sufferings meekly, for the law of the Lord was written in his heart. It is, indeed, true, that calamities sometimes rest heavy upon those whose days have been past in humility of spirit, and "righteousness of life." "Both the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God. All things come alike to all."

men.

The loss of friends, fortune, children, health, may fall with combined force upon the best of The obloquy of a censorious world may reach his retirement, and mingle its vexations with the sorrows of his heart. But has he, even under these united afflictions, any right to complain when his sins have deserved them all, and in the midst. of his trials God is still his protector? "The Lord is our light, and our salvation, whom then shall we fear? the Lord is the strength of our life, of whom then shall we be afraid?" Is he not in a far more enviable condition than that man whom his Maker has forsaken, even though the latter should enjoy all the pleasures of earth unmixed? The heaviest of human calamities-nay, all the combined evils with which the infirmities of nature

can assail a good man, are as dust in the balance compared with the solitary horrors of a guilty conscience. Does he suffer nothing who is haunted by apprehensions, and who dares not retire to hold private communings with his own bosom, lest he should be affrighted with the testimony of his guilt recorded there? Who can lay his hand upon his heart, and say, that he has done nothing to deserve the chastisement of heaven? "If God spared not his own son, who knew no sin," why should we complain at the punishment of our transgressions?

A further cause to which I ascribed a disposition to murmur against Providence, is, closing our hearts against the awful truth that the Almighty can punish as well as forgive.

In estimating the attributes of him, who "breathed into our nostrils the breath of life," we are fondly apt to measure those only, through all their boundless influences, which establish the Almighty character as one of infinite beneficence and long suffering. We delight in the assurance, that "to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him," and often foolishly sink into security whilst the enemy is "within our gates." We dwell with ardour upon God's gracious promises; we remember with exultation his own declaration, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee;" whilst we are too prone to forget the conditions upon which these promises are built. Many fancy that

their guilt cannot extend beyond the reach of the divine forgiveness; that, "though their sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool:" forgetting that before this can happen, it is commanded, "wash ye and make you clean, and put away your evil doings from before mine eyes." They are backward to conceive how the anger of God can be kindled against such comparatively insignificant beings as themselves, who, with all their faults, are, in their own judgments, not sufficiently guilty to deserve the punishment denounced against those, who, in the magnificent imagery of the prophet, "shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them."

With such mistaken impressions of the divine character, they are apt to think themselves hardly dealt with, if they suffer more than they may happen to imagine justly apportioned to-what they would term-their venial offences. They deny themselves no enjoyments; for all enjoyments are in their view innocent, or, at least pardonable, but still go quietly on in their sins, under the unwarrantable presumption that their Creator is too merciful to punish eternally, when he has declared himself so ready to forgive. They ought not, however, to forget, in estimating his boundless perfections, that immutable justice, as well as mercy, is one of his essential attributes: that God cannot

be inconsistent with himself; and that the sinner must sorrow as well as the righteous rejoice. Would he not violate the laws of his Providencenay, would he not sully his divine perfections, if he were to make no distinction between those who hear and obey his voice, and the "workers of iniquity"? Shall He pronounce a decree and suffer it to be broken with impunity? Or can we imagine, that he has ever declared a determination which he will not execute? With him there can be no change. What He has said must be, or there is no truth in Heaven. Shall we then, after he has expressly laid down the conditions of his favour, and condescended to come among us as a suffering man, and make atonement for us by the sacrifice of himself; shall we, after this, complain, if we undergo some afflictions here, when our disobedience is so frequent, our ingratitude so manifest, and our sinfulness so flagrant? Had we not much better suffer in time than in eternity? And how know we, but that the very sorrows at which we repine in this life, may draw us aside from the broad way, that leads to those dreary abodes where the guilty shall sorrow for ever! The Almighty is merciful, even in his chastisements, for "whom he loveth he chasteneth;" and, but for this timely correction, they might still continue in their sins, and become finally aliens from the kingdom of heaven. "Wherefore, then, doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?"