this is a constituent part of our being; but it is not at all consistent with either reason or religion that we should make an idol of the body; that we should allow it to occupy the chief place in our regard; or treat its concerns with a deference which is claimed of right by those of the immortal soul, in exclusion of all rival interests.

In the third place.-Since man is mortal--since his days pass quickly by—since his purposes, and the thoughts of his heart are liable to be suddenly broken off--it is evidently wrong to disquiet ourselves in vain respecting the event of our plans. We cannot, by all the anxious cares of which we are capable, produce a change in one feature of that system by which divine providence conducts all things to their destined completion. The events and ultimate issues of things must rest with him. "The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord."* "Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain; whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that." Let not your heart be set so devotedly upon the accomplishment of any particular object in future life, as to be made unhappy by disappointment; for against disappointment you cannot secure yourselves. However sweetly the face of nature may smile upon you now; however cheerily the sun may gild your prospects; the revolution of a moment may unexpectedly reverse the scene. The tempests may gather; the skies may blacken; and the cold floods of death and desolation overwhelm every hope but that which fixes its hold upon the Heavens.

Once more. Our meditations are certainly calculated to warn us against procrastinating the fulfilment of those purposes which it is our bounden duty both to form and to exe† James, iv. 13-15.

Prov, xvi. 33.

Y

cute. Defer not until to-morrow that which can be done today; and which because it can be done, ought to be done. "Think on thy ways, O man! and turn thy feet to the testimonies of God. Make haste, and delay not to keep his commandments."* Talk not of a season more convenient than the present. Such a season exists but in thy dreams. Time is not at thy control. The period is hastening on when thy place shall know thee no more. "This night thy soul may be required of thee." Then it will be found an unavailable excuse to say, "My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart."

Look forward to the miseries that must unavoidably ensue to all who die without having formed pious resolutions, or who, having formed, never executed them. Evil cannot dwell with God; neither shall the foolish stand in his sight. Dying thus, your portion can only be amongst accursed spirits, "hateful and hating one another."

Turn now to those fair and ever-shining scenes which stretch themselves farther than even the pure vision of the just can see, to the right of the throne of God, and of the Lamb; those cloudless Heavens irradiated by the beams of a glory brighter than the sun; those regions of incorruptible delight, where sin, disease and death are names unknown. Children of mortality! these are the fair and evershining scenes--these are the cloudless Heavens-these the regions of unsuffering life, and undying glory, which the son of man hath prepared for your residence, if you will think, and purpose, and act, in obedience to his gospel; if you will think, and purpose, and act, for eternity.

Psalm, cxix. 59. 60. † Luke, xii. 20.

SERMON XVI.

THE DISPENSATIONS OF GOD VINDICATED..

ISAIAH, V. 4.

"What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?"

THIS inquiry may be urged in reply to all the expressions of dissatisfaction with the ways of God, in which mankind are so prone to indulge themselves. The existence of this proneness to be dissatisfied-this spirit of impious complaining, is a fact too obvious to be denied or concealed; nor is it an easy matter to number the grounds which seem to a disordered imagination to justify the permission of it. Strange to tell, the greatest advantages we receive at the hand of Heaven are too frequently made the subjects of inculpation; and God is reproached for his very goodness. Some there are, for instance, who would appear to murmur at the liberty with which man is endued as a moral agent. They are displeased that it is left at his option whether to be virtuous or vicious, and consequently happy or miserable; preferring that he should be impelled by resistless necessity into those courses which issue in tranquillity and enjoyment.

Others there are who repine at the superiour advantages enjoyed by the generations of old, for whose guidance, instruction, and confirmation, miraculous deeds were wrought; who require that, as in the days of former years, the sea should be turned into dry land-streams should be made to gush from the rock of the desert--the luminaries of Heaven interrupted in their bright career; the living

struck lifeless by a word; and the dead raised from their graves. Who can discern no propriety or utility in "all things continuing as they were from the beginning of the world," without any of those occasional and auspicious suspensions, revolutions and mutations which excited the wonder, strengthened the faith, quickened the devotion, and sanctified the lives of the men of antiquity. Nothing now occurs, say they, to provoke the conviction and acknowledgment that "this is the finger of God."†

Others are offended because in the present state of things the tares and the wheat grow together indiscriminately; because prosperity and adversity are alike indecisive of man's moral condition; the race not always being to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; success frequently being wanting to the exertion of the upright, while she follows in the train of the most unworthy; because, as they reason, this undistinguishing treatment of the good and the wicked, withdraws encouragement from virtue, and administers it to vice.

And others, again, cavil at the Almighty, because, when iniquity abounds, he sees fit, in certain cases, to abandon things to their natural operation; to permit corruption to engender corruption, vice to feed on vice, misery to become more miserable, and the counsels of folly to eventuate in the perdition of the fool; instead of interposing his irresistible exertions in some preternatural or novel manner, to restore righteousness, order, and peace to their station in the world.

Many of you, doubtless, will perceive at a glance, that these views are entirely erroneous. What is it that can give rise to them? Where are we to look for the causes of this perverse spirit of dissatisfaction? This must be answered in the first place; and afterward I will advance a few particulars that may place, in a striking point of light, the great impropriety of such views of the divine procedures. In the first place.-What is it? Self-conceit-an inordi

*2 Peter, iii. 4. † Exodus, viii. 19.

nate estimation of our own understanding-is no inconsiderable source of this vicious propensity. It often happens that men think themselves wiser than their Maker; at least, we can account for their conduct on no other principle. They constitute their judgment the criterion of fitness and unfitness in the dispensations of providence. "Such a method appears to them to be the most eligible for the government of the world; therefore, it is the most eligible. They would have adopted such a particular plan, had things been under their direction; therefore, the Deity ought to have adopted it." This language may be thought too extravagant to be imputed to any of God's rational creatures; but if there be such a thing as language in conduct, it certainly is the language of a multitude of inflated mortals, who presume with their measured capacities to embrace infinitude. The human intellect is well fitted to the sphere through which it was designed to range; but let it not aspire to scale the Heaven of Heavens.

While counterfeit wisdom is one source of this perverse propensity, real ignorance is undoubtedly another. I do not mean that imperfection which characterizes every finite mind when contrasted with boundless intelligence; nor yet that imbecility which unavoidably adheres to the intellectual faculties of fallen man. I mean the absence of that knowledge which results from things, from humble, devout, the ways and works of God. great," says the Psalmist, "sought out of all them that have pleasure therein;"* but there are numbers who have no pleasure in them, and will be at no trouble to investigate them. And yet these of all others, are the very men most ready to criticise and censure them.

the diligent study of divine and assiduous meditation on "The works of the Lord are

• Further.-A certain hastiness or temerity of temper betrays not a few into this sin against God. A hasty decision is very rarely a correct decision. A wise and candid man

* Psalm, cxi. 2.