Nothing could be more inconsistent with our professed allegiance to our Sovereign, or with our acquiescence in his purposes. Or, did we mean to ask that the Divine will might be done, only so far as it designed to continue the lives of our friends, and advance our temporal prosperity? This, indeed, would be to limit the Holy One of Israel, and to dictate to Infinite Wisdom by what means our good might be promoted. If we were honest in our supplications, we made no reserve; we committed our present and eternal interests to the care and government of Jehovah, implicitly confiding in the revealed perfections of his nature.

A spirit of entire submission to the providential government of God, is always represented in the Bible as one of great practical importance. It is a distinguishing evidence of our adoption into the family of Christ. "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons :" that is, if we accept the chastisement as from the hand of our gracious Father, and bear it with becoming fortitude and patience, we exhibit a satisfactory proof of our sonship. It gives a tinge to the whole of our religious character, enters into all our spiritual duties, and sustains and improves all our graces. It is our highest conformity to the example of Him, who, amidst contumely and reproach, sorrow and suffering, committed "himself to Him that judgeth righteously." It brings into the soul a settled peace, a holy and delightful calm, which enables it to stand

erect beneath the storms of life, and ride serene on the waves of trouble. It makes every affliction tolerable, and easy of endurance; is the assurance and pledge of approaching deliverance; and capacitates the soul for the reception of the greatest mercies. It commends religion to the approbation of an unthinking world, and often engages them in its pursuit; and it attracts the eye and heart even of God himself. "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth?" It is that meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price. "If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me; and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then ACCEPT OF THE PUNISHMENT of their iniquity then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham, will I remember; and I will remember the land."

On the other hand, where a spirit of resignation is wanting, and the sinner pursues a course of obstinate grief, and of rebellion against the will of the Most High, a fearful evidence is given of the desperate hardihood of his character, and the danger of his condition. 'Every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is

66

tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind;" but man himself, more wild and ungovernable than the brute creation, resists the gracious discipline of the Almighty, and flings against the strokes of his rod. When God speaks by his judgments, like Pharaoh, he hardens his heart, and exclaims, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?" Or, with Jonah, he frets and murmurs when his gourds are smitten, and his schemes frustrated; and to the inquiry, "Doest thou well to be angry?" he ventures to justify his spirit, by replying, "I do well to be angry, even unto death." Such conduct is a high misdemeanor against the Majesty of heaven; a strong symptom of a haughty and unsanctified heart; and a certain presage of a fiercer punishment still to be endured. "Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?" "He that hath a froward heart findeth no good." snares are in the way of the froward: he that doth keep his soul shall be far from them." And as a spirit of discontent, and hostility, is criminal and dangerous, so it is foolish. It cannot effect any alteration in the Divine arrangements, or procure a moment's respite from our trials. "He teareth himself in his anger. Shall the rock be removed out of his place for thee?" Still the vast and complicated machinery of Providence will move on: and, regardless of our sinful complainings, "His counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure."

"Thorns and

CHAPTER VII.

THE MOURNER'S CONSOLATIONS.

When joy no longer soothes or cheers,

And even the hope that threw

A moment's sparkle o'er our tears,

Is dimm'd and vanish'd too!

Oh! who could bear life's stormy doom,

Did not thy wing of love

Come, brightly wafting through the gloom,

Our Peace-branch from above!

Then sorrow, touch'd by thee, grows bright
With more than rapture's ray;

As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day.

MOORE.

Ir is the design of Divine revelation to afford us instruction and consolation, amidst the darkness by which we are surrounded, and the trials with which we are exercised. Like the light of heaven, it breaks in upon our night of ignorance and wretchedness, dissipating the shades and mists by which we are enveloped, and giving to passing scenes and objects a new and pleasing aspect. It throws its rays beyond the confines of sin and woe, and spreads

a bright radiance over the future habitation of the just, comforting us under the loss of our friends, and reconciling us to the mode of our own departure. It is our pole-star through all the mazes of our earthly pilgrimage, and our sun to turn the shadow of death into the light of the morning.

Of the volume of revealed truth, nations, sunk in Pagan superstition and idolatry, know nothing. While this divine light has shone upon us, to guide our feet into the way of peace, they are still inhabiting the dark places of the earth, and are sitting in the region of moral and spiritual death. They have no open vision; on them no sabbaths dawn; no messenger of peace stands, in their great assemblies, to proclaim reconciliation through the blood of the cross; mercy pours not her treasures at their feet, nor implores their acceptance of the proffered boon. They feel the disease of sin, and writhe from the smart of its festering wounds, and yet have no remedy at hand to assuage the burning fever, or allay the torturing pain. Sunk to the lowest stage of degradation, they drink deep of the cup of human misery, and yet have no means to extract its bitterness, or impart to the nauseous draught a healing virtue. When sickness invades their humble dwellings, and death removes from them the objects of their tender affection, no cup of consolation is presented to their parched lips-no voice breaks the stillness of the tomb, to assure the frantic mourner of a resurrection morn. If, indeed, reason, instructed