with; and be more particularly instructed, how to behave ourselves therein worthy of Christ.

This I know, and have observed, and I doubt not but others can testify the same; that such Christians as are most sensible of this extraordinary privilege, they that have high and dear thoughts of the life of Christ, which is the life of "God manifested in the flesh;" they that have it most in their eye, and are most affected and enamoured with it; these Christians are most visibly bettered, and differ eminently from others; there is a more excellent spirit in them: they are more " poor in spirit," more pure in heart," more "meek" and "merciful," more obedient, and resigned to the will of God, and every way more exemplary; more of "God is in them of a truth :" they are greater ornaments to the holy religion which they profess; and more qualified with such a disposition as renders them more universally useful to mankind than other Christians.

And thus we have seen, what a many most powerful considerations there are, that demonstrate the exceeding reasonableness of this duty of self-resignation; and strongly oblige and excite us to the practice of it.

f 1 Tim. iii. 16.

Matt. v. 3, 5, 7, 8.

b 1 Cor. xiv. 25.

i Concerning which, more is said in the next section, chap. 1.

SECT. II.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE ATTAINING THIS MOST EXCELLENT
TEMPER OF SELF-RESIGNATION.

CHAP. I.

That in order to the resigning our wills entirely to the will of God, we should frequently consider such principles as are most available to the effectual subduing them thereunto. principles further enlarged on.

Several such

HOPING that what hath hitherto been discoursed, may have persuaded the reader to some desires after the attainment of this most excellent temper of self-resignation; we proceed now to direct to the use of certain means and helps thereto : some of which refer more particularly to active, some to passive resignation; and others to both alike.

First. Consider often, and labour to be fully possessed with the truth and power of such principles as are available, and have a proper tendency, to the effectual subduing our wills to the will of God.

This sort of principles hath been largely spoken to: but because we cannot insist overmuch upon so highly useful an argument, (nor indeed well speak sufficiently to it,) we will dwell a while longer upon it, and entreat the reader to fix deeply in his

mind the following truths; which, though they are the same for substance with some of the foregoing, deserve to be further and more particularly enlarged on.

1. The will we are to submit to, is the will of our great Creator and Sovereign, Preserver and Benefactor. It is the will of our Creator; of him who hath given us our being, and by whom we are whatsoever we are. Now man's receiving his being from God, and his dependence upon him for the continuance of it, doth speak it necessarily his duty to be ruled, ordered, and disposed by him; so that he can never be disengaged from willing agreeably to the will of God. As God is our Creator, he hath a right to be our absolute Lord and Sovereign: and he being so, we must needs acknowledge, that we ought not to will any thing, nor do any thing, but what God allows; that we are not to take leave to do what we list, but what God likes best.

Again; It is the will of our great Preserver and Benefactor; who hath, ever since we had a being, laid new obligations upon us, in the continued care of his gracious providence, and by his renewed mercies and favours. We are nothing without God, we have nothing but from him; and therefore we should do and will nothing, but what he would have us. He, the overflowing spring of goodness, hath not "left himself without witness;" is always "doing us good, and filling our hearts with food and gladness;" doth all that is fit for him to do, to please us being not at all niggardly in the comforts of this life, but bestowing them in such

As was shown in sect. i. chap. i.

b Acts xiv. 17.

a proportion as is able to content moderate and modest desires; and being richly gracious, in affording us advantages and suitable means for a better life: and, therefore, if we have the least sense of what is worthy and ingenuous, we will acknowledge it most reasonable and becoming we should. do all we can to please him, who hath done so infinitely much to please us. The apostle well knew the power of this argument, when he said, "I beseech you by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."""

Nor can there be a more powerful argument than this to persuade to patience, to a quiet and meek submission to all the disposals of the divine providence; seeing for one cross we have many hundred blessings. Ubi mali gutta est, ibi immensum mare beneficiorum Dei, Where there is one drop of evil, there is a large sea of divine favours and benefits.' And this men would be forced to confess, if they were as curious and careful to consider the many mercies they enjoy, as they are to consider the few evil things they suffer; if they were duly sensible, that they are less than the least of the many mercies they possess, and that in all their sufferings God punisheth them less than their sins deserve. Holy Job thought it reasonable thus to argue, as prodigious and unparalleled as his sufferings were, "What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ?" What! is God bound to be always heaping favours upon us? must we have nothing but sunshine, fair, and calm days? must we be fed with nothing but mar

a Rom, xii. 1.

b Job ii. 10.

1

row and fatness, taste nothing but what is sweet and dainty? If God gives us sometimes to taste of the sour and bitter, to drink of the waters of Marah; shall we repine and murmur, and think much of it? Far be it from us so to do."

2. The will we are to obey, and submit to, is the will of the infinitely perfect Being, that is most holy, most good, most wise, and most powerful: accordingly his will being most perfect, most holy, good, and wise; it is therefore infinitely more worthy to be followed than our own will, which is vain, foolish, and perverse, when not governed by his, and hath "many foolish and hurtful desires."

If a child should be left to his own will, it would be his ruin but it would be much more pernicious to us, not to be guided, governed, and restrained by the will of God. And therefore when God doth restrain and abridge us, as to some things which our will would be free and loose to, we have no cause to complain: as those that are come to be grown men, and to have a right judgment of things, do clearly see, that they had no cause to be froward and complain, when children, that their careful and wise parents would not suffer them to eat green trash, nor humour them in every thing they longed for.

God, who is the great physician of souls, seeth it fit, in his infinite wisdom, to restrain us from certain things; as a wise and careful physician doth his patient from what he knoweth would be his bane, however grateful to his appetite: and we being in as unsafe a condition as sick persons,

* See this more fully expressed in chap. 9.

d 1 Tim. vi. 9.