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DISCOURSE XXV.

PART I.

PSALM 1xxvii. 9, 10.

Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies ?

And I faid, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.

WHOEVER was the author of this psalm, he was manifeftly under a great dejection of mind when he penned it: he speaks of himself as detefted of God, and given up to be a prey to the forrows of his own disturbed, tormented heart. His foul refufed comfort, as he complains in the fecond verfe: When he remembered God, he was troubled; when he complained, his fpirit was overwhelmed, as he laments in the third verse.

What the particular grief was, which gave rife to this mournful complaint, does not appear; but whatever it was, the fting of 'it lay in this, that the Pfalmift apprehended himself to be forfaken of God and without doubt this is of all afflictions the moft afflicting, the moft infupportable; a grief it is,

which no medicine can reach, which all the powers of reafon can hardly affift, for the foul refuses to be comforted.

These fears, these forrows, belong not to the vicious and profligate, who have not God in all their thoughts: they live without reflection, and therefore without concern; and can be extremely diverted with hearing or feeing what modeft and humble finners fuffer from a fenfe of religion: but, bold and fearless as fuch men are, their day of fear is not far off, it draws near apace; and, when it comes, will convince them of the truth of the wife preacher's obfervation; The heart of the wife is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

There is a very great difference between the misgivings and misapprehensions of a religious mind, and the fear to which finners are always expofed, and which oftentimes they experience. The fears of the religious are frequently ill-grounded, and arise from their not rightly confidering and understanding their own cafe, or the methods of God's providence in relation to this world: but the finner's fear is never ill-grounded, for if the profligate finner has not reason to fear God, there can be no fuch thing as a reasonable fear in the world. The religious man may fear in the hours of his weakness and infirmity; the finner can only fear when he comes to his right reafon, and a due fenfe of his condition.

This obfervation will ferve to diftinguish between the fears to which the religious are fubject, and which the text leads us to confider; and the fears

of guilt, which are foreign to our present purpose, and to be treated in quite a different manner.

That the Pfalmift speaks of the forrows of a religious well difpofed heart, is manifeft from the description he gives of his conduct and behaviour under his distress: he was forely troubled, but in the day of his trouble he fought the Lord, (verse 2.) He was afflicted, but in his affliction he remembered God, (verfe 3.) Whatever doubts he entertained as to his own condition, and the favour of God towards him, yet of the being, the power, and wifdom of God he never doubted. This faith, which in his utmoft extremity he held faft, proved to be his fheet-anchor, and faved him from the fhipwreck which the storms and tempefts raised in his own breaft feemed to threaten.

It is worth our while to obferve the train of thought which this afflicted good man pursued, and what were the reflections in which he rested at last, as his best and only comfort and support.

Whether the calamities which afflicted him were private to himself, or public to his people and country; yet as long as his thoughts dwelt on them, and led him into expoftulations with God, for the severity of his judgments, he found no ease or relief. A weak man cannot rightly judge of the actions even of a man wifer than himself, of whose views and defigns he is not mafter; much less can any man judge of the ways of God, to whofe councils he is not admitted, and to whofe fecrets he is a ftranger. And though it is but too natural for men, when they confider the fins of others, to complain for want of juftice in the world, and when they confider

their own, of want of mercy; yet in both cases do they act weakly and inconfiftently, pretending to judge where they want not only authority to decide, but even understanding fufficient to try, the cause. The Pfalmift complained heavily, Has God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger Shut up his tender mercies? But what did he get by this complaint? was he not forced immediately to confefs the impropriety and folly of it? I faid, This is my infirmity. He said very rightly: in complaining, he followed the natural impreffions of paffion and impatience; in acknowledging the folly of his complaint, he spoke not only the language of grace, but of fense

and reafon.

What muft we do then? fince it is weakness to complain, and folly to judge, of the methods of God's providence, what is there left for us to do? and what part muft we take? Muft religion be fenfeless and ftupid, and fhut out all reflection on the ways of God? No: one way there is ftill left open to us; to truft, and to depend on God: and a way it is fo far from being senseless and ftupid, that in pursuit of it we shall fee opening before us the nobleft views that reason or religion can afford.

I am not prescribing to you a method of my own, it is the very method the Pfalmift prefcribed to himself. God has not left himself without witness; the great works of nature and of grace proclaim aloud his lovingkindness to the children of men. If we confider them attentively, we must admire his power and adore his goodness: and when we fee fuch power united with fo much goodness towards it is but a natural ftep to throw ourselves upon

us,

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