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"fit in the gate, and deal forth your reflections and your promises. Are you not a fubject? Are you "not a fon? Are you not in experience, and every "other qualification, inferior to your father, and your "fovereign?

I go further; if a person were to rise up in this affembly, and endeavour to draw away difciples after him; if holding the fame language with regard to God, which Abfalom ufed with regard to David, he should fay, "Oh! that I were made governor in the world; "things fhould not be as they now are the ways of "the Lord are not equal: the Almighty perverts judg"ment ;" I am perfuaded you would be ready to drive him from the fanctuary, and to ftone him with stones, faying, "thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all "righteousness, when wilt thou cease to pervert the ' right ways of God?" But what, my hearers, if there fhould be found here of fuch a description, not one character only, but many; what, if in condemning this fuppofed blafphemer, you have pronounced judgment on yourselves? Why, the fentiment in various degrees prevails in all mankind. If they do not avow it, they indulge it; if they do not express it in words, it is to be derived by fair inference from their actions. For are they not displeased with the divine proceedings? Do they not murmur at those events, which under his administration are perpetually occurring? Are they not always fuggesting arrangements which they deem preferable to thofe which the Governor of the world has planned? This is the fubject which is to engage your attention this morning; and it is a fubject of fuperior importance, and will be found to poffefs a

commanding influence over your duty and your happinefs. Obferve the words which we have read as the foundation of the exercife. "Should it be accord"ing to thy mind?" The fpeaker is Elihu; a perfonage which the facred hiftorian introduces in a manner fo extraordinary, that commentators know not what to make of him. Some have taken him for the Son of God; others for a prophet; all for a wife and good man. The meaning of the question is obvious; "Shall the Supreme Being do nothing without thy "confent? Should He afk counfel of thee? Ought "He to regulate his difpenfations according to thy "views and defires? Should it be according to thy "mind?" He does not specify any particular cafe, which makes the inquiry the more striking and useful, and juftifies an application of it, the moft general and comprehenfive. Elihu, like the other friends of Job, faid fome things harfh and improper; but when he afked, "fhould it be according to thy mind?" Job should instantly have answered, No. And were your preacher to addrefs the fame question individually to this affembly, you should all immediately answer, No. To bring you to this temper, we fhall enlarge on the defire of having things "according to our mind." I. AS COMMON. II. AS UNREASONABLE. III. AS CRIMINAL. IV. AS DANGEROUS. V. AS IMPRACTICABLE. -"Confider what I fay, and the Lord give you un"standing in all things."

I. To have things "according to our mind" is a very COMMON with. Man is naturally felf-willed. The difpofition appears very early in our children,

All fin is a contention against the will of God; it began in paradise. Adam difobeyed the prohibition to "touch of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,' and all his pofterity have unhappily followed his example. What God forbids, we defire and pursue ; what He enjoins, we diflike and oppofe. Yea, "the "carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not fubject "to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

Behold the revelation One deems it unneceffary;

Enter the world of grace. which God has given us. for a fecond it is too fimple; for a third it is too myfterious. See Jefus Chrift crucified. He is "to "the Jews a ftumbling-block, and to the Greeks "foolishnefs." God has "fet" his " God has "fet" his "King upon his

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holy hill of Zion," and has fworn "that to him tr every knee shall bow, and every tongue confefs;" the language of those who hear this determination is, "we will not have this man to reign over us." When we begin to think of returning to God, it is not by the way which "He has confecrated for us," but by a way of our own devifing. We labour, not despairing of our own ftrength, while prophets and apostles teach us to implore help, and to place all our dependence on Him, whofe "grace" alone "is "fufficient for" us. We seek to be justified by our own works, while the gofpel affures us we must be juftified by the faith of Chrift ;" and many a furly Naaman exclaims, "Are not Abana and Pharpar, "rivers of Damafcus, better than all the waters of "Ifrael? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So "he turned, and went away in a rage." And the fame is to be feen in the world of Providence.

Who

is

content with fuch things as" he has? Who does not covet what is denied him? Who does not envy the fuperior condition of his neighbour? Who does not long to be at his own difpofal? If he draw off his from others, and look inwardly, every man will find "a pope in his own bofom;" he would have every thing according to his own mind; he would have his own mind the measure, both of all he does towards God, and of all God does towards him.

eyes

Acknowledged-But is not this difpofition crushed in conversion, and are not the Lord's "people made "willing in the day of his power?" See Saul of Tarfus on his knees; "behold he prayeth"-" Lord, "what wilt thou have me to do?" David wraps himself up in the ftillness of patience and submission : "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou "didst it." There stands old Eli; he has received the moft diftreffing intelligence, and piously exclaims "it "is the Lord, let Him do what feemeth him good." A gracious woman in deep affliction was once heard to fay, "I mourn, but I do not murmur." We have read of one, who, when informed that her two fons, her only children, were drowned, faid in all the majesty of grief, and with an heavenly compofure, "I fee God "is refolved to have all my heart, and I am refolved "He SHALL have it." Ah! here you behold the faints in their choiceft moments, and in their best frames; for their fanctification is imperfect in all its parts; too much of this felf-will remains even in them; they are most gratified when they find the divine proceedings falling into the direction which they had prefcribed; they are too much elated when their schemes

fucceed, and too much depreffed when their hopes are fruftrated. They do indeed love the will of God; and we are far from faying, that they would have nothing done according to HIS mind; but they are often folicitous to have too many things done according to their own.

II. This defire is UNREASONABLE. And it will eafily appear; for we are wholly unqualified to govern, while God is every way adequate to the work in which He is engaged; and therefore nothing can be more abfurd than to labour to displease Him, and fubftitute ourselves as the creators of destiny, the regulators of events. For, to throw open this thought-His power is almighty; his refources are boundlefs; "his under"standing is infinite." He fees all things in their origin, in their connections, in their dependencies, in their remote effects; He is "wonderful in counsel, and ex"cellent in working." This is the Being you wish to fet afide; and who is to be his fucceffor in empire? You, a worm of the earth; you, whofe "foundation "is in the duft;" you, who are "crushed before the "moth;" you, who are of "yesterday, and know "nothing" you, who "know not what a day may "bring forth."

Placed in an obscure corner of the universe, where only a fmall proportion of God's works paffes under his review; fixed in a valley, whose furrounding hills intercept his profpects; a prifoner even the re, looking only through grates and bars; his very dungeon enveloped in mists and fogs; his eyes alfo dim by reason of weakness; fuch is man! and this "vain man would