On the Duty of Refignation.

In two SERMONS.

Јов Ц. го.

Shall we receive Good at the Hand of God, and shall we not receive Evil?

T

HESE are the Words of Job, SER. XII. when reduced from the Height of

Profperity, to the lowest Depth of Mifery. When Calamities, a dire Train, fucceeded one after another; his Wife, haraffed by Misfortunes, advises him put an unnatural Period to his Life. But he, with that unconquered Spirit, which neither his former Prosperity had foftened, nor his prefent Misfortunes had broken, replied, Thou talkeft like one of the foolish, or irreligious Women: For fhall we, Beings of a mixed Character, expect pure VOL. I.

X

and

SER. XII. and unmixed Happiness from our Creator?

Shall we, who do fo much Evil, refufe to fuffer any which he fends? Shall we receive Good at the Hand of God, and fhall we not receive Evil?

910

How mean and unmanly, in Comparifon of Yob's, is the Behaviour of that gloomy Race of Mortals, who have Recourfe to the Inftruments of Death under any fevere Affliction, who launch out into another World, weary of the Pleasures, or impatient under the Pains of this? Who without Understanding the Value of Life, or the true Ends of Living, contemptuously return back to God the Prefent, which he has made: As if, what he, the Author of every good Gift, had bestowed, was a Trifle not worth the keeping?

Their Friends may view with weeping Eyes, and even an unrelenting Crowd with fome Concern, a mangled and disfigured Carcafe: But Men of larger Views will extend their Reflections farther, and lament the Miseries of a wounded Spirit, which has rushed unprepared into the Prefence of an incenfed Deity. A ghaftly Corpfe will give them the leaft Touches of Compaffion: But to confider the Cafe of a Soul,

01

a Soul, that has done a Fact which leaves SER. XII. AO Room for Repentance, that has plunged itself into an Abyss of endless Mifery; to confider that a new Light is probably let in upon the unbodied Mind, a Light more harp, powerful, and piercing, than even that Instrument, which diffolved, the vital Union, and divorced the Soul from the Body; this is what will make the deep eft Impreffions upon any thinking Spectator. God has joined Soul and Body together: And what he has joined together, let no Man, unauthorised by him, put afunder. To commit Self-Murder is an abfolute Defiance, or a defperate Disbelief of his Pros vidence. It is to difmifs our felves from this State of Probation, before God thinks fit to difmifs us: It is in Effect to tell him, we will not patiently endure the Chaftife+ ments, which he wifely inflicts.

Not fo holy Job: He confidered, that he, who fent him into the World, alone knew when he had fulfilled those Ends, for which he fent him: That he alone therefore was a competent Judge, w when he was to be discharged from any further Service here, and to be admitted to a better State. All my appointed Time, fays he, will,

X 2

SER. XII. will I'wait, till my Change come. It is a

hard Matter to determine, whether in Pros fperity he relieved the Wants of others more generously; or in Adverfity bore his own Miseries more patiently. In the for

mer Cafe, he was a Father to the Father lefs, he made the Bleffing of him that was ready to perish, come upon him. And in the latter Cafe, he could reflect~ Naked came I into the World, and naked shall 1 return: The Lord gave, and the Lord bas taken away Bleffed be the Name of the Lord.

To fuffer undauntedly, fhews a greater Strength of Mind, than even to act greatly. For to act greatly depends hapon a brifker Flow of Spirits, and a warmer Ferment of the Blood: But to fuffer undauntedly, "requires an uncomplying Integrity, and a determinate Firmness of Mind. And therefore we have Examples of those, who have dared nobly in the Field of Battle, and yet have shewn a cowardly Dejection of Mind, when Death has approached them flowly and gradually in all it's Pomp of Terrors upon a fick Bed or a Scaffold. A fudden Flush of Courage might animate them in the former Cafe: