ever they may be, we shall learn to take them thankfully, as GOD's appointed way of chastening us here, that He may spare us hereafter.

What can a poor person do better, than offer up his wants and cares and sorrows as a kind of sacrifice to ALMIGHTY GOD, to be united to that grief which our LORD bore for him on the Cross? If he bear them thankfully for CHRIST's sake, they make him more like CHRIST, they bring him nearer to CHRIST; and so, though sharp in themselves, they will be sweet to him: for that which brings CHRIST nearer, how can it be other than a joy, to one who at all truly loves CHRIST?

SERMON CXCII.

RESIGNATION THE SCHOOL OF PIETY 1.

PHILIP. iv. 11.

"I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."

SOME who are here may perhaps remember, that at the beginning of the harvest which is just over, I called on you to consider the history of Boaz and Ruth, and showed you how you might learn to obtain GoD's blessing on the works of your hands, and on the fruits of your fields. Since then the weeks of the harvest have passed away; and no one, I suppose, will deny, that having been a most anxious time at the beginning, GOD has brought us through it far better than we could have expected.

If any one, farmer, labourer, or other person, be now inclined to complain and find fault, and talk and think with bitterness of the times going so much against him, I would wish him just to imagine to himself how much he would have given, what price we would all of us have paid, could we have been made certain, at the beginning of the harvest-weeks, that the progress and end of them would be such as it was: that the weather would change, and become glorious and bright, just such as harvest work requires, for the whole time of gathering in, and that not in this or that place only, but the whole country over: that the damage done to the crops in some way should be amply made up by their prosperity in other ways, and that at a time when for many

'Preached in 1843.

reasons any failure in the harvest would have been of even worse consequence than usual. Who could have reckoned upon all this? and yet all this has been done for us, by the gracious bounty of HIM who always gives more than either we desire or deserve. Let us at least be thankful for the blessing now it has been given; there has been among us too much of unquiet murmuring and dissatisfaction, in the bare looking on to the evil time; let us not now add to the sin, and make it more inexcusable, by repining at GOD'S way of dealing out His bounty to us; that this man, as we choose to think, has too much, and another too little.

Indeed, to murmur and complain, openly and directly, against the weather or the crops which God sends, is so very gross impiety, that it is not often, I trust, found among us: and when any person, giving way to unbelief, is heard to utter a thought of that sort, people are of course shocked at it; it would be well then, if we had the same kind of feeling in regard of all discontent with any of God's gracious dealings. For in truth, to be content, and make up your mind that all things but sin are somehow ordered for the best, is as reasonable and right in our thoughts of other matters, as of the weather and the crops which GOD sends.

Suppose you are a hired labourer or servant, you get your bread by working for another: you would be shocked, and with good reason, should you hear your master speak in a blasphemous and bitter way of the times and the seasons which GOD sends: but what if you permit yourself to use the same kind of language concerning your master, and others who are set over you, or with whom you are to work? is not this also inexcusable in the hearing of God and His holy Angels? For they see plainly, that as the weather and the seasons are of God's own sending, so is the master whom we serve, so are the companions who work with us, so are all the circumstances, little and great, of our station; even that which is most amiss in them, that which is really perverse and sinful, HE allows for wise and good purposes: and to rebel against it, or to complain of it in a bitter, discontented way, is the same kind of impiety, though it may not startle us so much, as rebelling against GOD, or complaining of the weather.

Some persons are so unhappily minded, that whatever is done to them, whatever condition they are placed in, they are always

VOL. VI.

imagining how things might have been better, how they might have been more kindly treated, how this or that inconvenience might have been avoided, this or that comfort provided for; and they lose all, or more than half, of the enjoyment of what GOD has really provided for them, in fancying how much more they might have had, which others, as it seems to them, have. And as to the Great GIVER of all, they become, without knowing it, really quite unthankful to HIM.

I believe one great temptation to many, to get into this evil way, is their very high opinion of themselves, their own judgment and foresight, their own skill and management. They are pleased with themselves, and account it a mark of wisdom to be quick in finding all the fault they can; and the Evil One, who is always on the watch to make them like himself, is ready enough to help them to such thoughts as these, "How much better I could do this or that! how provoking it is that I am not allowed to order it! how hard that others should get so much praise and reward, which I deserve far more than they! how intolerable that people will not see how easily they might get rid of this or that uncomfortable circumstance, and make my life more agreeable, or my profit greater than it is!"

These are the thoughts which night and day take up the minds

of a great number of Christian persons, redeemed and regenerated

souls, for whom Heaven had been prepared: these are the husks with which their hard master feeds them, instead of the sweet refreshment of Christian content and thankfulness. They lose the benefit of their honesty and sobriety, their truth and industry, and many other virtues, because they will not have so much faith, as to trust God really and heartily with themselves in this present world.

When discontent is searched out to the bottom, it is in fact no better than unbelief. It is the root then of all evil, for it is setting yourself against the will of God, just as being resigned and contented is having the same will as He has.

And besides this, there is the greatest danger of a person's being led, by a murmuring temper, into other great and deadly sin, such as now perhaps he least dreams of. Who was the first murmurer we read of? It was our mother Eve; she murmured and thought it hard to be kept from that one tree, hanging as its

fruit did always within her reach; and the consequence we all know.

Who was the next, to show himself quick in perceiving what was disagreeable in his own lot, and jealous of others preferred before him? It was Eve's eldest son, Cain; in this respect too much made after her likeness. He saw that Abel was more favoured than he he murmured at it; and before long he was the murderer of his brother.

Consider again the children of Israel in the wilderness; it would really seem as if their sad fall was entirely owing, in the first instance, to discontent. They were continually murmuring against the way in which Moses and Aaron ordered things. "Ye have brought this whole assembly into the wilderness, to kill us with hunger. Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou brought us out to die in the wilderness? to kill us, and our children, and our cattle, with thirst?" This was their way of speaking all along it is the tone of proud discontented persons, quite sure that they knew well enough what ought to have been done, and angry that they had not their own way; and what did it come to? They really forgot, or disbelieved, after a while, that there was a GOD with them to be their Guide, that all these were trials permitted by HIM; and they set up other gods to go before them; they made them a captain to return to Egypt; they joined themselves to Baalpeor, in the worst and most impure idolatry.

So it is with all of us, one way or another, when we permit ourselves to "murmur in our tents," instead of "hearkening to the voice of the LORD." Dissatisfied with the measure of present comfort which ALMIGHTY GOD affords us, we look here and there for something to take up our minds, something on which we may rest, and be rid of the fretting anxious longing for more. HE offers us the kingdom of heaven, offers us HIMSELF, and the pleasures which are at His right hand, for evermore. If we close with that gracious offer, well; then our discontent and repining will be changed, by His grace, into a disregard of worldly things, and an earnest longing for true happiness: but if we will not accept GOD, behold, GoD's enemy and ours is but too ready with his tempting offers of something to suit our fancies, and make us forget for the time ourselves and our restlessness.