Goodness, to provide for us, take care of us, and to do for us that which is fitteft; and what that is he knows beft. To be anxiously fearful of what will become of us, and difcontented and perplexed under the apprehenfion of future evils, whilft we are in the hands and under the care of our Father which is in heaven, is not to act like children. Earthly parents cannot avert from their children all the calamities they fear, because their wisdom and power are limited; but our Allwife and Almighty Father in heaven can. They may poffibly want love and tenderness but our heavenly Father cannot, Ifa. xlix. 15. -(5.) As children, we must quietly acquiefce in his difpofals, and not expect to fee into the wisdom of all his will. It would be indecent and undutiful in a child to dispute the authority, to queftion the wifdom, or to neglect the orders of his parents every time he could not difcern the reafon and defign thereof. Much more unreasonable and unbecoming is fuch a behaviour towards GoD, who giveth not account of any of his matters; whofe Judgments are unfearchable, and whofe ways are paft finding out *.---(Laftly,) As children, we must patiently fubmit to his difcipline and correction: earthly parents may fometimes D 3 punish Job xxxiii. 13. Rom. xi. 33. punish their children through passion, or for their pleafure; but our heavenly Father always corrects his for their profit*, and only if need be †, and never fo much as their iniquities deferve ---Under his fatherly rebukes, then let us be ever humble and fubmiffive --- Such now is the true filial difpofition: such a temper, and fuch a behaviour fhould we fhow towards GoD, if we would act in character as his children.. These then are the two fpecial relations, which, as creatures, we ftand in to GOD. And not to act towards him in the manner beforementioned, is to fhew that we are ignorant of, or have not yet duly confidered our obligations to Him as his fubjects and his children; or that we are as yet ignorant both of God and ourselves ---Thus we fee how directly the knowledge of ourfelves leads us to the knowledge of GoD: fo true is the obfervation of a late pious and very worthy divine, that He that is a ftranger to himfelf, is a ftranger to GoD, and to every thing that may denominate him wife and • happy (q).' But, (2.) in order to know ourselves, there is another important relation we should often think *Heb. xii. 10. † 1 Pet. i. 6. ‡ Ezra ix. 13. (9) See Mr. Baxter's Dedicatory Epiftle, prefixed to his Treatife on the Benefits of Self-acquaintance. I think of, and that is, That in which we stand to JESUS CHRIST our Redeemer. The former was common to us as men ; this is peculiar to us as Christians, and opens to us a new scene of duties and obligations, which a man can never forget, that does not grofsly forget himself. For as Christians, we are the difciples, the followers, and the fervants of Christ, redeemed by him. And, (1.) as the difciples of Chrift, we are to learn of Him; to take our religious fentiments only from his Gospel, in oppofition to all the authoritative dictates of men, who are weak and fallible as ourselves: call no man mafter on earth. Whilft fome affect to diftinguish themselves by party-names, as the Corinthians formerly did (for which the apoftle blames them) one faying, I am of Paul; another, I am of Apollos; another, I am Cephas*, let us remember that we are the difciples of Chrift; and in this fenfe make mention of his name only. There is more carnality in fuch party-diftinctions, denominations and attachments, than many good fouls are aware of; though not more than the apostle Paul (who was unwillingly placed at the head of one himself) hath apprized them of t.We are of Chrift; our concern is, to honour that fuperior denomination, by living * 1 Cor. i. 12. + 1 Cor. iii. 4. up up to it. And to adhere inflexibly to his Gospel, as the only rule of our faith, the guide of our life, and the foundation.of our hope; whatever contempt or abuse we may fuffer either from the profane or bigotted part of mankind for fo doing. (2.) As Christians, we are followers of CHRIST; and therefore bound to imitate him, and copy after that most excellent pattern he hath fet us, who hath left us an example that we should follow his fteps *. To see that the fame holy temper be in us which was in him; and to difcover it in the fame manner he did, and upon like occafions. To this he calls us †, and no man is any farther a Chriftian than as he is a follower of CHRIST; aiming at a more perfect conformity to that most perfect example which he hath fet us of universal good. nefs.--(3.) As Chriflians, we are the fervants of CHRIST; and the various duties which fervants owe to their mafters in any degree, those we owe to him in the highest degree; who expects we fhould behave ourselves in his fervice with that fidelity and zeal, and fteady regard to his honour and interest, at all times, which we are bound to by virtue of this relation, and to which his unmerited and unlimited Goodness and Love lay us under infinite obligations.--(Lastly,) We are more * 1 Pet. ii. 21. + Mat. xi. 29. over over his redeemed fervants; and as fuch are under the strongest motives to love and truft him. This deferves to be more particularly confidered, because it opens to us another view of the human nature, in which we should often furvey ourselves, if we defire to know ourselves; and that is, as depraved or degenerate beings. The inward contest we so sensibly feel, at some seasons especially, between a good and a bad principle, (called in Scripture-language the flefh and the fpirit) of which fome of the wifeft heathens seemed not to be ignorant *: this, I fay, is demonftration that fome way or other the human nature has contracted an ill bias, of which the facred Scriptures have fufficiently informed us, and that it is not what it was when it came originally out of the hands of its Maker; fo that the words which St. Paul spake with reference to the Jews in particular, are justly applicable to the present state of mankind in general, there is none righteous, no not one ;- they are all gone out * Ανγρη γαρ συνο παδός, ἔρις βλάπησα λέληθεν ΣυμφύλΘ. Pythag. Aur. Carm. A fatal inbred ftrife does lurk within, |