this, in the greatnefs of their affliction, and in the bitterness of their foul, to question God's knowledge and care of human affairs. Behold, (fay they, y 12.), these are the ungodly, and yet they are the profperous in the world, they increase in riches. To what purpose then is it for any man to be religious and virtuous? 13. Verily, I have cleanfed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. In vain have I endeavoured after purity of heart and innocency of life, fince fo little good comes of it: nay, fo far from that, that I have been in continual trouble and affliction: 14. All the day long have I been plagued, and chaftened every morning. Such thoughts as thefe often came into his mind, and gave him great trouble and disquiet: but he prefently corrects himself: v. 15. If I say, I will speak thus; I fhould offend against the generation of thy children: that is, I fhould go against the fenfe of all pious and good men, who have always believed the providence of God, notwithstanding this objection: which at laft he tells us he had raised on purpofe to try if he could find the folution of it: y. 16. I thought to know this, which was grievous in mine eyes and then he refolves all into the unfearchable wisdom of the divine providence, which if we fully understood from first to laft, we should fee good reason to be fatisfied with the equity of it: y. 17. 18. When I go into the fanctuary of God, then Shall I understand the end of thefe men; how thou didst fet them in flippery places, &c. This fatisfied him, that whenever the fecret defign of God's providence fhould be unfolded, whether in this world or the other, how ftrange and crofs foever things might feem to be at prefent, yet in the iffue and conclufion it would appear, that neither are bad men fo happy, nor good men fo miferable, as at prefent they may seem to be. So that, upon a full debate of this matter, the Pfalmist concludes, that these objections against providence do fpring from our ignorance, and fhort and imperfect view of things; whereas if we saw the whole defign from beginning to end, it would appear to be very reafonable and regular: y. 21. 22. Thus my heart was grieved. So foolish was I, and ignorant; and as a beast be fore Ser. 40. fore thee. And in regard to himself, he tells us, that he faw great reafon to acknowledge God's tender care over him in particular, and that he could find no fecurity or comfort for himself but in God alone: 23. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee: thou haft holden me by thy right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counfel, and afterward receive me to glory: As if he had faid, I am fenfible of thy constant presence with me, and care of me; and do entirely depend upon thy guidance and direction, not doubting but that my prefent troubles and afflictions will have a happy and glorious iffue. And, at laft, he breaks out into a kind of exultation and triumph for the mighty confolation which he found in the firm belief of the being and providence of God, as the great stay and fupport of his foul in the worst condition that could befal him; in the words of the text, Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that 1 defire befides thee. If a man were to chufe a happinefs for himself, and were to ranfack heaven and earth for it; after all his fearch and inquiry, he would at last fix upon God as the chief happiness of man, and the true and only reft and centre of our fouls. This then is the plain meaning of the text, that nothing in the world but God can make men happy: Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I defire befides thee. That man of himself is not fufficient for his own happiness, is evident upon many accounts; because he is liable to fo many evils and calamities, which he can neither prevent nor remedy. He is full of wants, which he cannot fupply; compaffed about with infirmities, which he can only complain of, but is not able to redress: he is obnoxious to dangers, which he must always fear, because he can never fufficiently provide against them. Confider man by himself, and from under the conduct and protection of a fuperior and more powerful being, and he is in a moft difconfolate and forlorn condition : fecure of nothing that he enjoys, and liable to be difappointed of every thing that he hopes for. He is apt to grieve for what he cannot help; and perhaps the jufteft caufe of his grief is, that he cannot help it: for if he could, instead of grieving for it, he would help it. He He cannot refrain from defiring a great many things which he would fain have, but is never likely to obtain, because they are out of his power; and it troubles him both that they are so, and that he cannot help his being troubled at it. Thus man walketh in a vain fhew, and difquietet himfelf in vain; courting happiness in a thousand shapes, and the fafter he follows it, the fwifter it flies from him. Almost every thing promifeth happiness to us at a diftance, fuch a step of honour, fuch a pitch of estate, fuch a fortune or match for a child: but when we come nearer to it, either we fall fhort of it, or it falls fhort of our expectation; and it is hard to fay, which of these is the greatest disappointment. Our hopes are ufually bigger than enjoyment can fatisfy; and an evil long feared, befides that it may never come, is many times more painful and troublesome than the evil itfelf when it comes. In a word, man is born to trouble as the Sparks fly upwards. He comes into the world naked and unarmed, and from himself more destitute of the natural means of his fecurity and fupport than any other creature whatsoever; as it were on purpose to fhew, that he is more peculiarly the care of a fuperior providence. And as man, of all the creatures of this lower world, is only made to own and acknowledge a Deity; fo God in great wisdom hath fo ordered things, that none of the other creatures fhould have fo much need of him, and fo much reafon to acknowledge their neceffary dependence upon him. So that the words of David are the very fenfe and voice of nature, declaring to us, that mankind is born into the world upon terms of greater dependence upon the providence of God than other creatures, Pfal. xxii. 9. 10. 11. Thou art he (fays David there to God) that tookeft me out of the womb thou madeft me to hope, (or thou didst keep me in fafety), when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me, for trouble is near. Trouble is always near to us, and therefore it is happy for us that God is never far from any of us; For in him we live, and move, and have our being. And when we are grown up, we are liable to a great VOL. II. I i many many mischiefs and dangers every moment of our lives; and without the providence of God, continually infecure, not only of the good things of this life, but even of life itself: fo that, when we come to be men, we cannot but wonder how ever we arrived at that state, and how we have continued in it fo long, confidering the infinite difficulties and dangers which have continually attended us; that in running the gantlope of a long life, when fo many hands have been lifted up against us, and fo many strokes levelled at us, we have escaped fo free, and with so few marks and fcars upon us; that when we are befieged with fo many dangers, and fo many arrows of death are perpetually flying about us, to which we do fo many ways lie open, we fhould yet hold out twenty, forty, fixty years, and fome of us perhaps longer, and do ftill ftand at the mark untouched, at least not dangerously wounded by any of them: and confidering likewife this fearful and wonderful frame of a human body, this infinitely complicated engine; in which, to the due performance of the feveral functions and offices of life, fo many ftrings and springs, fo many receptacles and channels, are neceffary, and all in their right frame and order; and in which, befides the infinite, imperceptible, and fecret ways of mortality, there are fo many fluices and floodgates to let death in, and life out, that it is next to a miracle, though we take but little notice of it, that every one of us did not die every day fince we were born: I fay, confidering the nice and curious frame of our bodies, and the innumerable contingencies and hazards of human life, which is fet in fo flippery a place, that we ftill continue in the land of the living, we cannot afcribe to any thing but the watchful providence of almighty God, who holds our foul in life, and fuffers not our foot to be moved. To the fame merciful providence of God we owe, that, whilst we continue in life, we have any comfortable poffeffion and enjoyment of ourfelves, and of that which makes us men; I mean our reafon and understanding : that our imagination is not let loose upon us, to haunt and torment us with melancholick freaks and fears that we are not delivered up to the horrors of a gloomy and guilty mind: that every day we do not fall into fren zy : zy and distraction, which, next to wickedness and vice, is the foreft calamity, and faddeft disguise of human nature; I fay, next to wickedness and vice, which is a wilful frenzy, a madnefs, not from misfortune, but from choice; whereas the other proceeds from natural and neceffary causes, fuch as are in a great measure out of our power; fo that we are perpetually liable to it, from any fecret and fudden disorder of the brain, from the violence of a disease, or the vehement transport of any paffion. Now, if things were under no government, what could hinder fo many probable evils from breaking in upon us, and from treading upon the heels of one another; like the calamities of job, when the hedge which God had fet about him and all that he had, was broken down and removed? So that if there were no God to take care of us, we could be fecure of no fort, no degree of happiness in this world; no not for one moment: and there would be no other world for us to be happy in, and to make amends to us for all the fears and dangers, all the troubles and calamities of this prefent life; for God and another world stand and fall together. Without him there can be no life after this; and if our hopes of happiness were only in this life, man of all other beings in this lower world would certainly be the most miferable. I cannot say that all the evils which I have mentioned would happen to all, if the providence of God did not rule the world; but that every man would be in danger of them all, and have nothing to fupport and comfort him against the fear of that danger. For the nature of man, confidered by itself, is plainly infufficient for its own happiness; fo that we muft neceffarily look abroad, and feek for it fomewhere else: and who can fhew us that good that is equal to all the wants and neceffities, all the capacities and defires, all the fears and hopes of human nature? Whatsoever can answer all thefe, must have these following properties. 1. It must be an all-fufficient good. 3. It must be firm and unchangeable in itself. 4. It. |