willing servitude to every passion of their nature; and to every caprice of vanity and opinion; while they dread and fly from his authority whose service is perfect freedom. And what shall we say of the best of us? Submission, which should be but our first duty, is reckoned amongst our highest attainments; and he is thought to be an advanced Christian, who is only not rebellious.

There was a time when submission to God was not counted among our burthens. In Eden, the seat of purity and joy, before sin had entered, and death by sin, our first parents walked gladly in the way their Maker had appointed them, happy in their mutual love, happy in a grateful admiration of Him who gave it, happy in that filial confidence which a sense of his perfections and of their own innocence inspired. To them, duty and enjoyment were one; the law of obedience was the path of peace. But they were tempted, and they fell. They fell, because they would be wiser than their Creator, and thought some better satisfaction might be found, by a breach of his holy commandments, than they had experienced in a cheerful submission to them. Such, at least, appears to have been the cause of their sad transgression; and such certainly is the history of a large part of the miserable adventures, in which their blind and unhappy offspring have ever since been engaged. God is their proper happiness. His redeeming mercy has opened to them again the gates of everlasting life. His law, holy and just, is the path that will conduct them thither :

his dispensations, secret or manifest, gentle or corrective, are ready, like guardian angels, to watch over them, and lead them safely in the right way, or call them back when they are wandering from it. But God they know not. They know themselves, their appetites, and passions. They know the

world abounding on every side with allurements to gratification and though age after age has testified to its vanity, and parents have still transmitted to their children the history of their own disappointments, the hopeless race is for ever renewed, and men follow after happiness in every direction, except that by which they might attain it.

Yet some there are, (in this happy land we may reasonably hope there are very many,) who by the mercy of God have been made sensible of the general error; and who feel that true good can only be found, by re-ascending towards that holy light, which cheered the blessed region whence our first parents wandered down into this land of shadows. These, surely, are deeply sensible of their own blindness; they have lamented their past follies; they have felt the blessedness of drawing near to God as to their reconciled Father; and they desire above all things to be for ever subject to his guidance and government. Yes, certainly, these are their settled feelings, their deliberate wishes. Were it otherwise, how could they reasonably believe themselves to be led by the Spirit of truth! And yet, even among the truly pious there are probably very few, who always preserve an equal temper of

mind amidst the changes and chances of this world. Some are agitated by their own distresses. Some are moved to surprize and grief at the afflictions which befall those who are most dear to them. And there are moments, perhaps (they should be only moments,) when even the most experienced Christian, though he may bow with unresisting submission under the hand of God, can scarcely lift up an eye of gratitude, or kiss with filial love the rod that chastens him.

It is neither to be expected nor desired, that we should become insensible to our own sufferings, or to those of others. He who is fainting in pain or sickness would think himself but mocked, by being told that he must throw aside his weakness, and rise superior to such infirmities. Nor is it by any means the nature of true religion to diminish our tenderness towards others. On the contrary, it opens the springs of every gentle feeling, and calls forth to new life and vigour every generous affection. Yet, notwithstanding this, it cannot be denied that we are far too apt to be dejected under the misfortunes which befal ourselves; and sometimes, perhaps, while our own sorrows are sustained with fortitude, we yield to an unbecoming grief for those whose happiness is very dear to us.

Indeed, an exemplary patience under the distresses of our friends is not the first of virtues. Yet it is very possible that a feeling mind may be betrayed into the indulgence of a more vehement sorrow, or a more careful anxiety, for others, than is

quite consistent with a spirit of filial resignation, from the generous nature of a sentiment which can be blameable only when it is exc essive. The sam principles, however, undoubtedly apply to the pains which we feel for others, and those which we suffer for ourselves; and the true Christian must endea vour, in both cases, to recollect by whom they are inflicted, and to cultivate that cheerful assurance of the paternal care and kindness of our heavenly Benefactor, which will reconcile us to every dispensa tion.

Submission to God, in its full extent, is by no means an act of simple obedience: it implies the union and exercise of many Christian graces. To submit, indeed, in the narrow sense of the word, is not a matter of choice to any of us. He who created heaven and earth by his word, and who wields the elements at his pleasure, will certainly not want the power to give effect to his own purposes, "As I live," saith the Lord, "every knee shall bow." Yet there is a submission, to which God invites his creatures as their privilege, while at the same time he requires it from them as their duty;— a submission not of the act only, but of the heart, founded upon the deepest conviction of his wisdom, an entire trust in his providence, and a fervent love of his goodness. Such a submission, it is plain, is essentially different from a mere acquiescence in events which we have no power to control. It is the homage of the will, the natural and beautiful expression of the best affections of the soul, of gra

titude, of veneration, of filial love and filial confidence.

I believe it happens to most men who are truly pious, to become, as they advance in life, less and less disposed to enter upon complicated schemes for the attainment even of those objects which appear to be the most reasonably desirable. They have found themselves so often mistaken in their estimate of what is really good: they have seen the events to which they are chiefly indebted for their happiness in this life, brought about in a manner so original, by a course so unlike any they should themselves have pursued, and often so independently of their own efforts, that they grow distrustful of themselves, and are tired of weaving plots which a single cross accident is sufficient to entangle; or which, after having been completed with the utmost skill and care, unravel of themselves, and end in nothing. Now this is a practical acknowledgment of the reasonableness of that duty which we are now considering. If our experience convinces us that we neither understand well how to choose events nor how to control them, is it not manifestly our best wisdom to resign them willingly into the hands of Him who is certainly capable of directing them properly, and who has declared that "they who seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good?"

It seems, indeed, as if a wisdom far short of that which Christianity teaches would suffice to instruct us in the vanity of earthly schemes, and to lay the