III.

SERMON sure he thinks fit, the remainder of wrath*. He brings forth in their course all the generations of men. When the time is come for their entering into light, they appear on the stage; and when the time fixed for their dismission arrives, he changes their countenance, and sends them away. The time of our appearing is now come, after our ancestors had left their place, and gone down to the dust. We are at present permitted to act our part freely and without constraint. No violence is done to our inclination or choice. But assuredly there is not a day of our life, nor an event in that day, but was foreseen by God. That succession of occurrences, which to us is full of obscurity and darkness is all light and order in his view. He sees, from the beginning to the end; and brings forward every thing that happens in its due time and place.

Our times are altogether in his hand. Let us take notice, that they are not in the hands either of our enemies, or of our friends. It is not in the power of

* Pfalm lxxvi. 10.

man

man to shorten or to prolong our life, SERMON more or less than Gad has decreed.

Enemies may employ craft or violence attacks ; friends may employ

in their

skill and vigilance

vigilance for the preserv ation of our health and safety; but both the one and the other can have effect only as far as God permits. They work in subserviency to his purpose. By him they are held in invisible bonds. To the exertions of all human agents he says, Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther.

WE are to observe next, that our times are in the hand of God, not only as an almighty Disposer, but as a merciful Guardian and Father. We are by no means to imagine, that from race to race and from year to year, God sports with the lives of succeeding generations of men, or in the mere wantonness of arbitrary power, brings them forth, and sends them away. No; if we have any confidence in what either the light of Nature suggests to all men, or what the revelation of the Gospel has confirmed to

Christians,

III.

SERMON Christians, we have full ground to believe that the administration of human affairs is conducted with infinite wisdom and goodness. The counsels of the Almighty are indeed too deep for our limited understandings to trace. His path

may often, as to us, be in the sea, and his footsteps in the mighty waters; while, nevertheless all his paths are mercy and truth. He who, from the benignity of his nature, erected this world for the abode of men; He who furnished it so richly for our accommodation, and stored it with so much beauty for our entertainment; He who, since first we entered into life, hath followed us with such a variety of mercies, surely can have no pleasure in our disappointment and distress. He knows our frame; He remembers we are dust; and looks to frail man, we are assured, with such pity as a father beareth to his children *. To him we may safely commit ourselves, and all our concerns, as to one who is best qualified, both to direct the incidents proper to

Pfalm ciii. 13, 14.

happen

III.

happen to us in this world, and to judge SERMON of the time when it is fit for us to be removed from it.

future

Even that ignorance of our destiny in life, of which we sometimes complain, is a signal proof of his goodness. He hides from us the view of futurity, because the view would be dangerous and overpowering. It would either dispirit us with visions of terror, or intoxicate us by the disclosure of success. The veil which covers from our sight the events of this and of succeeding years, is a veil woven by the hand of mercy. Our times are in his hand; and we have reason to be glad that in his hand, they are kept, shut out from our view. Submit to his pleasure as an almighty Ruler we must, because we cannot resist him. Equal reason there is for trusting in him as a Guardian, under whose disposal we are safe.

SUCH is the import of the text, that our times are in the hand of God.

Our

times are unknown to us, and not under our own direction. They are in the

VOL. IV.

E

hands

SERMON hands of God as a Governor and Ruler ; IlI. in the hands of God as a Guardian and

Father. These separate views of the text require on our part, separate improve

ments.

SEEING our times are not in our own hand, seeing futurity is unknown to us, let us, first, check the vain curiosity of penetrating into what is to come. Conjecture about futurity we often must; but upcn all conjectures of what this year is to produce, let us lay a proper restraint. Let us wait till God shall bring forward events in their proper course, without wishing to discover what he has concealed; lest, if the discovery were granted, we should see many things which we would wish not to have seen.

The most common propensity of mankind is to store futurity with whatever is agreeable to them; especially in those periods of life when imagination is lively, and hope is ardent. Looking forward to the year now beginning, they are ready to promise themselves much from the foundations of prosperity which

they