SERMON XXXIV.

Truft in God.

PSALM XXXVII. 3.

Put thou thy truft in the Lord.

WHOEVER feriously reflects upon the

ftate and condition of man, and looks upon that dark fide of it, which represents his life as open to so many causes of trouble;-when he sees how often he eats the bread of affliction, and that he is born to it as naturally as the fparks fly upwards;-that no rank or degrees of men are exempted from this law of our beings;-but that all, from the high cedar of Libanus to the humble fhrub upon the wall, are fhook in their turns by numberlefs calamities and diftreffes-when one fits down and looks upon this gloomy fide of things, with all the forrowful changes and chances which

furround us, at first fight,-would not one wonder,-how the fpirit of a man could bear the infirmities of his nature, and what it is that fupports him, as it does, under they many evil accidents which he meets with in his paffage through the valley of tears?-Without fome certain aid within us to bear us up, -fo tender a frame as ours would be but ill fitted to encounter what generally befals it in this rugged journey :—and accordingly we find,-that we are fo curiously wrought by an all-wife hand, with a view to this,-that, in the very compofition and texture of our nature, there is a remedy and provifion left against most of the evils we fuffer;-we being fo ordered, that the principle of selflove, given us for preservation, comes in here to our aid,-by opening a door of hope, and, in the worst emergencies, flattering us with a belief that we shall extricate ourselves, and live to fee better days.

This expectation,-though in fact it no way alters the nature of the cross ac

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cidents to which we lie open, or does at all pervert the courfe of them,-yet impofes upon the fenfe of them, and, like a fecret fpring in a well-contrived machine, though it cannot prevent, at least it counterbalances the preffure,-and fo bears up this tottering, tender frame under many a violent fhock and hard juftling, which otherwife would unavoidably overwhelm it.-Without fuch an inward refource, from an inclination, which is natural to man, to trust and hope for redress in the most deplorable conditions,-his ftate in this life would be, of all creatures, the most miserable. -When his mind was either wrung with affliction,-or his body lay tortured with the gout or stone,-did he think that in this world there fhould be no respite to his forrow ;-could he believe the pains he endured would continue equally intenfe, without remedy,—without intermiffion;-with what deplorable lamentation would he languifh out his day,and how fweet, as Job fays, would the clods of the valley be to him?-But so fad

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a perfuafion, whatever grounds there may be fometimes for it, fcarce ever gets full poffeffion of the mind of man, which by nature ftruggles against defpair fo that whatever part of us fuffers, the darkest mind instantly ushers in this relief to it,-points out to hope, encourages to build, though on a fandy foundation, and raifes an expectation in us, that things will come to a fortunate iffue. And indeed it is fomething furprifing to confider the ftrange force of this paffion;-what wonders it has wrought in fupporting men's spirits in all ages, and under fuch inextricable difficulties, that they have fometimes hoped, as the apostle expreffes it, even against hope,-against all likelihood;-and have looked forwards with comfort under miffortunes, when there has been little or nothing to favour fuch an expectation.

This flattering propensity in us, which I have here reprefented, as it is built. upon one of the most deceitful of human paffions--(that is),--felf-love, which at all times inclines us to think better of