SHINE IN OUR WORKS. 485 rant judgments as our own in matters of eternal consequence ? What can that soul expect, but a restless state in anuncomfortable wilderness, yea, perpetual self-vexation and despair, who forsakes God's will to follow his own, and hath a will that Both go cross to God's? . Poor, self-tormenting sinners l consider that your own wills are your idols, which you set up against the will 'of God, and your own wills are the tyrants to which you are in bondage ; your own wills are your prison, and the executioners that torment you with fear, and grief, and disappointments. What is it that you are afraid of, but lest.you miss of your own wills? For sure you fear not lest God's will should be overcome and frustrated ; what are your cares, about but this ? What are your sighs, and groans, and tears for? And what is it else that you complain of, but that your own wills are not fulfilled? It is not that God bath not his will. What is it' that you are so impatient of, but the crossing of your own wills'? This person crosseth them, and that accident crosseth them, and God crosseth them, and you cross them your- selves; and crossed they will he while they are cross to the will of God ; for all this while they are as a bone out of joint ; there is no ease till it be set right. In a word, a will that is contrary to God's will, and striveth and struggleth against it, is the offspring of the devil, the sum of all sin and a foretaste of hell, even a restless self-tormentor; and to will nothing but what. God willeth, and to love his will, and study to please him, and rest therein, is the rectitude and only rest of souls; and he that cannot rest con- tentedly in the will of God must be forever restless. And when such a holy will and contentment appeareth in you, mankind will reverence it; and see that your natures are divine and as they dare. not reproach the will of God; So they will fear to speak evil of yours : when they see that you choose but what God first chooseth for you, and your wills do but follow the will of God, men will be afraid of provoking God against them as blasphemers, if they should scorn, deride, or vilify you. And could we convince all men that our course is but the same which God commandeth; it would do much ,to stop their reproach and persecution. And if they see that we can joyfully suffer reproach, or poverty, or pains, or death, and joyfully pass away toGod when he shall call us, and live and die in acontented complacency in the will of God, they will see that you have a beginning of heaven on earth, which nò tyrant, no loss, or cross, or suffering, can deprive you of, while you can joyfully say, "The will of the Lord be done ; " Acts xxi. 14. Object. But if it be God's will for sin to punish me, or forsake me, should I contentedly rest in that revenging will ? Answ. 1. That sin of ours which maketh us incapable objects
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