and therefore I weep yet the Lord hath forsaken me, and I weep not that is dreadful." So Job, Jeremiah, David, and Hezekiah, are sadly afflicted when the Lord seems angry.

4. There is a sovereignty in hearing or not hearing of prayer, against which we must not strive. Sometimes the unwritten bill is answered (Isa. lxv. 24), and the Lord yields to our blank papers and subscribes them. Sometimes he hears the dumb man's signs, and his breathing instead of his praying (Isa. xxxviii. 14, 20; Lam. iii. 56; Psalm vi. 8). Sometimes the Lord hears, and sends the message of deliverance, but we hear not, nor do we know or feel that He hears (Psalm xviii. 4, 5, 6, compared with verse 16). One crying for comfort, may be heard and not comforted. But, saith God, "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like a green herb."

5. The clay's "No," and the great potter's "Aye," and vain man's "I will," and the Almighty's "I will not "—are most unsuitable. Isa. xxix. 16.-"Shall the work say of Him that made it—He made me not? or shall the thing framed, say of Him that framed it: He hath no understanding?" Rom. ix. 20,—“ Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" (Isa. xlv. 9. ; Jer. xviii. 6,)-Humble speaking to God doth well become us. Abraham excuses his contrary pleading with God (Gen. xviii. 27).

Beware then of murmuring and angry and fretting words against God. "Were there no graves in Egypt?" (Ex. xiv. 11; and much more). It is dreadful to contend with the Almighty: and for so small a thing as a drink of water, and for a piece of flesh, should we fall a pleading with the Sovereign Lord?

Especially we should not counter-work the uncontrollable providence of God for that is to give the Lord battle, and to lead an army against Him: as Isa. ix. 10.

There be diverse kinds of striving with the Almighty. Such are they who blasphemously oppose the shining and convincing power of the Spirit in Christ casting out devils. Such are they who gnash with the teeth and spit upon the shining beauty of godliness in Stephen.

6. Despairing stoutly of mercy and the power of grace, is of this sort; when Cain, Judas, and others defy Omnipotence and infinite mercy to save them, and spitefully hate the influences of saving grace, and say, "Mercy cannot save me; the complete ransom of the blood of God cannot buy me from the second death." To this we may reduce a lazy despairing. "What if I be never saved-I can, I will do no more!" The people are bidden return. "Nay, there

is no hope," say they; (Jer xviii. 12), "but we will walk after our own devices."

7. There is here the fainter reproaching of Omnipotence as if God were weary, and not able to bring back the captive people (Isa. xi. 27, 28). Hence the Lord must prove His Omnipotence by that rare piece the curtain of heaven stretched out, and a measuring line drawn over the earth (Isa. li. 13, 15).

8. There is a proud disputing with God, when we dare give in a bill against God. "Ah, He takes me for His enemy." "He hath left off to be gracious." An ungracious God is no God. O the pride of a tempted mind that dare oppose the very existence of

God!

Some say God hath need to be instructed to govern the world better. Otherwise, what needed that be said by Isaiah (xl. 13). Or what needs that (Job xxi. 22), "Shall any teach God knowledge? seeing He judgeth things that are high." What a God is an unknowing God, who needs a lesson from the creature? What a carnal mind is this, that chaseth the Almighty God out of the world! What do they who curse the day, the stars, the twilight, the birth? (as Job iii.) A gracious heart saith, "Let the Lord be the Lord;" and closes with all the attributes of God, and with all the influences of Omnipotence-wisdom, goodness, and justice on men, and of love, mercy, grace, bounty, forbearance to the saints, and to their own soul. This is to sing mercy and to sing judgment; whereas it is a note of atheism to wish and vote God out of the world with His attributes and all the acting and influences of mercy, justice, truth, grace, sovereignty, and to say: "It is not the Lord: the Lord can neither do good, neither can He do evil” (Zeph. 1).

9. So should we beware to fight with the Lord's dispensations of grace. He is Lord and sovereign Disposer of His own comforts.

The Lord's saving influences go along with His free decree of Election. And look, as the Lord of nature preserves the species of roses, of vine-trees, though this or that individual rose or vine-tree may wither and be blasted, so He holds on the work of believing, praying, of hoping and persevering to the end, though there may be a miscarrying in this or that particular act of faith, and some deadness in praying for the time. And as in a great work of a watermill, some one of the wheels may be broken, and yet the mill is kept agoing, and the ship still under sail, though some instrument or other be wanting and laid aside for a while; so when there is a withdrawing of feeling of a presence in praying (as Cant. v. 6)—" I called Him, but He answered me not "-yet influences flow in another duty of praising; (v. 10)— "My beloved is white and ruddy, and the chief among ten thousand."

And when there are withdrawings of God, as touching vigorousness of believing: "Why art thou disquieted, O my soul?" &c., yet are there very large outlettings of God in love-sickness and strong desires after the Lord. Ps. xlii. 2-" My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God." So is it that some river that floweth a far other way, in a new cut out channel, the former being dried up. So the blood runs in another vein, and still furnisheth strength to the body. Nor is there cause to complain, as if all strength were gone; for when the afflicted man eats ashes as it were bread, and drinks tears, and the heart is withered as grass, and the man's bones are burnt as an hearth-Ps cii. the blood breaks out in another corner: ver. 12, 19, 20—“But Thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever; and Thy remembrance unto all generations. He looks down from heaven to hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose them that are appointed for death." There is some spiritual compensation in the Lord's forbidding the wind to blow in one quarter, when it strongly blows in another. Some deadened, deserted ones are much meekened, and made to speak out of the dust, and fed and fattened also with hunger. Yea, if it were but lying at the gate of Christ and knocking, though no answer at all be returned, it hath much of Christ in it, in other considerations. Deadness may be on, and want of holy, vigorous acting of faith, and yet spiritual complainings; yea, and with the complainings, fervent praying: Ps. cxix. 25, 28-"My soul cleaveth unto the dust; quicken Thou me according to Thy word. My soul melteth for heaviness, strengthen me according to Thy word." Ye should judge righteously of the Lord, and see whether or no ye complain without cause; for though there be fainting, yet there is hoping: (cxix. 81)—"My soul fainteth for Thy salvation, but I hope in Thy Word." Some children are always malcontent and still weeping, nothing in the house can please them. It is the fault of some greedy wretches, who have abundance, and yet still complain of want. It were good to turn our censuring of the Lord's providence into complaining of our own evil hearts. It follows that humble and diligent obedience hath sweetness of submission: cxix. 165-"Great peace have they that keep Thy law, and nothing shall offend (or, as the word is), stumble their feet." There is a heartcovenanting with God, when the man saith, "God shall do nothing that shall stumble me. His killing of me, His casting me out of His presence into hell shall not offend me" (Job. i. 22; 2 Sam. xvi. 10). The Man Christ could be broken or offended at nothing,-whether the traitor sell Him, or the disciples forsake Him, or the Jews apprehend Him, or the soldiers spit on His face, or Pilate condemn Him, or the people nod the head, shoot out the lip, and mock Him. There is nothing can break Christ, but the Scriptures must be fulfilled in Christ's

sufferings. If the Lord slays Aaron's sons, Aaron holds his peace. Let me be rained upon with showers of influences from heaven, or let my fleece be dry, and let me be a bottle in the smoke, yet there is no unrighteousness with God, and in Him is no darkness. "Ah, I am dead, but the Lord guides well. Ah, He is a lion to me, and a leopard; but the Lord is good to the soul that waits for Him." The man that stumbles least at the sins of others, and their falls, is the man nearest to God's heart. Ps. xviii. 18-" They prevented me in the day of my calamity. They wronged me (v. 23), but I kept myself from my iniquity." And what can ye say against His withdrawings? Will ye make it a quarrel that He hides His face?

What shall then be done under deadness?

1. If there be any life, life helps life.

2. Ye have no more reason to chide Him for blasting your heart with withering, than that the Lord sends a wind upon the rose and dries it up and the grace of it is gone.

3. Meddle not with His part, but complain of your part. Let His sovereignty alone, and confess your own guiltiness. Isa. lxiv. 6. 8.— There is a confession of our sin-“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags : and withal an acknowledgment of His sovereignty-" We are the clay, and Thou our Potter."

4. When the Lord withdraws, seek again and again; be sick after Him (Cant. iii. 1, 2, 3; v. 6, 7, 8; John. xx. 1-3, 13), and know that Christ is never so absent but there may be also much cause of praising and humble blessing of God, if there be love sickness for Him, hunger after Him and a spiritual missing of Him, as there is reason to complain of the withdrawing of His influences. For (Cant. iii.) when Christ is absent, He is not absent. The soul is shined upon when the soul is overclouded, for it is noonday at midnight. He is absent as to finding, as to feeling, and quiet enjoying" I sought Him, but I found Him not ;' and again: "I sought Him, but I found Him not :" but He is strongly present and shining, as to influences of grace. 1. In painful seeking in the bed by night (Cant. iii. 1). 2. In and about the broad streets and ways (v. 2). 3. In using public means,—" Watchmen, saw ye Him" (v. 3). 4. In using other means in private: "I went a little further." 5. In holy missing-" I found Him not, I found Him not" (v. 1, 2). In holy finding (v. 4)-"I found Him." 6. And all the while His Presence is mighty in the soul, love to Him. "I sought Him whom my soul loved "-four times oppressed (ver. 1, 2, 3, 4). So that the gleaning is better than the full harvest; the midnight absence hath as many sweet privileges as the noonday's presence. A sinner's seeking, loving, and longing and languishing after lost Christ,

is heaven upon earth: His frowns He leaves behind Him are rich and sweet nor can one be out of heaven in a better desertion than missing and seeking the face of Jacob's God (Ps. xxiv. 6; xxvii. 8; Jer. 1. 4). So groundless often is our complaining that we want Christ, that Christ guides and tutors us badly, that He mis-guides rather. Ah, how sinfully querulous are we! He does all things well, His absence is presence, His frownings sweet and profitable. Yet is not this spoken to cool our fervour of seeking, when we miss Him, and find Him not; but rather we are to go on: not to say anything of law smitings and law firings of the soul under apprehended wrath, especially that which hath Gospel-hope, and Gospel-sickness after Christ conjoined with them. (Rom. vii. 10, 11)-The law slew me. The law kills no man who is under Christ, out of hand: yea to such as are under grace, somewhat of the Gospel-heaven cleaves to the Law-hell. It is a miracle how some are burnt with the law, slain with the terrors of God, wounded with the arrows of the Almighty, and yet are green in the furnace. Some there are, that one night's waking under the terrors of the law would make an end of them, if invisible Gospel-strength were not furnished to them; and here there must be a mixture of law-influences and of Gospel-impressions of Christ upon the spirit. It speaks much grace in Josiah (2 Kings xxii. 19) to feel and suffer, with softness and tenderness of a meekened and a tamed heart, the smart and pain of the influences of the threatening law. And it is prevalency of grace for Hezekiah (Isa. xxxix.) to stoop to the like, and to say, "Good is the word of the Lord,”— even the word of a curse of threatening the saddest evils; as to kick like a fatted horse, and to spurn at such impressions of wrath borne in upon the conscience in Pharaoh (Ex. x. 28); in Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 26); in the priests, prophets, and people (Jer. xxvi. 8); of the chief priests and Pharisees (Matt. xxi. 45, 46), does proclaim much gracelessness of an undaunted and unploughed heart. Where there is any ingredient of Gospel grace, there is a coming down, and a stooping to the influences of God, of what kind soever. Yea, and generally a gracious spirit dare no more resist and pray against the Lord's will of pleasure or purpose in its event, than against any part of the revealed will of God, or the will of precept, either law or Gospel. The disciples were to watch and pray against the decreed and prophesied scattering of the flock, and their fleeing and forsaking of Christ (Matt. xxvi. 31, 32-38, 41); but there can no case be given in which we may resist the approving will of God in His Word. That there must be a sweet conformity with God, when the heart sweetly closes with impressions of rebukes, threatenings, convictions, and influences of evangelic commands. It is good earth that easily yields