God favours an unjust cause against a just one, to ferve the purposes of his government, yet they give no man a right to hope for God's patronage of unjust purposes. God may employ wicked men as his inftruments, and fo favour their unjust purposes; but wicked men may not employ God for their inftrumentwhose conduct is always juft, whatever be the purposes of those whom he employs. - The king of Babylon had no right to the kingdom of Judah, his purpose therefore was unjust; but God, who has a right to dispose of all kingdoms of the earth, to take from, and to give to, whom he pleases, as he had a right to punish the king of Judah and his people, fo he had a right to take away his kingdom from him, and give it to the king of Babylon. God's conduct therefore was juft, though the purpose of the king of Babylon was unjust. But our trust in God for fuccefs in the bufinefs of life requires, not only that we should be good, and our bufinefs good, but also that we make good ufe of fuch means as God hath given us for accomplishing it ; — not that we should place our trust in them, without thinking upon God, but that we may not neglect God's help, which he offers us through fuch such means, and that, applying them diligently, we may hope for his bleffing on our work. The husbandman, who trufts in God for a harvest, but will neither plow nor fow, must not complain, if he be disappointed.. They who trust in the Lord," says the pfalmist, "fhall eat" What? "The labour - not what they have not There are two difpofitions of mind which destroy this duty of truft in God; — they are, diftrust, on the one hand, and presumption, on the other; the former is a want, the latter is an abufe of our trust in God. A distrust in God is injurious to his perfections; his power, wisdom, goodness, and truth. This fhews itself in cavilling at the difpenfations of his providence - as if man could mend the work of God's government! - but as man, in his highest wisdom, is but weak and wicked, and God, in his severest difpenfations, is infinitely wife and good, the government of the world is furely better under God's management, than it would be with our mending it. Man, had he the government of the world, would not be able to do good, would be always willing to do mischief; God, who is infinitely able and infinitely be neficent, neficent, never difpenfes evil but his operations tend to good. But though we do not cavil at God's difpenfations, we are too apt to be impatient under them. We are too anxious and folicitous about the things of this world;- were we lefs fo, we fhould be more patient in being disappointed of them, or in being deprived of them; and, under that temper of mind, fhould be more ready to trust in God, that he orders what is beft for us, and that the good he withholds, or takes from us, is not our good, and that we are better without it.-Impatience ruins us-when it hurries us to be our own providers, or our own deliverers, and will not fuffer us to truft the hand of God for leading us up to the good we defire, or for leading us out of the evil which we fuffer; from this impatience, this miftruft in God's providence, arises most of the wickedness that difturbs the world. In the progrefs of which we may discover as much prefumption on Providence as we fee diftruft. We fee, that men, after diftrusting God's care and goodness in providing for them, will prefume upon his patience and goodness in the methods they take of providing for themselves; which are too often such, as in him as look more like tempting God, than trusting like trying, not what God will give, but what he will bear; for the only way of trying what God will give is, to behave so as to deserve his gifts, by fubmiffion to his will, and patience under his dispensations; and thofe, who, by a contrary behaviour, venture to try what God will bear, ufually find to their coft what he will not bear, even in this world, and will be feverely convinced of it in the next. To conclude Our trust in God is both a duty and a bleffing; it is due to the perfections of God, and what our own imperfections abfolutely require. We cannot feel our way through the present state of trial without it, much lefs can we venture to ftep into a future ftate of judgment, if not fupported by it. We cannot then be too ftudious for being supplied with it, nor is there a furer way of acquiring it than the rectitude of our behaviour-that is, a fincere faith in what God and Chrift have done for our falvation, and a confcientious discharge of that duty, which they, both, expect from us, and which is fet before us in the gospel of Christ; nor is there any connection more neceffary, none should be more ftrong, |