It has been the subject of a thousand treatises; though the wise men of the earth have been puzzled to discover, and the skill of the greatest and wisest of human men have endeavoured to fathom the question, "What is good; where is it to be found?" they have been unable to fathom it. A learned heathen tells us that in his time there were no less than two hundred and thirty opinions as to what constituted the chief good; a plain proof that they needed a superior wisdom to inform them what good is, and how obtained. The Bible settles the question, and tells us, that the chief good is the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory; and that all this troubled and chequered scene is concurring with God's merciful purposes, to put his people into final possession of this good.

O my brethren, what more than heavenly music is the text, to

"Th' afflicted in this vale of tears,

The place of sorrows, sighs, and fears!"

O what more than heavenly music is it, amid all the scenes and the complaints that he is ever prone to, to hear all things are working together for good to him! If we could conceive, that to-day for the first time we had heard of this declaration, if this had been the chosen scene where God would lay open to us the secrets of his government, and intentions of his providence; if we were brought up to the house of God this morning, to have the keys of the mystery put into our hands, and it had been my commission to proclaim to you that all things were working together for our good, would it be heard with listlessness or carelessness by the parties interested? My brethren, in the case that I have here supposed, would not the tear that was glistening in the eye forget to fall; would not the half-uttered groan have been suppressed, and every man, every Christian man, been truly ashamed to sigh or weep, when he was told that God intended that all things should work together for his good? Why, brethren, is it less true, is it less interesting, now that it is told you for the thousandth time, that all things, under the wisdom and power of God, are concurring for the production of your spiritual benefit? Let the believer who has come this morning to the house of God, and left his harp hanging upon the willow, clasp the Bible upon his bosom, and go back to his scene of suffering, dark and dreary though it be, and take down that harp, and strike it afresh, in praise of Him who has condescended, not only to tell him that he intended ultimately to save his soul, but that all that is now painful and unpleasant enters into the accomplishment of that great design.

In the third place, we learn the necessity of faith, to rise to the standard of our privileges, and receive that abundance of consolation which God has provided for us. My brethren, do you believe this? What, and go sorrowing all your days because of the afflictions with which God may see fit to chasten you! In temporal things do we often feel an objection to give up a present for a future and greater advantage? Is not the man counted unwise who would not, for the present, surrender a small portion of his property, to secure ten times the amount for it at the distance of ten years? And does he weep when he parts with his property; does he mourn as if he had been called to endure affliction, when he has an entire confidence in the adventure, that it will ultimately succeed according to the representations that have been made to him? And shall we, when called by Divine Providence to give up present comfort, present enjoyments, present possessions, with the infallible assurance that it shall be productive of welfare in another world, shall we stop back? Shall we'

consider ourselves hardly dealt with, as having an extraordinary pressure to bear, and refuse to trust God and count all for our spiritual benefit? Whence comes this, but from want of faith in the gracious promises of God? We suffer for our folly; and therefore the great object which we all should have in view should be, to bring up our minds in the exercise of faith to the standard of our privileges, and the abundance of consolation which God has provided us in his Word. We have all much want of faith in believing it. It is easy when all things run smooth to assent to this truth: but when we have nothing but God's simple Word to trust to, then is the time for the exercise and the trial of faith. Now I say, that in all these perplexing circumstances in which believers are placed, they have nothing but God's word to secure them; but they have that word, and in that word let them repose.

Fourthly, we learn from this subject the certainty of the perseverance of the saints. It is God's purpose to make all things concur for their spiritual benefit; it is his purpose to bring them to everlasting life and glory. What can we say more?

Lastly, the subject calls upon us all to examine ourselves, and see whether the marks of this character are to be found in us: if not, the privilege does not belong to us. No man ought to take this consolation to himself but on the sure ground of Jesus Christ. Now let me beseech you to ask the question of yourselves, Do you love God? Let each respond, "Do I?" and let conscience give the answer. You are not to ask the question, "Am I included in the decree?" You have nothing to do with it. God's decree is never submitted for human inspection: that volume no eye but his own is able to look into. But where there is the decree to purpose the salvation of an individual, there is a copy written upon the heart of him who is the subject of it by effectual calling, in the principle of supreme practical love to God. You cannot ascend into heaven to search that inscrutable volume of God's decrees, but you can look into your own heart, and see whether you love God. As an old divine has said, "Prove your calling, and never doubt of your election."

If you have not this character, the privilege never belonged to you, but the very opposite for while all things work together for good to them that love God, all things work together for ill to them that love not God. Prosperity and adversity, comfort and affliction; all your social enjoyments, all your individual gratifications, through the power of your unbelief, will, if you reject the Gospel-aye, even the Gospel itself, and all the external advantages of religion-work together for your future condemnation: they will become a savour of death unto death. Every sabbath, every sermon, every prayer, every admonition of friends, every check of conscience that is whispered-adds something to your condemnation; not, indeed, by its own inherent tendency, but by the use you make of them. You have abused them, and you are guilty of the abuse; and they will add something to your guilt and your condemnation hereafter.

God in mercy grant, that these considerations may make their impression upon your mind; and that this day, and from this hour, may you solicit the Holy Spirit to enlighten that dark mind, to change that hard heart, to put you among the number of those that love God, and then you may take to yourselves the rich and unutterable consolation of the text: "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose

INTERING INTO THE SANCTUARIES OF GOD.

REV. W. DODSWORTH, A.M.

MARGARET CHAPEL, MARGARET STREET, AUGUST 16, 1835.

"When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sa.ictuary of God."-PSALM lxxiii. 16, 17.

THAT we live in a world, and under a dispensation of things, which present many difficulties and perplexities to the natural reason of man, is what every intelligent and reflecting mind must admit. There is much every day occurring around us which we cannot account for. We behold effects, perhaps we can trace them a step or two in their immediate causation, but on closer examination we find again, that these are but the effects of causes still more remote, and these so subtle, and so involved in obscurity, as to elude our closest investigation. The deeper the research, the greater the difficulties that present themselves; the more we know the more we see there is yet to know: the further we trace finite things, the further we see ourselves from the infinite.

We may feel humbled and pained at such discoveries, my brethren, but a little reflection might convince us, that these limits must be imposed upon our inquiries: we are under a plan and dispensation of things which is of God's devising; a plan reaching far higher, and descending far lower, than we can embrace within the compass of our limited faculties. We are as men engaged in the field of battle, moved hither and thither at the command of the general. To us, perhaps, engaged within our own limited sphere, the movements may seem perplexing, and perhaps even disadvantageous. So, perhaps, they would be if viewed alone; but they form but a part of the great design in the mind of Him who directs and controls the whole. We are as men very close to some beautiful and magnificent building, and we can see but a single pillar, or a single ornament, which seems to us perhaps monstrous, and without symmetry or proportion: another sees it from a point at which he can take the whole structure into view, and it comes forth in all its symmetry, and proportion, and beauty and those parts which seemed unsightly and disproportionate, are Low seen to conduce to the perfection of the building.

But why should we seek for similitudes. Hear the word of the Lord by the Prophet Isaiah: "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." If we consider the magnitude of his plans, and the extensiveness of his purposes, we shall feel ourselves to be

as mere passengers, a moment here, and then gone; and after our utmost and most diligent search into his designs, we shall conclude with Job," Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him?" Happy had it been for men if they had ever acted under these just impressions. What folly had it then seemed, as well as impiety, for man, the creature of an hour, and crushed before the moth, to find objection against the character and the revelation, nay, in his presumption, even against the very being of God, from his limited experience, and his very slight and contracted observation! How more than ridiculous it would seem to rest upon conclusions derived from premises such as these! How fatal all those objections drawn from the exceedingly partial and limited view which we can take of the plans and purposes of God, or of his works and ways in nature or in providence. As if we could judge of the whole chain of events, their origin, their use, and their end, while we are unable to see more than a single link in the chain.

And not only have infidels and sceptics acted under the oversight and in defiance of this truth-not only have they acted from a want of consideration of the immense distance between man and God, and of the incapacity of the one to judge of the works and ways of the other; but the servants of God themselves have been too often unmindful of the same thing. They have been tempted to murmur against God's dispensations; to judge of them by what they see and hear, to suffer their minds to be perplexed by the seeming difficulties of them. Such was the case with the Psalmist, as we gather from this Psalm out of which the text is taken. It describes a long struggle in his mind between nature and grace; in which the latter indeed proves victorious, but not without being severely tried. "But as for me," says he, "my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped." The temptation which gave rise to this struggle was the seeing wealth and power in the hands of the wicked, while the servants of God were exposed to suffering and oppressed with poverty. "For I was envious at the foolish," he says, "when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men." And then, after describing the pride and loftiness of spirit that prosperity engenders in the human heart, and the wicked making it instrumental even to encourage their infidelity, he proceeds, in the twelfth verse, to describe the effect which this had upon his own mind: "Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency, For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning." On reflection, however, he checks himself, and reproves the impiety of the thought: "If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children."

In order to understand the force of this temptation in the Psalmist's case, we must bear in mind, that the dispensation under which he lived was one of temporal rewards and punishments. It would scarcely meet his temptation to have suggested, that there is a future state in which all inequalities shall have been rectified under a perfect system of divine government: because even now, in this present world, an Israelite was led to expect, that his prosperity would be in proportion to his obedience to the law of God. To the Christian this peculiar temptation which occasioned so great a struggle to the Psalmist, can

scarcely be felt to be so powerful an one. We live under a dispensation expressly addressed to our faith, and not to our senses. The Gospel does not lead us to expect, that a strict retribution for good and evil should be manifested here. Such a retribution does, indeed, to a great extent, doubtless, exist even in this present state: but it is not now manifest; we walk not by sight, but by faith. Faith enables the Christian to rise above the world; though its gifts may be denied to him, he can fill his heart with peace and joy under the deepest deprivations to his senses.

But although the Christian is not treated precisely as the Psalmist was, yet he has trials at least as great, and these of a character so far analogous or resembling those of the Psalmist, that he may certainly profit by his example. What was his resource under the trial that oppressed him? He tells us in the text: "When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God." Some have interpreted this of the Psalmist uniting in the temple worship, and finding a satisfaction to his soul, in communion with God and his ordinances.

But although this may be included, the meaning I conceive to be far more comprehensive. The word rendered "sanctuary" is in the plural, “the sanctuaries of God," and expresses, as I conceive, the holy mind and intention of God. The meaning of the Psalmist, therefore, I understand to be this: "So long as I endeavoured to comprehend these dispensations by human reason, and by the mere exercise of the powers of the human mind, I found it impossible to comprehend them. They seemed surrounded with difficulties, and involved in inextricable perplexities. But when I called in divine light to my aid; when I threw myself, as it were, into the mind of God, when I endeavoured to look upon them with the eye of God, then all became clear and palpable unto me." The difficulty of the Psalmist was solved by considering the end of the ungodly. If God permitted them to enjoy a temporary prosperity, it was that their fall might be more terrible in itself, and more signally displayed: "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.' The point, then, which I wish more especially to press upon your minds is this: that the great means of solving the difficulties with which our Christian path is surrounded, and which may from time to time perplex us in our course, is to enter into the sanctuaries of God; that is, to draw ourselves as much as possible into the divine mind; to look at all things as far as it is permitted to us, from the point from which God views them; to see them in connexion with his revealed plans and purposes. Then will light break forth in our obscurity, and our darkness, however intense it be, shall become as noon-day.

Let me now, then, refer to a few of the topics which are apt to perplex the mind, merely as specimens of this subject. Take, for instance, the entrance of evil into the world, and its vast progress. It must be admitted that this

subject may be presented to the mind in a way which is very perplexing. God is infinite in power, as well as perfect in goodness and holiness. All things are seen by him; therefore he could not be taken by surprise: all things are under his absolute control; therefore he could not want resources for the prevention of evil. To say that man was free to fall as well as free to