It would

men, and

time of our sufferings here, were it the whole course of our life, bears not the proportion of a moment to that endless eternity wherein he hath designed to manifest his goodness to us. It would check any motions of envy. make us joy in the prosperity of good hinder us from envying the outward felicity of the wicked. We should not dare with an evil eye to censure his good hand. (Matt. xx. 15); but approve of what he thinks fit to do, both in the matter of his liberality, and the subjects he chooseth for it. Though if the disposal were in our hands, we should not imitate him, as not thinking them subjects fit for bounty; yet since it is in his hands, we are to approve of his actions, and not to have an ill-will towards him for his goodness, or towards those he is pleased to make the subjects of it. Since all his blessings are given to invite man to repentance, (Rom. ii. 4); to envy them those goods God hath bestowed upon them, is to envy God the glory of his own goodness, and them the felicity those things might move them to aspire to. It is to wish God more contracted, and thy neighbour more miserable; but a deep sense of his sovereign goodness, would make us rejoice in any marks of it upon others, and move us to bless him instead of censuring him.

HOW TO BE IMITATED.

Imitate this goodness of God. If his goodness hath such an influence upon us as to make us love him, it will also move us with an ardent zeal to imitate him in it. Christ makes this use from the doctrine of divine goodness. Do good to them that

hate you, that you may be the children of your Father

which is in heaven, for he makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good. (Matt. v. 44, 45.) As holiness is a resemblance of God's purity, so charity is a resemblance of God's goodness: and this our Saviour calls perfection; Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (verse 48.) As God would not be a perfect God without goodness, so neither can any be a perfect Christian without kindness; charity and love being the splendour and loveliness of all Christian graces, as goodness is the splendour and loveliness of all divine attributes. This, and holiness, are ordered in the scripture to be the grand patterns of our imitation. Imitate the goodness of God in two things:

In relieving and assisting others in distress. Let our heart be as large in the capacity of creatures, as God's is in the capacity of a Creator. A large heart from him to us, and a strait heart from us to others, will not suit: let us not think any so far below us, as to be unworthy of our care, since God thinks none, that are infinitely distant from him, too mean for his. His infinite glory raises him above the creature, but his infinite goodness stoops him to the meanest works of his hands.

Imitate God in his goodness, in a kindness to our worst enemies. The best man is more unworthy to receive any thing from God, than the worst can be to receive from us. How kind is God to those that blaspheme him! He gives them the same sun, and the same showers, that he does to the best men in the world! Is it not more our glory to imitate God, in doing good to those that hate us, than to imitate the men of the world in requiting evil, by a return of a seven-fold mischief?

It can be no disparagement to any man's dignity to cast his influences on his greatest opposers, since God, who acts for his own glory, thinks not himself disparaged by sending forth the streams of his

bounty on the wickedest persons, who are far meaner to him than those of the same blood can be to us. Who has the worst thoughts of the sun for shining upon the earth, that sends up vapours to cloud it? It can be no disgrace to resemble God; if his hand and heart be open to us, let not ours be shut to any.

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X.-THE DOMINION OF GOD.

THERE is a threefold dominion of God. 1. Natural, which is absolute over all creatures, and is founded in the nature of God as Creator. 2. Spiritual or gracious; which is a dominion over his church as redeemed, and founded in the covenant of grace. 3. A glorious kingdom at the winding up of all, wherein he shall reign over all, either in the glory of his mercy, as over the glorified saints; or in the glory of his justice, in the condemned devils and

men.

ITS WISDOM.

This dominion is managed by the rules of wisdom, righteousness, and goodness. If his throne be in the heavens, it is pure and good; because the heavens are the purest parts of the creation, and influence by their goodness the lower earth. Since he is his own rule, and his nature is infinitely wise, holy, and righteous, he cannot do a thing, but what is unquestionably agreeable with wisdom, justice, and purity. In all the exercises of his sovereign right, he is never unattended with those perfections of his nature. Might not God by his absolute power have pardoned men's guilt, and thrown the invading

sin out of his creatures? But in regard of his truth pledged in his threatening, and in regard of justice, which demanded satisfaction, he would not. Might not God by his absolute sovereignty admit a man into his friendship, without giving him any grace? But in regard of the incongruity of such an act to his wisdom and holiness, he will not. May he not, by his absolute power, refuse to accept a man that desires to please him, and reject a purely innocent creature? But in regard of his goodness and righteousness he will not. Though innocence be amiable in its own nature, yet it is not necessary in regard of God's sovereignty that he should love it; but in regard of his goodness it is necessary, and he will never do otherwise.

What may appear to us to have no other spring than absolute sovereignty, would be found to have a depth of amazing wisdom, and accountable reason, were our short capacities long enough to fathom it. When the apostle had been discoursing of the eternal counsels of God, in seizing upon one man and letting go another, in rejecting the Jews and gathering in the Gentiles, which appear to us to be results only of an absolute dominion, yet he resolves not those amazing acts into that, without taking it for granted, that they were governed by exact wisdom, though beyond his ken to see, and his line to sound. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God; how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. (Rom. xi. 33.) The other attributes of power and goodness are more easily perceptible in the works of God, than his wisdom. The first view of the creation strikes us with this sentiment, that the Author of this great fabric was mighty and beneficial; but his wisdom lies deeper than to be discerned at the first glance without a diligent inquiry, as at the first casting our eyes upon the sea, we behold its motion, colour, and