impatience, or some other fault, than a conscioufnefs of our defects in understanding. For that would bring us to our teachers for better inftructions.

MAY GOD of his infinite mercy grant, that we may fo hear and read as to remember, and fo remember as to practise!

THE Conclufion of the whole matter is this, To fear God and keep his commandments, this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every Secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

SERMON VII.

The Unfearchablenefs of God's Ways, and the Benefits of Afflictive Providence.

A

GENESIS xlv. 4.

I am Jofeph your brother, whom ye fold into Egypt.

MONG all the narratives of particular

characters, that we meet with in the Old Teftament, that of JOSEPH has been commonly regarded as the most curious and affecting. It has been the admiration even of thofe, whose contempt of the Holy Scriptures is fufficiently notorious. Indeed it abounds with so great a variety of such surprising as well as interesting incidents, as must highly recommend it to the perufal of every reader, not deftitute of the feelings of humanity. Nothing could be more finely conceived, even N though

though it were wholly the produce of the imagination, and not an hiftory of real facts. It is a most beautiful picture of the conflicts and triumphs of virtue. It agitates, by turns, and interests all the paffions.-What terrors do we feel, when we find his brethren confpiring against his life! And how great is our indignation against wretches, who could act a part as villanous as it was unnatural! How rejoiced are we to find he has the good fortune to escape this dangerous plot; and yet what anxiety do we feel, when, instead of being reftored in fafety to his father, we fee that he is condemned to be fold a bond-flave to the Ishmaelites! What pleasure does the humanity of REUBEN yield us! And how deeply are we afflicted with the grief of JACOB! What a variety of emotions do we afterwards feel on the various revolutions of JOSEPH's fortune! How are we depreffed at his unjust condemnation and imprisonment; and how elated at his enlargement and promotion! And how deeply do we find ourselves interested for all the various characters, whofe hiftory is interwoven with his! In the laft place, how highly are we pleased to find that all these feemingly untoward incidents terminate happily, and are, in the iffue, productive

of

of the most important good to him, whom they threatened with the greatest mischief! The genuine and undisguised truths exhibited in this fimple relation, strike us with amazing force; and it must indeed be allowed, that we very seldom find ourselves fo ftrongly affected by any of thofe compofitions, which are ftyled dramatic, although calculated for the fole purpose of moving the paffions, as we are by this inartificial, though surprising,

narrative.

THE hiftory of JOSEPH is fo well known, that I need not here recapitulate those parts of it, which are contained in the preceding chapters; I fhall therefore only observe, that this, from which my text is taken, commences with an account of his making himfelf known to his brethren. He feems to have offered great violence to his nature, in restraining himself so long from making this discovery. He was forced to withdraw himfelf from their prefence, at two different times before, in order to conceal from them the effects of thofe ftrong emotions, which, with his utmost efforts, he could not wholly fupprefs. But to wear the disguise any longer, was not in his power. For it is faid that he N 2 could

could not refrain himfelf, before all that flood by him. But that he might be the more at liberty to indulge every impulfe of nature, and every dictate of affection, he caufed all, except his own brethren, to withdraw, and then wept aloud, fo that the Egyptians, and the boufe of Pharaoh heard him. Nature, in proportion as it had been reftrained, like a torrent when ftemmed, became the more irrefiftible; therefore the emotions of it, as they had long been repreffed, now broke out with the greater violence. For this reason when JOSEPH would have wept in filence with his brethren, he wept aloud. Concerning this tender interview, the context then adds the following particulars; and Jofeph faid unto his brethren, I am Jofeph; doth my father yet live? And ―come near to me, I pray : and they came near, and he then said, in the words of my text, I am Jofeph your brother, whom ye fold into Egypt.

very

IN treating of these words, I fhall endeavour, first to shew how vain and prefumptuous it is for us, to judge of the methods of the divine œconomy, which may ftill be working for our good, when to us it seems most to oppofe it; fecondly, to demonstrate the

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