hath given us ground of hope in himself. He
is the chief object of hope, and the chief cause of hope in us too.
Therefore we would look up to this fountain, for here all is to be found.

But I haste to speak a word of the third thing proposed, viz.: The channel
that these streams run into. It is believing, not doing. Indeed this
stream once ran in this channel. But since paradise was defaced, and the
rivers that watered it turned another way, this hath done so too. It is
true, that righteousness and holy walking is a notable mean to preserve
this pure, and unmixed, and constant. For indeed the peace of our God will
never lodge well with sin, the enemy of God, nor can that joy, which is so
pure a fountain, run in abundance in an impure heart. It will not mix with
carnal pleasures and toys. But yet the only ground of true peace and joy
is found out by believing in another. Whatsoever ye do else to find them,
dispute and debate never so long about them, toil all night and all day in
your examinations of yourselves, yet you shall not catch this peace,--this
solid peace, and this surpassing joy, but by quite overlooking yourselves
and fixing your hearts upon another object, that is, Jesus Christ. "Peace
and joy in believing," and what is that believing? Mistake it not. It is
not particular application at first. I delight rather to take it in
another notion, for the cordial absent and consent of the soul to the
promises of the gospel. I say but one word more, viz.: meditation and deep
consideration of these truths is certainly believing, and believing brings
peace, and peace brings joy.

Sermon X.

Matth. xi. 16.--"But whereunto shall I liken this generation?"

When our Lord Jesus, who had the tongue of the learned, and spoke as never
man spake, did now and then find a difficulty to express the matter herein
contained. "What shall we do?" The matter indeed is of great importance, a
soul matter, and therefore of great moment, a mystery, and therefore not
easily expressed. No doubt he knows how to paint out this to the life,
that we might rather behold it with our eyes, than hear it with our ears,
yet he uses this manner of expression, to stamp our hearts with a deep
apprehension of the weight of the matter, and the depth of it. It concerns
us all, as much as we can, to consider and attend unto it.

Two things are contained here. The entertainment Christ gets in the world,
of the most part, and, the entertainm