spired, are such as could come only from a heart and character thus described.

He goes up into the temple to pay his sacrifice of prayer; in the discharge of which he pleads no merit of his own,-enters into no comparison with others, or justification of himself with God; but, in reverence to that holier part of the temple where his presence was supposed more immediately to be displayed, he keeps afar off, is afraid to lift up his eyes towards heaven; but smites upon his breast, and in a short but fervent ejaculation, submissively begs God to have mercy upon his sins. O God! how precious, how amiable, is true humility! What a difference in thy sight does it make to consist betwixt man and man! Pride was not made for a creature with such manifold imperfections: religious pride is a dress which still worse becomes him; because of all others 'tis that to which he has the least pretence the best of us fall seven times a day, and thereby add some degree of unprofitableness to the character of those who do all that is commanded them. Was I perfect, therefore, says Job, I would not know my soul, I would be silent, I would be ignorant of my own righteousness; for, should I say I was perfect, it would prove me to be perverse. From this introduction, I will take occasion to recommend this virtue of religious humility, which so naturally falls from the subject, and cannot more effectually be enforced than by an inquiry into the chief causes which produce the opposite vice to it-that of spiritual pride; for in this malady of the mind of man, the case is parallel with most others of his body, the dangers of which can never rightly be apprehended; nor can remedies be applied either with judgment or success, till they are traced back to their first principles, and the seeds of the disorder are laid open and considered.

He

And first, I believe, one of the most general causes of spiritual pride is that which seems to have misled the Pharisee,-a mistaken notion of the true principles of his religion. thought, no doubt, that the whole of it was comprehended in the two articles of paying tithes and frequent fasting; and that when he had discharged his conscience of them, he had done all that was required at his hands, and might with reason go and thank God that he had not made him like others. It is not to be questioned but, through force of this error, the Pharisee might think himself to be, what he pretended, a religious and upright man. For, however he might be brought to act a double and insincere part in the eyes of men upon worldly views, it is not to be supposed that, when he stood by himself, apart in the temple, and no witnesses of what passed between him and his God, that he should knowingly and wilfully have dared to act so open and barefaced a scene of mockery in the face of Heaven. This

is scarce probable; and therefore must have been owing to some delusion in his education, which had early implanted in his mind false and wretched notions of the essentials of religion, which, as he grew up, had proved the seeds of infinite error, both in practice and speculation.

With the rest of his sect, he had been so principled and instructed as to observe a scrupulous nicety and most religious exactness in the lesser matters of his religion,-its frequent washings, its fastings, and other external rites, of no merit in themselves,—but to stand exempted from the more troublesome exactness in the weightier matters of the law, which were of eternal and unchangeable obligation. So that they were, in truth, blind guides, who thus will strain at a gnat, and yet swallow a camel; and, as our Saviour reproves them from a familiar instance of domestic inconsistency, would make clean the outside of the cup and platter, yet suffer the inside, the most material part, to be full of corruption and excess. From this knowledge of

the character and principles of the Pharisee, 'tis easy to account for his sentiments and behaviour in the temple, which were just such as they would have led one to have expected.

Thus it has always happened, by a fatality common to all such abuses of religion as make it to consist in external rites and ceremonies, more than inward purity and integrity of heart. As these outward things are easily put in practice, and capable of being attained without much capacity, or much opposition to flesh and blood, it too naturally betrays the professors of it into a groundless persuasion of their own godliness, and a despicable one of that of others, in their religious capacities, and the relations in which they stand towards God; which is the very definition of spiritual pride.

When the true heat and spirit of devotion is thus lost and extinguished, under a cloud of ostentatious ceremonies and gestures, as is remarkable in the Roman Church,-where the celebration of high mass, when set off to the best advantage with all its scenical decorations and finery, looks more like a theatrical performance than that humble and solemn appeal which dust and ashes are offering up to the throne of God;-when religion, I say, is thus clogged and borne down by such a weight of ceremonies, it is much easier to put in pretensions to holiness upon such a mechanical system as is left of it than where the character is only to be got and maintained by a painful conflict and perpetual war against the passions. "Tis easier, for instance, for a zealous Papist to cross himself, and tell his beads, than for a humble Protestant to subdue the lusts of anger, intemperance, cruelty, and revenge, to appear before his Maker with that preparation of mind which becomes him. The operation of being sprinkled with holy water is not so difficult in itself as

that of being chaste and spotless within,-conscious of no dirty thought or dishonest action. 'Tis a much shorter way to kneel down at a confessional, and receive absolution, than to live so as to descrve it,-not at the hands of men, but at the hands of God, who sces the heart, and cannot be imposed upon. The achievement of keeping Lent, or abstaining from flesh on certain days, is not so hard as that of abstaining from the works of it at all times; especially as the point is generally managed among the richer sort with such art and epicurism at their tables, and with such indulgence to a poor mortified appetite, that an entertainment upon a fast is much more likely to produce a surfeit than a fit of sorrow.

One might run the parallel much further, but this may be sufficient to show how dangerous and delusive these mistakes are; how apt to mislead and overset weak minds, which are ever apt to be caught by the pomp of such external parts of religion. This is so evident, that even in our own church, where there is the greatest chastity in things of this nature, and of which none are retained in our worship but what, I believe, tend to excite and assist it, yet, so strong a propensity is there in our nature to sense, and so unequal a match is the understanding of the bulk of mankind for the impressions of outward things, that we see thousands who every day mistake the shadow for the substance, and, was it fairly put to the trial, would exchange the reality for the appear

ance.

You see this was almost universally the case of the Jewish church; where, for want of proper guard and distinction betwixt the means of religion and religion itself, the ceremonial part in time ate away the moral part, and left nothing but a shadow behind. "Tis to be feared the buffooneries of the Romish Church bid fair to do it the same ill office, to the disgrace and utter ruin of Christianity, wherever Popery is established. What then remains, but that we rectify these gross and pernicious notions of religion, and place it upon its true bottom, which we can only do by bringing back religion to that cool point of reason which first showed us its obligation,-by always remembering that God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped suitably to his nature, i.e. in spirit and in truth; and that the most acceptable sacrifice we can offer him is a virtuous and an upright mind; and however necessary it is not to leave the ceremonial and positive parts of religion undone, yet not, like the Pharisee, to rest there, and omit the weightier matters, but keep this in view perpetually, that though the instrumental duties of religion are duties of unquestionable obligation to us, yet they are still but instrumental duties, conducive to the great end of all religion, which is to purify our hearts and conquer our passions, and, in a word, to make

us wiser and better men, better neighbours, better citizens, and better servants to God. To whom, etc.

VII.-VINDICATION OF HUMAN

NATURE.

For none of us liveth to himself.'-ROMANS XIV. 7. THERE is not a sentence in Scripture which strikes a narrow soul with greater astonishment; and one might as easily engage to clear up the darkest problem in geometry to an ignorant mind, as make a sordid one comprehend the truth and reasonableness of this plain proposition,-No man liveth to himself! Why? Does any man live to anything else? In the whole compass of human life, can a prudent man steer to a safer point? Not live to himself! To whom, then? Can any interests or concerns which are foreign to a man's self have such a claim over him that he must serve under them-suspend his own pursuits-step out of his right course till others have passed by him and attained the several ends and purposes of living before him?

If, with a selfish heart, such an inquirer should happen to have a speculating head too, he will proceed, and ask you, Whether this same principle which the apostle here throws out, of the life of man, is not in fact the grand bias of his nature? That however we may flatter ourselves with fine-spun notions of disinterestedness and heroism in what we do, were the most popular of our actions stripped naked, and the true motives and intentions of them searched to the bottom, we should find. little reason for triumph upon that score.

In a word, he will say that a man is altogether a bubble to himself in this matter, and that, after all that can be said in his behalf, the truest definition that can be given of him is this, that he is a selfish animal; and that all his actions have so strong a tincture of that character as to show, to whomever else he was intended to iive, that in fact he lives only to himself.

Before I reply directly to this accusation, I cannot help observing, by the way, that there is scarce anything which has done more disservice to social virtue than the frequent representations of human nature under this hideous picture of deformity, which, by leaving out all that is generous and friendly in the heart of man, has sunk him below the level of a brute, as if he was a composition of all that was meanspirited and selfish. Surely 'tis one step towards acting well to think worthily of our nature; and as in common life the way to make a man honest is to suppose him so, and treat him as such, so here, to set some value upon ourselves enables us to support the character, and even inspires and adds sentiments of

generosity and virtue to those which we have already preconceived. The Scripture tells that God made man in his own image-not surely in the sensitive and corporeal part of him-that could bear no resemblance with a pure and infinite Spirit; but what resemblance he bore was undoubtedly in the moral rectitude, and the kind and benevolent affections of his nature. And though the brightness of his image has been sullied greatly by the fall of man in our first parents, and the characters of it rendered still less legible by the many superinductions of his own depraved appetites since; yet 'tis a laudable pride and a true greatness of mind to cherish a belief that there is so much of that glorious image still left upon it as shall restrain him from base and disgraceful actions; to answer which end, what thought can be more conducive than that of our being made in the likeness of the greatest and best of beings? This is a plain consequence. And the consideration of it should have in some measure been a protection to human nature from the rough usage she has met with from the satirical pens of so many of the French writers, as well as of our own country, who, with more wit than well meaning, have desperately fallen foul upon the whole species, as a set of creatures incapable either of private friendship or public spirit, but just as the case suited their own interest and advantage.

That there is selfishness and meanness enough in the souls of one part of the world to hurt the credit of the other part of it, is what I shall not dispute against; but to judge of the whole from this bad sample, and, because one man is plotting and artful in his nature-or a second openly makes his pleasure or his profit the whole centre of all his designs - or because a third strait-hearted wretch sits confined within himself, feels no misfortunes but those which touch himself,-to involve the whole race without mercy under such detested characters, is a conclusion as false as it is pernicious; and, was it in general to gain credit, could serve no end but the rooting out of our nature all that is generous, and planting in the stead of it such an aversion to each other as must untie the bands of society, and rob us of one of the greatest pleasures of it, the mutual communications of kind offices; and, by poisoning the fountain, render everything suspected that flows through it.

To the honour of human nature, the Scripture teaches us that God made man upright; and though he has since found out many inventions, which have much dishonoured this noble structure, yet the foundation of it stands as it was, -the whole frame and design of it carried on upon social virtue and public spirit, and every member of us so evidently supported by this strong cement, that we may say with the Apostle, that no man liveth to himself. In whatsoever

light we view him, we shall see evidently that there is no station or condition of his life, no office, or relation, or circumstance, but there arise from it so many ties, so many indispensable claims upon him, as must perpetually carry him beyond any selfish consideration, and show plainly that was a man foolishly wicked enough to design to live to himself alone, he would either find it impracticable, or he would lose, at least, the very thing which made life itself desirable. We know that our Creator, like an all-wise contriver, in this, as in all other of his works, has implanted in mankind such appetites and inclinations as were suitable for their state; that is, such as would naturally lead him to the love of society and friendship, without which he would have been found in a worse condition than the very beasts of the field. No one, therefore, who lives in society can be said to live to himself; he lives to his God, to his king, and his country; he lives to his family, to his friends, to all under his trust; and, in a word, he lives to the whole race of mankind. Whatsoever has the character of man, and wears the same image of God that he does, is truly his brother, and has a just claim to his kind. That this is the case in fact as well as in theory, may be made plain to any one who has made any observations upon human life. When we have traced it through all its connections, viewed it under the several obligations which succeed each other in a perpetual rotation through the different stages of a hasty pilgrimage, we shall find that these do operate so strongly upon it, and lay us justly under so many restraints, that we are every hour sacrificing something to society, in return for the benefits we receive from it.

To illustrate this, let us take a short survey of the life of any one man, not liable to great exceptions, but such a life as is common to most; let us examine it merely to this point, and try how far it will answer such a representation.

If we begin with him in that early age wherein the strongest marks of undisguised tenderness and disinterested compassion show themselves, I might previously observe, with what impressions he is come out of the hands of God, with the very bias upon his nature which prepares him for the character which he was designed to fulfil. But let us pass by the years which denote childhood, as no lawful evidence, you'll say, in this dispute; let us follow him to the period when he is just got loose from tutors and governors, when his actions may be argued upon with less exception: if you observe, you will find that one of the first and leading propensities of his nature is that which discovers itself in the desire of society, and the spontaneous love towards those of his kind; and though the natural wants and exigencies of his condition are, no doubt, one reason of this amiable

S

impulse, God having founded that in him as a provisional security to make him social, yet, though it is a reason in nature, 'tis a reason to him yet undiscovered. Youth is not apt to philosophize so deeply, but follows as it feels itself prompted by the inward workings of benevolence, without view to itself, or previous calculation either of the loss or profit which may accrue. Agreeably to this, observe how warmly, how heartily he enters into friendships how disinterested and unsuspicious in the choice of them! how generous and open in his professions! how sincere and honest in making them good! When his friend is in distress, what lengths he will go! what hazards he will bring upon himself! what embarrassment upon his affairs, to extricate and serve him! If man is altogether a selfish creature, as these moralizers would make him, 'tis certain he does not arrive at the full maturity of it in this time of his life. No. If he deserves any accusation, 'tis in the other extreme, 'That in his youth he is generally more fool than knave ;' and so far from being suspected of living to himself, that he lives rather to everybody else; the unconsciousness of art and design in his own intentions rendering him so utterly void of a suspicion of it in others as to leave him too oft a bubble to every one who will take the advan tage. But, you'll say, he soon abates of these transports of disinterested love; and as he grows older, grows wiser, and learns to live more to himself.

Let us examine.

That a longer knowledge of the world, and some experience of insincerity, will teach him a lesson of more caution in the choice of friendships, and less forwardness in the undistinguished offers of his services, is what I grant. But if he cool of these, does he not grow warmer still in connections of a different kind? Follow him, I pray you, into the next stage of life, where he has entered into engagements, and appears as the father of a family, and you will see the passion still remains, the stream somewhat more confined, but it runs the stronger for it: the same benevolence of heart, altered only in its course, and the difference of objects towards which it tends. Take a short view of him in this light, as acting under the many tender claims which that relation lays upon him,spending many weary days and sleepless nights, utterly forgetful of himself, intent only upon his family, and with an anxious heart contriving and labouring to preserve it from distress, against that hour when he shall be taken from its protection. Does such a one live to himself? He who rises early, late takes rest, and eats the bread of carefulness, to save others the sorrow of doing so after him. Does such an one live orly to himself? Ye who are parents, answer this question for him. How oft have ye sacrificed your health--your ease-your pleasures

nay, the very comforts of your lives, for the sake of your children! How many indulgences have ye given up! What self-denials and difficulties have ye cheerfully undergone for them! In their sickness, or reports of their misconduct, how have ye gone on your way sorrowing! What alarms within you, when fancy forebodes but imaginary misfortunes hanging over them! But when real ones have overtaken them, and mischief befallen them in the way in which they have gone, how sharper than a sword have ye felt the workings of parental kindness! In whatever period of human life we look for proofs of selfishness, let us not seek them in this relation of a parent, whose whole life, when truly known, is often little else but a succession of cares, heart-aches, and disquieting apprehensions, enough to show that he is but an instrument in the hands of God to provide for the well-being of others, to serve their interests as well as his own.

If you try the truth of this reasoning upon every other part or situation of the same life, you will find it holds good in one degree or other. Take a view of it out of these closer connections, both of a friend and parent; consider him for a moment under that natural alliance in which even a heathen poet has placed him, namely, that of a man,-and as such, to his honour, as one incapable of standing unconcerned in whatever concerns his fellow-creatures. Compassion has so great a share in our nature, and the miseries of this world are so constant an exercise of it, as to leave it in no one's power, who deserves the name of man in this respect, to live to himself.

He cannot stop his ears against the cries of the unfortunate. The sad story of the fatherless, and him that has no helper, must be heard. The sorrowful sighing of the prisoner will come before him ;' and a thousand other untold. cases of distress to which the life of man is subject find a way to his heart, let interest guard the passage as it will. If he has this world's goods, and seeth his brother have need, he will not be able to shut up his bowels of compassion from him.'

Let any man of common humanity look back upon his own life as subjected to these strong claims, and recollect the influence they have had upon him. How oft the mere impulses of generosity and compassion have led him out of his way! In how many acts of charity and kindness his fellow-feeling for others has made him forget himself! In neighbourly offices, how oft he has acted against all considerations. of profits, convenience, nay, sometimes even of justice itself! Let him add to this account how much, in the progress of his life, has been given up even to the lesser obligations of civility and good manners! What restraints they have laid him under! How large a portion of his time, how much of his inclination, and the plan of

life he should most have wished, has from time to time been made a sacrifice to his good-nature, and disinclination to give pain or disgust to others!

Whoever takes a view of the life of man, in this glass wherein I have shown it, will find it so beset and hemmed in with obligations of one kind or other, as to leave little room to suspect that man can live to himself; and so closely has our Creator linked us together, as well as all other parts of his works, for the preservation of that harmony in the frame and system of things which his wisdom has at first established, that we find this bond of mutual dependence, however relaxed, is too strong to be broke; and I believe that the most selfish men find it is so, and that they cannot in fact live so much to them as the narrowness of their own heart inclines them. If these reflections are just, upon the moral relations in which we stand to each other, let us close the examination with a short reflection upon the great relation in which we stand to God.

The first and more natural thought on this subject, which at one time or other will thrust itself upon every man's mind, is this, that there is a God who made me, to whose gift I owe all the powers and faculties of my soul, to whose providence I owe all the blessings of my life, and by whose permission it is that I exercise and enjoy them; that I am placed in this world as a creature of but a day, hastening to the place whence I shall not return; that I am accountable for my conduct and behaviour to this great and wisest of beings, before whose judgment-seat I must finally appear and receive the things done in my body, whether they are good or whether they are bad.

Can any one doubt but the most inconsiderate of men sometimes sit down coolly, and make some such plain reflections as these upon their state and condition? or that, after they have made them, can one imagine they lose all effect? Little appearance as there is of religion in the world, there is a great deal of its influence felt in its affairs; nor can one so root out the principles of it, but, like nature, they will return again, and give checks and interruptions to guilty pursuits. There are seasons when the thoughts of a just God overlooking, and the terror of an after-reckoning, have made the most determined tremble and stop short in the execution of a wicked purpose; and if we conceive that the worst of men lay some restraint upon themselves from the weight of this principle, what shall we think of the good and virtuous part of the world, who live under the perpetual influence of it, who sacrifice their appetites and passions from a consciousness of their duty to God, and consider him as the object to whom they have dedicated their service, and make that the first principle and ultimate end of all their actions? How many real and unaffected

instances there are in the world of men thus governed, will not concern us so much to inquire, as to take care that we are of the number; which may God grant, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

VIII.-TIME AND CHANCE,

'I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happened to them all.'-ECCLES. Ix. 11. WHEN a man casts a look upon this melancholy description of the world, and sees, contrary to all his guesses and expectations, what different fates attend the lives of men,-how oft it happens in the world that there is not even bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, etc., he is apt to conclude, with a sigh upon it, in the words, though not in the sense, of the wise man, that time and chance happen to them all; that time and chance, apt seasons and fit conjunctures, have the greatest sway in the turns and disposals of men's fortunes,-and that as these lucky hits (as they are called) happen to be for or against a man, they either open the way to his advancement against all obstacles, or block it up against all helps and attempts; that, as the text intimates, neither wisdom, nor understanding, nor skill, shall be able to surmount them.

However widely we may differ in our reasonings upon this observation of Solomon's, the authority of the observation is strong beyond doubt, and the evidence given of it in all ages so alternately confirmed by examples and complaints, as to leave the fact itself unquestionable. That things are carried on in this world sometimes so contrary to all our reasoning, and the seeming probabilities of success,-that even the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong!-nay, what is stranger still, nor yet bread to the wise, who shall last stand in want of it; nor yet riches to men of understanding, who you would think best qualified to acquire them; nor yet favour to men of skill, whose merit and pretences bid the fairest for it; but that there are some secret and unseen workings in human affairs which baffle all our endeavours, and turn aside the course of things in such a manner that the most likely causes disappoint and fail of producing for us the effect which we wished and naturally expected from them.

You will see a man who, were you to form a conjecture from the appearance of things in his favour, you would say was setting out in the world with the fairest prospect of making his fortune in it-with all the advantages of birth to recommend him, of personal merit to speak for him, and of friends to help and push him forwards; you will behold him, notwithstanding