unhappy one which many unwary people take in proving the goodness of their coin; who, if it happen to be suspicious, instead of bringing it either to the balance or the touchstone to try its worth, they ignorantly go forth and try if they can pass it upon the world: if so, all is well, and they are saved all the expense and pains of inquiring after and detecting the cheat. A fourth error in this duty of examination of men's works is that of committing the task to others; an error into which thousands of wellmeaning creatures are ensnared in the Romish Church by her doctrines of auricular confession, of works of supererogation, and the many lucrative practices raised upon that capital stock, the trade of which is carried to such a height in Popish countries, that if you were at Rome or Naples now, and was disposed, in compliance with the apostle's exhortation in the text, to set about this duty, to prove your own works, 'tis great odds whether you would be suffered to do it yourself, without interruption: and you might be said to have escaped well if the first person you consulted upon it did not talk you out of your resolution, and possibly your senses too at the same time. Prove your works! for Heaven's sake, desist from so rash an undertaking! What! trust your own skill and judgment in a matter of so much difficulty and importance, when there are so many whose business it is, who understand it so well, and who can do it for you with so much safety and advantage! If your works must be proved, you would be advised by all means to send them to undergo this operation with some one who knows what he is about; either some expert and noted confessor of the church, or to some convent, or religious society, who are in possession of a large stock of good works of all kinds, wrought up by saints and confessors, where you may suit yourself, and either get the defects of your own supplied, or be accommodated with new ones ready proved to your hands, sealed, and certified to be so by the Pope's commissary and the notaries of his ecclesiastic court. There needs little more to lay open this fatal error than barely to represent it; so I shall only add a short remark: that they who are persuaded to be thus virtuous by proxy, and will prove the goodness of their works only by deputies, will have no reason to complain against God's justice, if he suffers them to go to heaven only in the same manner-that is, by deputies too. The last mistake which I shall have time to mention is that which the Methodists have revived; and it is no other error than one which has misled thousands before these days, wherever enthusiasm had got footing; and that is, attempting to prove their works by that very argument which is the greatest proof of their weakness and superstition,-I mean that extraordinary impulse and intercourse with the Spirit of God which they pretend to, and whose operations (if you trust them) are so sensibly felt in their hearts and souls, as to render at once all other proofs of their works needless to themselves. This, I own, is one of the most summary ways of proceeding in this duty of selfexamination; and as it proves a man's works in the gross, it saves him a world of sober thought and inquiry after many vexatious particulars. Indeed, if the premises were true, the inference is direct; for when a man dreams of these inward workings, and wakes with the impression of them strong upon his brain, 'tis not strange he should think himself a chosen vessel, sanctified within, and sealed up unto the perfect day of redemption; and so long as such an one is led captive by this error, there is nothing in nature to induce him to this duty of examining his own works in the sense of the prophet; for, however bad they are, so long as his credulity and enthusiasm equal them, 'tis impossible they should disturb his conscience, or frighten him into a reformation. These are some of the unhappy mistakes in the many methods this work is set about, which in a great measure rob us of the fruits we expected, and sometimes so entirely blast them, that we are neither the better nor wiser for all the pains we have taken. There are many other false steps which lead us the same way; but the delineation of these, however, may serve at present not only as so many landmarks to guard us from this dangerous coast which I have described, but to direct us likewise into that safe one where we can only expect the reward the gospel promises; for if, according to the first recited causes, a man fails in examining his works, from a disinclination to reform them,-from partiality of comparisons, from flattery to his own motives, and a vain dependence upon the opinion of the world,-the conclusion is unavoidable, that he must search for the qualities the most opposite to these for his conductors; and if he hopes to discharge this work so as to have advantage from it, that he must set out upon the principles of an honest head, willing to reform itself, and attached principally to that object, without regard to the spiritual condition of others, or the misguided opinions which the world may have of himself. That for this end he must call his own ways to remembrance, and search out his spirit,-search his actions with the same critical exactness and piercing curiosity we are wont to sit in judgment upon others; varnishing nothing, and disguising nothing. If he proceeds thus, and in every relation of life takes a full view of himself without prejudice-traces his actions to their principles without mercy, and looks into the dark corners and recesses of his heart without fear; and if upon such an inquiry he acts consistent with his view in it, by reforming his errors, separating the dross, and purify ing the whole mass with repentance, this will bid fair for examining a man's works in the Apostle's sense; and whoever discharges the duty thus, with a view to Scripture, which is the rule in this case,-and to reason, which is the applier of this rule in all cases,-need not fear but he will have what the prophet calls 'rejoicing in himself,' and that he will lay the foundation of his peace and comfort where it ought to lie,—that is, within himself,-in the testimony of a good conscience, and the joyful expectation that, having done his most to examine his own works here, God will accept them hereafter, through the merits of Christ; which God grant! Amen. XV.-JOB'S EXPOSTULATION WITH HIS 'What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil also?'-JOB II. 10. to blaspheme; and consequently that the whole is rather to be considered as a sarcastical scoff at Job's piety, as if it had been said, 'Go to, bless God, and die; since thou art so ready to praise him in troubles as thou hast done, go on in thy own way, and see how God will reward thee by a miserable death, which thou canst not avoid.' Without disputing the merit of these two interpretations, it may not seem an improbable conjecture that the words imply something still different from what is expressed in either of them; and instead of supposing them as an incitement to blaspheme God, which was madness, or that they were intended as an insult, which was unnatural,-that her advice to curse God and die was meant here that he should resolve upon a voluntary death himself, which was an act not only in his own power, but what carried some appearance of a remedy with it, and promised, at least at first sight, some respite from pain, as it would put an end to his life and his misfortunes together. One may suppose that, with all the concern and affection which was natural, she beheld her lord afflicted both with poverty and sickness : by one sudden blow, brought down from his palace to the dunghill: in one mournful day she saw that not only the fortunes of his house were blasted, but likewise the hopes of his posterity cut off for ever by the untimely loss of his children. She knew he was a virtuous and an upright man, and deserved a better fate : her heart bled the more for him. She saw the prospect before him was dreadful; that there appeared no possible means which could retrieve the sad situation of his affairs; that death-the last, the surest friend to the unfor THESE are the words of Job, uttered in the depth of his misfortunes, by way of reproof to his wife for the counsel we find she had given him in the foregoing verse—namely, not to retain his integrity any longer, but to 'curse God and die.' Though it is not very evident what was particularly meant and implied in the words 'curse God and die,' yet it is certain, from Job's reply to them, that they directed him to some step which was rash and unwarrantable; and probably, as it is generally explained, meant that he should openly call God's justice to an account, and, by a blasphemous accusation of it, provoke God to destroy his being: as if she had said, 'After so many sad things which have befallen thee, notwithstanding thy integ-tunate-could only set him free; and that it rity, what gainest thou by serving God, seeing he bears thus hard upon thee, as though thou wast his enemy? Ought so faithful a servant as thou hast been to receive so much unkind treatment at his hands, and tamely to submit to it?-patiently to sustain the evils he has brought upon thy house, and neither murmur with thy lips, nor charge him with injustice? Bear it not thus; and as thy piety could not at first protect thee from such misfortunes, nor thy behaviour under them could since move God to take pity on thee, change thy conduct towards him-boldly expostulate with him-up--leave it,-die, and force thy passage into a braid him openly with unkindness-call his justice and providence to an account for oppressing thee in so undeserved a manner; and get that benefit, by provoking him, which thou hast not been able to obtain by serving him, to die at once by his hands, and be freed at least from the greater misery of a lingering and more tormenting death.' On the other hand, some interpreters tell us that the word curse in the original is equivocal, and does more literally signify here to bless than was better to resolve upon that at once, than vainly endeavour to wade through such a sea of troubles, which in the end would overwhelm him. We may suppose her spirits sinking under those apprehensions, when she began to look upon his constancy as a fruitless virtue, and from that persuasion to have said unto him,-Curse God; depend no longer upon him, nor wait the issues of his providence, which has already forsaken thee: as there is no help from that quarter, resolve to extricate thyself; and since thou hast met with no justice in this world, better country, where misfortunes cannot follow thee. Whether this paraphrase upon the words is just, or the former interpretations be admitted, the reply in the text is equally proper.-What? Shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil also? Are not both alike the dispensations of an all-wise and good Being, who knows and determines what is best! and wherefore should I make myself the judge, to receive the one, and yet be so partial as to reject the other, when, by fairly putting both into the scale, I may be convinced how much the good outweighs the evil in all cases? In my own, consider how strong this argument is against me. In the beginning of my days, how did God crown me with honour! In how remarkable a manner did his providence set a hedge about me, and about all that I had on every side! how he prospered the works of my hand, so that our substance and happiness increased every day! And now, when for reasons best known to his infinite wisdom, he has thought fit to try me with afflictions, shall I rebel against him, in sinning with my lips, and charging him foolishly? God forbid! Oh, rather may I look up towards that hand which has bruised me, for he maketh sore, and he bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands make whole. From his bounty only has issued all I had; from his wisdom, all I have lost; for he giveth, and he hath taken away : blessed be his name! There are few instances of particular virtue more engaging than those of this heroic cast; and if we take the testimony of a heathen philosopher upon it, there is not an object in this world which God can be supposed to look down upon with greater pleasure than that of a good man involved in misfortunes, surrounded on all sides with difficulties, yet cheerfully bearing up his head, and struggling against them with firmness and constancy of mind. Certainly to our conceptions such objects must be truly engaging; and the reason of so exalted an encomium from this hand is easily to be guessed. No doubt the wisest of the heathen philosophers had found, from observation upon the life of man, that the many troubles and infirmities of his nature, the sicknesses, disappointments, sorrows for the loss of children or property, with the numberless other calamities and cross accidents to which the life of man is subject, were in themselves so great, and so little solid comfort to be administered from the mere refinements of philosophy in such emergencies, that there was no virtue which required greater efforts, or which was found so difficult to be achieved upon moral principles-upon moral principles, which had no foundation to sustain this great weight which the infirmities of our nature laid upon it; and, for this reason, 'tis observable that there is no subject upon which the moral writers of antiquity have exhausted so much of their eloquence, or where they have spent such time and pains, as in this, of endeavouring to reconcile men to these evils; insomuch that thence, in most modern languages, the patient enduring of affliction has by degrees obtained the name of Philosophy, and almost monopolized the word to itself, as if it was the chief end or compendium of all the wisdom which philosophy had to offer. And, indeed, considering what lights they had, some of them wrote exceedingly well; yet, as what they said proceeded more from the head than the heart, 'twas generally more calculated to silence a man in his troubles than to convince and teach him how to bear them; and therefore, however subtle and ingenious their arguments might appear in the reading, 'tis to be feared they lost much of their efficacy when tried in the application. If a man was thrust back in the world by disappointments, or, as was Job's case, had suffered a sudden change in his fortunes,-from an affluent condition was brought down by a train of cruel accidents, and pinched with poverty,-philosophy would come in, and exhort him to stand his ground; it would tell him that the same greatness and strength of mind which enable him to behave well in the days of his prosperity, should equally enable him to behave well in the days of his adversity; that it was the property of only weak and base spirits, who were insolent in the one, to be dejected and overthrown by the other; whereas great and generous souls were at all times calm and equal: as they enjoyed the advantages of life with indifference, they were able to resign them with the same temper, and consequently were out of the reach of fortune. All which, however fine, and likely to satisfy the fancy of a man at ease, could convey but little consolation to a heart already pierced with sorrow; nor is it to be conceived how an unfortunate creature should any more receive relief from such a lecture, however just, than a man racked with an acute fit of the gout or stone could be supposed to be set free from torture by hearing from his physician a nice dissertation upon his case. The philosophic consolations in sickness, or in afflictions for the death of friends and kindred, were just as efficacious, and were rather, in general, to be considered as good sayings than good remedies; so that if a man was bereaved of a promised child, in whom all his hopes and expectations centred, or a wife was left destitute to mourn the loss and protection of a kind and tender husband, Seneca or Epictetus would tell the pensive parent and disconsolate widow that tears and lamentations for the dead were fruitless and absurd!-that to die was the necessary and unavoidable debt of nature; and, as it could admit of no remedy, 'twas impious and foolish to grieve and fret themselves upon it. Upon such sage counsel, as well as many other lessons of the same stamp, the same reflection might be applied, which is said to have been made by one of the Roman emperors to one who administered the same consolations to him on a like occasion; to whom, advising him to be comforted and make himself easy, since the event had been brought about by fatality, and could not be helped, he replied,-'That this was so far from lessening his trouble, that it was the very circumstance which occasioned it.' So that, upon the whole, when the true value of these, and many more of their current arguments, have been weighed and brought to the test, one is led to doubt whether the greatest part of their heroes, the most renowned for constancy, were not much more indebted to good nerves and spirits, or the natural happy frame of their tempers, for behaving well, than to any extraordinary helps which they could be supposed to receive from their instructors; and therefore I should make no scruple to assert that one such instance of patience and resignation as this, which the Scripture gives us in the person of Job, not of one most pompously declaiming upon the contempt of pain and poverty, but of a man sunk in the lowest condition of humanity, to behold him when stripped of his estate, his wealth, his friends, his children, cheerfully holding up his head, and entertaining his hard fortune with firmness and serenity, and this not from a stoical stupidity, but a just sense of God's providence, and a persuasion of his justice and goodness in all his dealings;-such an example, I say, as this, is of more universal use, speaks truer to the heart, than all the heroic precepts which the pedantry of philosophy has to offer. This leads me to the point I aim at in this discourse, namely, that there are no principles but those of religion to be depended on in cases of real distress; and that these are able to encounter the worst emergencies, and to bear us up under all the changes and chances to which our life is subject. Consider, then, what virtue the very first principle of religion has, and how wonderfully it is conducive to this end. That there is a God, a powerful, a wise, a good Being, who first made the world, and continues to govern it; by whose goodness all things are designed, and by whose providence all things are conducted, to bring about the greatest and best ends. The sorrowful and pensive wretch that was giving way to his misfortunes, and mournfully sinking | under them, the moment this doctrine comes in to his aid, hushes all his complaints, and thus speaks comfort to his soul,-'It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good;' without his direction, I know that no evil can befall me, -without his permission, that no power can hurt me. It is impossible a Being so wise should mistake my happiness, or that a Being so good should contradict it. If he has denied me riches or other advantages, perhaps he foresees gratifying my wishes would undo me, and, by my own abuse of them, be perverted to my ruin. If he has denied me the request of children, or in his providence has thought fit to take them from me, how can I say whether he has not dealt kindly with me, and only taken that away which he foresaw would embitter and shorten my days? It does so to thousands, where the disobedience of a thankless child has brought down the parent's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Has he visited me with sickness, poverty, or other disappointments? Can I say but these are blessings in disguise? so many different expressions of his care and concern to disentangle my thoughts from this world, and fix them upon another,a better world beyond this! This thought opens a new scene of hope and consolation to the unfortunate; and as the persuasion of a providence reconciles him to the evils he has suffered, this prospect of a future life gives him strength to despise them, and esteem the light afflictions of this life as they are, not worthy to be compared with what is reserved for him hereafter. Things are great or small by comparison, and he who looks no further than this world, and balances the accounts of his joys and sufferings from that consideration, finds all his sorrows enlarged, and at the close of them will be apt to look back, and cast the same sad reflection upon the whole which the Patriarch did to Pharaoh,'That few and evil had been the days of his pilgrimage.' But let him lift up his eyes towards Heaven, and stedfastly behold the life and immortality of a future state; he then wipes away all tears from off his eyes for ever and ever: like the exiled captive, big with the hopes that he is returning home, he feels not the weight of his chains, nor counts the days of his captivity; but looks forward with rapture towards the country where his heart is fled before him. These are the aids which religion offers us towards the regulating of our spirit under the evils of life; but, like great cordials, they are seldom used but on great occurrences. In the lesser evils of life we seem to stand unguarded, and our peace and contentment are overthrown, and our happiness broken in upon by a little impatience of spirit, under the cross and untoward accidents we meet with. These stand unprovided for, and we neglect them as we do the slighter indispositions of the body, which we think not worth treating seriously, and so leave them to nature. In good habits of the body this may do; and I would gladly believe there are such good habits of the temper,-such a complexional ease and health of heart as may often save the patient much medicine. We are still to consider that, however such good frames of mind are got, they are worth preserving by all rules: patience and contentmentwhich like the treasure hid in the field, for which a man sold all he had to purchase-is of that price that it cannot be had at too great a purchase, since, without it, the best condition in life cannot make us happy; and with it, it is impossible we should be miserable even in the worst. Give me leave, therefore, to close this discourse with some reflections upon the subject of a contented mind, and the duty in man of regulating his spirit, in our way through life; a subject in everybody's mouth, preached upon daily to our friends and kindred, but too oft in such a style as to convince the party lectured only of this truth,-That we bear the misfortunes of others with excellent tranquillity. are sufficient for the purpose he wants them, that is, to make him contented, and, if not happy, at least resigned. May God bless us all with this spirit, for the sake of Jesus Christ! Amen. XVI. THE CHARACTER OF SHIMEI. this?-2 SAM. XIX. 21, first part. IT has not a good aspect. This is the second I believe there are thousands so extravagant in their ideas of contentment as to imagine that But Abishai said, Shall not Shimei be put to death for it must consist in having everything in this world turn out the way they wish; that they are to sit down in happiness, and feel themselves so at ease in all points as to desire nothing better, and nothing more. I own there are instances of some who seem to pass through the world as if all their paths had been strewed with rose-buds of delight; but a little experience will convince us 'tis a fatal expectation to go upon. We are born to trouble; and we may depend upon it, whilst we live in this world we shall have it, though with intermissions, that is, in whatever state we are, we shall find a mixture of good and evil; and therefore the true way to contentment is to know how to receive these certain vicissitudes of life, the returns of good and evil, so as neither to be exalted by the one nor overthrown by the other, but to bear ourselves towards everything which happens with such ease and indifference of mind as to hazard as little as may be. This is the true temperate climate fitted for us by nature, and in which every wise Iman would wish to live. God knows we are perpetually straying out of it; and, by giving wings to our imaginations in the transports we dream of from such or such a situation in life, we are carried away alternately into all the extremes of hot and cold, for which, as we are neither fitted by nature nor prepared by expectation, we feel them with all their violence, and with all their danger too. God, for wise reasons, has made our affairs in this world almost as fickle and capricious as ourselves; pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other; and he that knows how to accommodate himself to their periodical returns, and can wisely extract the good from the evil, knows only how to live: this is true contentment, at least all that is to be had of it in this world; and for this every man must be indebted not to his fortune, but to himself. And indeed it would have been strange if a duty so becoming us as dependent creatures, and so necessary, besides, to all our well-beings, had been placed out of the reach of any in some measure to put in practice; and, for this reason, there is scarce any lot so low but there is something in it to satisfy the man whom it has befallen; Providence having so ordered things, that in every man's cup, how bitter soever, there are some cordial drops-some good circumstances which, if wisely extracted, Shall not Shimei, answered Abishai, be put to death for this? So unrelenting a pursuit looks less like justice than revenge, which is so cowardly a passion that it renders Abishai's first instance almost inconsistent with the second. I shall not endeavour to reconcile them, but confine the discourse simply to Shimei, and make such reflections upon his character as may be of use to society. Upon the news of his son Absalom's conspiracy, David had fled from Jerusalem, and from his own house, for safety: the representation given of the manner of it is truly affecting; never was a scene of sorrow so full of distress. The king fled with all his household, to save himself from the sword of the man he loved; he fled with all the marks of humble sorrow,with his head covered, and barefoot;' and as he went by the ascent of mount Olivet, the sacred historian says he wept. Some gladsome scenes, perhaps, which there had passed; some hours of festivity he had shared with Absalom in better days, pressed tenderly upon nature: he wept at this sad vicissitude of things; and all the people that were with him, smitten with his affliction, 'covered each man his head,— weeping as he went up.' It was on this occasion, when David had got to Bahurim, that Shimei the son of Gera, as we read in the 5th verse, came out. Was it with the choicest oils he could gather from mount Olivet, to pour into his wounds? Time and troubles had not done enough; and thou camest out, Shimei, to add thy portion! And as he came, he cursed David, and threw stones and cast dust at him; and thus said Shimei, when he cursed: Go to, thou man |