But of those who now hear me I would hope better things. I would wish them to consider that they are not only discharging their own duty, but securing their own happiness, by habits of candour and kindness. To him, indeed, who looks, as becomes a wise observer and a sincere Christian to look, at the negligences and ignorances, and even the sins of his fellow-creatures, the whole moral world assumes a brighter aspect. He perceives the tendency of evil itself to produce good, when it exercises the compassion of the spectator and humbles the pride of the offender. Though in vice he must discern all its loathsome qualities, and all its destructive effects, he at the same time will be consoled by the discovery of every circumstantial extenuation, and tracing it to its cause in some virtuous principle not quite extinguished, he will endeavour to call that principle into more vigorous action, and to extricate it from the incumbrance of all the untoward inclinations and practices which have hitherto impeded its operation. Virtue he will behold in its native and unclouded lustre: he will hold it up the veneration of mankind, and, by well-founded applause and well-timed encouragement he will give a wider extent to the influence of good example. Sweet will be his slumbers, when he reflects that for days and months and years he has soothed the afflicted, vindicated the innocent, and animated the meritorious; and at the awful hour of death, remembering the tenderness which he has shewn to the errors and failings of his fellow-creatures, he will be

to

able without presumption to cherish the consolatory hope, that the mercy which he has exercised towards others will be abundantly granted to his own imperfections, when he stands before the tribunal of a most righteous and omniscient Judge.

SERMON XIII.

ST. MATTHEW vii. 1.

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

In a former Discourse, having made some preliminary and general remarks on the guilt of forming harsh judgments, I directed your attention to a series of particular circumstances, in which the evil properties and evil consequences of censoriousness were equally prominent to your good sense, and offensive to your good feelings. I explained to you how unsafe and unbecoming it was among the rich, and how dangerous to the poor-how inconsistent it is with the ingenuousness of youth and the seriousness of age-for the use of congregations differently constituted from that which I here address, I had further endeavoured to shew how base is detraction in men of vigorous and cultivated intellects, to whom learning, science, and the nobler concerns of human life, present other and more abundant sources for rational amusement or instructive investigation—and, above all, I earnestly endeavoured to shew how fatal it is to that prudence, that delicacy, and that tender sensibility, which are justly esteemed the indispensable duties and characteristic

ornaments of females. It now remains for me to take a fuller view of the subject, and again to bring home, as I lately proposed, to the bosoms and business of men, the importance of the command given us to shun precipitate and uncharitable constructions upon human conduct, upon the motives of agents, and the qualities of actions. In addition to the many and weighty considerations which differences of fortune, ages, and sex, have already suggested to us, I would now remind you that, amidst all the varieties which are to be found in the moral characters of men, there is not one but what must give them a strong and immediate interest in the efficiency of those restraints, which the prohibition given in the text is designed to impose upon unwarrantable reproach. Even they whose general habits are not very praiseworthy, and whose general dispositions are not very amiable, ought by no means to be harassed by indiscriminate censure. On a near and fair inspection, it might be discovered that to some one virtue or other they are more or less attacked, and that they sincerely lothe some vices. Though venal in public, they may be honest in private life. Though enslaved to the tyranny of avarice and ambition, they may abstain from gross and profligate sensuality-they may be skilful and diligent in their respective callings-they may be valiant defenders of their country-they may in the discharge of their parental, or their filial, or their conjugal duties, be exact. But should they be deprived of praise for what they do well? Should they be exposed to blame for the evil which they

have not done? And must they not be aware that the real imperfections of which they are conscious will raise up against them a numerous host of enemies, ever eager to bring forward accusations, and most ready to believe them? If we turn to the great mass of mankind, among whom good and evil are mixed in various proportions, they surely have a claim for their real merits not to be undervalued, and their real demerits not to be exaggerated; and yet the defamation, which I am now endeavouring to discourage, would wickedly bereave them of what common justice and common sense shew to be due to the majority of our fellow-creatures.

But the peculiar wickedness of slander is seen when it is exercised against persons eminently distinguished by the splendour of their talents or energies of their virtues. Envy is ever on the watch to expose and proclaim their slightest follies and most venial failings. Insidiously and delusively, it assigns their supposed wisdom, or their supposed sanctity, as a proof that, with greater powers to avoid evil, they incur greater guilt by falling into it. Such men, it is insinuated, never act without deliberation: what in others is the mere precipitation of judgment, in them proceeds from some latent and inveterate prejudice. The same actions which, in the generality of mankind, are said to flow from the sudden and transient influence of passion, must in them be ascribed to some rooted principle of depravity. Such is the spirit in which the officious and the malignant pass judgment on the well informed and well principled. So pertinent is the observation