sight! In the dark and solitary hour of distress, with a mind hurt and sore from some recent wound of fortune, how shall he bear to have his character for the first time disclosed to him in that humiliating light under which guilt will necessarily present it? Then the recollection of the past becomes dreadful. It exhibits to him a life thrown away on vanities and follies, or consumed in flagitiousness and sin; no station properly supported; no material duties fulfilled. Crimes which once had been easily palliated, rise before him in their native deformity. The sense of guilt mixes itself with all that has befallen him. He beholds, or thinks that he beholds, the hand of the God whom he hath offended, openly stretched out against him. At a season when a man stands most in need of support, how intolerable is the weight of this additional load, aggravating the depression of disease, disappointment, or old age! How miserable his state, who is condemned to endure at once the pangs of guilt, and the vexations of calamity! The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmities; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

Whereas, he who is blessed with a clear conscience, enjoys in the worst conjunctures of human life, a peace, a dignity, an elevation of mind peculiar to virtue. The testimony of a good conscience is indeed to be always distinguished from that presumptuous boast of innocence, which every good Christian totally disclaims. The better he is, he will be the more humble and sensible of his failings. But though he acknowledge that he can claim nothing from God upon the footing of desert, yet he can trust in his merciful acceptance through Jesus Christ, according to the terms of the gospel. He can hope that his

prayers and his alms have come up in memorial before God. The piety and virtue of his former life were as seeds sown in his prosperous state, of which he reaps the fruits in the season of adversity. The riches, the pleasures, and the friends of the world, may have made wings to themselves and flown away. But the improvement which he made of those advantages while they lasted, the temperate spirit with which he enjoyed them, the beneficent actions which he performed, and the good example which he set to others, remain behind. By the memory of these he enjoys his prosperity a second time in reflection; and perhaps this second and reflected enjoyment is not inferior to the first. It arrives at a more critical and needful time. It affords him the high satisfaction of having extracted lasting pleasure from that which is short, and of having fixed that which by its nature was changing. -"If my race be now about "to end, I have this comfort, that it has not been "run in vain. I have fought the good fight; I have

kept the faith. My mind has no load. Futurity "has no terrours. I have endeavoured to do my

duty, and to make my peace with God. I leave "the rest to Heaven." These are the reflections which to the upright make light arise in darkness; reflections which cheer the lonely house of virtuous poverty, and attend the conscientious sufferer into prison or exile; which soothe the complaints of grief, lighten the pressure of old age, and furnish to the bed of sickness, a cordial of more grateful relish, and more sovereign virtue, than any which the world can afford.

Look abroad into life, and you will find the general sense of mankind bearing witness to this import

ant truth, that mind is superiour to fortune; that what one feels within is of much greater importance than all that befalls him without. Let a man be brought into some such severe and trying situation, as fixes the attention of the public on his behaviour. The first question which we put concerning him, is not, What does he suffer? but, How does he bear it? Has he a quiet mind? or, Does he appear to be unhappy within? If we judge him to be composed and firm, resigned to Providence, and supported by conscious integrity, his character rises, and his misery lessens in our view. We esteem and admire, rather than pity him. Recollect what holy men

have endured for the sake of conscience, and with what cheerfulness they have suffered. On the other hand, when conscience has concurred with outward misfortunes in distressing the guilty, think of the dreadful consequences which have ensued. How often, upon a reverse of fortune, after abused prosperity, have they madly hurried themselves over that precipice from which there is no return; and, in what nature most abhors, the voluntary extinction of life, have sought relief from that torment of reflection, which was become too great for them to bear?

Never then allow yourselves to imagine that misfortunes alone form the chief misery of man. None but the guilty are completely miserable. The misgiving and distrust, the accusations and reproaches of their minds, the sense of having drawn down upon their heads the evils which they suffer, and the terrifying expectation of more and worse evils to come; these are the essential ingredients of human misery. They not only whet the edge, but they envenom the

darts of affliction, and add poison to the wound. Whereas, when misfortunes assail a good man, they carry no such fatal auxiliaries in their train; they may ruffle the surface of his soul; but there is a strength within, which resists their farther impression. The constitution of his mind is sound. The world can inflict upon it no wounds, but what admit of

cure.

III. ILL men, in the time of trouble, can look up to no protector: while good men commit themselves, with trust and hope, to the care of Heaven. The human mind, naturally feeble, is made to feel all its weakness by the pressure of adversity. Dejected with evils which overpower its strength, it relies no longer on itself. It casts every where around, a wishing, exploring eye, for some shelter to screen, some power to uphold it; and if, when abandoned by the world, it can find nothing to which it may fly in the room of the world, its state is truly forlorn. Now, whither should the ungodly in this situation, turn for aid? After having contended with the storms of adverse fortune till their spirits are exhausted, gladly would they retreat at last to the sanctuary of religion. But that sanctuary is shut against them; nay, it is environed with terrours. They behold there, not a Protector to whom they can fly, but a Judge whom they dread; and in those moments when they need his friendship the most, they are reduced to deprecate his wrath. If he once called when they refused, and stretched out his hands when they would not regard, how much reason have they to fear that he will leave them now to eat the fruit of their own ways, and to be filled with their own devices; that he

will laugh at their calamity, and mock when their fear

cometh?

But of all the thoughts which can enter into the mind, in the season of distress, the belief of an interest in his favour who rules the world is the most soothing. Every form of religion has afforded to virtuous men some degree of this consolation. But it was reserved for the Christian revelation, to carry it to its highest point. For it is the direct scope of that revelation, to accommodate itself to the circumstances of man, under two main views; as guilty in the sight of God, and as struggling with the evils of the world. Under the former, it discovers to him a Mediator and an atonement; under the latter, it promises him the Spirit of grace and consolation. It is a system of complete relief, extended from our spiritual to our temporal distresses. The same hand which holds out forgiveness to the penitent, and resistance to the frail, dispenses comfort and hope to the afflicted.

It deserves your particular notice, in this view, that there is no character which God more frequently assumes to himself in the sacred writings, than that of the Patron of the distressed. Compassion is that attribute of his nature which he has chosen to place in the greatest variety of lights on purpose that he might accommodate his majesty to our weakness, and provide a cordial for human griefs. He is the hearer of all prayers; but with particular attention he is represented as listening to the cry of the poor, and regarding the prayer of the destitute. All his creatures he governs with justice and wisdom; but he takes to himself, in a special manner, the charge of executing judgment for the oppressed, of protecting the stranger, of delivering him who hath no helper,