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. 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

We

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 SHIMEL

this?'-2 SAM. XIX. 21, first part.

IT has not a good aspect. This is the second time Abishai has proposed Shimei's destruction; once in the 16th chapter, on a sudden transport of indignation, when Shimei cursed David, 'Why should this dead dog, cried Abishai, curse my lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and cut off his head.' This had something at least of gallantry in it; for, in doing it, he hazarded his own; and besides, the offender was not otherwise to be come at. The second time is in the text, when the offender was absolutely in their power,-when the blood was cool, and the suppliant was holding up his hands for mercy.

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 man 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 representa tion 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

What, then, Shimei? is the guilt of poverty so black, is it of so general a concern, that thou and all thy family must rise up as one man to reproach it? When it lost everything, did it lose the right to pity too? or did he who maketh poor as well as maketh rich strip it of its natural powers to mollify the hearts and supple the tempers of your race? Trust me, ye have much to answer for; it is this treatment, which it has ever met with from spirits like yours, which has gradually taught the world to look upon it as the greatest of evils, and shun The wheel turns round once more; Absalom it as the worst disgrace; and what is it, I

When the scene changes, and David's troubles force him to leave his house in despair, Shimei is the first man we hear of who comes out against him.

beseech you, what is it that man will not do to keep clear of so sore an imputation and punishment? Is it not to fly from this that he rises early-late takes rest-and eats the bread of carefulness?-that he plots, contrives, swears, lies, shuffles, puts on all shapes, tries all garments, wears them with this or that side outward, just as it favours his escape!

They who have considered our nature affirm that shame and disgrace are two of the most insupportable evils of human life: the courage and spirits of many have mastered other misfortunes, and borne themselves up against them; but the wisest and best of souls have not been a match for these; and we have many a tragical instance on record what greater evils have been run into merely to avoid this one.

Without this tax of infamy, poverty, with all the burdens it lays upon our flesh, so long as it is virtuous, could never break the spirits of a man; all its hunger, and pain, and nakedness, are nothing to it; they have some counterpoise of good; and, besides, they are directed by Providence, and must be submitted to: but these are afflictions not from the hand of God, or Nature; 'for they do come forth of the dust,' and most properly may be said 'to spring out of the ground;' and this is the reason they lay such stress upon our patience, and in the end create such a distrust o the world as makes us look up, and pray,—‘Let me fall into thy hands, O God! but let me not fall into the hands of men.'

Agreeable to this was the advice of Eliphaz to Job in the day of his distress: 'Acquaint thyself (said he) now with God.' Indeed, his poverty seemed to have left him no other friends; the swords of the Sabeans had frightened them away,-all but a few; and of what kind they were, the very proverb-of Job's comforters-says enough.

go back to the same explanation with which we set out, and that is, the scandal of poverty.

'This fellow, we know not whence he is,' was the popular cry of one part; and with those who seemed to know better, the query did not lessen the disgrace. Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?—of Mary! great God of Israel! What!-of the meanest of thy people! 'for he had not regarded the low estate of his handmaiden,'-and of the poorest, too! for she had not a lamb to offer, but was purified, as Moses directed in such a case, by the oblation of a turtle-dove.

That the Saviour of their nation could be poor, and not have where to lay his head, was a crime never to be forgiven; and though the purity of his doctrine, and the works which he had done in its support, were stronger arguments on its side than his humiliation could be against it, yet the offence still remained;they looked for the redemption of Israel; but they would have it only in those dreams of power which filled their imagination.

Ye who weigh the worth of all things only in the goldsmith's balance, was this religion for you?-a religion whose appearance was not great and splendid, but looked thin and meagre, and whose principles and promises showed more like the curses of the law than its blessings; for they called for sufferings, and promised little but persecutions.

In truth, it is not easy for tribulation or distress, for nakedness or famine, to make many converts out of pride; or reconcile a worldly heart to the scorn and reproaches which were sure to be the portion of every one who believed a mystery so discredited by the world, and so unpalatable to all its passions and pleasures. But to bring this sermon to its proper conclusion:

If Astrea or Justice never finally took her leave of the world till the day that poverty first became ridiculous, it is matter of consolation that the God of Justice ie ever over us; that, whatever outrages the lowness of our condition may be exposed to from a mean and un

the greatest and most generous of beings, who is infinitely removed from cruelty and straitness of mind, and all those little and illiberal passions with which we hourly insult each other.

It is an instance which gives one great con. cern for human nature, that a man who always wept for him who was in trouble-who never saw any perish for want of clothing-who never suffered the stranger to lodge in the street, but opened his door to the traveller,'-discerning world, we walk in the presence of that a man of so good a character that he never caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or had eaten his morsel by himself alone, and the fatherless had not eaten thereof;'-that such a man, the moment he fell into poverty, should have occasion to cry out for quarter,-'Have mercy upon me, O my friends! for the hand of God has touched me.' Gentleness and humanity, one would think, would melt the hardest heart, and charm the fiercest spirit, bind up the most violent hand, and still the most abusive tongue; but the experiment failed in a stronger instance of Him whose meat and drink it was to do us good, and in pursuit of which, whose whole life was a continued scene of kindness and of insults, for which we must

The worst part of mankind are not always to be conquered; but if they are, 'tis the imitation of these qualities which must do it: 'tis true, 23 I've shown, they may fail; but still all is not lost, for if we conquer not the world, in the very attempts to do it we shall at least conquer our selves, and lay the foundation of our peace (where it ought to be) within our own hearts

XVII-THE CASE OF HEZEKIAH AND yet we find that the hasty summons had afflicted