none. suppose the generality of mankind to betray so much folly as to act against the common interests of their own kind, as every man does who yields to the temptation of what is wrong? But, on the other side, if men first look into the practice of the world, and there observe the strange prevalency of vice, and how willing men are to defend as well as to commit it, one would think they believed that all discourses of virtue and honesty were mere matter of speculation, for men to entertain some idle hours with, and say truly, that men seemed universally to be agreed in nothing but in speaking well and doing ill. But this casts no more dishonour upon reason than it does upon revelation; the truth of the case being this, that no motives have been great enough to restrain those from sin who have secretly loved it, and only sought pretences for the practice of it. So that, if the light of the gospel has not left a sufficient provision against the wickedness of the world, the true answer is, that there can be 'Tis sufficient that the excellency of Christianity in doctrine and precepts, and its proper tendency to make us virtuous as well as happy, is a strong evidence of its divine original; and these advantages it has above any institution that ever was in the world,-it gives the best directions, the best examples, the greatest encouragements, the best helps, and the greatest obligations to gratitude. But as religion was not to work upon men by way of force and natural necessity, but by moral persuasion, which sets good and evil before them, so, if men have power to do evil or choose the good, and will abuse it, this cannot be avoided. Not only religion, but even reason itself, must necessarily imply a freedom of choice; and all the beings in the world which have it were created free to stand or free to fall; and therefore men that will not be wrought upon by this way of address, must expect and be contented to feel the stroke of that rod which is prepared for the back of fools, ofttimes in this world, but undoubtedly in the next, from the hands of a righteous Governor, who will finally render to every man according to his works. Because this sentence is not always executed speedily, is the wise man's account of the general licentiousness which prevailed through the race of mankind so early as his days; and we may allow it a place amongst the many other fatal causes of depravation in our own, a few of which I shall beg leave to add to this explication of the wise man's, subjoining a few practical cautions in relation to each as I go along. To begin with Solomon's account in the text, that because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evilIt seems somewhat hard to understand the consequence why men should grow more des perately wicked because God is merciful, and gives them space to repent: this is no natural effect, nor does the wise man intend to insinuate that the goodness and long-suffering of God is the cause of the wickedness of man, by a direct efficacy to harden sinners in their course. But the scope of his discourse is this: Because a vicious man escapes at present, he is apt to draw false conclusions from it, and, from the delay of God's punishments in this life, either to conceive them at so remote a distance, or perhaps so uncertain, that though he has some doubtful misgivings of the future, yet he hopes, in the main, that his fears are greater than his danger; and from observing some of the worst of men both live and die without any outward testimony of God's wrath, draws thence some flattering ground of encouragement for himself, and, with the wicked in the psalm, says in his heart, Tush! I shall never be cast down, there shall no harm happen unto me;-as if it was necessary, if God is to punish at all, that he must do it presently,which, by the way, would rather seem to bespeak the rage and fury of an incensed party than the determination of a wise and patient judge, who respites punishment to another state, declaring, for the wisest reasons, this is not the time for it to take place in,-but that he has appointed a day for it wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, and make such unalterable distinctions betwixt the good and bad as to render his future judgment a full vindication of his justice. That mankind have ever made an ill use of this forbearance is, and I fear ever will be, the case: and St. Peter, in his description of the scoffers in the latter days, who, he tells us, shall walk after their own lusts (the worst of all characters), gives the same sad solution of what should be their unhappy encouragement; for that they would say,-Where is the promise (where is the threatening or declaration of izayyıía) of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation,—that is, the world goes on in the same uninterrupted course, where all things fall alike to all without any interposition from above, or any outward token of divine displeasure; upon this ground, Come ye,' say they, as the prophet represents them, 'I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.' Now, if you consider, you will find that all this false way of reasoning doth arise from that gross piece of self-flattery, that such do imagine God to be like themselves, that is, as cruel and revengeful as they are; and they presently think, if a fellow-creature offended them at the rate that sinners are said to offend God, and they had as much power in their hands to punish and torture them as he has, they would be sure to execute it speedily; but because they see God does it whenever a man commits a wilful bad action, not, therefore they conclude that all the talk of he drinks down poison, which, though it may God's anger against vice, and his future punish- work slowly, will work surely, and give him ment of it, is mere talk, calculated for the terror perpetual pains and heart-aches, and, if no means of old women and children. Thus speak they be used to expel it, will destroy him at last. So peace to their souls, when there is no peace; that, notwithstanding that final sentence of God for though a sinner (which the wise man adds is not executed speedily in exact weight and by way of caution after the text),-for though a measure, there is nevertheless a sentence exesinner do evil a hundred times, and his dayz be cuted, which a man's own conscience pronounces prolonged upon the earth, yet sure I know that against him; and every wicked man, I believe, it shall be well with them that fear God, but feels as regular a process within his own breast shall not be well with the wicked. Upon which commenced against himself, and finds himself as argument the Psalmist, speaking in the name of much accused, and as evidently and impartially God, uses this remonstrance to one under this condemned for what he has done amiss, as if he fatal mistake, which has misled thousands: These had received sentence before the most awful things thou didst, and I kept silence.-And it tribunal,-which judgment of conscience, as it seems this silence was interpreted into con- can be looked upon in no other light but as an sent; for it follows, And thou thoughtest I was anticipation of that righteous and unalterable altogether such an one as thyself.-But the sentence which will be pronounced hereafter by Psalmist adds how ill he took this at men's that Being to whom he is finally to give an hands, and that they should not know the account of his actions, I cannot conceive the difference between the forbearance of sinners state of his mind under any other character than and his neglect of their sins ;-But I will reprove of that anxious doubtfulness described by the thee, and set them in order before thee. Upon | prophet,-that the wicked are like the troubled the whole of which he bids them be better sca, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up advised, and consider lest, while they forget mire and filth. God, he pluck them away, and there be none to deliver them. Thus much for the first ground and cause which the text gives why the hearts of the sons of men are so fully set in them to do evil; upon which I have only one or two cautions to addThat, in the first place, we frequently deceive ourselves in the calculation that sentence shall not be speedily executed. By sad experience, vicious and debauched men find this matter to turn out very different in practice from their expectations in theory,-God having so contrived the nature of things, throughout the whole system of moral duties, that every vice, in some measure, should immediately revenge itself upon the doer; that falsehood and unfair dealing ends in distrust and dishonour; that drunkenness and debauchery should weaken the thread of life, and cut it so short that the transgressor shall not live out half his days; that pride should be followed by mortifications, extravagance by poverty and distress; that the revengeful and malicious should be the greatest tormentor of himself, the perpetual disturbance of his own mind being so immediate a chastisement as to verify what the wise man says upon it,-that, as the merciful man does good to his own soul, so he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh. In all which cases there is a punishment independent of these, and that is the punishment which a man's own mind takes upon itself, from the remorse of doing what is wrong. Prima est hæc ultio,-this is the first revenge, which (whatever other punishments he may escape) is sure to follow close upon his heels, and haunts him wheresoever he goes: for, A second caution against this uniform ground of false hope, in sentence not being executed speedily, will arise from this consideration, that in our vain calculation of this distant point of retribution, we generally respite it to the day of judgment; and as that may be a thousand or ten thousand years off, it proportionably lessens the terror. To rectify this mistake, we should first consider that the distance of a thing no way alters the nature of it. Secondly, That we are deceived in this distant prospect, not considering that, however far off we may fix it in this belief, in fact it is no farther off from every man than the day of his own death. And how certain that day is, we need not surely be reminded. 'Tis the certainty of the matter, and of an event which will as surely come to pass as that the sun shall rise to-morrow morning, that should enter as much into our calculations as if it was hanging over our heads. For though, in our fond imaginations, we dream of living many years upon the earth, how unexpectedly are we summoned from it! How oft, in the strength of our age, in the midst of our projects, when we are promising ourselves the ease of many years! How oft at that very time, and in the height of this imagination, is the decree sealed, and the commandment gone forth to call us into another world! This may suffice for the examination of this one great cause of the corruption of the world; whence I should proceed, as I purposed, to an inquiry after some other unhappy causes which have a share in this evil. But I have taken up so much more of your time in this than I first intended, that I shall defer what I have to say to the next occasion, and put an end to this discourse by an answer to a question often causes of trouble; when he sees how often he asked, relatively to this argument, in prejudice eats the bread of affliction, and that he is born of Christianity, which cannot be more seasonably to it as naturally as the sparks fly upwards; answered than in a discourse at this time; and that no rank or degrees of men are exempted that is-Whether the Christian religion has done from this law of our beings, but that all, from the world any service in reforming the lives and the high cedar of Libanus to the humble shrub morals of mankind, which some, who pretend to upon the wall, are shook in their turns by numhave considered the present state of vice, seem berless calamities and distresses ;-when one sits to doubt of? This objection I, in some measure, down, and looks upon this gloomy side of things, have anticipated in the beginning of this dis- with all the sorrowful changes and chances course; and what I have to add to that argument which surround us, at first sight, would not one is this, that as it is impossible to decide the wonder how the spirit of a man could bear the point by evidence of facts, which at so great a infirmities of his nature, and what it is that distance cannot be brought together and com- supports him as it does under the many evil pared, it must be decided by reason and the accidents which he meets with in his passage probability of things; upon which issue one through the valley of tears? Without some might appeal to the most professed deist, and certain aid within us to bear us up, so tender a trust him to determine whether the lives of frame as ours would be but ill-fitted to encounthose who are set loose from all obligations butter what generally befalls it in this rugged jour those of conveniency, can be compared with ney; and accordingly we find that we are so those who have been blessed with the extra-curiously wrought by an all-wise hand with a ordinary light of a religion; and whether so view to this, that in the very composition and just and holy a religion as the Christian, which texture of our nature there is a remedy and sets restraints even upon our thoughts, -a provision left against most of the evils we religion which gives us the most engaging ideas suffer; we being so ordered that the principle of the perfections of GOD, at the same time that of self-love, given us for preservation, comes in it impresses the most awful ones of his majesty here to our aid, by opening a door of hope, and, and power,-a Being rich in mercies, but, if in the worst emergencies, flattering us with a they are abused, terrible in his judgments ;-one belief that we shall extricate ourselves, and live constantly about our secret paths, about our to see better days. beds; who spieth out all our ways, noticeth all our actions, and is so pure in his nature that he will punish even the wicked imaginations of the heart, and has appointed a day wherein he will enter into this inquiry, and execute judgment according as we have deserved. If either the hopes or fears, the passions or reason of men are to be wrought upon at all, such principles must have an effect, though, I own, very far short of what a thinking man should expect from such motives. No doubt there is great room for amendment in the Christian world; and the professors of our holy religion may in general be said to be a very corrupt and bad generation of men, considering what reasons and obligations they have to be better. Yet still I affirm, if those restraints were lessened, the world would be infinitely worse; and therefore we cannot sufficiently bless and adore the goodness of God for those advantages brought by the coming of Christ; which God grant that we may live to be more deserving of, that, in the last day, when he shall come again to judge the world, we may rise to life immortal. Amen. XXXIV.-TRUST IN GOD. Put thou thy trust in the Lord.'-PSALM XXXVII. 3. WHOEVER seriously reflects upon the state and condition of man, and looks upon that dark side of it which represents his life as open to so many This expectation, though in fact it no way alters the nature of the cross accidents to which we lie open, or does at all pervert the course of them, yet imposes upon the sense of them, and like a secret spring in a well-contrived machine, though it cannot prevent, at least it counterbalances, the pressure, and so bears up this tottering, tender frame under many a violent shock and hard jostling, which otherwise would unavoidably overwhelm it. Without such an inward resource, from an inclination, which is natural to man, to trust and hope for redress in the most deplorable conditions, his state in this life would be of all creatures the most miserable. When his mind was either wrung with affliction, or his body lay tortured with the gout | or stone, did he think that in this world there should be no respite to his sorrow,-could he believe the pains he endured would continue equally intense, without remedy, without intermission,-with what deplorable lamentation would he languish out his day! and how sweet, as Job says, would the 'clods of the valley be to him!' But so sad a persuasion, whatever grounds there may be sometimes for it, scarce ever gets full possession of the mind of man, which by nature struggles against despair; so that whatever part of us suffers, the darkest mind instantly ushers in this relief to it, points out to hope, encourages to build, though on a sandy foundation, and raises an expectation in us that things will come to a fortunate issue. And, indeed, it is something surprising to con sider the strange force of this passion; what wonders it has wrought in supporting men's spirits in all ages, and under such inextricable difficulties that they have sometimes noped, as the Apostle expresses it, even against hope, against all likelihood; and have looked forwards with comfort under misfortunes, when there has been little or nothing to favour such an expectation. help, and goodness always to incline him to do it. He knew this infinite Being, though his dwelling was so high that his glory was above the heavens, yet humbled himself to behold the things that are done in heaven and earth; that he was not an idle and distant spectator of what passed there, but that he was a present help in time of trouble; that he bowed the heavens, and came down to overrule the course of things,-delivering the poor and him that was in misery from him that was too strong for him; ing him by his providence, so that no man should do him wrong; that neither the sun should smite him by day, nor the moon by night. Of this the Psalmist had such evidence from his observation on the life of others, with the strongest conviction, at the same time, which a long life full of personal deliverances could give; all which taught him the value of the lesson in the text, from which he had received so much encouragement himself that he transmits it for the benefit of the whole race of mankind after him, to support them, as it had done him, under the afflictions which befell him. 'Trust in God;'-as if he had said, Whosoever thou art that shall hereafter fall into any such This flattering propensity in us, which I have here represented, as it is built upon one of the most deceitful of human passions-that is, self-lifting the simple out of his distress and guardlove-which at all times inclines us to think better of ourselves and conditions than there is ground for; how great soever the relief is which a man draws from it at present, it too often disappoints in the end, leaving him to go on his way sorrowing-mourning, as the prophet says, that his hope is lost. So that, after all, in our severer trials, we still find a necessity of calling in something to aid this principle, and direct it so, that it may not wander with this uncertain expectation of what may never be accomplished, but fix itself upon a proper object of trust and reliance that is able to fulfil our desires, to hear our cry, and to help us. The passion of hope, without this, though in straits a man may support his spirits for a time with a general expec-straits or troubles as I have experienced, learn tation of better fortune, yet, like a ship tossed without a pilot upon a troublesome sea, it may float upon the surface for a while, but is never, never likely to be brought to the haven where it would be. To accomplish this, reason and religion are called in at length, and join with nature in exhorting us to hope; but to hope in God, in whose hands are the issues of life and death, and without whose knowledge and permission we know that not a hair of our heads can fall to the ground. Strengthened with this anchor of hope, which keeps us stedfast when the rains descend and the floods come upon us, however the sorrows of a man are multiplied, he bears up his head, looks towards heaven with confidence, waiting for the salvation of God; he then builds upon a rock, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. He may be troubled, it is true, on every side, but shall not be distressed; perplexed, yet not in despair; though he walk through the valley of the shadow of death, even then he fears no evil,-this rod and this staff comfort him. by my example where to seek for succour; trust not in princes, nor in any child of man, for there is no help in them: the sons of men, who are of low degree, are vanity, and are not able to help thee; men of high degree are a lie, too often deceive thy hopes, and will not help thee: but thou, when thy soul is in heaviness, turn thy eyes from the earth, and look up towards heaven, to that infinitely kind and powerful Being who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth, who is a present help in time of trouble: despond not, nor say within thyself, why do his chariot-wheels stay so long? nor why he vouchsafeth thee not a speedy relief? but arm thyself in thy misfortunes with patience and fortitude; trust in God, who sees all those conflicts under which thou labourest, who knows thy necessities afar off, and puts all thy tears into his bottle; who sees every careful thought and pensive look, and hears every sigh and melancholy groan thou utterest. In all thy exigencies trust and depend on him; nor ever doubt but that he who heareth The virtue of this had been sufficiently tried the cry of the fatherless, and defendeth the by David, and had no doubt been of use to him cause of the widow, if it is just, will hear thine, in the course of a life full of afflictions, many and either lighten thy burden and let thee go of which were so great, that he declares he should free, or, which is the same, if that seems not verily have fainted under the sense and appre-meet, by adding strength to thy mind enable hension of them, but that he believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. He believed! How could he do otherwise? He had all the conviction that reason and inspiration could give him, that there was a Being in whom everything concurred which could be the proper object of trust and confidence-power to thee to sustain what he has suffered to be laid upon thee. Whoever recollects the particular psalms said to be composed by this great man, under the several distresses and cross accidents of his life, will perceive the justice of this paraphrase, which is agreeable to the strain of reasoning which runs through, that is little else than a recollection of his own words and thoughts upon those occasions, in all which he appears to have been no less signal in his afflictions than in his piety, and in that goodness of soul which he discovers under them. I said the reflections upon his own life and providential escapes which he had experienced had had a share in forming these religious sentiments of trust in his mind, which had so early taken root, that when he was going to fight the Philistine, when he was but a youth and stood before Saul, he had already learned to argue in this manner :-Let no man's heart fail him: thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock, and I went out after him and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth; and when he arose against me, I caught him by the beard, and smote him, and slew him: thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be as one of them; for the Lord, who delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, he will also deliver me out of his hand.-The conclusion was natural, and the experience which every man has had of God's former loving-kindness and protection to him, either in dangers or distress, does unavoidably engage him to think in the same strain. It is observable that the Apostle St. Paul, encouraging the Corinthians to bear with patience the trials incident to human nature, reminds them of the deliverances that God did formerly vouchsafe to him and his fellow-labourers Gaius and Aristarchus; and on that ground builds a rock of encouragement for future trust and dependence on him. His life had been in very great jeopardy at Ephesus, where he had like to have been brought out to the theatre to be devoured by wild beasts, and, indeed, had no human means to avert, and consequently to escape it; and therefore he tells them that he had this advantage by it, that the more he believed he should be put to death, the more he was engaged, by his deliverance, never to depend on any worldly trust, but only on God, who can rescue from the greatest extremity, even from the grave, and death itself. For we would not, brethren, says he, have you ignorant of our trouble, which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure above our strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life; but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raiseth the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver, and in whom we trust that he will still deliver us. And, indeed, a stronger argument cannot be brought for future trust than the remembrance of past protection; for what ground or reason can I have to distrust the kindness of that person who has always been my friend and benefactor? On whom can I better rely for assistance in the day of my distress than on him who stood by me in all mine affliction, and, when I was at the brink of destruction, delivered me out of all my troubles? Would it not be highly ungrateful, and reflect either upon his goodness or his sufficiency, to distrust that Providence which has always had a watchful eye over me, and who, according to his gracious promises, will never leave me, nor forsake me, and who, in all my wants, in all my emergencies, has been abundantly more willing to give than I to ask it? If the former and the latter rain have hitherto descended upon the earth in due season, and seed-time and harvest have never yet failed,-why should I fear famine in the land, or doubt but that he who feedeth the raven, and providently catereth for the sparrow, should likewise be my comfort? How unlikely is it that ever he should suffer his truth to fail! This train of reflection, from the consideration of past mercies, is suitable and natural to all mankind: there being no one, who by calling to mind God's kindnesses, which have been ever of old, but will see cause to apply the argument to himself. And though, in looking back upon the events which have befallen us, we are apt to attribute too much to the arm of flesh, in recounting the more successful parts of them; saying, My wis dom, my parts and address, extricated me from this misfortune; my foresight and penetration saved me from a second; my courage, and the mightiness of my strength, carried me through a third: however we are accustomed to talk in this manner, yet whoever coolly sits down and reflects upon the many accidents (though very improperly called so) which have befallen him in the course of his life; when he considers the many amazing turns in his favour-sometimes in the most unpromising cases, and often brought about by the most unlikely causes; when he remembers the particular providences which have gone along with him, the many personal deliverances which have preserved him, the unaccountable manner in which he has been enabled to get through difficulties, which on all sides beset him, at one time of his life, or the strength of mind he found himself endowed with to encounter afflictions which fell upon him at another period;-where is the man, I say, who looks back with the least religious sense upon what has thus happened to him, who could not give you sufficient proofs of God's power, and his arm over him, and recount several cases wherein the God of Jacob was his help, and the Holy One of Israel his redeemer? Hast thou ever laid upon the bed of languishing, or laboured under a grievous distemper which threatened thy life? Call to mind thy sorrowful and pensive spirit at that time; and do add to it who it was that had mercy on thee, that brought thee out of darkness and the |