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mation. Great and inexpreffible may be the happinefs, which a moderate fortune and moderate defires, with a consciousness of virtue, will fecure. Many are the filent pleasures of the honest peasant, who rifes cheerful to his labour.—Why should they not?———Look into his house, the feat of each man's happiness; has he not the fame domeftic endearments, the fame joy and comfort in his children, and as flattering hopes of their doing well, to enliven his hours and glad his heart, as you could conceive in the highest station;And I make no doubt in general, but if the true state of his joy and fufferings could be fairly balanced with those of his betters, whether any thing would appear at the foot of the account, but what would recommend the moral of this discourse.-This, I own, is not to be attained to, by the cynical stale trick of haranguing against the goods of fortune. They were never intended to be talked out of the world;but, as virtue and true wildom lie in the middle of extremes,

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one hand, not to neglect and defpife riches, fo as to forget ourselves, and on the other, not to pursue and love them fo as to forget GOD :—to have them fometimes in our heads-but always fomething more important in our hearts.

SERMON XIV.

Self-Examination.

13AIAH I. 3.

The ox knoweth his owner, and the afs his mafter's crib ;Ifrael doth not know,-my people doth not confider.

'Tis a fevere but an affectionate reproach of the prophet's, laid against the Ifraelites, which may fafely be applied to every heedlefs and unthankful people, who are neither won by GoD's mercies, nor terrified by his punishments.There is a giddy, thoughtlefs, intemperate spirit gone forth into the world, which poffeffes the generality of mankind ;and the reason the world is undone, is, because the world does not confider:confiders neither awful regard to GOD-nor the true relation themselves bear to him. Could they confider this, and learn to weigh the causes, and compare the confequences of things, and to exercise the reafon which God has put into us for the government and direction of our lives, there would be fome hopes of a reformation: but as the world goes, there is no leifure for fuch inquiries; and fo full are our minds of other matVol. 17. H

ters, that we have no time to afk, or a heart to anfwer the questions we ought to put to ourselves.

Whatever our condition is, 'tis good to be acquainted with it in time, to be able to fupply what is wanting, and examine the state of our accounts, before we come to give them up to an impartial judge.

The most inconfiderate fee the reasonableness of this, there being few, I believe, either fo thoughtless, or even so bad, but that they fometimes enter upon this duty, and have fome fhort intervals of felfexamination, which they are forced upon, if from no other motive, yet at least to free themselves from the load and oppreffion of fpirits they must neceffarily be fubject to without it.But as the fcripture fre quently intimates and obfervation confirms it daily, that there are many mistakes attending the difcharge of this duty, I cannot make the remainder of this difcourfe more ufeful, than by a fhort inquiry into them. I fhall therefore, firft, beg leave to remind you of fome of the many unhappy ways, by which we often fet about this irkfome tafk of examining our works, without being either the better or the wifer for the employment.

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And firft, then, let us begin with that which is the foundation of almost all the other false measures we take in this matter, that is, the fetting about the examination of our works, before we are prepared with honeft difpofitions to amend them. beginning the work at the wrong end. Thefe previous difpofitions in the heart, are the wheels that fhould make this work go eafily and fuccefsfuly for wards;and to take them off, and proceed with

out them, 'tis no miracle, if, like Pharaoh's chariots, they that drive them,-drive them heavily along.

Befides, if a man is not fincerely inclined to reform his faults, 'tis not likely he fhould be inclined to see them,-nor will all the Weekly Preparations that ever were wrote, bring him nearer the point;-fo that, with how ferious a face foever he begins to examine, he no longer does the office of an inquirer, but an apologift, whofe bufinefs is not to fearch for truth-but skilfully to hide it.—So long, therefore, as this pre-engagement lasts betwixt the man and his old habits, there is little profpect of proving his works to any good purpose-of whatever kind they are, with fo ftrong an interest and power on their fide.-As in other trials, fo in this, "tis no wonder, if the evidence is puzzled and confounded, and the feveral facts and circumftances fo twifted from their natural fhapes, and the whole proof fo altered and confirmed on the other fide,as to leave the laft ftate of that man even worse than the first.

A fecond unhappy, though general mistake, in this great duty of proving our works,—is that which the apoftle hints at; in the doing it, not by a direct examination of our own actions, but from a comparative view of them with the lives and actions of other men.

When a man is going to enter upon this work of felf-examination-there is nothing fo common, as to fee him look round him-inftead of looking within him. He looks round,-finds out fome one who is

more malicious,-fees another that is more covetous, a third that is more proud and imperious than himfelf-and fo indirectly forms a judgment of himself, not from a review of his life, and a proving of his own works, as the apoftle directs him, but rather from proving the works of others, and from their infirmities and defects drawing a deceitful conclufion in favour of himself.-In all competitions of this kind-one may venture to say there will be ever so much of felf-love in a man, as to draw a flattering likeness of one of the parties-and 'tis well if he has not fo much malignity too, as to give but a coarse picture of the other, finished with so many hard ftrokes, as to make the one as unlike its original as the other.

Thus the pharifee, when he entered the temple,

-no fooner faw the publican, but that moment he formed the idea to himself of all the vices and corruptions that could poffibly enter into the man's character, and with great dexterity ftated all his own virtues and good qualities over against them. His abftinence and frequent faftings,—exactness'in the debts and ceremonies of the law; not balaucing the account as he ought to have done, in this manner-What! though this man is a publican and a finner, have not I my vices as well as he? 'Tis true, his particular office exposes him to many temptations of committing extortion and injuflice ;—but then,— am not I a devourer of widow's houfes, and guilty of one of the most cruel inftances of the fame crime? He poffibly is a profane perfon, and may fet religion at nought; but do not I myself for a pretence make

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