SERMON XIV.

ISAIAH I. 3.

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

'T

IS a fevere but an affectionate reproach of the prophet's, laid against the Ifraelites,-which may safely 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, thoughtless, 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 caufes, and compare the confequences of things,

things, and to exercise the reason 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 enquiries, and fo full are our minds of other matters, that we have no time to afk, or a heart to answer 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 ftate of our accounts, before we come to give them up to an impartial judge.

The moft inconfiderate fee the reasonablenefs of this, there being few, I believe, either fo thoughtless, or even fo bad, but that they fometimes enter upon this duty, and have fome fhort intervals of felf-examination, 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 frequently intimates, and obfervation confirms it daily, that there are many mistakes attending the discharge of this duty,-I cannot

make

I

of

make the remainder of this difcourfe more ufeful, than by a short enquiry into them. I fhall therefore, first, beg leave to remind you fome of the many unhappy ways by which we often fet about this irksome task of examining our works, without being either the better or the wiser for the employment.

And firft, then, let us begin with that which is the foundation of almoft all the other falfe 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.-This is beginning the work at the wrong end. These previous difpofitions in the heart, are the wheels that should make this work go easily and fuccefsfully forwards, —and to take them off, and proceed without them, 'tis no miracle if, like Pharaoh's chariots, they that drive them,-drive them heavily along.

Besides, if a man is not fincerely inclined to reform his faults,-'tis not likely he should be inclined to see them,nor will all the weekly preparations that ever were wrote, bring him nearer the point ;-fo that, with

how

how serious a face foever he begins to examinė,

-he no longer does the office of an enquirer, but an apologist, whose business is not to fearch for truth,- -but fkilfully to hide it.

So long-therefore, as this pre-engagement lafts betwixt the man and his old habits, -there is little prospect of proving his works to any good purpose of whatever kind they are, with fo ftrong an intereft 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 shapes, and the whole proof fo altered and confirmed on the other side, - as to leave the last state 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 apostle 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— instead

He looks

inftead of looking within him. round,-finds out fome one who is more malicious,-fees another that is more covetous, a third that is more proud and imperious than himself, and fo indirectly forms a judgment of himself, not from a review of his life, and a proving of his own works, as the apostle 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 fay, there will be ever fo 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 strokes, 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 stated all his own virtues and good qualities over-against them. His abftinence and frequent faftings, exactness in the

debts