done thinks immediately, when any happen to effect himself, that all ought to intereft themselves on his behalf, indeed can hardly do it too much. And therefore, when things are done, which affect the happinefs of others, the welfare of fociety, the honour of our Maker, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier, we ought to intereft ourselves for thefe. Perhaps we may object, that our concern would be fruitless. And fo, perhaps, was that of David, when he said, rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law. My zeal bath even confumed me, because they forget thy words*. But certainly fo was that of juft Lot, who dwelling among the inhabitants of Sodom, in feeing and hearing vexed his righteous foul from day to day with their unlawful deeds†. Yet they are proposed as objects, not of blame, but praise. And indeed uneafy fentiments on fuch occafions, however ineffectual otherwife, may improve us confiderably, by reminding us, that we are of God, and the world lieth in wickedness; provided we carefully reftrain them, which itself will be a profitable inward exercife, from running into exceís. Befides, whoever preserves this due medium between indifference and vehemence, as he will be always prudently feeking methods of reclaiming, or at least of checking the guilty, and confequently fecuring the inno cent; fo he will find more than any one else can suggest to him and though hated by the bad, or difpised by the thoughtlefs, for this troublefome activity, will be efteemed by many fellow-labourers, many converts whom he hath helped to make, many ready to fall, whom he hath feasonably stayed and ftrengthened. Or let him have ever fo much caufe to fay in other respects, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my Strength for nought: yet furely his judgement is with the Lord, and his work with his Gods. : Pfal. cxix. 136, 139. 1 John v. 19. + 2 Pet. ii. 8. SER SERMON LXV. THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-EXAMINATION, AND CONSEQUENT REFORMATION. LA M. iii. 40. Let us fearch and try our ways, and turn again to the 'Lord. THE HE gracious and wife Creator of all things, as he hath made known to every creature, by a fecret inftinct, the way of life which belongs to its frame and condition: fo to man be bath fhewn, both by his affections and his understanding, what is good, and what he requires of him. Yet having placed him in a state of trial, in which these inward principles might be perverted and mislead him, he hath graciously super. added external manifeftations of his will for our furer and coinpleter guidance: thus making our rule of duty evident and obligatory in the highest degree. No courfe of action is more plainly fuited to the nature of any agent, than religion and virtue is to ours. For what can be more evidently natural, than for a reasonable being to make reafon his governing principie; for a focial being to do justly, and love mercy; and for a created one to walk bumbly with his God? A eeably therefore to this peculiar deftination, which allots to us employments worthy to fill up an eternal exiftence, whereas inferior animals arrive very foon, without contributing almost any thing to it themselves, at the fmall perfection of which they are capable, and there ftop: man is qualified, and, as revelation fully affures us, defigned, for endless improvement in goodness and happinefs, but fuch as fhall depend on his own care and industry, excited and affifted by the grace of God. For this purpofe, together with an inward perception of what is right and fit for us to do, and what is otherwise, we have Mic. vi. 8. The have also a faculty of felf-reflexion, which, presenting us to our own view, fhew us, what we have been and are. exercise of this faculty is expreffed in the text by searching and trying our ways; and elsewhere by examining and proving ourjelves*, and knowing the thoughts of our hearts; which phrases have their peculiar import and ufe. For as the temper and ftate of our hearts is the great thing that we have to be concerned about in religion fo the confideration of our ways, or the actions in which our temper is exerted and fhewn, muft discover to us the motives that influence it just as, in the material objects that furround us, we learn, from particular facts and appearances, the general laws by which the frame of things is governed. This faculty of moral reflexion, and the felf-approbation or diflike arifing from it, which we commonly call by the name of confcience, is the character that distinguishes man from the beings below him; it is the principle that God hath endued with an evident right to direct our lives: and, according as we employ or difregard it, we fhall advance or go back in real religion. The feeds of every virtue were planted in the foul of man originally, each in its due order and proportion, without any mixture of evil. Yet even then, for want of due cultivation by our first parants, they were fatally blafted, instead of growing up to the perfection for which they were defigned. But now, when our inward frame is fo unhappily difordered and weakened by their fall, watchfulness over it is become unfpeakably more neceffary than it was at firft. And fince, with a nature thus prone to err, we are a confiderable time from our birth before we reflect on our actions at all; and, after that, do it very imperfectly; it cannot fail, but our own bad inclinations, and the customs of a bad world, must have led us all afide, more or lefs, from the right path, before we knew diftinctly which it was. Nor have we, many of us, it may be feared, made fo early or fo effectual an ufe, as we might, of the faculty of felf-government, in that feafon of warm and hafly paffions which quickly follows the firft confiderable use of reason. And, if not, we may be ftill furer of finding many things within us that want correction. A great • 1 Cor. xi. 23. 2 Cor. xii. 5. ↑ Dan. ii. 30. A great part of those around us, we fee, are quite wicked. And in the few that are seriously good, the moft fuperficial obferver and moft charitable interpreter will difcern a great number of faults and imperfections unreformed. Since therefore failures in point of duty are, from the nature of the thing, to be apprehended, and have in fact happened to all the rest of the world: if we were not ufually, by a moft prepofterous kind of negligence, lefs attentive to ourselves than to others, we should be likely to perceive the most disorders in that breast, with which we have the most opportunities of being intimately acquainted. But, at least, there is ground enough for us to examine, what our ftate really is: to fearch and try our ways; that, if we have erred in any thing, we may turn again to the Lord. And though it is very apparent, that fuch a refolution may have many good confèquences, and can have no bad ones, if executed in the manner, which every man's reason, and the word of God, will fuggeft to him yet, for your further encouragement and direction, I fhall lay before you particularly, I. The advantages that may arife from this inquiry. way we have fet at in, and by ufe grow fond indolent all the while A confiderable part of the wrong conduct of mankind proceeds, not so much from any ftrong inclination to do amifs, as from being fo unhappily thoughtless, that the flightest motive is enough to determine their choice any way. We engage at first in this or that fort of behaviour, we fearce know why or how then go on of course in the without thinking whither it leads us; of it, and zealous for it; yet are too once to ask ourselves, perhaps, whether we are aiming at any thing; or, however, whether, it be at what we ought; or Tomething of little importance, if not hurtful or criminal. Now this cafe, without reflexion, is quite irrecoverable; and a little reflexion in time would easily fet all right. Nay, even where vehement paffions hurry perfons into follies and fins, it was for want of this wholefome discipline at first, that their paffions gained the mastery; and applying it fteadily for fome time will be a fure means, through God's bleffing, of reducing VOL. II. them Na them again to subjection. For there is no poffibility, either of viewing a bad action, in a full light, without abhorrence, or of weighing its confequences without terror. Wickedness, therefore, always banishes thought, and piety and virtue encourage it. A good man, far from being driven to hide his inward condition from himself, though he find many things that want fill to be amended, yet finds at the fame time, so many, which, through the aid of God's Holy Spirit, are already grown, and daily growing better, that he feels no joy equal to that of his heart telling him, what he is. But the guilty mind is driven by fear and fhame to ftifle the voice of nature and confcience, that ftruggles in the breaft for utterance. Every one, that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, left his deeds fhould be reproved: but be, that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifeft, that they are wrought in God. And therefore the Pfalmist speaks of f:lf. amendment, as the immediate fruit of felf-infpection. I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy teftimonies: I made hafte, and delayed not to keep thy commandments†. Nor doth it only excite in us good resolutions, but furnishes directions how to put them in practice. Reflexion will fhew us, and nothing else can, by what defect within, or what opportunity without, each of our faults got ground in our breasts: and which is the way to root it out again. For want of this knowledge, multitudes try in vain to correct the disorders of their hearts and lives; and only here and there one recovers, as it were by force of conftitution; whilst numbers perish, who might have been preferved by a competent acquaintance with the method of cure. For every fingle cafe requires to be in fome degree differently treated; and must therefore, in order to it, be particularly ftudied. Strong refolutions indeed may fometimes do a great deal: but very often strength, unaffifted by skill, waftes itself to no purpose: and the bad fuccefs of vehement efforts ill-directed leaves little ability, and less heart, for further endeavours. Another use of fearching frequently into our past ways, is to preserve ourselves from the fecret approach of future dangers. The firft deviation from their duty is in most perfons but John iii. 20, 21. † Pfal. cxix. 59, 60. |