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DISCOURSE XXVI.

PSALM XCIV. 19.

In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my foul.

The old tranflation renders it thus:

In the multitude of the forrows that I had in my heart, thy comforts have refrefbed my foul.

THESE

HESE verfions, as they both very well exprefs the sense of the original, fo they give light to each other. The multitude of forrows, mentioned in one tranflation, must be the forrows, in fome fort, peculiar to the men of thought and reflection; fince in the other they are called, the multitude of thoughts. That there are fuch forrows, we learn from one who was himself a man of great thought: In much wisdom, fays the Preacher, is much grief; and he that increafeth knowledge increafeth forrow. If we follow the train of thought which he has marked out, and view the life of man under all the various circumftances incident to it, every step we take will yield a proof of his propofition, every difcovery will bring its torment, when we find, that

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all the days of man are forrows, and his travel grief; yea, his heart taketh not reft in the night.

But there is no end of fuch inquiries; and indeed not much reason for them: we may fit ftill, and our own experience will bring this knowledge home to us, without giving us the trouble of looking abroad into the world to find it. Cares and anxieties will make their way to us, though our doors are guarded within and without. We need only have common understanding to fee the evil that is in the world; and we must want common sense, if we feel no share of it ourselves... w

The distemper then is plain; but who is he that can cure it? Who can administer a remedy sufficient to the evil, and give ease to an heart oppreffed with forrows, and weighed down with a multitude of tormenting thoughts? To find a cure for the evils of life has employed the thoughts of the wifeft men in all ages; and the employment was worthy of all their care: but yet the world is where it was, nothing happier for their inquiries; ftill complaining, ftill calling out for help, and finding none. Some bid us lay hold of the good things of the world, and open our hearts to the pleasures of life. Wholesome advice! but where are the good things to be purchased, the use of which they prescribe ? What merchant can furnish us with fincere pleafures, and ease of mind which knows no grief? Others bid us be above pain and forrow, and call strongly upon our reafon to reject these phantoms of the imagination, which can have no effect upon a wife man. An hard leffon! for, though the mafter may forget common fenfe whilft he is

teaching, yet the scholar will find it hard to forget it when it comes to feeling. What must we do then? Muft we give ourselves up to defpair, and as a prey to the calamities of life? No: one remedy there ftill is, unknown to the wifdom of Greece, unfought for by the men of this world, capable of adminiftering pleasure and delight to our minds, amidft all the uncertainties and vexations that furround us. What this is, you may learn from the words of the text, Thy comforts have refreshed my foul.

The plain meaning of this is, that religion, or a juft fenfe of our relation to God, is the only real and folid fupport against the many evils of life: this is our sheet-anchor; with this, no ftate of life is infupportable; without it, no condition is tolerable.

Give me leave to examine before you the truth of this affertion.

Such is the

Some evils there are which are natural, which are born with us, and from which no circumftances or condition of life can ever deliver us. fear of death: it is a fear common to young and old, to mafter and fervant, king and fubject: it arifes with the firft dawnings of reafon, and continues with us to its laft decay: it lives with us when we are poor, and forfakes us not when we are rich it embitters the mifery of the oppreffed, and corrupts the pleasures of the mighty. We bring with us into the world fuch an averfion to the going out of it, that, to speak in the language of Scripture, through fear of death we are all our life-time fubject to bondage.

Now take religion out of the cafe, and diveft a man of all hopes and confidence in God, and what has he to mitigate or leffen this evil? You will ask perhaps, What has he to fear from death, if God be out of the queftion, and there be no expectation of a judgment to come? Is it then so easy a thing to reconcile ourselves to the profpect of being nothing? Is it an adequate cure for the fear of death, to be certain that we shall die without hope, and be no more for ever? Nature, we are fure, abhors this profpect; and if there be in it any pleasure, it must arife from fome very unnatural caufe; and fo it always does. It is fin that makes men afraid of judgment, and the fear of judgment makes them willing to compound to be nothing. But this is not curing the fear of death, but it is choofing death out of dread of a much greater evil: it is flying for protection to death to avoid the terrors of judgment, as men leap out of window when the house is on fire; which is not defpifing the fall, but dreading the flame. It is not a remedy which reason would choose, but which it cannot tell how to avoid. When we prefer a lefs evil to a greater, the nature of things is not altered by our choice; the evil we choose continues to be an evil, not eligible in itself, but only in respect of a greater evil to be avoided. The man who fubmits to have a leg cut off to save his life, does not think the lofing of a limb to be a defirable thing, though he may be willing to part with a limb to fave his life. By the fame reason, death does not ceafe to be a natural evil, nor does the natural fear of it vanish, when men hope to die for ever, rather than come to judgment. It fhews,

indeed, that they fear damnation more than death; but it never can fhew, that they have not the fame natural averfion to death which others have. This comfort, therefore, this only comfort, which irreligion affords, is indeed no support at all against the natural fear of death: if any thing, it is a support against the fear of guilt, but no fupport against the fear of death. For, suppose the man who believes nothing of the being of God, to be however a man of moral virtue, and clear of all guilt which may create a fear of future judgment, what comfort have you to give fuch an one against the natural averfion to death? Death will deliver him from nothing, and therefore he can have no hope in it: it will rob him of himfelf, of every thing; and unless he be fo unnatural as to have no regard for himself, or any thing else, the prospect of it must be a constant uneafiness to him. Will you bid him fteel his mind against these apprehenfions, and refolutely caft all thoughts of death behind him? What is this but exhorting him not to exercise his reafon upon a subject which, of all others, most nearly concerns him? And is this a proper inftruction to a reasonable creature? It is bidding men not fee what is before them; as if blindness were a fecurity againft danger, and want of thought a cure for the natural evils of human life: which, if it be indeed the cafe, plainly fhews, that we must ceafe to be men, and to exercise the faculties of men, before we can lose the sense of these evils. Such, therefore, as reafon in this manner, confefs themselves unable to cure the evils of life; fince they are forced to deftroy the man to get rid of the distemper; a practice which must prove

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