DISC. hope in Chrift; pray daily to God, that XI. it may never fail you; diligently read fuch parts of holy Scripture as may revive it when languishing, and re-establish it. Should you find your own meditations infufficient, confult, without delay, your minifter, or some religious and fenfible friend. A word of inftruction, comfort and encouragement, from another, fpoken in feafon, has often prevented the dreadful crime of felf-murder from being committed. Evermore, then, remember to "take for an helmet, the hope of falvation;" and put it not off, till the conteft be finally over, and hope ceases by our becoming poffeffed of it's object. To the Chriftian, thus armed for defence in the day of battle, the Apostle recommends only one offenfive weapon; but it is abundantly fufficient; "the word of the Spirit, which is the word of God;" sharper than any two-edged fword fabricated by the art of man, piercing even to the dividing asunder of foul and fpirit, and of the XI. the joints and marrow; reaching the very DISC. thoughts and intentions; fubduing and mortifying evil defires and blafphemous imaginations, as they arise within; confuting and filencing infidelity and error, as they affault us from without. A fingle text, well understood, and rightly applied, pierces the heart of a temptation, or an objection, and lays the most formidable adversary dead at our feet. With this weapon the bleffed Jefus conquered in the wilderness; by the fame weapon, and no other, must every difciple of his expect to conquer in the world. And now, friends, and fellow foldiers in the Chriftian warfare, liften to the voice of inspiration, and be directed by one who cannot direct you wrong. Enemies of all kinds furround you; enter not into the battle unarmed: the hoft of darkness is in array against you; put on the armour of light, to discover and furvey it. Let truth be the girdle of your loins, let righteousness be the protection of your heart, and let the fandals of the Gospel of peace adorn and defend DISC. your feet in the way in which you go: let your impenetrable helmet: and on the thigh DISCOURSE XII. THE DUTY OF CONSIDERING THE POOR. PSALM XLI. I. Bleffed is be that confidereth the poor. XII. S the world was made by wisdom, it DISC. requires wifdom to understand the frame of it. The more a man increases in wisdom, the more he will understand it; and the more he understands, the more he will approve. The full perfection of a complex machine in all it's parts, with their respective bearings, and mutual dependencies on each other, is beft comprehended by an artist. Superficial thinkers fee little, and blame; deep thinkers see much, and commend. DISC. XII. In viewing the constitution of the moral system, there is scarcely a phænomenon that ftrikes fo forcibly upon the mind, or occasions so much perplexity in it, as that of the inequality of mankind, or the state and condition of the poor. In the paffage of Scripture which has been just read, we are invited, by the promise of a Bleffing, to employ our thoughts on that subject: "Bleffed is he that confidereth the poor;" that giveth himself thoroughly to study and understand their case, and why it is as it is; to see the reason of the thing, and his own duty resulting from it. The inequality of mankind is a plain and undeniable matter of fact: nor does it happen occafionally, in this or that age, in this or that country: it is univerfal and unavoidable, at least in the fituation of affairs which has taken place in the world, fince the Fall. From that period, it ever has been fo, it ever will be fo, it ever must be fo, till the time of the reftitution of all things. What, then, will be the first confideration |