SER M. all alike hurtful; fome of them are perfectly XIII. innocent, and produce no bad effects at all: What is any man the worse for his judging amifs concerning the magnitude and distance of the heavenly bodies? The correcting his mistake may give him pleasure, but without that, he might have been as good a man, · and in the main as happy. But in the affair we are now confidering, a mistake cannot be harmless; at least on the one fide, which is the most dangerous, it endeth in a miferable disappointment. For a man to flatter himself that he is entitled to the favour of God, and to find at last that wrath abideth upon him. I conclude, then, we are not under a fatal neceffity of being deceived, elfe I fhould not at all know how this text is to be understood, or, indeed, how the justice of God could be vindicated to the full conviction of men. Let us confider how our minds are affected upon the discovery of error, how it must appear to our own reflecting thoughts, and what confequences we can think may, and ought to follow it, from the judgment of others, particularly a fuperior. mistake was abfolutely invincible, that is, the perfon falling into it was not furnished with a capacity, or had no means whereby he could poffibly fhun it, then it was certainly

If the

excufable; a man's heart cannot condemn SERM. him for it; he may confider it as proceed- XIII. ing from a natural imperfection, or as infelicity, but cannot impute it to himself, and therefore he cannot think the feptence juft whereby he should incur any penal confequences on that account. But if, upon a review of our errors, it appeareth to us that they proceeded not from a total impotence in ourselves, or from the want of fufficient means to have prevented them, but from a criminal difpofition in the mind, the cafe is quite different; the heart then chargeth it felf as guilty, the actions done in the purfuance of the mistake appear to be our faults, the penalties incurred by it to be juft, and the oppofite condemning sentence of a higher tribunal is vindicated in our own thoughts. In the prefent cafe, if our hearts do not condemn when they might and ought to have condemned us, that is, if we are led into the erroneous judgment by our own fault, and we had it in our own power to have prevented it by a due ufe of the means and opportunies we enjoyed, it doth not follow that God will acquit us, or that we have any just ground of confidence towards him, nor is the declaration in the text fo to be understood.

VOL. III.

Z

5thly,

XIII.

SERM. 5thly, therefore, the judgment we pass upon ourselves, or upon our own temper and course of actions, ought not to be rafh and indeliberate. The leaft confideration of the frame and the powers of our minds must convince us, that attention, in order to prevent mistakes, and to judge rightly in matters of importance, is one of the first duties incumbent on fuch creatures as we are. Seeing the human understanding is so imperfect, far from a comprehenfive intuition of things, even many truths, which may be clearly known, do not appear to its first view; what can be more reasonable and becoming us, than that we should not run haftily into a conclufion upon points which nearly concern our duty and our happiness, but that we should apply ourselves to a diligent examination of the evidence upon which a judgment is to be formed, which every man is conscious to himself he hath it in his own power to do, and for neglecting it his heart will reproach him? We know by experience, that many errors have been thus prevented, and many corrected; and, furely, we must acknowledge there is no affair which more justly calleth for our deliberation and careful inquiry, than the judgment

judgment we make of ourselves, upon which SE R M. we are to found our expectations from God XIII. our fupreme judge.

6thly, There is another fource of error which it will require our utmost care to guard against, that is, prejudices and prepoffeffions, the influence of evil habits, and corrupt felfish affections byafing the mind. They must be ftrangers to the weakness of the human nature, who do not know how much the private inclinations and averfions of men fway their judgment. How eafily do we go into opinions which are agreeable to us? how difficultly are we perfuaded to affent to what must give us uneafiness? Into that most pernicious of all errors, the heart's not condemning for heinous crimes, men do not fall but by an habitual courfe of wickedness, and through the influence of the moft corrupt affections. So strong is the sense of moral differences naturally in the minds of all mankind, that no man ever yet arrived to fuch a height of ftupidity as to call evil good, or to be eafy and confident in a vicious course of life; till after a ftrong reluctance he hath violently conquered his reafon, and after many ineffectual remonftrances fo baffled confcience, that it ceaseth to reprove; and then the judgment

SERM. of God condemning, contrary to the preXIII. fent judgment, or rather infenfibility of the heart not condemning, will appear manifeftly righteous, and the confcience of the criminal, when delivered from the vehemently prevailing and hardening prejudices, muft acknowledge it. But there are other cafes more difficult than this, namely, when men still retain a regard for confcience, fo that they have never habitually and wilfully acted against its admonitions, and yet through prejudice have been misled into those opinions, and practices pursuant to them, which are really evil, and which upon farther illumination, and a more diligent inquiry, they themselves have condemned. The moft remarkable example of this kind is that of the apoftle Paul, who before his converfion to the christian faith, by the account he giveth of himself, and we are fure it is true, was a confcientious man; he was, touching the righteousness of the law, blameless; he had lived in all good confcience, even while he was a pharifee; and faith that he had served God with a pure confcience; and yet afterwards, being better inftructed by christianity, reflecting on that former period of his life, he reprefenteth his own actions as very criminal; he calleth himself the chief of

finners,