SER. CXVI: their protection, and invigorate themselves by their affistance. But, alas, instead of this, we attend almost only to fuch as can promote our worldly advantages, or favourite amusements; or fuch as enjoy an uncommon fhare of either; to those who can serve us, or delight us, we attach ourselves firmly; those who excel us in any part of the vanity and pride of life, we envy; account them the only happy men; and set our whole hearts on becoming happy in the fame way: but serious, humble, felf-denying worth, we either quite overlook, or view with an eye of fcorn, at beft of contemptuous pity; ridicule, if not inveigh against it, the trueft piety and virtue, if it goes the least beyond that standard which we have fixed for ourselves, from no better authority than cuftom or inclination; and are commonly much more severe against the involuntary or imagined failings of the best people, than the wilful and habitual fins of the worst. Thus we behave to the good in their lives: or if we do happen to treat them a little better then, yet, instantly on their deaths, we lay them afide, and are glad to think no more of them, not even of our own obligations to them, though perhaps we have had very particular ones, and certainly a general one of great importance, that fuch perfons are, as the fcripture calls them, the falt of the earth*: preserve the world by their wholesome influence, though much too thinly spread over it, yet from being utterly corrupted; and fo reftrain and mitigate the wrath of God, by their prayers and interceffions, that he of ten fpares the city for the fake of the few righteous that are therein t. Let us remember then, what reafon we have to honour the good, both living and dead; and to mourn when the faithful fail from among the children of men : let us obferve, and point out to observation, the usefulness and amiableness of religion in others; and make it as useful and amiable in ourselves, as we poffibly can: being not only admirers, but followers also of them, who through faith and patience have inherited the promifes §. For loving and imitating them here, will qualify us for being happy in an eternal fellowship with them hereafter. And though it is a much lower confideration,

Matth. v. 13. + Gen. xviii. 24.

+ P. xii. 1. § Heb. vi. 12.

deration, yet it is far from a contemptible one, that by honouring the characters of the worthy perfons who are gone before us, we shall beft fecure that furviving regard to our own, which we all defire: and when our bodies are buried in peace, our name shall live*, and our memorial not depart pway t.

* Ecclus, xliv. 14,

+ Ecclus. xxxix. 9.

SER

SERMON CXVII.

(Preached on a General Faft.)

ON THE JUSTICE AND GOODNESS OF GOD TO THE RATIONAL CREATION.

2 CHRON. XV. 2.

The Lord is with you, while ye be with him: and if ye feek him, he will be found of you: but if ye forfake him, he will for fake you.

ΤΗ

HESE words are the beginning of a serious admonition, given by the direction of Heaven to the nation of the Jews, as they returned from obtaining, under the conduct of Afa their king, one of the greatest victories recorded in fcripture. Their condition, áfter this, might have appeared to human policy a very secure one: But the Divine Wisdom faw the greatest of all dangers impending over them, that which proceeds from forgetting God, and abandoning virtue. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Azariah the son of Oded, and be went out to meet Afa, and said unto him, Hear me, Afa, and all Fudab and Benjamin: The Lord is with you, while ye be with him and if ye feek him, he will be found of you: but if ye forfake him, he will forfake you. Now, these great truths, of which Heaven thought it needful to remind them, at the conclufion of a profperous war, it must be very much more needful that we should attend to, who feem to be only at the beginning of a doubtful one. And accordingly we are met here, by the command of authority, to confider our ways,

and humble ourselves before God for our fins, as the neceffary means for deriving a bleffing on our arms, and restoring and perpetuating peace and prosperity to our country.

It is a melancholy confideration, that creatures, endued with reason and humanity, should ever come to employ force against one another, and make the dreadful addition of the miseries of war to the many unavoidable fufferings of life. But wicked as this is, when paffion and refentment, defire of unjuft gain, or fondness of infamous glory, prompts to it, yet when injuries of pernicious confequence are done to a nation, and perfifted in, and no competent redrefs can be obtained, it becomes then, both neceffary for particular focieties, and beneficial to human fociety in general, that invaded rights be vigorously afferted by the only way left. When the fword is drawn for justice alone, and ever ready to be fheathed as foon as that is granted, then Heaven may be appealed to, with hopes of a favourable fentence coming forth from his prefence, whofe eyes behold the thing that is equal*. But if the affertors of a righteous cause be in other refpects à finful people, it is evidently just for God, who hath the cognizance of both these things, to regard whichfoever of them infinite wisdom fhall direct; and make even the injurious party the rod of bis anger, and the staff in the day of bis indignation †, to correct, or destroy, if their wickedness deserve it, fuch nations, as though right in their disputes with their enemies, are wrong at the fame time in matters more important. And how little terror foever our enemies might give us at firft, yet now we must be fenfible, that we know not in the leait how foon and how formidably they may increafe; but this we know certainly, that there is no restraint to the Lord, to punish, as well as to fave, by many, or by few t. Times of war, therefore, add a peculiar ftrength to those admonitions, which reafon and fcripture give us at all times, to confider what our state is with regard to him, who doth according to bis will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth §. Let us then all confider now, whether we have ground of hope or of fear from that awful declaration of the prophet, which you have heard read.

:

The Lord is with you, while you be with him. To be with God, is to preserve in our minds a reverent fenfe of his being, presence, and government; to keep close to his laws, and stand on his fide against the oppofite power of darkness and fin. Let us then think, if there be need of thought to answer, how is the reverence due to the Supreme Being preserved among us? Have we not perfons who even ridicule the notion of a wife and good Maker of all things? Have we not thofe, who, if they do admit a Creator, do not admit a Moral Governor of the world; or at leaft reprefent him fo very defective in his administration of it, as finally to let bad perfons be gainers by their wickedness, and good perfons lofers by their virtue rejecting, with mirthful fcorn, what hath ever been the hope and fupport of wife and good men, the belief of that future state, in which the vifible irregularities of the present shall be rectified? Have we not alfo too many, who, profeffing perhaps to believe in natural religion, yet fpeak of Christianity, the great means by which it is both fupported and perfected, not only as a falfehood, but an impoffibility: Blafpheming that worthy name, by which we are called*; and difdaining to receive from God himself, any other rules, either of faith or life, than fuch as their own reason, directed by their own fancy, fhall prefcribe to them? And let us fuppose, if we can, that the number of such as go these lengths deliberately, is upon the whole but small; yet what shall we fay of the inconfiderately guilty? Are there not multitudes of all degrees, who seem never once to have asked themselves, whether they believe in God or not? or if they do, whether any regard is due to him or none? who flight religion boldly, without imagining they have ever examined it; who are perfuaded of its truth, perhaps, fo far as they have any perfuafion about the matter, but have no notion that they are to regulate their conduct by it; who poffibly do not quite approve of profane perfons, but are aftonished at pious ones; and by their indulgence to the former, and their very great pronenefs to despise the latter, plainly fhew, whether they perceive it themselves or not, which party they are on the road to join?

We

James ii. 7.