: * SER M. gers of felf-confidence; the inspection of W God's providence into the failures of his people, together with his fore-fight of them; his fuper-intending care of them, even during the progress of their temptations, and his over-ruling the iffues of them for good. First, I fay, the fallibility and weakness of human nature. This is what experience abundantly testifies all the fins of mankind, and they are more than can be numbred, are proofs of it; nay, there is not a juft man living upon the earth, that doth good, and finneth not. Not that God has made us to fin: he is not the author of moral evil; it is not the neceffary effect of the powers wherewith he has endued us; on the contrary, he has furnish'd our nature with defences against it, and with faculties which have an oppofite tendency: He is not tempted with evil, neither does he tempt any man. It is a voluntary perversion and abuse of our natural faculties, and a violation of that law, which he has written upon our hearts. But he has made us frail and fallible. Indeed it does not appear, that any order of created beings were made originally impeccable. As abfolute perfection of knowledge is above the capacity and condition of finite * Ecclef. vii. 20. + James i. 13. finite minds, there seems to be infeparable SERM from their original frame, a poffibility of mistakes which may lead them into moral defects. Befides, every indigent being muft have selfish affections, which may in fome circumstances be the fources of error, overballancing the benevolent difpofitions in which moral perfection confifts. But not to infift on this, of all orders of rational creatures, which we have any knowledge of, fome have actually corrupted themselves. The angels who were made pure, and in a happy ftate, yet did not all continue in it: fome of them kept not their first estate of innocence and integrity; but, being the first example of disobedience, fell irrecoverably by their tranfgreffion, and were expell'd from their own habitation, their native heaven, into outer darkness, where they are referv'd under chains to the judgment of the great day. And the fcripture fhews us that the first of mankind, tho' diftinguish'd by the divine bounty with many gifts and peculiar privileges, whereby they were enabled to hold their integrity, and in a happy fituation, far less liable to be tempted than their posterity are, yet did not abide in the inno cence V. SERM.cence, the honour and felicity, wherein they were made, but fuffered themselves to be mifled by the infiduous arts and falfe reprefentations of a fubtle and malicious enemy. But, to confine ourselves particularly to the prefent condition of human nature; no man, I think, wants to have it proved that we are all liable to failures. Where is the man, who does not, to the conviction of all that are near him, and narrowly obferve his behaviour, carry the plain marks of moral infirmity about him? and yet they fee but a fmall part of his faults. discoveries of this kind, The most useful are those which every one might make in himself by a careful attention, having within us the candle of the Lord, our own felf-confcious fpirits, which fearch the inmoft parts. We might there, in a multitude of inftances, difcern the rife of fin, the conceptions of luft, as St. James calls it, or the lower fenfitive part of our nature, comprehending our appetites and paffions; its progrefs darkning the underftanding, engroffing the attention, thereby producing an infenfibility to the most important things of religion, and our true rational happiness: fo that the exercife of our rational rational and moral powers is defeated, and SERM. we betray'd into great and grievous offences. V. which, perhaps, upon a review, it is matter of astonishment to us how we came to ungrateful, fo perverse, fo foolish, so thoughtfefs about our own true intereft, and fo inconfiftent with our difpofitions and purposes at other times, as to fall into them. It may perhaps affect our minds ftill more, to confider what failings, nay heinous trefpaffes, have ftain'd the lives of very eminent perfons, in whom virtue has been carried to the highest perfection that frail humanity is Capable of. To fee a man, not in a fingle action only, but through the general tenor of His behaviour, difplay heroic goodness, magnanimity, fortitude, patience, beneficence, in fome inftances of his conduct, fall vaftly beneath himself, nay, into a fhameful degree of the contrary vices; this is a furprifing appearance; and yet the feripture hiftory affords a variety of fuch examples. Scarcely, indeed, is there recorded one illuftrious cha racter with high applause, that is not fullied with fome remarkable defect in that very virtue which obtain'd the greateft encomium. The celebrated Abraham, who has the honour to be call'd the father of the faithful, SERM. and the friend of God, feems not to have V. acted fuitably to his character, when, thro' fear, he denied his wife, thereby expofing her and other innocent perfons to a fnare, both in Egypt and at Gerar, where Abimelech reproved him feverely, as we read in the 20th chapter of Genefis. Mofes, the meekest man in the whole earth, yet once spake unadvisedly, and his spirit was embittered, fo that God in his displeasure depriv'd him of the priviledge of entering into Canaan; and Job, whofe exemplary patience is justly celebrated in every age, yet in the extremity of his long continuing trial, fell into the contrary diftempers of mind to a degree, which was reproachful, and afterward the subject of grievous remorse. A multitude of other inftances there are, which the time would fail me to mention; but that in the text is very peculiar. A man so near to the holy Jefus, a foundation on which he built his Church, and to whom he committed the keys of his kingdom, fo refolute in his adherence to him as to fay, without his heart reproaching him for infincerity, tho' I should die with thee I will not deny thee; yet in that very night, after fo recent a premonition, denies with oaths, that he so much as knew him 7 |