SERM. There was no more to be found among the XI. Jews, the mighty man, and the man of war,

the judge and the prophet, the prudent and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the bonourable man, the counsellor, the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. What could be expected but immediate ruin to fuch a country? And the prophet attributes it to the juft providence of God punishing that degenerate people for their iniquities; for, fays he, verse 8, 9, Jerufalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory; the fhew of their countenance doth witness against them, and they declare their fin as Sodom. But notwithstanding all this evil, and indeed whatever confufion may happen at any time in the world, whatever diftrefs may come upon particular men, or any number of them, the cafe of mankind is not abfolutely and universally un. happy: It shall be well with fome, and the difference of mens conditions principally depends on their moral characters. As this is clearly infinuated in what I already obferved from the prophet's account of the mifery of the Jews, and the ruin of their nation by their crimes, it is expreffly and

very

very folemnly declared in the text, Jay ye to SERM. the righteous it fhall be well with him: Do XI. not imagine that I mean to pronounce one

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event to you all, or to put good and bad
upon a level; the wife and righteous ruler
of the universe will diftinguish men, and all
other moral agents, by their difpofitions and
behaviour, and will render to them accord-
ing to their works.

This certainly is a doctrine of the greatest importance; the very being of religion depends upon it: Unless we are perfuaded, that virtue is good, and vice ill for us, what 1 can induce our minds to choose the one and refuse the other? And as it is of the utmost 1 importance, fo no principle is more evident: It has been the support of anxious disturbed minds in all the changes of their 1 state, even in the deepest affliction; though 1 some good men have had difficulty enough

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to keep themselves always in the affectionate
belief of it. In fuch a cafe as that which
the text refers to, it was very neceffary that
it should be earnestly and warmly incul-
cated, that the righteous, by its influence,
might maintain their integrity, and not turn
away from their righteousness, either through
evil example, or the temptations which
VOL. I.
S.
might

SERM. might accompany public, almost universal, XI calamities. But at all times it is moft wor thy of our ferious attention, as eminently useful to engage our inviolable adherence to the cause of virtue, and that we may efcape the corruption that is in the world. Į fhall therefore in the following difcourfe, first, endeavour to explain this subject, by fhewing you who are the righteous, and in what fense it shall be well with them, or, they shall be happy. Secondly, I will confider upon what evidence the prophet's affertion refts, or how it appears that there is a connection between righteoufnefs and felicity.

First, I am to explain this fubject, by fhewing you who are the righteous, and in what fenfe it fhall be well with them, or, they shall be happy. It is the more needful to confider carefully this important diftinguishing character, because men are apt to run into mistakes concerning it, to place it in things wherein it doth not at all confist, at leaft which are very remote from its effence. Not but that the notions of right and wrong, or moral good and evil, are obvious to the human mind, and their difference eafily dif cerned; the ideas of fenfible qualities are

not

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not more clear and diftinct: But in this SER M.
mixed ftate, when men are neither perfectly
XI.
good nor bad, the exact boundaries are not
fo eafily fixed, especially when an applica-
tion is made of these characters to particular
perfons, and we judge concerning ourselves,
in which cafe prejudice and felf-partiality
often miflead men; and fuperftition, a very
prevailing evil among mankind, contributes
to these errors, by leading them to imagine,
that there is righteoufnefs and religion in
thofe things, which have really nothing to
do with it.

In general the righteous is he, in whofe
heart the morally good or pious, virtuous
and
pure affections rule, and whofe practice
is habitually conducted by their directon;
the man who loves God above all things
with his heart and foul, who fears him
and efchews evil, whom no allurement of
worldly pleasure, profit, or honour, no fear
of worldly lofs or fuffering, can perfuade to
defert his duty, to act against his conscience
or wilfully and deliberately to trangrefs any
divine law known to him: Not the perfon
who is altogether free from any infirmities,
which, ftrictly speaking, may be called fin-
ful, and who never, through the whole
$ 2
courfe

SERM.Course of his life, has by ignorance or furXI. prise been drawn into thofe indeliberate ac

tions, which upon a review he cannot juftify. If this were the sense of righteousness, who could pretend to it? For there is not a just man that liveth upon the earth and finneth not. But it has pleased God graciously to accept of men upon lower terms, even upon the terms of fincerity, upon a predominant inclination and purpose of heart to do his will, appearing by the fruits of piety, temperance, juftice, and charity, habitually in their lives.

These are the righteous with whom it fhall be well, for they are the objects of God's approbation and favour, according to the settled unalterable rule of proceeding in his moral government. It is true, this is particularly and very expreffly taught in the facred fcriptures: The prophets with one confent declare, that the upright man, though not wholly free from moral defects, pleases God; and they preach the doctrine of repentance, promifing in God's name the remiffion of all their fins to fuch as fincerely comply with it, or, that if the wicked forfake bis ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, the Lord will have mercy

on