deeds *. Yet they are proposed as objects, not to blame, but praise. And indeed uneasy sentiments on such occasions, however ineffectual otherwise, may improve us considerably, by reminding us, that we are of God, and the world lieth in wickedness †; provided we carefully restrain them, which itself will be a profitable inward exercise, from running into excess. Besides, whoever preserves this due medium between indifference and vehemence, as he will be always prudently seeking methods of reclaiming, or at least of checking the guilty, and consequently of securing the innocent; so he will find more than any one else can suggest to him: and though hated by the bad, or despised by the thoughtless, for this troublesome activity, will be esteemed by many fellowlabourers, many converts whom he hath helped to make, many ready to fall, whom he hath seasonably stayed and strengthened. Or let him have ever so much cause to say in other respects, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought: yet surely his judgment is with the Lord, and his work with his God.

*

L 2 Pet. ii. 8.

+ 1 John v.

19.

↑ Isaiah xlix. 4.

SERMON XXIX.

LAM. III. 40.

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.

THE gracious and wise Creator of all things, as he hath made known to every creature, by a secret instinct, the way of life which belongs to its frame and condition: so to man he hath shewn, both by his affections and his understanding, what is good, and what he requires of him. Yet having placed him in a state of trial, in which these inward principles might be perverted and mislead him, he hath graciously super-added external manifestations of his will for our surer and completer guidance: thus making our rule of duty evident and obligatory in the highest degree. No course of action is more plainly suited to the nature of any agent, than religion and virtue is to ours. For what can be more evidently natural, than for a reasonable being to make reason his governing principle; for a social being to do justly, and love mercy; and for a created one to walk humbly with his God *? Agreeably therefore to this peculiar destination, which allots to us employments worthy to fill up an eternal existence, whereas inferior animals arrive very soon, without contributing almost any thing to it themselves, at the small perfection of which they are capable, and there stop: man

Micah vi. 8.

is qualified, and, as revelation fully assures us, designed, for endless improvement in goodness and happiness, but such as shall depend on his own care and industry, excited and assisted by the grace of God.

For this purpose, together with an inward perception of what is right and fit for us to do, and what is otherwise, we have also a faculty of self-reflection, which, presenting us to our own view, shews us, what we have been and are. The exercise of this faculty is expressed in the text by searching and trying our ways: and elsewhere by examining and proving ourselves*, and knowing the thoughts of our hearts†; which phrases have their peculiar import and use. For as the temper and state of our hearts is the great thing that we have to be concerned about in religion: so the consideration of our ways, or the actions in which our temper is exerted and shewn, must discover to us the motives that influence it: just as, in the material objects that surround us, we learn, from particular facts and appearances, the general laws by which the frame of things is governed.

This faculty of moral reflection, and the self-approbation or dislike arising from it, which we commonly call by the name of conscience, is the character that distinguishes man from the beings below him: it is the principle that God hath endued with an evident right to direct our lives: and, according as we employ or disregard it, we shall advance or go back in real religion.

The seeds of every virtue were planted in the soul of man originally, each in its due order and proportion, without any mixture of evil. Yet even then, for want of due cultivation by our first parents, they

* 1 Cor. xi. 28. 2 Cor. xiii. 5. VOL. I.

Gg

+ Dan. ii. 30.

were fatally blasted, instead of growing up to the perfection for which they were designed. But now, when our inward frame is so unhappily disordered and weakened by their fall, watchfulness over it is become unspeakably more necessary than it was at first. And since, with a nature thus prone to err, we are a considerable time from our birth before we reflect on our actions at all, and, after that, do it very imperfectly; it cannot fail, but our own bad inclinations, and the customs of a bad world, must have led us all aside, more or less, from the right path, before we knew distinctly which it was. Nor have we, many of us, it may be feared, made so early or so effectual an use, as we might, of the faculty of self-government, in that season of warm and hasty passions which quickly follows the first considerable use of reason. And, if not, we may be still surer of finding many things within us that want correction.

A great part of those around us, we see, are quite wicked. And in the few that are seriously good, the most superficial observer and most charitable interpreter will discern a great number of faults and imperfections unreformed. Since therefore failures in point of duty are, from the nature of the thing, to be apprehended, and have in fact happened to all the rest of the world: if we were not usually, by a most preposterous kind of negligence, less attentive to ourselves than to others, we should be likely to perceive the most disorders in that breast, with which we have the most opportunities of being intimately acquainted. But, at least, there is ground enough for us to examine, what our state really is: to search and try our ways; that if we have erred in any thing, we may turn again to the Lord.

And though it is very apparent that such a resolu

tion may have many good consequences, and can have no bad ones, if executed in the manner which every man's reason, and the word of God, will suggest to him: yet, for your further encouragement and direction, I shall lay before you particularly,

I. The advantages that may arise from this inquiry. II. The chief things requisite for performing it aright.

I. The advantages that may arise from it.

A considerable part of the wrong conduct of mankind proceeds, not so much from any strong inclination to do amiss, as from being so unhappily thoughtless, that the slightest motive is enough to determine their choice any way. We engage at first in this or that sort of behaviour, we scarce know why or how: then go on of course in the way we have set out in, without ever thinking whither it leads us; and by usé grow fond of it, and zealous for it; yet are too indolent all the while once to ask ourselves, perhaps, whether we are aiming at any thing; or, however, whether it be at what we ought; or something of little importance, if not hurtful or criminal. Now this case, without reflection, is quite irrecoverable; and a little reflection in time would easily set all right. Nay, even where vehement passions hurry persons into follies and sins, it was for want of this wholesome discipline at first, that their passions gained the mastery; and applying it steadily for some time will be a sure means, through God's blessing, of reducing them again to subjection. For there is no possibility, either of viewing a bad action, in a full light, without abhorrence, or of weighing its consequences without terror. Wickedness, therefore, always banishes thought, and piety and virtue encourage it. A good man, far from being driven to hide his inward con