Laftly, When we reflect that this span of life, fhort as it is, is chequered with fo many troubles, that there is nothing in this world fprings up, or can be enjoyed without a mixture of forrow, how infenfibly does it incline us to turn our eyes and affections from fo gloomy a profpect, and fix them upon that happier country, where afflictions cannot follow us, and where God will wipe away all tears from off our faces for ever and ever! Amen,

SERMON XI.

EVIL-SPEAKING.

JAMES 1. 26.

If any man among you feem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, that man's religion is vain,

OF the many duties owing both to God and our neighbour, there are fcarce any men fo bad as not to acquit themfelves of fome; and few fo good, I fear, as to practise all.

Every man feems willing enough to compound the matter, and adopt fo much of the fyftem as will leaft interfere with his principal and ruling paffion; and for those parts which would occafion a more troublesome op pofition, to confider them as hard fayings, and fo leave them for thofe to practife, whofe natural tempers are better fuited to the ftruggle; fo that a man fhall be covetous, oppreffive, revengeful, neither a lover of truth nor common honefty, and yet at the fame time fhall be very religious, and so fanctified, as not once to fail of paying his morning and evening facrifice to God. So, on the other hand, a man fhall live without God in the world, have neither any great sense of religion, nor indeed pretend to have any, and yet be of niceft honour, confcientiously juft and fair in all his dealings. And here it is

that

that men generally betray themselves, deceiving, as the apoftle fays, their own hearts; of which the inftances are fo various, in one degree or other, throughout human life, that one might fafely fay, the bulk of mankind live in fuch a contradiction to themfelves, that there is no character fo hard to be met with as one which, upon a critical examination, will appear altogether uniform, and in every point confiftent with itself.

If fuch a contraft was only observable in the different ftages of a man's life, it would cease to be either a matter of wonder or of juft reproach. Age, experience, and much reflection, may naturally enough be supposed to alter a man's fenfe of things, and fo entirely to transform him, that, not only in outward appearances, but in the very caft and turn of his mind, he may be as unlike and different from the man he was twenty or thirty years ago, as he ever was from any thing of his own fpecies. This, I fay, is naturally to be accounted for, and in fome cafes might be praifeworthy too; but the obfervation is to be made of men in the fame period of their lives, that in the fame day, fometimes in the very fame action, they are utterly inconfiftent and irreconcileable with themfelves.-Look at a man in one light, and he shall seem wife, penetrating, difcreet, and brave; behold him in another point of view, and you fee a creature all over folly and indifcretion, weak and timorous as cowar

dice and indifcretion can make him. A man fhall appear gentle, courteous, and benevolent to all mankind: follow him into his own houfe, may be you fee a tyrant, morofe and favage to all whofe happiness depends upon his kindness. A third in his general behaviour is found to be generous, difinterefted, humane, and friendly-hear but the fad ftory of the friendless orphans, too credulously trufting all their little fubftance into his hands, and he fhall appear more fordid, more pitylefs and unjust than the injured themselves have bitterness to paint him. Another fhall be charitable to the poor, uncharitable in his cenfures and opinions of all the reft of the world befides;-temperate in his appetites, intemperate in his tongue: fhall have too much confcience and religion to cheat the man who trufts him, and, perhaps, as far as the business of debtor and creditor extends, fhall be juft and fcrupulous to the uttermost mite; yet, in matters of full as great concern, where he is to have the handling of the party's reputation and good name,-the deareft the tendereft property the man has, he will do him irreparable damage, and rob him there without measure or pity.

And this feems to be that particular piece of inconfiftency and contradiction which the text is levelled at, in which the words feem fo pointed, as if St. James had known more flagrant inftances of this kind of delufion than what had fallen under the obfervation

of

of any of the reft of the apoftles; he being more remarkably vehement and copious upon that fubject than any other.

Doubtless, fome of his converts had been notoriously wicked and licentious in this remorfeless practice of defamation and evilfpeaking. Perhaps the holy man, though fpotlefs as an angel (for no character is too facred for calumny to blacken) had grievously fuffered himfelf, and, as his bleffed Mafter foretold him, had been cruelly reviled and evil spoken of.

All his labours in the gospel, his unaffected and perpetual folicitude for the preservation of his flock, his watchings and faftings, his poverty, his natural fimplicity and innocence of life, all perhaps were not enough to defend him from this unruly weapon, fo full of deadly poifon:-and what, in all likelihood, might move his forrow and indignation more, fome who feemed the moft devout and zealous of all his converts, were the moft mercylefs and uncharitable in that refpect: having a form of godlinefs, full of bitter envyings and ftrife. With fuch it is that he expoftulates fo largely in the third chapter of his epiftle: and there is fomething in his vivacity tempered with fuch affection and concern, as well fuited the character of an infpired' man. My brethren, fays the apoftle, these things ought not to be.-The wifdom that is from above, is pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, without partiality, without hypocrify. The wifdom from above, that heavenly

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