bines in abundance: thou haft not only robbed the poor man of his one ewe lamb, but thou haft added murder to thine oppreffion; thou haft killed the poor man alfo; thou haft flain Uriah with the sword of the children of Ammon. The King, upon this charge, had no retreat left to his juftification: he that had declared the man fhould die who had killed

his poor neighbour's lamb, could not justify himself who had killed his poor neighbour, that he might the more eafily enjoy his wife; and therefore he had nothing left but this plain confeffion, I have finned against the Lord.

Thus our Saviour alfo, under the parable of an -householder and his vineyard, made the Jews bear witness to the juftice of God, in rejecting their nation from being his people. When he had reprefented how ill the hufbandmen treated the Lord of the vineyard; how they abufed his fervants and deftroyed his Son; even the Jews could give righteous fentence in their own cafe, veiled under these figures, and adjudge the wicked husbandmen to deftruction, and the vineyard to be let to better te

nants.

It is no hard matter to get truth out of men, if you can once get beyond their prejudices, and feparate the truth from all personal views and interefts; for reafon is fufficiently clear, where it is not clouded and obfcured by paffion and affection, The heathen moralifts feem to be fenfible of this, when they clothe the moft beneficial inftructions in the dress of fable: the only reafon of which is, that no man is concerned in the fuccefs of a fable, and therefore will judge impartially; which, if the inftruction

were brought home to him, and applied to his own cafe, he would not perhaps do. A paffionate man will be restrained from his revenge by no prudential confiderations; he despises them all; they are all the leffons of cowardice, and the tokens of a mean fpirit: and yet he never reads the fable of an horse, who, to revenge himself, called in a man's affiftance, and taught him how to mount, from which time he loft all liberty, and has been a flave ever fince, but he laughs at the horfe's folly, and his impotent defire of revenge.

The confequences from what has been faid are plain, and I shall but just touch them.

Firft, It is evident that the true art of convincing any man of his error is to throw him as much as poffible out of the cafe; for, the less a man is concerned himself, the better he judges. You are not to ftir and fret his prejudices, but to decline them; not to reproach him with the error you condemn, but to place the error at a fufficient diftance from him, that he may have a true light to view it in.

Secondly, In private life, it is plain from hence, that innocence is the only true prefervative of reafon and judgment: guilt will difpofe you to feek excuses and fubterfuges, and mislead you in your opinion of yourself and your duty. When once you find yourself labouring to juftify your actions, and fearching for expofitions that may fuit your inclinations, from that moment you may date your lofs

of freedom.

Thirdly, If you find yourself involved in the cafe you are to judge of, inftead of feeking for new reafons and arguments to form your opinion by, you had

much better look back, and reflect what fenfe you had of this matter before the caufe was your own; for it is ten to one but that judgment was much more free and impartial than any you will make now: or confider, if the cafe admits it, what is the fenfe of the fober and virtuous part of the world; you may more fafely truft them than yourself, where your paffions are concerned: at least suppose your enemy in the fame circumftances with yourself, and doing what you find yourself inclined to do, and confider what judgment you should make of him, and fo judge of yourfelf: by thefe means perhaps we may preserve ourselves from the fatal influences which vice and paffion have over the reafon and understanding of mankind.

DISCOURSE LVI.

ROMANS XIV. 16.

Let not then your good be evil spoken of.

IN defcribing the condition of our Christian warfare, St. Peter tells us, If, when ye do well, and fuffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God: to this, fays he, you are called by the example of Chrift, who fuffered reproaches willingly, and, when he was reviled, reviled not again. This is a duty, in which one would think there fhould be no danger of any man's overacting his part. Reproach and contempt are not fuch defirable riches, that we need be warned against their temptations, or cautioned left we too earnestly pursue after them. We are apt enough to fhrink at the approach of calumny, and to invent plaufible excuses for the neglect of a duty, which performed would expofe us to envy or illwill. What then means the Apostle by this exhortation, Let not your good be evil Spoken of? Are we called by Chrift to fuffer revilings and reproaches ? and, are we called by his Apoftle to fly from them and avoid them? Our Saviour seems to speak other language to us in his fermon on the mount: Bleffed