preme Providence, which disposes of human affairs, not with reverence only, but with trust and hope.

The time of prosperity was to him not merely a season of barren joy, but productive of much useful improvement. He had cultivated his mind. He had stored it with useful knowledge, with good principles, and virtuous dispositions. These resources remain entire, when the days of trouble come. They remain with him in sickness, as in health; in poverty, as in the midst of riches; in his dark and solitary hours, no less than when surrounded with friends and gay society. From the glare of prosperity he can, without dejection, withdraw into the shade. Excluded from several advantages of the world, he may be obliged to retreat into a narrower circle, but within that circle he will find many comforts left. His chief pleasures were always of the calm, innocent, and temperate kind; and over these, the changes of the world have the least power. His mind is a kingdom to him; and he can still enjoy it. The world did not bestow upon him all his enjoyments; and therefore it is not in the power of the world, by its most cruel attacks, to carry them all away.

II. THE distresses of life are alleviated to good men, by reflections on their past conduct; while, by such reflections, they are highly aggravated to the bad. During the gay and active periods of life, sinners elude in some measure, the force of conscience. Carried round in the world of affairs and pleasures; intent on contrivance, or eager in pursuit; amused by hope, or elated by enjoyment; they are sheltered by that crowd of trifles which surrounds them, from serious thought. But conscience is too great a power to remain always suppressed. There is in every man's life, a period when he shall be made to stand forth as a real object to his own view: And when that period comes, woe to him who is galled by the sight! In the dark and solitary hour of distress, with a mind hurt and sore from some recent wound of fortune, how shall he bear to have his character for the first time disclosed to him, in that humiliating light under which guilt will necessarily present it? Then the recollection of the past becomes dreadful. It exhibits to him a life thrown away on vanities and follies, or consumed in flagitiousness and sin; station properly supported; no material duties fulfilled. Crimes which once had been easily palliated, rise before him in their native deformity. The sense of guilt mixes itself with all that has befallen him. He beholds, or thinks that he beholds, the hand of the God whom he hath offended, openly stretched out against him.-At a season when a man stands most in need of support, how intolerable is the weight of this additional load, aggravating the depression of disease, disappointment, or old age! How miserable his state, who is condemned to endure

no

at once the pangs of guilt, and the vexations of calamity! The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmities; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

Whereas, he who is blessed with a clear conscience, enjoys in the worst conjunctures of human life, a peace, a dignity, an elevation of mind peculiar to virtue. The testimony of a good conscience is indeed to be always distinguished from that presumptuous boast of innocence, which every good Christian totally disclaims. The better he is, he will be the more humble, and sensible of his failings. But though he acknowledge that he can claim nothing from God upon the footing of desert, yet he can trust in his merciful acceptance through Jesus Christ, according to the terms of the gospel. He can hope that his prayers and his alms have come up in memorial before God.The piety and virtue of his former life were as seeds sown in his prosperous state, of which he reaps the fruits in the season of adversity. The riches, the pleasures, and the friends of the world, may have made wings to themselves, and flown away.But the improvement which he made of those advantages while they lasted, the temperate spirit with which he enjoyed them, the beneficent actions which he performed, and the good example which he set to others, remain behind. By the memory of these, he enjoys his prosperity a second time in reflection; and perhaps this second and reflected enjoyment is not inferior to the first. It arrives at a more critical and needful time. It affords him the high satisfaction of having extracted lasting pleasure from that which is short; and of having fixed that which by its nature was changing." If my race be now about to end, "I have this comfort, that it has not been run in vain. I have 'fought the good fight; I have kept the faith. My mind has "no load. Futurity has no terrors. I have endeavoured to do

(6 my duty, and to make my peace with God. I leave the rest "to Heaven." These are the reflections which to the upright make light arise in darkness; reflections which cheer the lone ly house of virtuous poverty, and attend the conscientious sufferer into prison or exile; which soothe the complaints of grief, lighten the pressure of old age, and furnish to the bed of sickness, a cordial of more grateful relish, and more sovereign virtue, than any which the world can afford.

Look abroad into life, and you will find the general sense of mankind bearing witness to this important truth, that mind is superior to fortune; that what one feels within, is of much greater importance than all that befals him without. Let a man be brought into some such severe and trying situation, as fixes the attention of the public on his behaviour. The first question which we put concerning him, is not, What does he suffer? but, How does he bear it? Has he a quiet mind? or, Does he appear to be unhap

py within? If we judge him to be composed and firm, resigned to Providence, and supported by conscious integrity, his character rises, and his misery lessens in our view. We esteem and admire, rather than pity him. Recollect what holy men have endured for the sake of conscience, and with what cheerfulness they have suffered. On the other hand, when conscience has concurred with outward misfortunes in distressing the guilty, think of the dreadful consequences which have ensued. How often, upon a reverse of fortune, after abused prosperity, have they madly hurried themselves over that precipice from which there is no return; and, in what nature most abhors, the voluntary extinction of life, have sought relief from that torment of reflection, which was become too great for them to bear?

Never then allow yourselves to imagine that misfortunes alone form the chief misery of man. None but the guilty are completely miserable. The misgiving and distrust, the accusations and reproaches of their minds, the sense of having drawn down upon their heads the evils which they suffer, and the terrifying expectation of more and worse evils to come; these are the essential ingredients of human misery. They not only whet the edge, but they envenom the darts of affliction, and add poison to the wound. Whereas, when misfortunes assail a good man, they carry no such fatal auxiliaries in their train. They may ruffle the surface of his soul; but there is a strength within, which resists their farther impression. The constitution of his mind is sound. The world can inflict upon no wounds, but what admit of cure.

III. ILL men, in the time of trouble, can look up to no protector; while good men commit themselves, with trust and hope, to the care of Heaven. The human mind, naturally feeble, is made to feel all its weakness by the pressure of adversity. Dejected with evils which overpower its strength, it relies no longer on itself. It casts every where around, a wishing, exploring eye, for some shelter to screen, some power to uphold it; and if, when abandoned by the world, it can find nothing to which it may fly in the room of the world, its state is truly forlorn. Now, whither should the ungodly, in this situation, turn for aid?— After having contended with the storms of adverse fortune till their spirits are exhausted, gladly would they retreat at last to the sanctuary of religion. But that sanctuary is shut against them; nay, it is environed with terrors. They behold there, not a Protector to whom they can fly, but a Judge whom they dread, and in those moments when they need his friendship the most, they are reduced to deprecate his wrath. If he once called when they refused, and stretched out his hands when they would not regard, how much reason have they to fear that he will leave them now to eat the fruit of their own ways, and to be

filled with their own devices; that he will laugh at their calimity, and mock when their fear cometh?

But of all the thoughts which can enter into the mind, in the season of distress, the belief of an interest in his favour who rules the world is the most soothing. Every form of religion has afforded to virtuous men some degree of this consolation.But it was reserved for the Christian revelation, to carry it to its highest point. For it is the direct scope of that revelation, to accommodate itself to the circumstances of man, under two main views; as guilty in the sight of God, and as struggling with the evils of the world. Under the former, it discovers to him a Mediator and an atonement; under the latter it promises him the Spirit of grace and consolation. It is a system of complete relief, extended from our spiritual to our temporal distresThe same hand which holds out forgiveness to the penitent, and assistance to the frail, dispenses comfort and hope to the afflicted.

ses.

It deserves your particular notice, in this view, that there is no character which God more frequently assumes to himself in the sacred writings, than that of the Patron of the distressed.— Compassion is that attribute of his nature which he has chosen to place in the greatest variety of lights, on purpose that he might accomodate his majesty to our weakness, and provide a cordial for human griefs. He is the hearer of all prayers; but with particular attention he is represented as listening to the cry of the poor, and regarding the prayer of the destitute. All his creatures he governs with justice and wisdom; but he takes to himself, in a special manner, the charge of executing judgment for the oppressed, of protecting the stranger, of delivering him who hath no helper, from the hand of the spoiler. For the oppression of the poor, and for the sighing of the needy, will I arise, saith the Lord, to set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. He is the Father of the fatherless, and the Judge of the widows, in his holy habitation. He raiseth them up that are bowed down. He dwelleth with the contrite. He healeth the broken in heart. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.*-If the wisdom of his providence saw it necessary to place so many of his creatures in an afflicted state, that state, however, he commiserates. He disdains not to point out himself as the refuge of the virtuous and pious; and to invite them, amidst all their troubles, to pour out their hearts before him. Those circumstances which estrange others from them, interest him the more in their situation. The neglect or scorn of the world exposes them not to any contempt in his sight. No obscurity conceals them from his notice; and though they should be for

* Psalm ix. 8.-cii. 17.-cxlvi. 7.-lxviii. 5.-exlvii. 3.-ciii. 14, &c.

gotten by every friend on earth, they are remembered by the God of Heaven. That sigh, heaved from the afflicted bosom, which is heard by no human ear, is listened to by him; and that tear is remarked, which falls unnoticed or despised by the world.

Such views of the Supreme Being impart the most sensible consolation to every pious heart. They present his administration under an aspect so mild and benign, as in a great measure to disperse the gloom which hangs over human life. A good man acts with a vigour, and suffers with a patience more than human, when he believes himself countenanced by the Almighty. Injured or oppressed by the world, he looks up to a Judge who will vindicate his cause; he appeals to a Witness who knows his integrity; he commits himself to a Friend who will never forsake him. When tired with the vexations of life, devotion opens to him its quiet retreat, where the tumults of the world are hushed, and its cares are lost in happy oblivion; where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. There his mind regains its serenity; the agitation of passion is calmed; and a softing balm is infused into the wounds of the spirit. Disclosing to an invisible Friend, those secret griefs which he has no encouragement to make known to the world, his heart is lightened. He does not feel himself solitary or forsaken. He believes God to be present with him, and the Holy Ghost to be the inspirer of his consolations. From that secret place of the Divine tabernacle, into which the text represents him as admitted, he hears this voice issue, Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee. Fear not; for I am with thee. Be not dismayed; for I am thy God. And as he hears a voice which speaks to none but the pure in heart, so he beholds a hand which sinners cannot see. He beholds the hand of Providence conducting all the hidden springs and movements of the universe; and with a secret, but unerring operation, directing every event towards the happiness of the righteous. Those afflictions which appear to others the messengers of the wrath of Heaven, appear to him the ministers of sanctification and wisdom. Where they discern nothing but the horrors of the tempest which surrounds them, his more enlightened eye beholds the angel who rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. Hence a peace keeping the mind and heart, which is no where to be found but under the pavilion of the Almighty.

IV. Good men are comforted under their troubles by the hope of Heaven; while bad men are not only deprived of this hope, but distressed with fears arising from a future state. The soul of man can never divest itself wholly of anxiety about its fate hereafter. There are hours when even to the prosperous, in the midst of their pleasures, eternity is an awful thought. But much