SERMON 7

 

OF SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS.

 

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, OCTOBER p21, 1693.

 

LUKE 11: 35.

 

Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

 

 As LIGHT is certainly one of the most glorious and useful creatures that ever issued from the wisdom and power of the great Creator of the world, so were the eye of the soul as little weakened by the fall, as the eye of the body, no doubt the light within us would appear as much more glorious than the light without us, as the spiritual, intellectual part of the creation exceeds the glories of the sensible and corporeal.

 

 I shall indifferently express this light by the name of conscience, (as a term equivalent to it,) in the following particulars; but still this shall be, with respect to its informing, rather than to its obliging office. Forasmuch as it is the former of these only which is the proper effect of light, and not the latter. For though conscience be both a light, and, (as it commands under GOD,) a law too; yet as it is a light, it is not formally a law. For if it were, then whatsoever it discovered to us, it would also oblige us to. But this is not so; since it both may, and does discover to us the different nature of many things and actions without obliging us either to the practice or forbearance of them; which one consideration alone is sufficient to set the difference, between the enlightening and the obliging office of conscience, clear beyond all objection.

 

 Now this light, as it is certainly the great and sovereign gift of GOD to mankind for the guidance and government of their actions, in all that concerns them, with reference to this life, or a better; so it is also as certain, that it is capable of being turned into darkness, and thereby made wholly useless for so noble a purpose. For so much the words of the text import; nor do they import only a bare possibility, that it may be so, but also a very high probability that, without an extraordinary prevention, it will be so.. For as much as all warning, in the very reason of the thing, and according to the natural force of such expression, implies in it these two things: 1. Some very considerable evil, or mischief warned against; and, 2. An equal danger of falling into it: without which all warning would be not only superfluous, but ridiculous.

 

 Now, both these, in the present case, are very great; as will appear by a distinct consideration of each of them. And,

 

 1. For the evil which we are warned or cautioned against; to wit, the turning of this light within us into darkness: An evil so inconceivably great and comprehensive, that, to give an account of the utmost extent of it, would pose our thoughts, as well as nonplus our expressions. But yet to help our apprehensions of it the best we can, let us but consider with ourselves those intolerable evils which bodily blindness, deafness, stupefaction, and an utter deprivation of all sense, must unavoidably subject the outward man to. For what is one, in such a condition, able to do And what is he not liable to suffer And yet doing and suffering, upon the matter, comprehend all that concerns a man in this world. If such an one's enemy seeks his life, in this forlorn case, he can neither see, nor hear, nor perceive his approach, till he finds himself actually in his murdering hands. He can neither encounter, nor escape him; neither in his own defense give nor ward off a blow For whatsoever blinds a man, ipso facto disarms him; so that being bereft both of his sight and of all his senses besides, what such an one can be fit for, unless it be to set up for prophecy, or believe transubstantiation, I cannot imagine.

 

 These, I say, are some of those fatal mischiefs, which corporal blindness and insensibility expose the body to; and are not those of a spiritual blindness unexpressibly greater For must not a man, laboring under this, be utterly at a loss, how to distinguish between the two grand governing concerns of life, good and evil And may not the ignorance of these cost us as dear as the knowledge of them did our first parents Life and death, vice and virtue, come alike to such an one; as all things are of the same color to him who cannot see, his whole soul is nothing but night and confusion, darkness and indistinction. He cannot see the way to happiness, and how then should he avoid it For where there is no sense of things, there can be no distinction; and where there is no distinction, there can be no choice.

 

 A man, destitute of this directing and distinguishing light within him, is and must be at the mercy of every thing in nature, that would impose or serve a turn upon him. So that whatsoever the Devil will have him do, that he must do. Whithersoever any exorbitant desire or design hurries him, thither he must go. Whatsoever any base interest shall prescribe, that he must set his hand to, whether his heart goes along with it or no. If he be a statesman, he must be as willing to sell, as the enemy of his country can be to buy. If a churchman, he must be ready to surrender, and give up the church, and make a sacrifice of the altar itself, though he live by it; and, (in a word,) take that for a full discharge from all his obligations to do as he is bid. Which being the case of such as steer by a false light, certainly no slave in the gallies is or can be in such a wretched condition of slavery as a man thus abandoned by conscience, and bereft of all inward principles, that should either guide or control him in the course of his conversation. So that we see here the transcendant greatness of the evil which we stand cautioned against. But then,

 

 2. If it were an evil that seldom happened, that very rarely befell a man, this might, in a great measure, supersede the strictness of the caution; but on the contrary, we shall find, that as great as the evil is, which we are to fence against, (and that is as great as the capacities of an immortal soul,) the greatness of the danger is still commensurate For it is a case that usually happens; it is a mischief as frequent in the event, as it is fatal in the effect. It is, as in a common plague, in which the infection is as hard to be escaped, as the distemper to be cured: For that which brings this darkness upon the soul is sin. And as the state of nature now is, the soul is not so close united to the body, as sin is to the soul; indeed, so close is the union between them, that one would even think the soul itself (as much a spirit as it is) were the matter, and sin the form, in our present constitution. In a word, there is a set combination of all without a man, and all within him, of all above ground, and all under it, (if bell be so,) first to put out his eyes, and then to draw or drive him headlong into perdition. From all which I suppose, we must needs see reason more than sufficient for this admonition of our SAVIOR, " Take heed that the light which is in thee be not darkness:" An admonition founded upon no less a concern, than all that a man can save, and all that he can lose to eternity. And thus having shown both the vastness of the evil itself, and the extreme danger we are in of it: Since no man can be at all the wiser, or the safer, for barely knowing his danger, without a vigorous application to prevent it; and since the surest preventive of it, is to know by what arts and methods, our enemy will encounter us, and by which he is most likely to prevail over us, we will inquire into, and consider those ways and means by which he commonly attempts, and too frequently effects this so dismal a change upon us, as to strip us even of the poor remains of our fallen nature, by turning the last surviving spark of it, this light within. us, into darkness.

 

 For this must be acknowledged, that no man living, in respect of conscience, is born blind, but makes himself so. None can strike out the eye of his conscience but himself For nothing can put it out, but that which sins it out. And upon this account, it must be confessed, that a man may love his sin so enormously, as by a very ill application of the Apostle's expression, even to "pluck out his own eyes, and give them to it;" as, indeed, every obstinate sinner in the world does.

 

Our present business, therefore, shall be to show how, and by what courses, this divine light, this candle of the LORD, comes first to burn faint and dim, and so by a gradual decay fainter and fainter, till at length, by a total extinction, it quite sinks to nothing, and so dies away. And this I shall do, 1: In general; and, 2: In particular.

 

 I. And First in general, I shall lay down these two observations:

 

 1. That whatsoever defiles the conscience, in the same degree also darkens it.

 

 As to the philosophy of which, how and by what way this is done, it is hard to conceive, and much harder to, explain. Our great unacquaintance with the nature of spiritual, immaterial beings leaving us wholly in the dark as to any explicit knowledge, either how they work, or how they are worked upon. So that in discoursing of these things we are forced to take up with analogy and allusion, instead of evidence and demonstration. Nevertheless, the thing itself is certain, be the manner of effecting it never so unaccountable.

 

 Yet thus much we find, that there is something in sin analogous to blackness, as innocence is frequently, in Scripture, expressed and set forth to us by whiteness. All guilt blackens (or does something equivalent to the blackening of) the soul; as where pitch cleaves to any thing, it is sure to leave upon it both its foulness and its blackness together: And then we know that blackness and darkness are inseparable.

 

 Some even of the old Heathens (not without countenance from ARISTOTLE himself) hold, that besides the native inherent light of the intellect, (which is essential to it, as it is a faculty made to apprehend its object,) there is also another light, in the nature of a medium, beaming in upon it by a continual efflux and emanation from the great Fountain of light, and irradiating this intellectual faculty, together with the representations of things imprinted thereupon. According to which doctrine, it seems with great reason to follow, that whatsoever interposes between the mind and irradiations from GOD, (as all sin, more or less, certainly does,) must needs hinder the entrance and admission of them into the mind; and then darkness must, by necessary consequence, ensue, as being nothing else but the absence or privation of light.

 

 For the further illustration of which notion, we may observe, that the understanding, the mind, or conscience of man, (which we shall here take for the same thing,) seem to bear much the same respect to GOD, which glass or crystal does to the light or sun; which appears, indeed, to the eye a bright and a shining thing; nevertheless this shining is not so much from any essential light or brightness existing in the glass itself, (supposing that there be any such in it,) as it is from the porousness of its body, rendering it transparent, and thereby fit to receive and transmit those rays of light, which falling upon it, and passing through it, represent it to common view as a luminous body.. But now, let any thing of dirt or foulness sully this glass, and so much of the shine or brightness of it is presently gone, because so much of the light is thereby hindered from entering into it, and making its way through it. But if, beside all this, you should also draw some black color, or deep die upon it, either by paint or otherwise, then no brightness could be seen in it at all; but the light being hereby utterly shut out, the glass or crystal would shine or glister no more than a piece of wood, or a clod of earth.

 

 In like manner, every act of sin, every degree of guilt, does, in its proportion, cast a kind of soil or foulness upon the intellectual part of the soul, and thereby intercepts those blessed irradiations, which the divine nature is continually darting in upon it. Nor is this all, but there are also some certain sorts and degrees of guilt, so very black and foul. that they fall like an huge thick blot upon this faculty; and so sinking into it, and settling within it, utterly exclude all those illuminations, which would otherwise flow into it, and rest upon it, from the great Father of lights; and this not from any failure, or defect in the illumination itself, but from the indisposition of the object, which, being thus blackened, can neither let in, nor transmit the beams that are cast upon it.'

 

I will not affirm this to be a perfect exemplification of the case before us, but I am sure it is a lively illustration of it, and may be of no small use to such as shall thoroughly consider it. But however, (as I showed before,) the thing itself is certain and unquestionable, guilt and darkness being always so united, that you shall never find darkness mentioned in Scripture in a moral sense, but you shall also find it derived from sin, as its direct cause, and joined with it as its constant companion: For, by a mutual production, sin both causes darkness, and is caused by it. Let this, therefore, be our first general observation, that whatsoever pollutes or fouls the conscience, in the same degree also darkens it.

 

 2. Our other general observation shall be this, that whatsoever puts a bias upon the conscience, weakens and by consequence darkens the light of it. A clear and a right judging conscience must be always impartial; and that it may be so, it must be perfectly indifferent: That is, it must be free and disencumbered from every thing which may, in the least, sway or incline it one way, rather than another, beyond what the sole and mere evidence of things would naturally lead it to. In a word, it must judge all by evidence, and nothing by inclination. And this our blessed SAVIOR, with admirable emphasis and significance of expression, calls the singleness of the eye. " If the eye," says he, " be single, thy whole body shall be full of light:" That is, nothing extraneous must cleave to, or join with the eye in the act of seeing, but it must be left solely and entirely to itself, and its bare object, as naked as truth; as pure, simple, and unmixed as sincerity. Otherwise the whole operation of it unavoidably passes into cheat, fallacy, and delusion. As, to make the case yet more particular; if you put a muffler before the eye, it cannot see; if any mote or dust falls into it, it can hardly see; and if there be any soreness or pain in it, it shuns the light, and will riot see. And all this by a very easy, but yet certain and true analogy, is applicable to the eye of the soul, the conscience; and the instance is verifiable upon it, in every one of the alleged particulars.

 

 In short, whatsoever bends, or puts a bias upon the conscience, represents things to it by a false light; and whatsoever does so, causes in it a false and erroneous judgment of things. And all error or falsehood is, in the very nature of a real intellectual darkness; and consequently must diffuse a darkness upon the mind, so far as it is affected and possessed with it. And thus much for our second general observation.

 

 From whence we shall now pass to particulars. In the assigning and stating of which, as I showed before, that sin in general was the general cause of this darkness, so the particular causes of it must be fetched from the particular kinds and degrees of sin.

 

 Now sin may be considered three ways. (l.) In the act. (2.) In the habit of custom. (3.) In the affection, or productive principles of it. In all which we shall show what a darkening and malign influence sin has upon the conscience or mind of man; and consequently with what extreme care and severe vigilance the conscience ought to be guarded and watched over in all these respects. And,

 

 (1.) For sin considered in the single act. Every particular commission of any great sin, such as are, for instance, the sin of perjury, of uncleanness, of drunkenness, of theft; and, above all, undutifulness to parents, (which being a thing so much against nature, nothing in nature can be said for it:) These I say, and the like capital, soul wasting sins, even in any one single act, have a strangely efficacious power to darken the conscience.

 

 Yea, every single gross act of sin, is much the same thing to the conscience, that a great blow or fall is to the head; it stuns and bereaves it of all use of its senses for a time: Thus those sins of DAVID, so mazed and even stupefied his conscience, that it lay as it were in a swoon, and void of all spiritual sense for almost a whole year. For we do not find, that he came to himself or to any true sight or sense of his horrid guilt, till NATHAN the Prophet came and roused him up with a message from GOD; nor did NATHAN come to him, till after the child, begotten in that adultery, was born. Such a terrible deadness and stupefaction did those two sins bring upon his soul for so many months together, during which time whatsoever notion of murder and adultery DAVID might have in general; yet no doubt, he had but very slight and superficial thoughts of the heinousness of his own in particular. And what was the reason of this Why, his conscience was cast into a dead sleep, and could not so much as open its eyes, so as to be able to look either upwards or inwards. This was his sad and forlorn estate, notwithstanding that long course of piety and converse with GOD, which he was now grown old in. For he had been an early practicer, and an eminent proficient in the ways of GOD, and was now past the fiftieth year of his age; and yet, we see, that one or two such gross sins dulled and deadened the spiritual principle within him to such a degree, that they left him for a long time (as it were) dozed and benumbed, blind and insensible; and no doubt, had not a peculiar grace from GOD raised him up and recovered him, he had continued so to his life's end.

 

 For this is most certain, and worth our best observation; that whatsoever carries a man off from GOD, will in the natural course, and tendency of it, carry him still further and further; till at length it leaves him neither will nor power to return. For repentance is neither the design, nor work of mere nature, which immediately after the commission of sin never puts a man upon disowning or bewailing it; but upon studying how to palliate and extenuate, and rather than fail, how to plead for and defend it. This was the course which ADAM took upon the first sin: And the same course in the same case will be taken by all the sons of ADAM (if left to themselves) as long as the world stands.

 

 (2.) The frequent and repeated practice of sin has also a mighty power in it to obscure and darken the natural light of conscience. Nothing being more certainly true, nor more universally acknowledged, that that custom of sinning takes away the sense of sin; and, we may add, the sight of.it too. For though the darkness consequent upon any one gross act of sin, be (as we have showed) very great, yet that which is caused by custom of sinning, is much greater and more hardly curable. Particular acts of sin do (as it were) cast a mist before the eye of conscience, but customary sinning brings a kind of film upon it, and it is not an ordinary skill which can take off that. The former only closes the eye, but this latter puts it out; as leaving upon the soul a wretched impotence, either to judge, or to do well; much like the spots of the leopard not to be changed, or the blackness of an Ethiopian not to be washed off. For by these very things the SPIRIT of GOD, in Jer. 8: 23, expresses the iron invincible force of a wicked custom.

 

 Now the reason, I conceive, that such a custom brings such a darkness upon the mind or conscience, is this, that a man naturally designs to please himself in all that he does; and that it is impossible for him to find any action really pleasurable, while he judges it absolutely unlawful; since the sting of this must needs take off the relish of the other, and it would be an intolerable torment to any man's mind, to be always doing, and always condemning himself for what he does. And for this cause a man shuts his eyes, and stops his ears against all that his reason would tell him of the sinfulness of that practice, which long custom, and frequency, has endeared to him. So that he becomes studiously and affectedly ignorant of the illness of' the course he takes, that he may the' more sensibly taste the pleasure of it. And thus, when an inveterate, imperious custom has so overruled all a man's faculties, as neither to suffer his eyes to see, nor his ears to hear, nor his mind to think of the evil of what he does; that is, when all the instruments of knowledge are forbid to do their office, ignorance and obscurity must needs be upon the whole soul, For when the windows are stopped up, no wonder if the whole room be dark.

 

 The truth is, such an habitual frequency of sinning, does (as it were) bar and bolt up the conscience against the' sharpest reproofs, and the most convincing instructions; so that when GOD, by the thunder of his judgments, and the voice of his ministers, has been ringing hell and vengeance into the ears of such a sinner, perhaps, like FELIX, he may tremble a little for the present, and seem to yield, and fall down before the over powering evidence of the conviction; but after a while, custom overcoming conscience, the man goes his way, and though he is convinced, and satisfied what he ought to do, yet he actually does what he uses to do: And all this, because through the darkness of his intellect he judges the present pleasure of such a sinful course, an over balance to the evil of it.

 

And what a darkness and delusion must conscience needs be under, while it makes a man judge that really best for him, which directly tends to, and generally ends in, his utter ruin and damnation! Custom is said to be a second nature, and if by the first we are already so bad, by the second (to be sure) we shall be much worse..

 

 (3.) Every corrupt passion, or affection of the mind, will certainly pervert the judging, and obscure and darken the discerning power of conscience. The affections which the Greeks call IIabn, and the Latins ajectus animi, are of much the same use to the soul, which the members are of to the body; serving as the proper instruments of most of its actions; and are always attended with a certain motion of the blood and spirits peculiar to each passion, or affection. And as for the seat or fountain of them, philosophers both place them in and derive them from the heart. But not to insist upon mere speculations: The passions or affections are (as I may so call them) the mighty flights and sallyings out of the soul upon such objects as come before it; and are generally accompanied with such vehemence, that the Stoics reckoned them, in their very nature and essence, as so many irregularities, and deviations from right reason, and by no means incident to a wise or good than.

 

 But though better philosophy has long since exploded this opinion, and Christianity, which is the greatest and the best, has taught us, that that godly sorrow is neither a paradox nor a contradiction, (2 Cor. 7: 1O,) and consequently, that in every passion or affection there is something purely natural, which may both be distinguished and divided too from what is sinful and irregular; yet notwithstanding all this, it must be confessed, that the passions are extremely apt to pass into excess, and that when they do so, nothing in the world is a greater hindrance to the mind or reason of man, from making a true, clear, and exact judgment of things, than the passions thus wrought up to any thing of ferment or agitation. It being as impossible to keep the judging faculty steady in such a case,, as it would be to view a thing distinctly and perfectly through a perspective glass held by a shaking, paralytic hand.

 

 When the affections are once engaged, the judgment is always partial. There is a strong bent, or bias upon it; it is possessed and gained over, and as it were feed and retained in their cause, and thereby made utterly unable to carry such an equal regard to the object, as to consider truth nakedly, and as such to make it the rigid inflexible rule, which it is to judge by; especially where duty is the thing to be judged of. For a man will hardly be brought to judge right, and true, when by such a judgment he is sure to condemn himself.

 

 But this being a point of such high importance, I will be yet more particular about it, and show severally, in several vicious affections, how impossible it is for a man to keep his conscience rightly informed, and fit to guide and direct him in all the arduous perplexing cases of sin and duty, while he is actually under the power of any of them. This I know men, generally, are not apt to believe, or to think that the failures of their morals can at all affect their intellectuals. But I doubt not but to make it not only credible, but undeniable.

 

 Now the vicious affections which I shall single out of those vast numbers, which the heart of man, that great storehouse of the Devil, abounds with, as some of the principal, which thus darken and debauch the conscience, shall be these three: 1. Sensuality. 2. Covetousness. 3. Ambition. Of each of which I shall speak particularly.

 

 1. And First for Sensuality, or a vehement delight in, and pursuit of bodily pleasures. We may truly say of the body, with reference to the soul, what was said by the poet of an ill neighbor, Nemo tam prope tam proculque None so nearly joined in point of vicinity, and yet so widely distant in point of interest and inclinations.

 

The ancient philosophers generally holding the soul of man to be a spiritual immaterial substance, could give no account of the several defects in the operations of it, (which they were sufficiently sensible of,) but from immersion into, and intimate conjunction with matter. And accordingly all their complaints and accusations were still levelled at this, as the only cause of all that they found amiss in the whole frame and constitution of man's nature. In a word, whatsoever was observed by them, either irregular or defective in the workings of the mind, was all charged upon the body, as its great clog and impediment. As the skilfullest artist in the world would make but sorry work of it should he be forced to make use of tools no way fit for his purpose.

 

 But whether the fault be in the spiritual or corporeal part of our nature, or rather in both, certain it is, that no two things in the world do more rise and grow upon the fall of each other, than the flesh and the spirit: They being like a kind of balance in the hand of nature, so that as one mounts up, the other still sinks down; and the high estate of the body seldom or never fails to be the low, declining estate of the soul. Which great contrariety and discord between them, the Apostle describes, as well as words can do: " The flesh (says he) lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit lusteth against the flesh, and these two are contrary (Gal. 5: 7;) like two mighty Princes, whose territories join, they are always encroaching, and warring upon one another. And, as it most commonly falls out, that the worse cause has the best success; so when the flesh and the spirit come to a battle, it is seldom but the flesh comes off victorious. And therefore the same great Apostle, who so "constantly exercised himself to keep a conscience void of offence," did as constantly and severely exercise himself " to keep under his body, and bring it into subjection." (1 Cor. 9: 27.) And the same, in all ages, has been the judgment and practice of all such as have had any experience in the ways of GOD. For bodily pleasure dulls and weakens the operations of the mind, even upon a natural account, and much more upon a spiritual. Now the pleasures which chiefly affect, or rather bewitch the body, and by so doing become the pest, and poison, of the nobler and intellectual part of man, are those false and fallacious pleasures of Lust and Intemperance Of each of which severally.

 

 (1.) And, First, For Lust. Nothing does, or can darken the mind, or conscience of man more: Nay, it has a peculiar efficacy this way, and for that cause may justly be ranked amongst the very powers of darkness: It being that which, (as naturalists observe,) strikes at the proper seat of the understanding, the brain. Something of that "blackness of darkness" mentioned inverse 13 of ST. JUDE, seeming to be of the very nature, as well as punishment of this vice.

 

Nor does only the reason of the thing itself, but also the examples of such as have been possessed with it, demonstrate as much. For had not SAMSON (think we) an intolerable darkness and confusion upon his understanding, while he ran roving after every strumpet in that brutish manner that he did Was it not the eye of his conscience which DELILAH first put out And when the two angels (as we read in Gen. xix) struck those monsters, the men of SonoM, with blindness, had not their own detestable lusts first stricken them with a greater Or could HEROD have ever thought himself obliged by the religion of an oath, to have murdered the Baptist, bad not his lust and his HERODIAS imprisoned and murdered his conscience first For, surely, the common light of nature could not but teach him, that no oath or vow whatsoever could warrant the greatest Prince upon earth to take away the life of an innocent person. But it seems, his besotted conscience having broken through the seventh commandment, the sixth stood too near to it to be safe long: And therefore his two great casuists, the Devil and HE RODIAS, having allowed him to he and wallow in adultery so long, easily persuaded him that the same salvo might be found out for murder also. So that it was his lust obstinately continued in, which thus darkened and deluded his conscience; and the same will, no doubt, darken and delude, and, in the end, extinguish the conscience of any man breathing, who shall surrender himself up to it. The light within him shall grow every day less and less, and at length totally and finally go out. So hard, or rather utterly unfeasible it is for men to be zealous votaries of the blind god without losing their eyes in his service.

 

 From all which it appears, what a folly it is for any one under the dominion of his lust, to think to have a right judgement in things relating to the state of his soul.

 

 (2.) And the same, in the Second place, holds equally in that other branch of sensuality, Intemperance; where upon we find them both joined together by the Prophet, "Whoredom," says he, 11 and wine taketh away the heart;" (Hosea 4: 11;) that is, according to the language of Holy Writ, a man's judging and discerning abilities. And there fore, whosoever would preserve these faculties (especially as to their discernment of spiritual objects) quick and vigorous, must be sure to keep the upper region of his soul clear and serene; which the fumes of meat and drink, luxuriously taken in, will never suffer it to be. We know the method, which that high and exact pattern of spiritual prudence, ST. PAUL, took to keep the great sentinel of his soul, his conscience, always vigilant and circumspect. It was

 

by a constant and severe temperance, heightened with frequent watchings and fastings, as he himself tells us, "In watchings often, in fastings often." (2 Cor. 11: 9.7.)

 

This was the discipline which kept his senses exercised to a sure and exquisite discrimination of good and evil, and made the lamp within him shine always with a bright and triumphant flame.

 

 But gluttony, and all excess, either in eating or drinking, strangely clouds and dulls the intellectual powers; and then, it is not to be expected that the conscience should bear up, when the understanding is drunk down. An epicure's practice naturally disposes a man to an epicure's principles; that is, to an equal looseness in both: And he who makes his belly his business, will quickly come to have a conscience of as large a swallow as his throat, of which there want not several deplorable instances. Loads of meat and drink are fit for none but a beast of burden to bear; and he is much the greater beast of the two, who carries his burden in his belly, than he who carries it upon his back. On the contrary, nothing is so great a friend to the mind of man, as abstinence; it strengthens the memory, clears the apprehension, and sharpens the judgment, and in a word, gives reason its full scope of acting; and when reason has that, it is always a diligent and faithful handmaid to conscience. And therefore, where men look no further than mere nature, (as many do not,) let no man expect to keep his gluttony and his parts, his drunkenness and his wit, his revellings and his judgment, and much less conscience together. For neither grace, nor nature will have it so. It is an utter contradiction to the methods of both: Who has woe who has sorrow who has contentions who has babbling who has wounds without cause who has redness of eyes" says SOLOMON. (Prov. 23: 29.) Which question he himself presently answers in the next verse, " They who tarry long at the wine, they who seek after mixed wine." So say I, Who has a stupid intellect, a broken memory, and a blasted wit, and (which is worse than all) a blind and benighted conscience, but the intemperate and luxurious, the epicure and the smell feast So impossible is it for a man to turn sot, without making himself a blockhead too. I know this is not always the present effect of these courses, but, at a long run, it will infalliably be so; and time and luxury together will certainly change the inside, as it does the outside of the best heads whatsoever; and much more of such heads as are strong for nothing but to bear drink. And thus much for the first great darkener of man's mind, Sensuality, and that in both the branches of it, Lust and Intemperance.

 

 2. Another vicious affection, which clouds and darkens the conscience, is Covetousness. Concerning which it may truly; be affirmed, that of all the vices incident to human nature, none so powerfully and peculiarly carries the soul downwards as covetousness does. It makes it all earth and dirt, burying that noble thing which can never die. So that while the body is above ground, the soul is under it; and therefore must needs be in a state of darkness, while it converses in the regions of it.

 

 How mightily this vice darkens and debases the mind, Scripture instances abundantly show. When MosEs would assign the proper qualifications of a Judge, (which office certainly calls for the quickest apprehension and the solidest judgment,) " You shall not (says he) take a gift." (Dent. 16: 9.) But why He presently adds the reason " Because a gift (says he) blinds the eyes of the wise." And no wonder, for it perverts their will; and then, who so blind as the man who resolves not to see Gold, it seems, being but a very bad help and cure of the eyes in such cases In like manner, when SAMUEL would set the credit of his integrity above all the aspersions of envy and calumny itself, " Of whose hands," says he, " have I received a bribe to blind my eyes therewith" (1 Sang. 12: 3.) Implying thereby, that for a man to be gripe handed and clear sighted too was impossible. And again, " A gift," says the wise man, " destroyeth the heart:" (Eccles. 7: 7:) That is, (as we have shown already,) the judging and discerning powers of the soul. By all which we see, that in the judgment of some of the wisest and greatest men that ever lived, such as MOSES, SAMUEL, SOLOMON, covetousness baffles and befools the mind, blinds and confounds the reasoning faculty, and that not only in ordinary persons, but even in the ablest, the wisest, and most sagacious. And to give you one proof, above all, of the peculiar blinding power of this vice, there is not the most covetous wretch breathing, who does so much as see or perceive that he is covetous.

 

 For the truth is, preach to the conscience of a covetous person (if he may be said to have any) with the " tongue of men and angels," and tell him of " the vanity of the world," of " treasure in heaven," and of the necessity of being "rich towards GOD," and liberal to his poor brother and it is all but flat, insipid, and ridiculous stuff to him, who neither sees, nor feels, nor suffers any thing to pass into his heart but through his hands. You must preach to such a one of bargain and sale, profits and perquisites, principal and interest, use upon use; and if you can persuade him that godliness is gain in his own sense, perhaps you may do something with him; otherwise, though you edge every word you speak with reason and religion, evidence and demonstration, you shall never affect, nor touch, nor so much as reach his conscience; for it is kept sealed up in a bag under lock and key, and you cannot come at it.

 

 And thus much for the Second base affection that blinds the mind of man, which is Covetousness: A thing directly contrary to the very spirit of Christianity, which is a free, a large, and an open spirit; a spirit open to GOD and man, and always carrying charity in one hand and generosity in the other.

 

 3. The Third and last vile affection which I shall mention (as having the same darkening effect upon the mind or conscience) is Ambition. For as covetousness dulls the mind by pressing it down too much below itself, so ambition dazzles it by lifting it up as much above itself; but both of them are sure to darken the light of it. For if you either look too intently down a deep precipice upon a thing at an extreme distance below you, or with the same earnestness fix your eye upon something at too great an height above you, in both cases you will find a vertigo or giddiness. And where there is a giddiness in the head, there will be always a mist before the eyes.

 

 Pride, we know, (which is always cousin german to ambition,) is commonly reckoned the fore runner of a fall. It was the Devil's sin, and the Devil's ruin, and has been ever since the Devil's stratagem, who like an experienced wrestler, usually gives a man a lift, before he gives him a throw. But how does he do this Why, by first blinding him with ambition; and when a man either cannot or will not mind the' ground he stands upon, he is easily justled down and thrust headlong into the next ditch. The truth is, in this case men seem to ascend to an high station, just as they use to leap down a great steep: In both cases they shut their eyes first, for in both the danger is very dreadful, and the way to venture upon it is not to see it.

 

 Yea, so fatally does this towering, aspiring humor intoxicate and impose upon men's minds, that when the Devil stands bobbing and tantalizing their gaping hopes with some preferment in church or state, they shall do the basest, the vilest, and most odious things imaginable; and that, riot only in defiance of conscience, but, which is yet more impudent and intolerable, shall even allege conscience itself as the very reason for the doing of them: And when they have done, shall wipe their mouths, and with as bold a front look the world in the face, as if they expected thanks for such villanies, as a modest malefactor would scarce presume to expect a pardon for.

 

 Let this therefore be fixed upon as a certain maxim, that ambition first blinds the conscience, and then leads the man whither it will, and that is in the direct course of it, to the Devil.

 

 I know there are many more irregular and corrupt affections belonging to the mind of man, and all of them in their degree apt to darken and obscure the light of conscience. Such as are wrath and revenge, envy and malice, fear and despair, with many such others, even too many a great deal, to be crowded into one discourse. But the three fore mentioned (which we have been treating of) are, doubtless, the most predominant, the most potent in their influence, and most pernicious in their effect, as answering to those three principal objects, which, of all others, do most absolutely command and domineer over the desires of men; to wit, the pleasures of the world working upon their sensuality; the profits of the world upon their covetousness; and lastly, the honors of it upon their ambition. Which three powerful incentives, meeting with these three violent affections, are (as it were) the great trident in the tempter's hand, by which he strikes through the very hearts and souls of men; or as a mighty'1 three fold cord," by which he first hampers and then draws the whole world after him, and that with such a rapid swing, such an irresistible fascination upon the understandings as well as appetites of men, that as GOD said heretofore, " Let there be light, and there was light," so this proud rival of his Creator, and overturner of the creation, is still saying in defiance of him,' Let there be darkness,' and accordingly there is darkness; darkness upon the mind and reason, darkness upon the judgment and conscience of all mankind.

 

 So that hell itself seems to be nothing else, but the Devil's finishing this his great work, and the consummation of that darkness in another world which he had so fatally be , gun in this. And now, to sum up briefly the foregoing particulars, you have heard of what vast and infinite moment it is to have a clear, impartial, and right judging conscience; such an one as a man may reckon himself safe in the directions of, as of a guide that will always tell him truth, and truth with authority; and that the eye of conscience may be' always thus quick and lively, let constant use be sure to keep it constantly open; and thereby ready and prepared to let in those heavenly beams, which are always streaming forth from GOD upon minds fitted to receive them.

 

 And to this purpose let a man fly from every thing which may leave either a foulness or a bias upon it; for the first will blacken, and the other will distort it, and both be sure to darken it. Particularly let him dread every gross act of sin; for one great stab may as certainly and speedily destroy life as forty lesser wounds. Let him also carry a jealous eye over every growing habit of sin; for custom is an over match to nature, and seldom conquered by grace; and, above all, let him keep aloof from all fellowship with any vicious and base affection; especially from all sensuality, which is not only the dirt, but the black dirt, which the Devil throws upon the souls of men: Accordingly, let him keep himself untouched with the hellish, unhallowed heats of lust, and the noisome steams and exhalations of intemperance, which never fail to leave a brutish dullness and infatuation behind them. Likewise, let him bear himself above that sordid' and low thing, that utter contradiction to all greatness of mind, covetousness; let him disenslave himself from the pelf of the world, from that amor sceleratus habendi; for all love has something of blindness attending it, but the love of money especially. And lastly, let him learn so to look upon the honors, the pomp, and greatness of the world, as to look through them too. Fools, indeed, are apt to be blown up by them, and to sacrifice all for them; sometimes venturing their very heads, only to get a feather in their caps. But wise men, instead of looking above them, choose rather to look about them and within them, and by so doing, keep their eyes always in their heads, and maintain`a noble clearness in one, and steadiness in the other. These, I say, are some of those ways and methods by which this great and internal light, the judging faculty of conscience, may he preserved in its vigor and quickness. And to complete the foregoing directions by the addition of one word more; that we may the more surely prevent our affections from working too much upon our judgment, let us wisely beware of all such things as may work too strongly upon our affections.

 

 " If the light that is in thee be darkness," says our SAVIOR, " how great must that darkness needs be!" That is, how fatal, how destructive! And therefore, I shall close up all with those other words of our SAVIOR " While you have the light, walk in the light;" so that the way to have it, (we see,) " is to walk in it." (John 12:) That is, by the actions of a pious, innocent, well governed life, to cherish, heighten, and improve it; for still so much innocence, so much light: And on the other side, to abhor and loathe whatsoever may any, ways discourage and eclipse it; as every degree of vice assuredly will. And thus by continual feeding and trimming our lamps, we shall find that this blessed light within us will grow every day stronger and stronger, and flame out brighter and brighter, till at length, having led us through this vale of darkness and mortality, it shall bring us to those happy mansions where there is light and life for evermore.

 

SERMON 8

 

ON THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED. PROVERBS 1: 32.

 

The prosperity of fools shall destroy these.

 

 IT is a thing partly, worth our wonder, partly our compassion, that what the greatest part of men are most passionately desirous of, that they are generally most unfit for they look upon things absolutely in themselves, without examining the suitableness of them to their own conditions; and so, at a distance, court that as an enjoyment, which, upon experience, they find a great calamity. And this peculiar ill property has folly, that it widens and enlarges men's desires, while it lessens their capacities: Like a dropsy, which still calls for drink, but not affording strength to digest it, puts an end to the drinker, but not the thirst.

 

 As for the explication of the text, to tell you, that in the dialect of Scripture, but especially of this book of Proverbs, wicked men are called fools, and wickedness folly, as, on the contrary, that piety is still graced with the name of wisdom, would be as superfluous, as to attempt the proof of a self evident principle, or to light a candle to the sun. By fools, therefore, are here represented all wicked and vicious persons: Such as turn their backs upon reason and religion, and wholly devoting themselves to sensuality, follow the sway and career of their corrupt affections.

 

 The misery of which persons is from hence most manifest, that when GOD gives them what they most love, they perish in the embraces of it, are crushed to death under the heaps of gold, stifled with an overcoming plenty; like a ship fetching rich commodities from a far country, but sinking by the weight of them in its return. Since,`, therefore, wicked men are so strangely out in the calculating of their own interest, and account nothing happiness, but what brings up death and destruction in the rear of it; and since prosperity is yet, in itself, a real blessing, though to them it becomes a mischief, and determines in a curse; it concerns us to look into the reason of this strange event, and to examine how it comes to pass, that " the prosperity of fools destroys them."

 

 The reasons of it, I conceive, may be these three: I. Because every foolish or vicious person is either ignorant or regardless of the proper ends and uses, for which GOD designs prosperity. II. Because prosperity (as the nature of man now stands) has a peculiar force and fitness to abate men's virtues, and to heighten their corruptions. III. And Lastly, Because it directly indisposes them to the proper means of amendment and recovery.

 

I, And First, One reason why vicious persons miscarry by prosperity, is, because every such person is either ignorant or regardless of the proper ends and uses for which GOD ordains and designs it. Which ends are these:

 

 1. To try and discover what is in a man. All trial is properly inquiry, and inquiry is an endeavor after the knowledge of a thing, as yet unknown; and consequently, in strictness of speech, GOD who knows all things, and can be ignorant of nothing, cannot be said to try, any more than he can be said to inquire. But GOD, while he speaks to men, is often pleased to speak after the manner of men; and the reason of this is not only his condescension to our capacities, but because, in many actions, GOD behaves himself with some analogy to the actings of men. And therefore, because GOD sometimes sets those things before men, that have in them a fitness to draw forth and discover what is in their heart, ass inquisitive persons do, who have a mind to pry into the thoughts and actions of their neighbor. He is, upon this account, said to try or to inquire, though, in truth, by so doing, GOD designs not to inform himself, but the person whom he tries, and give both him and the world a view of his temper and disposition.

 

 For the world is ignorant of men, till occasion gives them power to. turn their insides outward, and to show themselves. So that what is said of an office, may be also said of prosperity and a fortune, that it does indicare virum, discover what the man is, and what metal his heart is made of. We see a slave, perhaps, cringe, and sneak, and humble himself; but do we therefore presently think that we see his nature in his behavior No, we may find ourselves much mistaken; for nobody knows, in case Providence should think fit to smile upon such an one, and (as it were) to launch him forth into a deep and a wide fortune, how quickly he would be another man, assume another spirit, and grow insolent, imperious, and insufferable.

 

 Nor is this a mystery hid only from the eyes of the world round about a man, but sometimes also even from himself; for he seldom knows his own heart so perfectly, as to be able to give a certain account of the future disposition and inclination of it, when placed under different states and conditions of life. He that has been bred poor, and grown up in a cottage, knows not how his spirits would move, and his blood rise, should he come to handle full bags, to see splendid attendances, and to eat, drink, and sleep in state. Yet, no doubt, but by such great unlikely changes, as also by lower degrees of affluence, Providence designs to sift, and search, and give the world some experience of the make and bent of men's minds.

 

 But now the vicious person flies only upon the bulk and matter of the gift, and considers not that the giver has a design upon him; the consideration of which would naturally make men cautious and circumspect in their behavior: For surely it is not an ordinary degree of intemperance, that would prompt a man to drink intemperately before those, who he knows gave him his freedom, only to try whether he would use it to excess or no. GOD gave SAUL a rich booty upon the conquest of ASIALEK, to try whether he would prefer real obedience before pretended sacrifice, and the performing of a command before flying upon the spoil: But his ignorance of the use to which GOD designed that prosperous event, made him let loose the reins of his folly and his covetousness, even to the blasting of his crown, and the taking the sceptre from his family " Because you has rejected the word of the LORD," said SAMUEL to him, " he has also rejected thee from being King:" (1 Sam. 15: 23.) So that this was the effect of his misunderstood success, he conquered AMALEK, but destroyed himself.

 

2. The Second end and design of God in giving prosperity, and of which all wicked persons are either ignorant or regardless, is to encourage them in a constant, humble expression of their gratitude to the bounty of their Maker, who deals such rich and plentiful provisions to his undeserving creatures. GOD would have every temporal blessing raise that question in the heart, " LORD, what is man, that you visitest him or the son of man, that you so regardest him" He never sends the pleasures of the spring, nor the plenties of the harvest, to surfeit, but to oblige the sons of men; and the very fruits of the earth are intended as arguments to carry their thoughts to heaven.

 

 But the wicked and sensual part of the world are only concerned to find scope and room enough to wallow in; if they can but have it, whence they have it troubles not their thoughts; saying grace is no part of their meal; they feed and grovel like swine under an oak, filling themselves with the mast, but never so much as looking up, either to the boughs that bore, or the hands that shook it down. This is their temper and deportment in the midst of all their enjoyments. But it is far from reaching the purposes of the great Governor of the world, who makes it not his care to gratify the brutishness and stupidity of evil persons. He will not be their Purveyor only, but their Instructor also, and see them taught, as well as fed by his liberality.

 

 3. The Third end that GOD gives men prosperity for, and of which wicked persons take no notice, is to make them helpful to society. No man holds the abundance of wealth, power, and honor, that Heaven has blessed him with, as a proprietor, but as a steward, as the trustee of Providence, to use and dispense it for the good of those whom he converses with. For does any one think, that the Divine Providence concerns itself to lift him up to a station of power, only to insult and domineer over those who are round about him; and to show the world how able he is to do a mischief or a shrewd turn No, GOD deposits (and he does but deposit) a power in his hand, to encourage virtue, and to relieve oppressed innocence; and, in a word, to act as his deputy, and as GOD himself would do, should he be pleased to act immediately in affairs here below.

 

 God bids a great and rich person rise and shine, as he bids the sun; that is, not for himself, but for the necessities of the world. And none is so honorable in his own person, as he who is helpful to others. When GOD makes a man wealthy and potent, he passes a double obligation upon him; one, that he gives him riches; the other, that he gives him an opportunity of exercising a great virtue For surely, if GOD shall be pleased to make me his almoner, and the conduit by which his goodness may descend upon my distressed neighbor; though the charity be personally mine, yet both of us have cause to thank GOD for it, I that I can be virtuous, and he that he is relieved.

 

 But the wicked worldly person looks no farther than himself; his charity ends at home, where it should only begin. He thinks that Providence fills his purse and his barns, only to pamper his own carcass, to invite him to take his ease and his fill, that is, to serve his base appetites with all the occasions of sin. It is not his business to do good, but only to enjoy it, and to enjoy it so as to lessen it by monopolizing and confining it. Whereupon, being ignorant of the purpose, it is no wonder if he also abuses the bounty of Providence, and so perverts it to 11 his own destruction."

 

 II. The Second general reason, why " the prosperity of fools proves destructive to them," is, Because prosperity (as the nature of man now stands) has a peculiar force and fitness to abate men's virtues, and to heighten their corruptions.

 

 1. And, First, For its abating their virtues. Virtue, of any sort whatsoever, is a plant that grows upon no ground,

 

but such an one as is frequently tilled and cultivated with the severest labor. But what a stranger is toil and labor to a great fortune! Persons possessed of this j udge themselves to have actually all that for which labor can be rational: For men usually labor to be rich, great, and eminent. And these are born to all this, as to an inheritance. They are at the top of the hill already; so that while others are climbing and panting to get up, they have nothing else to do, but to he down and sun themselves, and at their own ease be spectators of other men's labors.

 

 But it is poverty and hardship that has made the most famed commanders, the fittest persons for business, the most expert statesmen and the greatest philosophers. For that has first, pushed them on upon the account of necessity, which being satisfied they have aimed a step higher at convenience; and so being at length inured to a course of virtuous and generous sedulity, pleasure has continued that which necessity first began; till their endeavors have been crowned with eminence, mastership, and perfection in the way they have been engaged in.

 

But would the young effeminate gallant, that never knew what it was to want his will, that every day clothes himself with the riches, and swims in the delights of the world; would he, I say, choose to rise out of his soft bed at midnight, to begin an hard and a long march, to engage in a crabbed study, or to follow some tedious perplexed business No, he will have his servants, and the sun itself rise before him; when his breakfast is ready, he will make himself ready too, unless perhaps sometimes his hounds and his huntsmen break his sleep, and so make him early in order to his being idle.

 

 Hence we observe so many great families to decay and moulder away through the debauchery and sottishness of the heir: The reason of which is, that the possession of an estate does not prompt men to those severe and virtuous practices, by which it was first acquired. The grand child perhaps games, and drinks, and whores himself out of those fair lands, manors, and mansions, which his glorious ancestors had fought or studied themselves into, which they had got by preserving their country against an invasion, by facing an enemy in the field, hungry and thirsty, early and late, by preferring a brave action before a sound sleep, though nature might never so much require it.

 

 When the success and courage of the Romans had made them masters of the wealth and pleasures of all the conquered nations round about them, we see how quickly the edge of their valor was dulled, and the rigorous honesty of their morals dissolved and melted away with those delights which too easily circumvent and overcome the hearts of men: So that instead of the CAMILLI, the FABRICII, the Scipios, and such like propagators of the growing greatness of the Roman empire, as soon as, the bulk of it grew vast and unlimited upon the reign of AUGUSTUS GESAR, we find a degenerous race Of CALIGULAS, NExos, and VITELLIUSES, and of other inferior sycophants and flatterers, who neither knew nor affected any other way of making themselves considerable, but by a servile adoring of the vices and follies of great ones above them, and a base, treacherous informing against virtuous and brave persons about them.

 

The whole business that was carried on with such noise and eagerness in that great city, then the Empress of the Western World, was nothing else but to build magnificently, to feed luxuriously, to frequent sports and theatres, and, in a word, to flatter and be flattered; the effects of too full and unwieldy prosperity. But surely they could not have had leisure to think upon their mullets, their Lucrinian oysters, their pheenecoptors, and the'like; they could not have made a rendezvous of all the elements at their table every day, in such a prodigious variety of meats and drinks; they could not, I say, have thus intended these things, had the Gauls been besieging their Capitol, or HANNIBAL at the head of his Carthaginian army' rapping at their doors.' This would quickly have turned their spits into swords, and whet their teeth too against their enemies. But when peace, ease and plenty took away these whetstones of courage, they insensibly slid into the Asiatic

 

softness, and were intent upon nothing but their cooks, and their ragouts, their fine attendants and unusual habits; so that the Roman genius was (as the English seems to be now) even lost and stifled, and the conquerors themselves transformed into the guise and garb of the conquered, till by degrees the empire shrivelled and pined away; and from such a surfeit of immoderate prosperity, passed at length into a final consumption.

 

 Nor is this strange, if we consider man's nature, and reflect upon the great impotence and difficulty that it finds in advancing into the ways of virtue merely by itself, without some collateral aids and assistances, and such helps as shall smooth the way before it, by removing all hinderances and impediments. For virtue, as it first lies in the heart of man, is but as a little spark, which may indeed be blown into a flame; it has that innate force in it, that being cherished and furthered in its course, the least particle falling from a candle may climb the top of palaces, waste a city, and consume a neighborhood. But then the suitableness of the fuel, and the wind and the air, must conspire with its endeavors: This is the breath that must enliven and fan, and bear it up, till it becomes mighty and victorious. Otherwise, do we think that that little thing, that falling upon thatch, or a stack of corn, prevails so marvelously, could exert its strength and its flames, its terror and its rage falling into the dew or the dust There it is presently checked, and left to its own little bulk to preserve itself; which, meeting with no catching matter, presently expires and dies, and becomes weak and insignificant.

 

 In like manner, let us suppose a man, according to his natural frame and temper, addicted to modesty and telpe I ante, to virtuous and sober courses. Here is indeed something improvable into a bright and a noble perfection; GOD has kindled the spark, sown the seed, and we see the first lineaments of a JOSEPH or a FARICIUS: But now has this little embryo strength enough to thrust itself into the world To hold up its head, and to maintain its course to a perfect maturity, against all the assaults and batteries of intemperance; all the snares and trepans that common life lays in its way to extinguish and suppress it Can it abstain in the midst of all the importunities and opportunities of sensuality, without being confirmed and disciplined by long hardships, severe abridgments, and the rules of virtue frequently inculcated and carefully pressed No; we shall quickly find those hopeful beginnings dashed and swallowed by such ruining delights. Prosperity is but a bad nurse to virtue; a nurse which is like to starve it in its infancy, and to spoil it in growth.

 

 III. I come now in the next place to show, that as it has such an aptness to lessen and abate virtue, so it has a peculiar force also to heighten and inflame men's corruptions. Nothing shall more effectually betray the heart into a love of sin, and a loathing of holiness, than an ill managed prosperity. It is like some meats, the more luscious so much the more dangerous. Prosperity and ease upon an unsanctified, impure heart, is like the sunbeams upon a dunghill; it raises many filthy, noisome exhalations. The same soldiers, who in hard service, and in the battle, are in perfect subjection to their leaders, in peace and luxury are apt to mutiny and rebel. That corrupt affection which has lain, as it were, dead and frozen in the midst of distracting businesses, or under adversity, when the sun of prosperity has shined upon it, then, like a snake, presently recovers its former strength and venom. Vice must be caressed and smiled upon, that it may thrive and sting. It is starved by poverty: It droops tinder the frowns of fortune, and pines away upon bread and water. But when the channels of plenty run high, and every appetite is plied with abundance and variety, then the inbred corruption of the heart shows itself pampered and insolent, too unruly for discipline and too big for correction.

 

 Which will appear the better by considering those vices, which more particularly receive improvement by prosperity.

 

 1. And the First is Pride. Who almost is there, whose heart does not swell with his bag And whose thoughts do not follow the proportions of his condition What difference has been seen in the same man poor and preferred His mind, like a mushroom, has shot up in a night. His business is first to forget himself, and then his friends. When the sun shines, then the peacock displays his train. We know when HEZEKIAH'S treasuries were full, his armories replenished, and the pomp of his court rich and splendid, how his heart was lifted up, and what vaunts he made of all to the Babylonish Ambassadors. (Isa. 29: 2.) Though in the end, as most proud fools do, he smarted for his ostentation. See NERUCHADNTEZZAR also strutting himself upon the survey of that mass of riches and settled grandeur that Providence had blessed his court with. It swelled his heart, till it broke out at his mouth in that rhodomontade, " Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the glory of my majesty" (Dan. 4: 3O.) Now, that prosperity, by fomenting a man's pride, lays a certain train for his ruin, will easily be acknowledged by him who either from Scripture or experience shall learn what a spite Providence constantly owes the proud person. He is the very eye sore of Heaven; and GOD even looks upon his own supremacy as concerned to abase him.

 

 2. Another sin that is apt to receive increase and growth from prosperity, is Luxury and Uncleanness. Sodom " was a place watered like the garden of GOD." (Gen. 13: 1O.) " There was in it fullness of bread," (Ezec. 16: 49,) and a redundant fruition of all things. This was the condition of Sodom; and what the sin of it was, and the dismal consequence of that sin, is too well known. The Israelites committing fornication with the daughters of Moab, which reaped down so many thousands of them at once, was introduced with feasting and dancing, and all the gaieties and festivities of a prosperous, triumphing people. We read of nothing like adultery in a persecuted DAVID in the wilderness; he fled here and there like a chased roe upon the mountains: But when the delicacies of the court softened and ungirded his spirit, when he drowsed upon his couch, and sunned himself upon the leads of his palace; then it was that this great hero fell by a glance, and buried his glories in his neighbor's bed; gaining to his name a lasting slur, and to his conscience a fearful wound.

 

 As SOLOMON says of a man surprised with surfeit and intemperance, we may say of every foolish man immersed in prosperity, " That his eyes shall look upon strange women, and his heart shall utter perverse things." It is a tempting thing for the fool to be gadding abroad in a fair day. DINAH knows not, but the snare maybe laid for her, and she return with a rape upon her honor, baffled, and deflowered, and robbed of the crown of her virginity. LOT'S daughters revelled and banqueted their father into incest.

 

 The unclean Devil haunts the families of the rich, the gallant, and the high livers; and there is nothing but the wisdom from above which descends upon strict, humble, and praying persons, that can preserve the soul pure and sound in the killing neighborhood of such a contagion.

 

 3. A Third sin that prosperity inclines the corrupt heart of man to, is Neglect of GOD in the duties of religion. Those who he soft and warns in a rich estate, seldom come to heat themselves at the altar. It is a poor fervor that arises from devotion, in comparison of that which sparkles from the generous draughts, and the festival fare which attend the tables of the wealthy and the great. Such men are (as they think) so happy, that they have no leisure to be holy. They look upon prayer as the work of the poor and the solitary, and such as have nothing to spend but their time and themselves. If JESHURUN wax fat, it is ten to one but he will kick against trim who made him so.

 

 And now, I suppose, a reflection upon the premises cannot but press every serious person with a consideration of the ticklish estate he stands in, while the favors of Providence are pleased to breathe upon him in those gentle gales. No man is wholly out of the danger which we have been discoursing of: For every man has so much of folly in him, as he has of sin.; and therefore he must know, that his foot is not so steady, but it may slip and slide in the oily paths of prosperity.

 

. The treachery and weakness of his own heart may betray and insensibly bewitch him into the love and liking of a fawning vice. What the Prophet says of wine and music, may be also said of prosperity, whose intoxications are not at all less, that it " steals away the heart." The man shall find that his heart is gone, though he perceives not when it goes.

 

 All the reason of this is, because it is natural for the soul in time of prosperity to be more careless and unbent; and consequently, not keeping so narrow a watch over itself, is more exposed to the invasions and arts of its industrious enemy. Upon which account, the wise and the cautious will look upon the most promising season of prosperity with a doubtful and a suspicious eye; as bewaring, lest while it offers a kiss to the lips, it brings a javelin for the side; many hearts have been thus melted, that could never have been broken. This also may be a full, though a sad argument to allay the foolish envy, with which some are apt to look upon men of great and flourishing estates at a distance: For how do they know, that what they make the object of their envy, is not a fitter object for their pity And that this glistering person, so much admired by them, is not now a preparing for his ruin, and fatting for the slaughters of eternity That he does not eat his bane, and carouse his poison The poor man perhaps is cursed into all his greatness and prosperity. Providence has put it as a sword into his hand, for the wounding and destroying of his own soul: For he knows not how to use any of these things; and so has only this advantage, that he is damned in state, and goes to hell with more ease, more flourish, and magnificence than other men.

 

 And thus much for the Second general reason, why the prosperity of fools proves fatal and destructive to them. I come now to the Third and last, which is, because prosperity directly indisposes men to the proper means of their amendment and recovery.

 

 1. As First, It renders then utterly averse from receiving counsel and admonition: "I spoke to thee in thy prosperity, and you saidst, I will not hear." (Jer. 22: 2l.) The ear is wanton, and ungoverned, and the heart insolent and obdurate, till one is pierced, and the other made tender by affliction. Prosperity leaves a kind of dullness and lethargy upon the spirit; so that the still voice of GOD will not awaken a man, but he must thunder and lighten about his ears, before he will be brought to take notice that GOD speaks to him. All the divine threatenings and reprehensions beat upon such an one, but as stubble upon a brass wall; the man and his vice stand firm, unshaken, and unconcerned; he presumes that the course of his affairs will proceed always as it does, smoothly, and without interruption: GQ That to morrow will be as to day, and much more abundant." It is natural for men in a prosperous condition neither to love nor suspect a change.

 

 But besides, prosperity does not only shut the earth against counsel, by reason of the dullness that it leaves upon the senses, but also upon the account of that arrogance and untutored haughtiness that it brings upon the mind; which of all other qualities chiefly stops the entrance of advice, by making a man look upon himself as too great and too wise, to admit of the assistances of another's wisdom. The richest man will still think himself the wisest man: And where there is fortune, there needs no advice.

 

 2. Much prosperity utterly unfits such persons for the sharp trials of adversity: Which yet GOD uses as the most proper and sovereign means to correct and reduce a soul grown vain and extravagant, by a long uninterrupted felicity. But an unsanctified, unregenerate person, passing into so great an alteration of estate, is like a Iran in a sweat entering into a river, or throwing himself into the snow; he is presently struck to the heart, he languishes, and meets with certain death in the change. His heart is too effeminate and weak to contest with want and hardship, and the killing misery of having been happy heretofore. For in this condition, he certainly misbehaves himself one of these two ways.

 

 (1.) He either faints and desponds, and parts with his hope together with his possessions: He has neither confidence in Providence, nor substance in himself, to bear him out, and buoy up his sinking_ spirit, when storms and showers of an adverse fortune shall descend, and beat upon him, and shake in pieces the pitiful fabric of his earthly comforts. The earth he treads upon is his sole joy and inheritance; and that which supports his feet, must support his heart also; otherwise he cannot, like JOB, rest upon that Providence that places him upon a dunghill.

 

 (2.) Such a person, if he does not faint and sink in adversity, then on the contrary he will murmur and tumultuate, and blaspheme the GOD that afflicts him. A bold and a stubborn spirit naturally throws out its malignity this way. It will make a man die cursing and raving, and even breathe his last in a blasphemy. No man knows how high the corruption of some natures will work and foam, being provoked and exasperated by affliction. ' Having thus shown the reason why prosperity becomes destructive to some persons; surely it is now but rational, in some brief directions, to show how it may become otherwise; and that is, in one word, by altering the quality of the subject. Prosperity, I showed, was destructive to fools; and therefore the only way for a man not to find it destructive, is for him not to be a fool; and this he may avoid by a pious observance of these following rules: As,

 

 1. Let him seriously consider upon what weak hinges his prosperity and felicity hangs. Perhaps the cross falling of a little accident, the omission of a ceremony, or the misplacing of a circumstance, may determine all his fortunes forever: Or perhaps his whole interest, his possessions, and his hopes too, may live by the breath of another who may breathe his last to morrow. And shall a man forget GOD and eternity for that which cannot secure him the reversion of a day's happiness Can any favorite hear himself high and insolent upon the stock of the largest fortune imaginable, who has read the story of WOLSEY or SEJANUS Not only the death, but the honor of his Prince or patron may divest him of all his glories, and send him stripped and naked to his long rest. How quickly is the sun overcast, and how often does he set in a cloud, and that cloud break in a storm! He that well considers this, will account it a surer livelihood to depend upon the sweat of his own brow, than the favor of another man's. And even while it is his fortune to enjoy it, he will be far from confidence; confidence, which is the downfal of a man's happiness, and a traitor to him in all his concerns; for still it is the confident person who is deceived.

 

 2. Let a man consider, how little he is bettered by prosperity as to those perfections which are chiefly valuable. All the wealth of both the Indies cannot add one cubit to the stature either of his body or his mind. It can neither better his health, advance his intellectuals, nor refine his morals. We see those languish and die, who command the physic and physicians of a whole kingdom. And some are dunces in the midst of libraries, dull and sottish in the very bosom of Athens; and far from wisdom, though they lord it over the wise.

 

 For does he, who was once both poor and ignorant, find his notions or his manners any thing improved, because perhaps his friend or father died and left him rich Did his ignorance expire with the other's life Or does he understand one proposition in philosophy, one mystery in his profession at all the more, for his keeping a bailiff or a steward As great and as good a landlord as he is, may he not for all this have an empty room yet to let And that such an one as is like to continue empty upon his hands (or rather head) for ever If so, surely then none has cause to value himself upon that which is equally incident to the worst and weakest of men.

 

 And Lastly, Let a man correct the gaieties and wanderings of his spirit, by the severe duties of mortification. " Let him (as DAVID says) mingle his drink with weeping," and dash his wine with such water. Let him effect that upon himself by fasting and abstinence, which GOD would bring others to by penury and want. And by so doing, he shall disenslave and redeem his soul from a captivity to the things he enjoys, and so make himself lord, as well as possessor of what he has. For repentance supplies the disciplines of adversity; and abstinence makes affliction needless, by really compassing the design of it upon the nobler account of choice: The scarceness of some meals will sanctify the plenty of others.

 

 The wisest persons in the world have often abridged themselves in the midst of their greatest affluence, and given bounds to their appetites, while they felt none in their fortunes. And that Prince who wore sack does under his purple, wore the livery of virtne, as well as the badge of sovereignty; and was resolved to be good, in spite of all his greatness. Many other considerations may be added, and these farther improved. But to sum up all in short; since folly is so bound up in the heart of man, and since the fool in his best, that is in his most prosperous condition, stands tottering upon the very brink. of destruction, surely the great

 

use of the whole foregoing discourse should be to remind us in all our prayers, not so much to solicit GOD for any temporal enjoyment, as for an heart that may fit us for it; and that GOD would be the Chooser, as well as the Giver of our portion in this world; who alone is able to suit and sanctify our condition to us, and us to our condition.

 

SERMON 9

 

ON THE RESTORATION OF KING CHARLES 2:

 

PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY, ON THE 29TH MAY, 1672.

 

ROMANS 2:33, latter part.

 

How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

 

 THAT which first brought a present guilt, and entailed a future curse upon mankind, was an inordinate desire of knowledge. And from the fall of ADAM to this very day, this fatal itch has stuck so close to our nature, that every one of his succeeding race is infinitely eager, inquisitive, and desirous to know and judge, where he is called only to adore, and to obey. By which we see, that it was this restless appetite of knowing, which made the earliest and boldest encroachment upon the divine prerogative; setting man up not only as a rebel, but also as a rival to his Maker; and from behaving himself as his creature, encouraging him to become his competitor. And could there be an higher and more direct defiance of the ALMIGHTY, under the peculiar character of LORD and Governor of the universe, than a pitiful, shortsighted creature, prying into the reserves of heaven; and one who was but dust in his constitution, and of a day's standing at most, aspiring to an equality with his Creator in one of his divinest perfections All know, that even in human governments, there is hardly any one of them, but has its Arcana imperii, its hidden rules and maxims, which the subjects of it must by no means be acquainted with, but yield to their force, without examining their contrivance. And if so, how much a more unpardonable absurdity, as well as insolence, must it needs be for those, who commonly stand at so great a distance, even from the little mysteries of human policies, to say, like their grand exemplar and counsellor Lucifer, " 1 will ascend and look into the secrets of the most High," rip up and unravel all the designs and arts of Providence in the government of the world; as if, (forsooth) they were of the cabinet to the ALMIGHTY, were privy to all his decrees, and, in a word, held intelligence with his omniscience. For no less than all this was or could be implied in our first parents' affecting to be as Gods; the main thing, which, by advice of the serpent, they were then so set upon, and so furiously desirous of.

 

 Whereas, on the contrary, that great repository of all truth and wisdom, the Scripture, is in nothing more full and frequent, than in representing the infinite transcendency of GOD's ways and actings above all created intellectuals. " Such knowledge is too wonderful for me," says DAVID. (Psal. cxxxviii. 6.) " And thy judgments are a great deep." (Psal. xxxvi. 6.) And GOD " has put darkness under his feet." (Psal. 18: 9.) And " his ways are in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known." (Psal. lxxvii. 19.) In all which passages could any thing be expressed with more life and emphasis For he who treads upon the waters leaves no impression; and he who walks in the dark falls under no inspection. There is still a cloud, a thick cloud, about GOD's greatest and most important works; and a cloud (we know) is both high and dark, it surpasses our reach, and determines our sight; we may look upon it, but it is impossible for us to look through it. In a word, if we consult either the reports of Scripture, or of our own experience, about the wonderful, amazing events of Providence, especially in the setting up, or pulling down of Kings and kingdoms, transplanting churches, destroying nations, and the like; we shall find the result of our closest reasonings, and most

 

exact inquiries, concluding in an humble non plus, and silent submission to the over powering truth of this exclamation of our Apostle, "How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out."

 

 The glorious subject of this day's commemoration, is an eminent instance of the methods of Providence surpassing all human apprehension: And as it is a very great one itself, so was it brought forth by a numerous train of other providential passages altogether as great, whether we respect the quality of the actions themselves, or the strangeness of the effects. My business, therefore, shall be, from so notable a theme, to read men a lecture of humility; and that in a case, in which they seldom do (and yet have all the reason in the world to) show it; to wit, in taking a due estimate of the proceedings of Almighty GOD, especially in his winding and turning about the great affairs of states and nations; and therein to demonstrate, what weak, purblind expositors we are of what is above us; how unfit to arraign and pass sentence upon that Providence, that overrules us in all our concerns; and, in a word, to turn interpreters, where we understand not the original. It is, no doubt, an easy matter to gaze upon the surface and outside of things. But few, who see the hand of the clock or dial, can give a reason of its motion; nor can the case of the watch, (though never so finely wrought,) be any rule to judge of the artificial composure, and exact order of the work within.

 

 Now, he who would pass a clear, firm, and thorough judgment upon any action, must be able to give an account of these two things belonging to it, viz. 1. From what cause or reason it proceeds. 2. To what event or issue it tends. In both which respects I shall demonstrate, that the sublimest wisdom of man is an incompetent judge of the ways of GOD.

 

 1. And, First, For the reason or cause of them. Men are so far from judging rightly of the passages of Providence, that the causes they assign of them are for the most part false, but always imperfect. (1.) And, First, For the false ones; these (or some of them at least) are such as follow:

 

 [1] That the prosperous in this life are the proper objects of GOD's love, and the calamitous of his hatred A blessed doctrine doubtless, and exactly according to that of MAHOMET, even the very marrow and spirit of the Alcoran, and the prime article, or rather sum total of the Ottoman Divinity. But such, we see, is the natural aptness of men to bring down GOD to their own measures, and to ascribe only those methods to him, which they first transcribe and copy from themselves. For they know well enough, how they treat one another, and that all the hostility of a man's actions pre supposes and results from a much greater in his affections; so that the hand is never lifted up to strike, but as it is commanded by the heart that hates. And accordingly, let any notable calamity befal any one, (and especially if maligned by us,) and then how naturally do there start up, in the minds of such Mahometan Christians, such reasonings as these: Can so beneficent a being as GOD be imagined to torment in love To kill with kindness Or, does the noise of his blows, and the sounding of his bowels, speak the same thing

 

No, by no means; and therefore, when any one chances to be cut off by the stroke of some severe Providence, no sooner has GOD done execution, but the malice of men presently passes sentence, and, by a preposterous proceeding, the man is first executed, and afterwards condemned; and so dies not for being a criminal, but passes for a criminal for being put to death.

 

 Many remarkable instances of which have been in the late times of confusion, in direct contradiction to the SPIRIT of GOD himself, who positively, in Eccles. 9: 1, assures us, that no man knows either love or hatred, by all that is before him;" nor consequently can conclude himself in favor, or out of favor with Almighty GOD, by anything befalling him in this life; indeed, no more than he can read the future estate of his soul in the line of his face, or the constitution of his body in the color of his clothes.

 

 For should the quality of a man's condition here determine the happiness or misery of it hereafter, no doubt LAZARUS would have been in the flames, and the rich man in ABRAHAM's bosom. But the next life will open us a very different scene from what we see in this; and show us quite another face of things and persons from that which dazzles and deludes men's eyes at present; it being the signal and peculiar glory of the day of judgment, that it be the great day of distinction, as well as retribution. But in the mean time, does not common experience undeniably convince us, that GOD sometimes curses men, even with prosperity, confounds them in the very answer of their prayers, and (as it were) choaks them with their own petitions Does he not, as he did formerly to the Israelites, at the same time put flesh into their craving mouths, and send leanness withal into their souls And is there any thing more usually practiced in the world, than for men to feast their mortal enemies Persons, whom they equally hate, and are hated by While on the other side, as a father chides, frowns upon and lashes the child whom he dearly loves, (his bowels all the time yearning, while his hand is striking,) so how common is it in the methods of divine love, for GOD to cast his JOBS upon dunghills, to banish into wildernesses, and to sell his most beloved JOSEPHUS into slavery; and, in a word, to discipline and fit him for himself, by all that is harsh and terrible to human nature! and still there is nothing but love and designs of mercy at the bottom of all this. " Thy rod and thy staff," says DAVID, " comfort me;" (Psal. xxxiii. 4;) that is with his staff he corrects, but still with both he comforts.

 

 Now though I think it sufficiently manifest to the impartial and judicious, that neither the suffering of our Prince, nor his loyal subjects, were any arguments of GOD's hatred of them; yet, I hope, his restoration was an effect of GOD's love to those poor harassed kingdoms; I say, I hope so: For our great ingratitude, sensuality, and raging impiety, ever since our deliverance, makes me far from being confident, that what was in itself incomparably the greatest of earthly blessings, may not be made the fatal means to sink us lower, and damn us deeper, than any sins committed by us under the rod of the usurpers could have done. This is certain, that God may outwardly deliver us: He may turn our very table into a snare. And I know no certain mark whereby we may infallibly conclude, that God did the glorious work, which we celebrate this day, out of love to us, but only, that we become holier and better by it than before. But if it should prove otherwise, will it not rank us with the hardened and incorrigible, whose infidelity such miracles could not melt down And having, upon both accounts, done so much for us to so little purpose, resolve never to do more And thus much for the first false cause, commonly assigned of the dealings of GOD'S providence, namely, GOD'S love or hatred of the persons upon whom they pass.

 

 [2.] But another false cause, from which men derive the different proceedings of Providence, is the different merit of the persons so differently treated by it: And from hence still supposing, that the good only must prosper, and the bad suffer; they accordingly, from men's prosperity, conclude their innocence, as from their sufferings their guilt. And from this topic it was, that JOB'S friends argued; and that with such assurance, that one would have thought, they took all they said for demonstration; but how falsely and rashly they did so, appears from the verdict passed by GOD himself upon the whole matter, both rejecting their persons, and condemning their reasonings, by a severe remark upon the presumption of the one, and the inconsequence of the other. For where the rule is crooked, how can the line drawn by it be straight It is most true, that there is no man, (our blessed SAVIOR only excepted,) who either does, or ever did suffer, but was more or less a sinner, before he was a sufferer: And consequently, that there is ground enough in every man, to make GOD's infliction of the greatest evil upon him just; and yet I affirm, that a man's sin is not always the reason of his sufferings, though sinfulness be still the qualification of his person: But the reason of those must be fetched from some other cause. For the better understanding of which, we must observe, that GOD may, and sometimes actually does, deal with men under a double capacity or relation; viz. 1. As an absolute LORD; and 2. As a Judge or a Governor. The rule, which he proceeds by as an absolute LORD, is his sovereign will and pleasure; and the rule which he acts by as Judge, is his justice and his law. Now, though under the former notion GOD does not properly exercise or exert his justice, yet he cannot therefore be said to do any thing unjustly; it being one thing for GOD barely not to exercise an attribute in such or such a particular action, and another to oppose, or do any thing contrary to the said attribute. The former of which is usual, and fairly agreeable with the economy of his attributes, but the latter is impossible.

 

 Yet in the various dispensations befalling the sons of men, we find, how prone the world has been all along, to state the different usages of men's persons upon the difference of their deserts. As when PILATE mingled the Galileans' blood with their sacrifices, there were enough ready to conclude those poor Galileans sinners above all other Galileans, for their suffering such things; but our SAVIOR quickly reverses the sentence, and assures them, that the consequence was by no means good. (Luke 13: 1, 2.) And on the other hand, the Israelites, from the many miraculous works done for them, and blessings heaped upon them by the Divine bounty, concluded themselves holier and more righteous than all the nations about them; but we find both MOSES in Deut. 9:, and the Psalmist in Psalm lxxviii., roundly telling them, that there was no such thing, but that they were a " rebellious, ungrateful, stiff necked people" from the very first: And for aught appears from history to the contrary, theyhave continued so ever since. And to proceed farther, did not the righteous Providence of GOD bring down most of the potentates of the Eastern World under the feet of that monster of tyranny and idolatry, NEBUCHADNEZZAR; and that while he was actually reigning in his sins, with as high an hand, as he did or could do over any of those poor kingdoms, who had been conquered or enslaved by him In like manner, did not the same Providence make most of the crowns and sceptres of the earth bend to the Roman yoke the greatness of which empire was certainly founded upon as much injustice, rapine, and violence, as could well be practiced by men; though still couched and carried oil under the highest pretence of justice and honor, (set off with the greatest show of gravity besides,) even while the said pretences in the sight of the whole world were impudently outfaced by the quite contrary practices; as appears in particular from that scandalous case of the Mamertines, and the assistance they gave those thieves and murderers, against all the laws of nations and humanity itself, only to serve a present interest against the Carthaginians. And lastly, what a torrent of success attended the Turks, till they had overrun most of the earth, and the whole Greek Church and empire And yet the notorious governing qualities, which these barbarians acted, and grew up by, both in war and peace, were the height of cruelty and treachery; qualities of all other the most abhorred by GOD and man, and such as we may be sure could never induce GOD to abandon so great a part of CHRISTENDOM (which yet in his judgment he has actually done) to so base a people, and so false a religion. And now, notwithstanding such flagrant examples of thriving impiety, carrying all before it, we see how apt the world is still to make Providence steer by man's merit. And as we have instances of this in nations, so we want not the like in particular persons.

 

 But should Providence at any time strip a man of his estate, his honor, or high place, must this presently stamp him a castaway; or rather teach us, that GOD who perfectly knew the temper and circumstances of the man, knew also that a mean and a low condition would place him nearer to heaven (as much a paradox as it may seem) than the highest and most magnificent Another man perhaps is snatched away by a sudden, or untimely, a disastrous, or ignominious death; but must I therefore pass sentence upon him out of DANIEL, or the Revelations, or charge him with some secret guilt, as the cause of it; as if the fever or an apoplexy were not sufficient, without the concurring plague and poison of a malicious tongue, to send a man packing out of this world; or, as if any death could be so violent, or distemper so mortal and malign, but that it may, and does carry some into a better world, as well as others into a worse But be the course of Providence never so unaccountable, and contrary to my notions, ought I to descant upon any act of it, while I am wholly ignorant of the purpose which directed it Or shall I confess the ways of GOD to be G6 unsearchable, and past finding out," and at the same time attempt to give a reason of them, and so to the arrogance join the contradictions Such methods certainly are equally senseless and irreligious.

 

 Histories inform us of many worthy and brave persons brought to unworthy ends any one of which were enough to rebuke the proneness of the world to judge of the causes of GOD'S dealing with men from any qualifications in the persons so dealt with.

 

 (2.) And thus as we have given proof more than enough of men's utter unfitness to sound the depths of GOD'S providential dealings with them upon this account, that they usually ascribe them to false causes: So, in the Second place, The same will appear yet farther from this; that they always resolve them into imperfect causes. Who would assign an adequate reason of any thing which GOD does, must see as far into it, as GOD sees. And there is scarce any extraordinary passage of Providence, which does not point at least a thousand years forward, and stretch itself more than a thousand miles about; so that a man must be able to take into his mind all that long train and wide compass of purposes, to which it may subserve, and all those influences which it may cast upon things vastly remote in place, and distant many ages in time; which it is impossible for any created intellect to have a clear prospect into, or comprehension of. There is no action of GOD, but here a combination of impulsive causes concerned in it; one or two of which possibly the wit of man may sometimes light upon, but the shortness or weakness of his discerning powers keeps him inevitably a stranger to far the greater part of them. GOD, by one and the same numerical lot of Providence, may intend to punish one nation, and to advance another; to plant the Gospel in a third, and to let in trade into a fourth; likewise to make way for the happiness of one man's posterity, and for the extinction and razing out of another's; to reward the virtues of a sober and industrious people, and to revenge the crimes of a slothful and a vicious, a perjured and rebellious, with innumerable other designs, which God may actually propose to himself in every single passage of his transactions with men; and which we are no more fit or able to search into, or arbitrate upon, that we are to govern the world.

 

 2. And thus much for the First general argument proving the insufficiency of any human wisdom to interpret the actions of Providence, taken from its inability, truly and throughly to pierce into the reasons of them; which, as it must always make one considerable ingredient in passing a right judgment upon any action, so I show, that there was another also required, namely, a certain prospect into the utmost issue or event of the same. Upor. which account also man's unfitness to judge of the proceedings of Providence shall be now made out to us, by considering those false rules and grounds by which men generally fore judge of the issue and event of actions: As,

 

 (1.) Men usually prognosticate the event of any thing or action, according to the measure of the prudence, wisdom and policy of second agents, immediately engaged in it. And it must be confessed, that it is the best and likeliest rule that they have to judge by, were it not controlled by two better and likelier, and from which there can he no appeal, viz. Scripture and Experience. The former of which brings in GOD " laughing at the wisdom of the wise;" taking and " circumventing the crafty in their own wiles;" (Job 5: 12, 13.;) baffling the subtle and shrewd advice of BALAAM and AHITHOPHEL, and so stifling both counsel and counsellor in a noose of his own making. And for the latter, history so abounds with instances of the most refined counsels, and artificially spun contrivances, dashed in pieces by some sudden and unforeseen accidents, that to ascertain the event of the most promising undertaking, if we trust but our own eyes, we shall have little cause to trust to another's wisdom.

 

 (2.) Men usually prognosticate the success of any project or design, from success formerly gained under the same, or less probable circumstances. And the argument seems to proceed a majore ad minus, that if a man could conquer and break through a great difficulty, much more may he presume that he shall be able to master and go through a less. And perhaps the ratiocination, according to the bare natural consequences of things, is true and good. Nevertheless it is manifest, that men frequently miscarry in the application of it; and several reasons may be given for their doing so: As, [1.] It is hard, and perhaps scarce possible, (whatsoever less observing minds may imagine to the contrary,) to repeat and exemplify any action, under perfectly the same circumstances. [2] That in most actions there are still some circumstances not observed or taken notice of, which may have a surer and more immediate influence upon the event of those actions, than those circumstances, which, coming more into view, are more depended upon. But, [3] And chiefly because the success of every action depends more upon the secret hand of GOD, than upon any causes or instruments visibly engaged in it. Take an instance or two of this.

 

 It was easy and natural enough to conclude, that HANNIBAL having so worsted the Roman armies, while they were in their fresh strength and full number, should have been much abler to crush the same enemy under all those disadvantages which such great. and frequent defeats must needs have brought upon their. And yet we find FABIUS and MARCELLUS, after sometime, wonderfully turning the stream of his conquests, and Scipio, at length, totally subduing him. In like manner, if a nation under an usurped government, disunited in itself, and in continual danger of commotions at home, as well as of enemies from abroad, was yet an over match to its neighbor nation in a war against it; it seems rational and probable enough to infer from thence, that the same nation, settled under an unquestionably legal government, and free from any disturbances within itself, should be much more likely (especially under the same conduct) to cope with, and subdue the same enemy. And yet we find, that the premises taking up from our naval successes in the years 1652 and 1653, produced but a poor conclusion in our contest with the same adversary in the years 1666 and 1667; when we were so shamefully insulted upon our coasts, and our noblest ships fired in our harbors. And the cause of this seems not so much derivable from any failure either of the English courage or conduct at sea, as from the secret judgments of GOD, (much the greater deep of the two:) So that it is clear, this rule also of gathering the future success of actions, is weak and fallacious: And that in some sorts of events, after things have been contrived and put together with the utmost exactness, a link or two of the chain happening to break, the coherence of the whole is hereby dissolved; and then how fairly soever the antecedent may have promised us, we shall yet in the close of all find ourselves lurched of the consequent.

 

 (3.) Men generally measure the issue and success of any enterprise, according to the preparations made for it, and the power employed in it; it being a rule of judging, which the world cannot be beaten off from; that ten thousand must needs chase a thousand, and a thousand put an hundred to flight. Victory, on much the stronger side, seems still to be foreseen and foretold as certainly, as a necessary effect in the bowels of its cause. And yet we shall find, that it is not always the bigger weight, but sometimes the artificial hand holding and managing the balance, which turns the scale. And in like manner, when we have raised armies, and manned our fleets, are we not still in the hand of Providence in that hand, which sometimes sets the crown of victory upon the weak and the few, and disappoints the hopes, and breaks the force of the confident and numerous Could any take up surer and better grounded presages of victory, from a survey of his own stupendous power, than XERXES might, when he came to fetter the Hellespont, and to swallow up the (comparatively) despicable strength of the Athenians Or could any thing look more invincible, than the Spanish Armada sent against the English Navy But for all this, we find that there is no commanding the sea, without being able to command the winds too; and he who cannot do this, let him not pretend to the other.

 

 What a poor thing is preparation to be trusted to, in opposition to accident And what a pitiful defense is multitude on the one side, where omnipotence nce takes the other! If we read and believe Scripture, we shall find GIDEON with his three hundred men, armed with lamps and pitchers, routing and destroying the vast and innumerable host of the Midianites: And can any rational man be confident of the greatest forces which human power can raise, if he believes that the same GOD who did that, is still in being, and still as able to do the same things as ever Nay, should we take an exact survey of all passages in history to this purpose; such a pleasure does Providence seem to take in defeating the counsels of confident and presuming men, that perhaps, in the greatest battles which were ever fought, we shall find as many victories obtained by a less number over a greater, as by a greater over a less: And what then must become of the commonly received rules

 

 But, to keep nearer home, and to the day too, if human force and preparation could have determined the event of things, and Providence had proceeded by the same measures which men judge, the business of this day, I am sure, had been desperate. For were not the usurpers, just before the King's restoration, as strong as ever Did they not sit lording it in the head of victorious fleets and armies, with their feet upon the neck of three conquered kingdoms; and striking such awe and terror into all about them, that the boldest of their adversaries durst not so much as stir or open their mouths either against their persons or proceedings And now, in this state of things, who would have imagined, that any one could have entered into'1 the strong man's house, and have bound him, but one who had been much stronger" Or that any thing could have recovered the lost sceptre, but a triumphant sword Or that the crown being once fought off from the royal owner's head, could have ever returned to it, but by being fought on again These, and no other methods of restoring the King, did either his friends or his enemies think of; but so infinitely unlikely and unfeasible were they, that his enemies feared them as little, as his friends had grounds to hope for them.

 

 When, behold! on a sudden, and in the height of all their pride, policy, and power, Providence gives them a turn, and they see the whole web which, with so much pains, cost, and cunning, they had been so long a weaving, unravelled before their eyes in a moment, and themselves clear off the stage, without having settled any one of those innovations, either in church or state, which they had been plundering and fighting for near twenty years together; but instead thereof, the ancient government was restored, and happily set upon its former bottom; and all this (to phrase it in the words of the late Historian, DR. PETER HEYLIN) so easily, and with so little noise, that the wresting of that usurped power out of their hands cost not so much as a broken head or a bloody nose; for the getting of which they had wasted so many millions of treasure, and more than one hundred thousand lives, not to mention the loss of souls; by such unlikely and unforeseeable ways does Providence sometimes bring about its great designs, in opposition to the shrewdest conjectures and contrivances of men.

 

 And thus much for the other general argument, proving the inability of any human wisdom, to comprehend the designs of Providence, taken from those false rates and grounds, by which men generally fore judge of the issue or event of actions.

 

And now, for the use and improvement of what has been discoursed, we may, from the foregoing particulars, infer these three things:

 

 1. The extreme folly and vanity of making the future event or presumed success of any enterprise, the rule of our present actings about the same. A rule should be a thing both certain in itself, and certainly known to be so. But there is no future contingent which we promise ourselves, though under the greatest probability of event imaginable, but is still a thing in itself uncertain; and consequently, being capable of failing us in the issue, can be no certain rule to guide us for the present. And moreover, as a rule in any human action whatsoever ought to be (as we have here shown) both certain and certainly known to be such, upon the stock of bare prudence and reason; so ought it likewise to be lawful, or morally good upon the accounts of conscience and religion; and therefore nothing contrary to the same ought to be admitted as a rule for men to act by, whether in a private or a public capacity. In a word, conscience duly steering by principles of religion, is the sole assured director of all human actions or designs. So that when any political consideration would draw men off from a present confessed duty, upon supposal of some future advantage, (to ensue thereby for the service of some great interest civil and religious,) still that advantage is but supposed, and so not always sure to follow the illegal actions; but the guilt of it always does.

 

 2. We gather also, from the foregoing discourse, The absolute necessity of an entire, total, unreserved dependence upon Providence, in the most hopeful and promising condition of our affairs. The natural cause or ground of all dependence is men's consciousness to themselves of their own ignorance or weakness, compared with the sufficiency of others, whereby they expect their relief from others, which they find they cannot have from themselves, This I conceive is the true account of this matter. And we have already sufficiently demonstrated man's utter inability, either to understand the reasons, or to control the issues of Providence; so that in all the passages of it, an implicit faith in GOD'S wisdom is man's greatest knowledge, and a dependence upon his power his surest strength. For when all the faculties of man's body and mind have done their utmost, still the success of all is at the mercy of Providence; the ways of which are intricate and various; the grounds upon which it proceeds, unintelligible; and the ends it drives at, unsearchable. But, in a word, to make our reliance upon Providence both pious and rational, we should, in every great enterprise we take in hand, prepare all things with that care, diligence, and activity, as if there were no such thing as Providence for us to depend upon: And again, when we have done all this, we should depend upon it, as if we had made no such preparations at all. And this is a rule of practice, which will never fail or shame any, who shall venture all they have or are upon it For, as a man, by exerting his utmost force in any action or business, has all that human strength can do for him therein; so, by quitting his confidence in the same, and placing it only in GOD, he is sure also of all that Omnipotence can do in his behalf. It is enough, that God has put a man's actions into his own power; but the success of them, I am sure, he has not. And therefore all trust in man,

 

about things not within the power of man, (according to the account of Heaven,) is virtually a distrust of GOD for let but our trust in him be measured out by our whole heart, soul, and strength," (the only measure of it which the Scripture knows,) and we shall find but a poor over plus to bestow upon anything besides. But,

 

 3. And, Lastly, As we have from the premised particulars evinced the necessity of a dependence upon Providence, so from the same we may learn the impossibility of a rational dependence upon it, with any comfort, but in the way of lawful, honest, and religious courses. This is certain, that in all our undertakings God will be either our friend or our enemy: For Providence never stands neuter; and if so, is it not a sad thing for a man to make a mighty Potentate his enemy, and then to put himself under his protection And yet this is directly the case of every presuming sinner, and these the terms upon which he stands with Almighty

 

GOD. But can that man with any confidence rest himself upon GOD'S power, whose conscience shall in the mean time proclaim him a traitor to his laws Or can any people, nation, or government whatsoever, in the doubtful engagements of war, cast itself upon GOD's mercy, while by its crying sins of profaneness, atheism, and irreligion, it knows itself so deeply in arrears to his justice No man persisting in any known wicked course, can rationally hope, that GOD should succeed or prosper him in any thing that he goes about; and if success should chance to accompany him in it, it is a thousand to one, but it is intended only as a curse, as the very greatest of curses, and the readiest way, by hardening him in his sin, to ascertain his destruction. He who will venture his life in a duel, should not choose to have his mortal enemy for his second.

 

 On the contrary, the same innocence which makes all quiet within a man, makes all peaceable and serene above him. And that person cannot but have a certain boldness, and a kind of claim to the favors of Providence, whose heart is continually telling him, that he does as he should do; and his conscience, having been all along his director, cannot, in the issue, prove his accuser. But all things, whether he looks forwards or backwards, upon what is past or what is to come, shall concur in assuring him, that his great Judge has no other sentence to pass upon him, but to set a crown of glory upon his head, and receive him with a " Well done! Enter you into the joy of thy LORD." And if, being thus inspired with such supporting expectations, he should yet chance utterly to sink, as to all his concerns and interests here below, yet having thus broken through them all to discharge his duty, the very sense of his having done so shall strengthen his heart, and bear up his spirits, though the whole world were in arms against him, or in a flame about him; so that he shall be able, from his own experience, to seal the truth of that seeming paradox of the Apostle, in Rom. 8: 36, 37, that persons, thus assisted from above, even in " tribulations, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness," (the known badges of primitive Christianity,) nay, in their " being killed all the day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter," shall yet, under those very massacres, " become more than conquerors," through that GOD who makes those who fight under his banners triumph more gloriously in losing their blood for him, than their mightiest enemies do or can in their shedding of it. For if a man falls a sacrifice to GOD, his conscience, or his country, it is not material by what hand he falls: GOD accepts the martyr, whosoever is the executioner. And so long as there is another world to reward and punish, no man's doom can be certainly pronounced from any thing that befalls him in this.

 

 And now, at, length, to come to a close, we have shown the darkness and intricacy of the ways of Providence; and we have shown also, what incompetent judges, and yet what confident interpreters men are generally of them From all which, what can so naturally be inferred, as the several reprimands of the blindness and boldness (qualities seldom found asunder) of the saucy descants of the world concerning these matters For what do they else, but, in effect, arraign even Providence itself Summon Omniscience before the bar of ignorance And, in a word, put a pitiful mortal to sit in judgment upon his Maker The text, I am sure, positively declares, that the works of GOD are " past finding out;" and if so, is it not the height of absurdity, as well as arrogance, to assign, either from divinity or philosophy, any other reason of the works themselves, but the sole will of the agent Or to pretend to give an account of that which we ourselves own to be unac

 

countable Common sense certainly must needs see and explode the grossness of the contradiction, and convince, us that in things so transcendantly above our highest speculations, the only rational and safe rule for us to proceed by, will be to make them rather matter of admiration than of argument, still remembering, that, next to a direct violation of GOD'S revealed will, is a bold intrusion into his secret.

 

 Now to the infinitely wise Governor of all things, adorable in his counsels, and stupendous in his works, but essentially just and holy in both, be rendered and ascribed (as is most due) all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.