In the fifth place, By accustoming ourselves to such serious views of life, our excessive fondness for life itself will be moderated, and our minds gradually formed to wish and to long for a better world. If we know that our continuance here is to be short, and that we are intended by our Maker for a more lasting state, and for employments of a nature altogether different from those which now occupy the busy, or amuse the vain, we must surely be convinced that it is of the highest consequence to prepare ourselves for so important a change. This view of our duty is frequently held up to us in the sacred writings; and hence religion becomes, though not a morose, yet a grave and solemn principle, calling off the attention of men from light pursuits to those which are of eternal moment. What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? if he shall lead a life of thoughtless mirth on earth, and exclude himself from eternal felicity in heaven? Worldly affection and censual pleasure depress all our higher powers. They form an unnatural union between the human soul and this earth, which was only designed for its temporary abode, They attach it too strongly to objects from which it must shortly part. They alienate its desires from God and Heaven, and deject it with slavish and unmanly fears of death. Whereas, by the discipline of religious seriousness, it is gradually loosened from the fetters of sense. Assisted to discover the vanity of this world, it rises above it; and, in the hours of sober thought, cultivates connexion with those divine and immortal objects, among which it is designed to dwell.

ENOUGH has now been said to convince any thinking person of the justice and reasonableness of the maxims in the text; and to show, that on various occasions, sorrow may be better than laughter. Wouldst thou acquire the habit of recollection, and fix the principles of thy conduct; wouldst thou be led up to thy Creator and Redeemer, and be formed to sentiments of piety and devotion; wouldst thou be acquainted with those mild and tender affections which delight the compassionate and humane; wouldst thou have the power of sensual appetites tamed and corrected, and thy soul raised above the ignoble love of life, and fear of death? Go, my brother, go-not to scenes of pleasure and riot, not to the house of feasting and mirth-but to the silent house of mourning; and adventure to dwell for a while among objects that will soften thy heart. Contemplate the lifeless remains of what once was fair and flourishing. Bring home to thyself the vicissitudes of life. Recall the remembrance of the friend, the parent, or the child whom thou tenderly lovedst. Look back on the days of former years; and think on the companions of thy youth, who now sleep in the dust. Let the vanity, the mutabi

lity, and the sorrows of the human estate, rise in full prospect before thee; and though thy countenance may be made sad, thy heart shall be made better. This sadness, though for the present it dejects, yet shall in the end fortify thy spirit; inspiring thee with such sentiments and prompting such resolutions, as shall enable thee to enjoy, with more real advantage, the rest of life. Dispositions of this nature form one part of the character of those mourners whom our Saviour hath pronounced blessed; and of those to whom it is promised, that sowing in tears, they shall reap in joy. A great difference there is between being serious and melancholy; and a melancholy too there is of that kind which deserves to be sometimes indulged.

Religion hath, on the whole, provided for every good man abundant materials of consolation and relief. How dark soever the present face of nature may appear, it dispels the darkness, when it brings into view the entire system of things, and extends our survey to the whole kingdom of God. It represents what we now behold as only a part, and a small part, of the general order. It assures us, that though here, for wise ends, misery and sorrow are permitted to have place, these temporary evils shall, in the end, advance the happiness of all who love God, and are faithful to their duty. It shews them this mixed and confused scene vanishing by degrees away, and preparing the introduction of that state, where the house of mourning shall be shut up for ever; where no tears are seen, and no groans heard; where no hopes are frustrated, and no virtuous connexions dissolved; but where, under the light of the Divine countenance, goodness shall flourish in perpetual felicity. Thus, though religion may occasionally chasten our mirth with sadness of countenance, yet under that sadness it allows not the heart of good men to sink; it calls upon them to rejoice, because the Lord reigneth who is their Rock, and the most high God, who is their Redeemer. Reason likewise joins her voice with that of religion; forbidding us to make peevish and unreasonable complaints of human life, or injuriously to ascribe to it more evil than it contains. Mixed as the present state is, she pronounces, that generally, if not always, there is more happiness than misery, more pleasure than pain, in the condition of man.

* Matth. v. 4. Psalm cxxvi. 5.

SERMON XXIX.

ON THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT OF THE PASSIONS OF MEN.

Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.-PSALM lxxvi. 10.

THIS Psalm appears to have been composed on occasion of some remarkable deliverance obtained by the Jewish nation, It is generally understood to have been written in the reign of Hezekiah, and to refer to the formidable invasion of Judea by Sennacherib; when the angel of the Lord, in one night, discomfitted the whole Assyrian host, and smote them with sudden destruction. To this interposition of the Divine arm, those expressions in the context may naturally be applied; There brake he the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle. The stout-hearted are spoiled; they have slept their sleep; and none of the men of might have found their hands. At thy rebuke, Oh God of Jacob! both the chariot and the horse are cast into a dead sleep.-In the text we have the wise and religious reflection of the Psalmist upon the violent designs which had been carried on by the enemies of his country, and upon the issue to which Providence had brought them. Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee. By the wrath of man, we are to understand all that the impetuosity of human passions can devise or execute; the projects of ambition and resentment, the rage of persecution, the fury of war; the disorders which violence produces in private life, and the public commotions which it excites in the world. All these shall praise God, not with their intention and design, nor by their native tendency; but by those wise and good purposes, which his providence makes them accomplish; from their poison extracting health, and converting things, which in themselves are pernicious, into instruments of his glory, and of public benefit: So that, though the wrath of man worketh not the

righteousness of God, it is nevertheless forced and compelled to minister to his praise. The Psalmist adds, the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain; that is, God will allow scope to the wrath of man as far as it answers his good purposes, and is subservient to his praise; the rest of it shall be curbed and bound up. When it would attempt to go beyond its prescribed limit, he says to it, as to the waters of the ocean, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be staid.

All this shall be fully verified and declared by the last issue of things; when we shall be able more clearly to trace the Divine administration through its several steps, by seeing the consummation of the whole. In some cases, it may be resesved for this period to unfold the mysterious wisdom of Heaven. But in general, as much of the Divine conduct is at present manifest, as gives just ground for the assertion in the text. In the sequel of this discourse I shall endeavour to illustrate and confirm it. I shall show in what manner the wrath of man is made to praise the power, the wisdom, the justice and the goodness of God.

I BEGIN with this observation, That in order to accomplish the great purposes carried on by the Government of the Universe, it is necessary that the Divine perfections be displayed before mankind in a sensible and striking manner. We are not to conceive the Supreme Being as hereby seeking praise to himself, from a principle of ostentation or vain glory. Independent and self-sufficient, he rests in the enjoyment of his own beatitude. His praise consists in the general order and welfare of his creation. This end cannot be attained, unless mankind be made to feel the subjection under which they are placed. They must be taught to admire and adore their Sovereign. They must be overawed by the view of a high hand, which can at pleasure controul their actions, and render them subservient o purposes, which they neither foresaw nor intended. Hence the propriety of God's makidg the wrath of man to praise him. We easily conceive in what manner the heavens and the earth are said to praise God, as they are standing monuments of that supreme perfection which is displayed in their creation. The virtues of good men obviously praise him, by exhibiting his image, and reflecting back his glory. But when even the vices and inordinate passions of bad men are made to praise him, in consequence of the useful purposes which they are compelled to accomplish, this, in a particular manner, distinguishes and signalizes a Divine hand; this opens a more wonderful prospect of the administration of Heaven, than if all its subjects had been loyal and willingly obedient, and the course of human affairs had proceeded in a quiet and regular tenor.

power.

I. THE wrath of man redounds to the praise of Divine It brings it forth with full and awful lustre, to the view of mankind. To reign with sovereign command amidst the most turbulent and disordered state of things, both in the natural and moral world, is the peculiar glory of Omnipotence. Hence God is described in Scripture as sitting on the flood, riding on the wings of the wind, dwelling in the darkness and the tempest; that is, making the most violent powers in the universe minister to his will; giving them scope or restraining them, according as suits the purposes of his dominion. As he stills, at his pleasure, the raging of the seas, and the noise of their waves, in like manner he stills the tumults of the people. when the passions of men are most inflamed, and their designs just ripe for bursting into execution; often, by some unexpected interposition, he calls upon the world to observe that there is One higher than the highest on earth, who can frustrate their devices in a moment, and command the earth to be still before him. Proud fleets, destined to carry destruction to neighboring kingdoms, may cover the ocean. He blows with his wind, and they are scattered.

Mighty armies may go forth to the field in all the glory of human strength; but the issues of battle are with Him. He suspends on high the invisible balance which weighs the fate of nations. According as the scale inclines, he gives to some slight event the power of deciding the contest. He clouds the sky with darkness, or opens the windows of Heaven to let forth their flood. He dejects the hearts of the brave with sudden terror, and renders the hands of the strong, weak and unperforming at the critical moment. A thousand unseen ministers stand ready to be the instruments of his power, in humbling the pride, and checking the efforts of the wrath of man. Thus, in the instance of haughty Sennacherib, and that boasted tempest of wrath which he threatened to pour upon all the Jewish nation; I will put my hook, says the Almighty, in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.* In that night the destroying angel smote the host, and he departed with shame of face to his own land. When the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing; when the kings of the earth set themselves, and its rulers take council together, He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision.t

II. THE wrath of man is made to praise the wisdom as well as the power of God. Nothing displays more remarkably the admirable counsel of Heaven, than its arranging the train of events in such a manner, that the unruly passions of the wicked † Psalm ii. 1, 2, 4.

2 Kings, xix. 28.