difficulties will not last always, but the happy time will come, when virtue will be grown as habitual to him as vice was, and then all these uneasinesses and strugglings will be at an end, provided he perseveres in the holy warfare, and pushes it on with that courage and bravery which becomes a Chris

tian.

Till an old habitual vice is thoroughly mortified, we must expect that it will revive upon every new temptation, and put us upon fresh action; which should indeed make us have a care of too much security, and keep us upon a constant guard, knowing that we fight not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world; which, though to us invisible, and blessed be God that they are so, do constantly besiege us, watching for all favourable opportunities to attack us, and which they will not fail to improve to the utmost. But let not this dismay us, knowing under whose banner it is we fight, even that of the victorious Jesus; and whom we have to support us when pressed too hard by the enemy, even the Spirit of God, and his powerful grace, which is able to defend us against their most furious assaults, "to strengthen those that stand, "to comfort the weak hearted, to raise up them "that fall, and finally to beat down Satan under "our feet: so that assuredly trusting in his defence, we need not fear the power of any adver"saries, through the might of Jesus our Redeemer."

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But to think of victory without fighting, or of fighting without danger and difficulty, and the various turns of successes and repulses, is to think against the nature of things, the account the scrip

tures give us of the Christian warfare, and the experience of all the world.

Wherefore, to conclude our observations upon this miracle; as it is faith principally that must enable us to overcome our three great enemies, the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and vanquish any inveterate, stubborn vice, that hath domineered it in our souls for any time; so this faith must be invigorated, and the Divine assistance implored, by fervent prayer, and prudent abstinence and fasting; and if we go on in this good and safe course with patience and resolution, and due caution and circumspection, though we are fain to strive and struggle hard, and sometimes are surprised and foiled, yet our great Champion will not suffer us to be tempted beyond what we are able, but will seasonably come in to our rescue, and take us by the hand, and raise us up, and in his own good time give us such a measure of spiritual strength as will make us more than conquerors 1.

THE ELEVENTH MIRACLE.

Ten Lepers cleansed.

LUKE xvii. 12, &c.

And it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers.

IN the ninth chapter of this Gospel, ver. 51, we find Jesus resolving upon his last visit to Jerusalem, that he might finish the glorious work which he came into the world to do; for the time was come that he should be received up into heaven, from whence he came down to be a sacrifice for sinners. And some of the Samaritans, through whose country he went in his passage from Galilee to the holy city, very inhospitably refused him entertainment, because he was going to worship at Jerusalem, looking upon it as a great affront to their temple at mount Gerizim; which, after the return of the tribe of Judah from the captivity of Babylon, was built in opposition to that of the Jews, and was the occasion of such heats between them, that they denied the common offices of humanity to each other, as we find they did here in this instance.

Upon this great rudeness shewn to their Master, the warm disciples James and John, those sons of thunder, as our Lord surnamed them, and perhaps upon this occasion, were for making examples of those surly schismatics, by commanding fire from

heaven to consume them as Elias did.

But the meek Jesus turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them b.

Now as they were going on to another village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off, and they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! And had Jesus been so tender of his honour, as some are nowadays, and had the same resentments as the world both has and justifies, anger would have stifled all compassion, and the lepers have gone without a cure. For, to hold his hand from bestowing extraordinary blessings whilst in a place so very unworthy of them, was, as the world would think, the least that he could do in such a case; and to work miraculous cures among people that bore such an inveterate hatred to the Jews, and had but just before put so great an affront upon him, purely because he was going to worship God at Jerusalem, would have been to shew them too much favour, and a kind of encouragement of their schism.

But he who hath commanded us to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully use us, and persecute us, was so far from stopping his ears to the cries of these wretched creatures, upon account of the ill usage he met with from the country, that immediately he took pity on them, and when he saw them he said, Go shew yourselves to the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.

a 2 Kings i. 10.

b Luke ix. 55, 56.

c Matth. v. 44.

Whoever is a real object of charity and pity, and wheresoever we may meet him, or whencesoever he may come, as Christians we are bound to relieve him to the best of our ability. Even he that is actually our enemy, and it may be hath dealt very basely and inhumanly by us, is yet so much our brother, in the sense of our holy religion, that we must not shut up our bowels of compassion from him when in his necessity he cries to us for help.

Much less should any man's being of a family, a party, or a nation, that have and do oppose the interests we are in, be a bar to our charity to him; and least of all should difference in religion harden our hearts to one another, and make us forget that

we are men.

A false religion, or wrong notions and opinions in some particulars among such as profess the true, though when obstinately persisted in, after all due methods have been taken to inform them better, it may take off from that intimacy and endearment which is amongst those that are of one heart and one mind, and is apt to cause a mutual strangeness between people of contrary sentiments in a matter of such moment and consequence; yet it must by no means abate, much less destroy, our charity and compassion, but rather heighten it towards them, as a means of all other the most effectual to soften and melt down a stubborn disposition, and overcome evil with good.

This is the perfection of our most merciful religion, and is like God's leading us by his goodness to repentance; and it is the best assurance we can have that we are Christians indeed, when we are