some Christians pretend to find in it, they neither would desire, nor could have better arguments for rejecting it. Prayer, praise, and adoration of God, are things difficult to none but scholars: they are in themselves plain; but refined notions, to justify modern corruptions, have made them intricate. The command is clear, God only is to be worshipped to make room for any other object, worship is to be split into many kinds, and one religiously preserved to God, in controversy at least, that others may be imparted to the creature. To this eagerness of justifying a corrupt practice, we owe the many curious distinctions invented to darken and confound the clearest truths of the gospel.

PART II.

It is a common practice, though much complained of, to pervert the Scriptures to support the opinions which distinguish different sects; and this, in proportion as each has departed from the genuine doctrines and practices of Christianity. The same disposition exists in private life: there are not so many self-condemned sinners in the world as is generally thought; for he who continues in sin generally finds out soon some excuse or justification for his vice. A man, judging only by reason and Scripture, would wonder how Scripture was ever made a party to such a defence: but the friends of any vice are guided in their judgments by self-love and interest, such candid interpreters, that no vice need fear being tried by the Scriptures, they being judges. The cause of this has been already observed: it is now considered how we may best secure ourselves against this great abuse. The words of the text do not lead directly to this inquiry, or afford much light in it: but by observing how our Lord brought this disputer to do justice to the law of God, and to own even the Samaritan as the Jew's neighbor, we shall learn how men are to be dealt with; and how forced to give up the excuses under which they have sheltered their iniquity. As what is farther to be said in this argument must arise from our Lord's answer to the question put to him in the text, his answer must be placed in its true light. In answer then to the lawyer's question, our Lord puts a case to him for his own judgment: the story briefly related. Some have labored much so to adjust this case, that it might be a proper answer to the lawyer's question, who is my neighbor? that is, whom must I love as myself? So that our Lord ought to have determined the extent and right of neighborhood, and thence deduced the obligations of love and assistance; whereas the case reverses this order: the Priest and the Levite were not neighbors, because they did not assist the wounded man ; the Samaritan was, because he showed kindness to him: if then no man is our neighbor till we have either, showed or received kindness from him, we cannot from the right of neighborhood infer the obligations of love, but must determine, from the mutual exercise of love, the notion and extent of neighborhood and no man, if this be the case, can offend against the law of loving his neighbor: for none

of

being our neighbors except those we love, every man loves his neighbors. But if we view the case fairly and in its true light, this supposed difficulty vanishes. The lawyer asked the question in order to justify himself: he had learned to call no man neighbor who was not of the same stock and religion with himself: he expressly hated Samaritans, and justified his hatred, because they were deserters of the temple at Jerusalem. This great error was not to be wrested from him by battling his prejudices, and arguing on the true sense of the law; for not being unaccustomed to such exercise, he would have stood resolute against any such convictions; our Saviour therefore puts him a case which shuts out all his prejudices. By placing a Jew in distress, no exception could be taken against the person: a Samaritan in the same state would have found no pity from a Jew, who would have thought it right to be an enemy to the enemy God. A priest and a Levite pass by and neglect him: these persons stood in all those relations to the distressed, which the lawyer owned to be just bonds of neighborhood, and therefore he could not but condemn their want of bowels to their brother; but a Samaritan passing by, shows compassion to the poor Jew: here even the lawyer's prejudices carried him to a right judgment; for knowing the hatred between the Jew and the Samaritan, he could not but the more admire his kindness: hence our Saviour urges him to declare which was neighbor to the man in distress; that is, which acted most agreeably to God's law, that we should love our neighbor as ourself: the lawyer answers, he that showed mercy; condemning thereby the Jewish exposition and his own prejudices; for if a Jew was forbidden to assist a Samaritan, the same reason held good why a Samaritan should not assist a Jew. Our Saviour approving his judgment bids him apply it to himself; go thou, and do likewise; that is, since you commend the Samaritan for acting like a neighbor to the Jew, do you learn to act so to a Samaritan, which is the force of the word likewise. Thus the case fully determined the question, and showed that no restrictions were to be laid on the law of God. From our Lord's conduct here, we may learn how to apply to the passions and prejudices of men; and how most successfully to make truth occupy the seat of error. If it were a defect of reason that made us thus disagree, and act differently in cases where we have one and the same rule to go by, the distemper would be incurable, as we are not able to enlarge the faculties which are bounded by God and nature. But it is not so; passion and prejudice hinder us from judging rightly in cases of morality and natural justice; and we find that men's reason and judgment fail in the very same proportion that vice and passion prevail. Did men judge perversely in all cases alike, nothing less than want of judgment and reason could account for it: but when we see them to have reason in most cases, and to be dark only in a few, we must search out some other cause. Now if we find that a man's reason and virtue forsake him in the same instances, and that where he judges perversely he acts perversely, and remarkably so in them only, we may learn what misguides or rather enslaves the mind, and how the freedom of reason may be restored: this beau

tifully illustrated in the cases of the covetous, voluptuous, and ambitious man self lies at the bottom; it is not so much the vice, as self that is to be defended; and if you can separate these, the vice will soon fall under the common sentence of reason, and be left to be condemned with its fellows. By this honest, this holy art, did our Lord convince the lawyer, who put the question of the text to him, intending to admit no one as his neighbor that was not nearly allied to him, or at least of the same nation. Our Saviour stated a case to him by which his prejudices were silenced: thus he who excluded almost all mankind, owned even the Samaritan to be the Jew's neighbor, and thus confessed the Samaritan's right, in that relation, to expect and receive good offices from the Jew. Thus also did the prophet Nathan force David, in the very height of sin and extravagance, to give sentence on himself and his iniquity. The story of Uriah briefly told. Had the prophet openly taxed David with the murder, he would perhaps have justified himself, and said to the prophet as he had to the captain, the sword devoureth one as well as another; or perhaps the prophet would have been rebuked for his intrusion, and forced to fly from the king's anger. But he complains to the king of a great oppression, which a very rich man had been guilty of towards a very poor one. The story of the ewe-lamb fully told. Then said the king, as the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die. The king having thus passed sentence, the prophet opened the secret, and said, thou art the man : the parallel fully drawn. The king therefore had no retreat for his justification: he had nothing left him but this plain confession, I have sinned against the Lord. Thus again our Saviour, under the parable of an householder and his vineyard, made the Jews bear witness to God's justice in rejecting their nation from being his people this parable briefly related. It is not hard to force truth out of men, when you have once got beyond their prejudices, and separated the truth from all personal views and interests; for reason is clear enough, when unclouded by passion and affection: this made the heathen moralists clothe their instructions in the dress of fable: the reasons of this enlarged on, and illustrated in the case of a passionate man, who never reads the fable of the horse and the man, but he laughs at the horse's folly and his impotent desire of revenge. The consequences of these things are plain. I. The true art of convincing a man of his error is plainly to throw him as much as possible out of the case; for the less he is himself concerned, the better he judges. You must not fret his prejudices, but decline them; not reproach him with the error you condemn, but place it so that he may see it in its true light. II. In private life, innocence is the only preservative of reason and judgment: guilt causes you to seek subterfuges, and misleads you in your opinion of yourself and your duty. III. If you find yourself involved in the case you are to judge of, instead of seeking new reasons and arguments to form your opinion by, look back and reflect what sense you had of the matter before it was your own; as your judgment will thus be more impartial or consider, if possible, what is the sense of the sober and

virtuous, whom you may more safely trust than yourself, where your passions are concerned. At least suppose your enemy in the same circumstances with yourself; change places with him; then consider what judgment you would make of him, and so judge of yourself. By these means perhaps we may preserve ourselves from the fatal influences which vice and passion have over the reason and understanding of mankind.

DISCOURSE LVI.

ROMANS, CHAP. XIV. VERSE 16.

Let not then your good be evil spoken of.

ST. PETER describes the condition of Christian warfare, adding the example of Christ, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. Here one would think no man would overact his part; reproach and contempt are not riches, against the temptations or too eager pursuit of which we need be warned. We are apt to shrink at calumny, and excuse ourselves from duties, which performed would expose us to envy or ill-will: what then is the meaning of the text? Does Christ call us to suffer revilings, and his Apostle call us to avoid them? But suppose that it is not inconsistent with our Christian duty to avoid the reproach of the world; yet can we stop malice when we do our duty, or prevent others from speaking ill of our good? Is it not enough therefore to do good, without securing it from the attempts of malice and envy? to suffer patiently the malice of wickedness, but must we partake the guilt of it too? and shall it be imputed a crime to us, that we let our good be evil spoken of? Such reasonings the text may suggest at first; but maturely considered, it will teach us how to pursue things in themselves truly praiseworthy; not only how to be good ourselves, but useful in the world, by exercising a truly Christian prudence and address in promoting the interest of virtue and religion. The gospel calls us not to court persecution for the sake of our profession: it is not for the interest of religion, or the glory of our Master, voluntarily to expose ourselves or doctrine to the contempt of the world: in both cases our Saviour has directed us otherwise, Matt. vii. 6.: when he sent his disciples forth to preach, his express command was, beware of men; thereby requiring them to consult their own personal safety. This may satisfy us of the lawfulness of avoiding danger, and clear our way to the fully understanding of the text. The rule is general, and extends itself to all parts of our Christian conversation. Apostle applies it particularly to the controversy in the church of Rome at the time this letter was written to them; but as it arises not out of the particular circumstances of that case, we may deduce

PART II.

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The

it from the general principles of Christian prudence on which it is founded. To proceed clearly, it is inquired, I. What the Apostle means by our good: II. Endeavor is made to show that our good is often exposed to be evil spoken of through our own indiscretion, and therefore that we may often prevent it: whence, III. Will appear the reasonableness of the duty enjoined us in the text.-I. Some by our good understand our religion, which is every Christian's chief good in which point of view the text is thought to recommend simplicity of manner and inoffensiveness of behavior. But the Apostle seems to aim at something farther: his business here is not to deter us from the practice of evil, but to direct us in the use and practice of good, that our virtue may be secured from reproach; and our good is not the topic whence the Apostle draws an argument or exhortation, but the subject-matter of his directions. Thus then the text may be paraphrased: be not content with merely doing what is in itself good and commendable, but look forward to its probable consequences, and thus try to prevent any mischief that may grow out of it to yourself or others, that your good may be inoffensive and irreproachable in this sense it is proposed to consider the text.II. We cannot then be truly virtuous till we are above the temptations of the world, and free from the servitude of courting its opinion; but here men err in thinking this to be the same as to despise the world and all that belong to it: and hence it is that virtue itself attracts a moroseness which destroys its power of usefulness. Nor is this all the cause of virtue often suffers by the zeal and indiscretion of such mistaken votaries, who disdainfully censure all the prudent methods by which goodness may be advanced, as the effects of worldly wisdom and cunning; and if what they do be justifiable in itself, they care not for the consequences: nay, they eagerly embrace inconveniences, esteeming it virtue to suffer for good; whence arises disdain and aversion; and hence they value themselves more for reproaching men with their vices than for correcting them. The success of such a method may be known by considering the temper and disposition of mankind. To vex and exasperate men makes them stubborn in vices and opinions, exposes your good to reproach, and gives the enemies of religion occasion to blaspheme. Zeal is the noblest grace, when duly tempered with charity and prudence, and in this state produces the best fruit; but growing extravagant, it becomes a grief to wise men, and the sport of fools. The mistake of such men lies in not distinguishing between a servile compliance with the world, and a prudent behavior towards it; the difference between which is as great as between virtue and vice: one is the way which men, who sacrifice honor and conscience to their interest, make use of; by the other, wise and good men recommend the practice of virtue and religion. Those whose virtue is too stiff to court the world into a compliance with what is good, may do well to consider how the Apostle is to be justified in the character which he has given of himself, 1 Cor. ix. 19. Into what a variety of shapes did he turn himself, to gain on the affections of men, that he might win them over to the gospel! This point enlarged on, and illustrated