May God of his mercy defend mankind from future experiments of this kind! and grant we may make a proper use of them, for the sake of Jesus Christ! Amen.

Indeed, even with this security, riches to him that hath neither child nor brother, as the wise man observes, instead of a comfort, prove sometimes a sore travail and vexation. The mind of man is not always satisfied with the reasonable assurance of its own enjoyments, but will look

NESS AND TROUBLES OF LIFE CONSIDERED.

Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.'-JOB XIV. 1, 2.

THERE is something in this reflection of holy Job's, upon the shortness of life and instability of human affairs, so beautiful and truly sublime, that one might challenge the writings of the most celebrated orators of antiquity to produce a specimen of eloquence so noble and thoroughly affecting. Whether this effect be owing in some measure to the pathetic nature of the subject reflected on, or to the eastern manner of expression, in a style more exalted and suitable to so great a subject; or, which is the more likely account, because they are properly the words of that Being who first inspired man with language, and taught his mouth to utter; who opened the lips of the dumb, and made the tongue of the infant eloquent ;-to which of these we are to refer the beauty and sublimity of this, as well as that of numberless other passages in holy writ, may not now seem material; but surely, without these helps, never man was better qualified to make just and noble reflections upon the shortness of life and instability of human affairs than Job was, who had himself waded through such a sea of troubles, and in his passage had encountered many vicissitudes of storms and sunshine, and by turns had felt both the extremes of all the happiness and all the wretchedness that mortal man is heir to.

The beginning of his days was crowned with everything that ambition could wish for. He was the greatest of all the men of the east, had large and unbounded possessions, and no doubt enjoyed all the comforts and advantages of life which they could administer. Perhaps you will say a wise man might not be inclined to give a full loose to this kind of happiness, without some better security for the support of it than the mere possession of such goods of fortune, which often slip from under us, and sometimes unaccountably make themselves wings and fly away. But he had that security too: for the hand of Providence, which had thus far protected, was still leading him forwards, and seemed engaged in the preservation and continuance of these blessings. God had set a hedge about him, and about all that he had on every side; he had blessed all the works of his

the want of some beloved object to fill his place after him will often disquiet itself in vain, and say, For whom do I labour, and bereave myself of rest?'

This bar to his happiness God had likewise taken away, in blessing him with a numerous offspring of sons and daughters, the apparent inheritors of all his present happiness. Pleasing reflection! to think the blessings God has indulged one's self in shall be handed and continued down to a man's own seed! how little does this differ from a second enjoyment of them to an affectionate parent, who naturally looks forward with as strong an interest upon his children as if he was to live over again in his own posterity!

What could be wanting to finish such a picture of a happy man? Surely nothing, except a virtuous disposition to give a relish to these blessings, and direct him to make a proper use of them. He had that too; for he was a perfect and upright man-one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

In the midst of all this prosperity, which was as great as could well fall to the share of one man, whilst all the world looked gay and smiled upon him, and everything round him seemed to promise if possible an increase of happiness,in one instant all is changed to sorrow and utter despair.

It pleased God, for wise purposes, to blast the fortunes of his house, and cut off the hopes of his posterity, and in one mournful day to bring this great prince from his palace down to the dunghill. His flocks and herds, in which consisted the abundance of his wealth, were part consumed by fire from heaven, the remainder taken by the sword of the enemy; his sons and daughters, whom 'tis natural to imagine so good a man had so brought up in a sense of their duty as to give him all reasonable hopes of much joy and pleasure in their future lives-natural prospect for a parent to look forwards at, to recompense him for the many cares and anxieties which their infancy had cost him!-these dear pledges of his future happiness were all, all snatched from him at one blow, just at the time that one might imagine they were beginning to be the comfort and delight of his old age, which most wanted such staves to lean on; and as circumstances add to an evil, so they did to this; for it fell out, not only by a very calamitous accident, which was grievous enough of itself, but likewise upon the back of his other misfortunes, when he was ill prepared to bear such a shock; and what

would still add to it, it happened at an hour when he had least reason to expect it, when he would naturally think his children secure and out of the way of danger;-'For whilst they were feasting and making merry in their eldest brother's house, a great wind out of the wilderness smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon them.'

Such a concurrence of misfortunes is not the common lot of many, and yet there are instances of some who have undergone as severe trials, and bravely struggled under them; perhaps by natural force of spirits, the advantages of health, and the cordial assistance of a friend. And with these helps, what may not a man sustain? But this was not Job's case; for scarce had these evils fallen upon him when he was not only borne down with a grievous distemper, which afflicted him from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, but likewise his three friends, in whose kind consolations he might have found a medicine,- -even the wife of his bosom, whose duty it was with a gentle hand to have softened all his sorrows,-instead of doing this, they cruelly insulted and became the reproachers of his integrity! O God! what is man when thou bruisest him, and makest his burden heavier, as his strength grows less! Who, that had found himself thus an example of the many changes and chances of this mortal life ;-when he considered himself now stripped and left destitute of so many valuable blessings which the moment before thy providence had poured upon his head; when he reflected upon this gay delightsome structure, in appearance so strongly built, so pleasingly surrounded with everything that could flatter his hopes and wishes, and beheld it all levelled with the ground in one moment, and the whole prospect vanish with it, like the description of an enchantment,-who, I say, that had seen and felt the shock of so sudden a revolution, would not have been furnished with just and beautiful reflections on the occasion, and said with Job, in the words of the text, that 'man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of misery; that he cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not!'

The words of the text are an epitome of the natural and moral vanity of man, and contain two distinct declarations concerning his state and condition in each respect.

First, That he is a creature of few days; and, secondly, That those days are full of trouble.

I shall make some reflections upon each of these in their order, and conclude with a practical lesson from the whole.

And, first, That he is of few days. The comparison which Job makes use of, 'That man cometh forth like a flower,' is extremely beautiful, and more to the purpose than the most elaborate proof, which, in truth, the subject will not easily admit of; the shortness of life being a point so generally complained of in all

ages since the flood, and so universally felt and acknowledged by the whole species, as to require no evidence beyond a similitude; the intent of which is not so much to prove the fact as to illustrate and place it in such a light as to strike us, and bring the impression home to ourselves in a more affecting manner.

Man comes forth, says Job, like a flower, and is cut down. He is sent into the world the fairest and noblest part of God's works, fashioned after the image of his Creator with respect to reason and the great faculties of the mind; he cometh forth glorious as the flower of the field: as it surpasses the vegetable world in beauty, so does he the animal world in the glory and excellences of his nature.

The one, if no untimely accident oppress it, soon arrives at the full period of its perfection, -is suffered to triumph for a few moments, and is plucked up by the roots in the very pride and gayest stage of its being; or, if it happens to escape the hands of violence, in a few days it necessarily sickens of itself, and dies away.

Man, likewise, though his progress is slower, and his duration something longer, yet the periods of his growth and declension are nearly the same, both in the nature and manner of them.

If he escapes the dangers which threaten his tender years, he is soon got into the full maturity and strength of life; and if he is so fortunate as not to be hurried out of it then by accidents, by his own folly and intemperance,—if he escapes these, he naturally decays of himself; a period comes fast upon him beyond which he was not made to last. Like a flower or fruit which may be plucked up by force before the time of their maturity, yet cannot be made to outgrow the period when they are to fade and drop of themselves,—when that comes, the hand of nature│ then plucks them both off; and no art of the botanist can uphold the one, or skill of the physician preserve the other, beyond the periods to which their original frames and constitutions were made to extend. As God has appointed and determined the several growths and decays of the vegetable race, so he seems as evidently to have prescribed the same laws to man, as well as all living creatures, in the first rudiments of which there are contained the specific powers of their growth, duration, and extinction; and when the evolutions of those animal powers are exhausted and run down, the creature expires and dies of itself, as ripe fruit falls from the tree, or a flower preserved beyond its bloom drops and perishes upon the stalk.

Thus much for this comparison of Job's, which, though it is very poetical, yet conveys a just idea of the thing referred to. "That he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not,' is no less a faithful and fine representation of the shortness and vanity of human life; of which one cannot give a better explanation than by referring to the

when compared with what is to come; and therefore so short and transitory a one as threescore years and ten, beyond which all is de

How many of our first years slide by in the innocent sports of childhood, in which we are not able to make reflections upon them! How many more thoughtless years escape us in our youth, when we are unwilling to do it, and are so eager in the pursuit of pleasure as to have no time to spare to stop and consider them!

When graver and riper years come on, and we begin to think it time to reform and set up for men of sense and conduct, then the business and perplexing interests of this world, and the endless plotting and contriving how to make the most of it, do so wholly employ us, that we are too busy to make reflections upon so unprofitable a subject. As families and children increase, so do our affections, and with them are multiplied our cares and toils for their preservation and establishment; all which take up our thoughts so closely, and possess them so long, that we are often overtaken by grey hairs before we see them, or have found leisure to consider how far we are got what we have been doing-and for what purpose God sent us into the world! As man may justly be said to be of few days, considered with respect to this hasty succession of things, which soon carries him into the decline of his life, so may he likewise be said to flee like a shadow and continue not, when his duration is compared with other parts of God's works, and even the works of his own hands, which outlast him many generations; whilst (as Homer observes) like leaves one generation drops, and another springs up, to fall again, and be forgotten.

But when we further consider his days in the light in which we ought chiefly to view them, as they appear in thy sight, O God! with whom a thousand years are but as yesterday; when we reflect that this hand-breadth of life is all that is measured out to man from that eternity for which he is created, how does his short span vanish to nothing in the comparison! Tis true, the greatest portion of time will do the same

be allowed: and yet how uncertain are we of that portion, short as it is! Do not ten thousand accidents break off the slender thread of human life, long before it can be drawn out to that extent? The new-born babe falls down an easy prey, and moulders back again into dust, like a tender blossom put forth in an untimely hour. The hopeful youth, in the very pride and beauty of his life, is cut off; some cruel distemper or unthought of accident lays him prostrate upon the earth (to pursue Job's comparison), like a blooming flower smit and shrivelled up with a malignant blast. In this stage of life, chances multiply upon us,— the seeds of disorders are sown by intemperance or neglect, infectious distempers are more easily contracted; when contracted, they rage with greater violence, and the success in many cases is more doubtful, inasmuch as that they who have exercised themselves in computations of this kind tell us 'that one-half of the whole species which are born into the world go out of it again and are all dead in so short a space as the first seventeen years.'

These reflections may be sufficient to illustrate the first part of Job's declaration, 'That man is of few days.' Let us examine the truth of the other, and see whether he is not likewise full of trouble.

And here we must not take our account from the flattering outside of things, which is generally set off with a glittering appearance enough, especially in what is called higher life. Nor can we safely trust the evidence of some of the more merry and thoughtless amongst us, who are so set upon the enjoyment of life as seldom to reflect on the troubles of it; or who, perhaps, because they are not yet come to this portion of their inheritance, imagine it is not their common lot. Nor, lastly, are we to form an idea of it from the delusive stories of a few of the most prosperous passengers, who have fortunately sailed through and escaped the rougher toils and distresses; but we are to take our account from a close survey of human life, and the real face of things, stripped of everything that can palliate or gild it over. We must hear the general complaint of all ages, and read the histories of mankind. If we look into them, and examine them to the bottom, what do they contain but the history of sad and uncomfortable passages, which a good-natured man cannot read but with oppression of spirits! Consider the dreadful succession of wars in one part or other of the earth, perpetuated from one century to another with so little intermission that mankind have scarce had time to breathe from them, since ambition first came into the world! Consider the horrid effects of them in all those bar

barous devastations we read of, where whole nations have been put to the sword, or have been driven out to nakedness and famine, to make room for new-comers! Consider how great a part of our species, in all ages down to this, have been trod under the feet of cruel and capricious tyrants, who would neither hear their cries nor pity their distresses! Consider slavery what it is-how bitter a draught, and how many millions have been made to drink of it! which, if it can poison all earthly happiness when exercised barely upon our bodies, what must it be when it comprehends both the slavery of body and mind! To conceive this, look into the history of the Romish Church and her tyrants, or rather executioners, who seem to have taken pleasure in the pangs and convulsions of their fellow-creatures ! Examine the Inquisition, hear the melancholy notes sounded in every cell! Consider the anguish of mock trials, and the exquisite tortures consequent thereupon, mercilessly inflicted upon the unfortunate, where the racked and weary soul has so often wished to take its leave, but cruelly not suffered to depart! Consider how many of these helpless wretches have been hauled thence, in all periods of this tyrannic usurpation, to undergo the massacres and flames to which a false and a bloody religion has condemned them!

If this sad history and detail of the more public causes of the miseries of man are not sufficient, let us behold him in another light, with respect to the more private causes of them, and see whether he is not full of trouble likewise there, and almost born to it as naturally as the sparks fly upwards. If we consider man as a creature full of wants and necessities, whether real or imaginary, which he is not able to supply of himself, what a train of disappointments, vexations, and dependences are to be seen issuing thence, to perplex and make his being uneasy! How many jostlings and hard struggles do we undergo in making our way in the world! How barbarously held back! How often and basely overthrown, in aiming only at getting bread! How many of us never attain it, at least not comfortably! but, from various and unknown causes, eat it all our lives long in bitterness!

If we shift the scene, and look upwards, towards those whose situation in life seems to place them above the sorrows of this kind, yet where are they exempt from others? Do not all ranks and conditions of men meet with sad accidents and numberless calamities in other respects, which often make them go heavily all their lives long?

How many fall into chronical infirmities which render both their days and nights restless and insupportable! How many of the highest rank are torn up with ambition or soured with disappointments; and how many more, from a

thousand secret causes of disquiet, pine away in silence, and owe their deaths to sorrow and dejection of heart! If we cast our eyes upon the lowest class and condition of life, the scene is more melancholy still. Millions of our fellowcreatures, born to no inheritance but poverty and trouble, forced by the necessity of their lots to drudgery and painful employments, and hard set with that too, to get enough to keep themselves and families alive! So that, upon the whole, when we have examined the true state and condition of human life, and have made some allowances for a few fugacious, deceitful pleasures, there is scarce anything to be found which contradicts Job's description of it. Whichever way we look abroad, we see some legible characters of what God first denounced against us-That in sorrow we should eat our bread, till we return to the ground whence we were taken.'1

But some one will say, Why are we thus to be put out of love with human life? To what purpose is it to expose the dark sides of it to us, or enlarge upon the infirmities which are natural, and consequently out of our power to redress?

I answer that the subject is nevertheless of great importance, since it is necessary every creature should understand his present state and condition, to put him in mind of behaving suitably to it. Does not an impartial survey of man--the holding up of this glass to show his defects and natural infirmities-naturally tend to cure his pride, and clothe him with humility, which is a dress that best becomes a short-lived and a wretched creature? Does not the consideration of the shortness of our life convince! us of the wisdom of dedicating so small a portion to the great purposes of eternity?

Lastly, When we reflect that this span of life, short as it is, is chequered with so many troubles that there is nothing in this world springs up or can be enjoyed without a mixture of sorrow, how insensibly does it incline us to turn our eyes and affections from so gloomy a prospect, and fix them upon that happier country where afflictions cannot follow us, and where God will wipe away all tears from off our faces for ever and ever! Amen.

XI.-EVIL-SPEAKING.

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.'-JAMES I. 26.

Or the many duties owing both to God and our neighbour, there are scarce any men so bad as not to acquit themselves of some; and few so good, I fear, as to practise all.

Every man seems willing enough to compound the matter, and adopt so much of the system as

1 Most of these reflections upon the miseries of life are taken from Woollaston.

So, on the other hand, a man shall live without God in the world, have neither any great sense of religion, nor indeed pretend to have any, and yet be of nicest honour, conscientiously just and fair in all his dealing. And here it is that men generally betray themselves, deceiving, as the apostle says, their own hearts; of which the instances are so various, in one degree or other, throughout human life, that one might safely say the bulk of mankind live in such a contradiction to themselves that there is no character so hard to be met with as one which, upon a critical examination, will appear altogether uniform, and in every point consistent with itself.

If such a contrast was only observable in the different stages of a man's life, it would cease to be either a matter of wonder or of just reproach. Age, experience, and much reflection may naturally enough be supposed to alter a man's sense of things, and so entirely to transform him, that not only in outward appearances, but in the very cast and turn of his mind, he may be as unlike and different from the man he was twenty or thirty years ago as he ever was from anything of his own species. This, I say, is naturally to be accounted for, and in some cases might be praiseworthy too; but the observation is to be made of men in the same period of their lives, that in the same day, sometimes in the very same action, they are utterly inconsistent and irreconcilable with themselves. Look at a man in one light, and he shall seem wise, penetrating, discreet, and brave; behold him in another point of view, and you see a creature all over folly and indiscretion, weak and timorous as cowardice and indiscretion can make him. A man shall appear gentle, courteous, and benevolent to all mankind: follow him into his own house, may be you see a tyrant, morose and savage to all whose happiness depends upon his kindness. A third in his general behaviour is found to be generous, disinterested, humane, and friendly hear but the sad story of the friendless orphans, too credulously trusting all their little substance into his hands, and he shall appear more sordid, more pitiless, and unjust than the injured themselves have bitterness to paint him. Another shall be charitable to the poor, uncharitable in his censures and opinions of all the rest of the world besides; temperate in his appetites, intemperate in his

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perhaps, as far as the business of debtor and creditor extends, shall be just and scrupulous to the utmost mite; yet in matters of full as great concern, where he is to have the handling of the party's reputation and good name-the dearest, the tenderest property the man has-he will do him irreparable damage, and rob him there without measure or pity.

And this seems to be that particular piece of inconsistency and contradiction which the text is levelled at, in which the words seem so pointed as if St. James had known more flagrant instances of this kind of delusion than what had fallen under the observation of any of the rest of the Apostles, he being more remarkably vehement and copious upon that subject than any other.

Doubtless some of his converts had been notoriously wicked and licentious in this remorseless practice of defamation and evil speaking. Perhaps the holy man, though spotless as an angel (for no character is too sacred for calumny to blacken), had grievously suffered himself, and, as his blessed Master foretold him, had been cruelly reviled and evil spoken of.

All his labours in the gospel, his unaffected and perpetual solicitude for the preservation of his flock, his watchings and fastings, his poverty, his natural simplicity and innocence of life, all perhaps were not enough to defend him from this unruly weapon, so full of deadly poison; and what in all likelihood might move his sorrow and indignation more, some who seemed the most devout and zealous of all his converts were the most merciless and uncharitable in that respect; having a form of godliness, full of bitter envyings and strife.

With such it is that he expostulates so largely in the third chapter of his epistle; and there is something in his vivacity tempered with such affection and concern as well suited the character of an inspired man. My brethren, says the Apostle, these things ought not to be. The wisdom that is from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, without partiality, without hypocrisy. The wisdom from above, that heavenly religion which I have preached to you, is pure, alike and consistent with itself in all its parts; like its great author, 'tis universally kind and benevolent in all cases and circumstances. Its first glad tidings were peace upon earth, good-will towards men; its chief cornerstone, its most distinguishing character, is love

that kind principle which brought it down, in the pure exercise of which consists the chief enjoyment of heaven, whence it came. But this practice, my brethren, cometh not from above; but it is earthly, sensual, devilish, full of confusion and every evil work. Reflect then a moment: can a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the