commented upon the Divine judgments that are before our eyes, till we have applied them in a proper manner to ourselves, and have made a suitable use and improvement of them.

3. Thirdly, and lastly, to bring these general principles down to particular cases, we may next consider how to improve and turn to our use such special instances as we may happen to meet with. Suppose some calamities to fall upon righteous and good men, or whom we have reason to believe are such: the use we are to make of it is, to stand in awe, and to humble ourselves before God. For "if judgment begin at the house of God," and " if "the righteous scarcely be saved," (that is, preserved,) "where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"

If afflictions fall upon unrighteous and sinful men, yet judge not the more hardly of them upon that account, but rather the contrary. Let it be an argument to us, that God has not yet given them up as abandoned and desperate, while he keeps them under discipline, and, as it were, holds the rod over them. At the same time be assured, that his chastising a few only, is intended as an example and warning to all, inasmuch as all are sinners, more or less and be thankful for the opportunity now given you, of learning instructions from the sufferings of other men, rather than from your own; growing wiser and better by their misfortunes, and, as it were, at their expence; and reaping the same benefit which they may do from it, but without their pain and uneasiness. If there be any way of averting God's judgments from our own doors, and rendering them in a manner unnecessary to us, it is to be done by regarding and reverencing them before they come at us, and by making the same use of them, while resting upon others only, as we should incline to do, when brought upon ourselves. Let the sight and sense of God's afflicting hand upon our fellow-criminals teach us humility and godly fear, and move us to repentance and

1 Pet. iv. 17, 18.

good works. Instead of censuring and loading them, (which becomes us not, and can do us no good, but may do a great deal of harm,) let us rather choose to censure and correct our own lives, to humble ourselves before God, to look into our many sins and failings, and to amend the same with all due care and exactness, and as soon as possible. This is making a right use and improvement of God's visitations upon others, to his glory, and to our own happiness now and ever.

SERMON IX.

The Nature and Kinds of Sins of Infirmity.

The First Sermon on this Subject.

MATTH. XXVI. 41.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

THESE are the words of our blessed Lord to his drowsy disciples. It was the night before his Passion, a night which he himself spent in prayer and watching, and he had entreated his disciples to tarry and watch with him. But their hearts were dull, and their eyelids heavy; and, notwithstanding all their best endeavours to the contrary, sleep stole upon them, and overcame them. Hereupon, their indulgent Master, coming to them, thus gently rebuked them: "What, could ye not watch with me one hour? "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” Then follows," the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh "is weak." Which words I understand, with the generality of interpreters, as spoken in the way of kind excuse or mitigation of their fault, in not watching at a time when it was their duty to have done it, and when even common prudence required it. One can scarce acquit them of some degree of negligence and want of respect in that affair: but our blessed Lord was pleased to put the mildest and most candid construction possible upon it. The night was far spent; sleep stole upon them unawares; and they were naturally slow and heavy, not apprehending how much depended upon that critical junc

ture. They intended no affront or disrespect to their Lord: they had a true and real, only not so lively and vigorous a concern for him, as they ought to have had. Their spirit truly was willing, and they meant well; but yet, for want of quicker sentiments, they failed in the performance. It was natural infirmity which prevailed over their resolutions, which overpowered their very hearty and honest, but languid endeavours. "The spirit" truly was 66 willing, but the flesh" was "weak."

The words of the text have been thought to express, in very proper and affecting terms, the nature or essence of that kind of sins which we call sins of infirmity, or sins of human frailty: and it is under this general view that I now design to consider them, abstracting from the particular occasion of them. In discoursing further, my design is,

I. To consider what sins are properly sins of infirmity, and what not.

II. To inquire how our state and condition to Godwards is affected by them.

III. To show what kind of management on our part may be prudent and proper in regard to them.

I.

I am to consider what sins are properly sins of infirmity.

Their general nature is briefly described thus; that they are rather weak than wilful, having much more of frailty than of wilfulness in them. Something of wilfulness they must have, otherwise they could not be imputed as sins: but as the degree of wilfulness is small in comparison, and the frailty so much the greater; they have therefore their denomination from their most prevailing ingredient, and so are called sins of infirmity. They are such, as by a very accurate caution and circumspection might be avoided or prevented, and therefore they are sins: but yet, because such exact caution or circumspection is but rarely seen, and is not generally to be expected, therefore it is that the sins of that kind have the favour of being num

bered among human frailties. They are a kind of slips, failings, or deviations, issuing from an honest and good heart, and carrying no malice prepense, no premeditated guile, no ill meaning in them; harmless almost as to the matter of them, and without any bad design. They are owing either to inadvertency, forgetfulness, surprise, strength of passion, or to the suddenness and violence of an unlookedfor temptation. But this general description of them will not be so instructive or satisfactory to common hearers as a particular detail may be, while I descend to special cases and instances, which is what I now intend.

Sins of infirmity then may be branched out into three several sorts, respecting either our thoughts, our words, or our actions.

1. I begin with the first of them, such as have respect to the inward thought. And here we are liable to offend two ways, either in not thinking as we ought to think, or in thinking as we ought not.

Human frailty is too often and too sadly felt in what concerns the government of the thoughts. Who is there that does not often find distraction, and wanderings, and deadness at his prayers, private or public; but public more especially, as we there meet with more objects to divert the eyes, and to turn off the attention. There is nothing which a man has less under command than his own thoughts, in such cases. He may be very devout this minute, and design to be so all the way through, and yet be quite thrown off the next moment without observing it presently; and when he does observe it, he knows not how it came to him, but that it is like his waking from a dream. This kind of non-attention, or absence of thought, in religious exercises, so far as it is a sin, (for it is not so always,) is, generally speaking, a sin of infirmity, and no more. And it is then only to be reckoned among wilful sins, when a man makes a habit of it, and slothfully submits to it, without striving against it; or when it carries some contempt of the service with it, arising from some vicious principle of the mind.