complain, as if he were suffering unjustly? Were you to survey the chambers of sickness and distress, you would find them peopled with the victims of intemperance and sensuality, and with the children of vicious indolence and sloth. Among the thousands who languish there, you will find the proportion of innocent sufferers to be small. You would see faded youth, premature old age, and the prospect of an untimely grave, to be the portion of multitudes who, in one way or other, have brought those evils on themselves; while yet these martyrs of vice and folly have the assurance to arraign the hard fate of man, and to fret against the Lord.

But you, perhaps, complain of hardships of another kind; of the injustice of the world; of the poverty which you suffer, and the discouragements under which you labour; of the crosses and disappointments of which your life has been doomed to be full. Before you give too much scope to your discontent, let me desire you to reflect impartially upon your past train of life. Have not sloth, or pride, or ill-temper, or sinful passions, misled you often from the path of sound and wise conduct? Have you not been wanting to yourselves in improving those opportunities which Providence offered you, for bettering and advancing your state? If you have chosen to indulge your humour or your taste, in the gratifications of indolence or pleasure, can you complain, because others, in preference to you, have obtained those advantages which naturally belong to useful labours, and honourable pursuits? Have not the consequences of some false steps, into which your passions or your pleasures have betrayed you, pursued you through much of your life; tainted,

perhaps, your character, involved you in embarrasments, or sunk you into neglect? It is an old saying, that every man is the artificer of his own fortune in the world. It is certain that the world seldom turns wholly against a man, unless through his own fault. Godliness is, in general, profitable unto all things. Virtue, diligence, and industry, joined with good temper and prudence, have ever been found the surest road to prosperity; and where men fail of attaining it, their want of success is far oftener owing to their having deviated from that road, than to their having encountered insuperable bars in it. Some, by being too artful, forfeit the reputation of probity. Some, by being too open, are accounted to fail in prudence. Others, by being fickle and changeable, are distrusted by all. The case commonly is, that men seek to ascribe their disappointments to any cause, rather than to their own misconduct; and when they can devise no other cause, they lay them to the charge of Providence. Their folly leads them into vices; their vices into misfortunes; and in their misfortunes they fret against the Lord. They are doubly unjust towards God. In their prosperity, they are apt to ascribe their success to their own diligence, rather than to God's blessing; and in their adversity, they impute their distresses to his Providence, not to their own misbehaviour. Whereas the truth is the very reverse of this. Every good and every perfect gift cometh from above; and of evil and misery, man is the author to himself.

When, from the condition of individuals, we look abroad to the public state of the world, we meet with more proofs of the truth of this assertion. We see

great societies of men torn in pieces by intestine dissensions, tumults, and civil commotions. We see mighty armies going forth, in formidable array, against each other, to cover the earth with blood, and to fill the air with the cries of widows and orphans. Sad evils these are, to which this miserable world is exposed. But are these evils, I beseech you, to be imputed to God? Was it he who sent forth slaughtering armies into the field, or who filled the peaceful city with massacres and blood? Are these miseries any other than the bitter fruit of men's violent and disorderly passions? Are they not clearly to be traced to the ambition and vices of princes, to the quarrels of the great, and to the turbulence of the people? Let us lay them entirely out of the account, in thinking of Providence; and let us think only of the foolishness of men. Did man controul his passions, and form his conduct according to the dictates of wisdom, humanity, and virtue, the earth would no longer be desolated by cruelty; and human societies would live in order, harmony, and peace. In those scenes of mischief and violence which fill the world, let man behold, with shame, the pictures of his vices, his ignorance and folly. Let him be humbled by the mortifying view of his own perverseness; but let not his heart fret against the Lord. From the exter

nal condition, let us proceed,

II. To consider the internal state of man. It is certain that much disquiet and misery may be found there, although his outward condition appear undisturbed and easy. As far as this inward disquietude arises from the stings of conscience, and the horrors

of guilt, there can be no doubt of its being selfcreated misery; which it is altogether impossible to impute to Heaven. But even when great crimes and deep remorse are not the occasions of torment, how often is poison infused into the most flourishing conditions of fortune, by the follies and the passions of the prosperous? We see them peevish and restless; corrupted with luxury, and enervated by ease; impatient of the smallest disappointment; oppressed with low spirits, and complaining of every thing around them. How many Hamans, Hazaels, and Herods, are there in the world, who, from what they suffer within, pass their days in more vexation and misery, than they who undergo the hardships of poverty? Dare such men, in their most discontented moments, charge the providence of Heaven with miseries of their own procuring? Providence had put into their hands the fairest opportunity of passing their life with comfort. But they themselves blasted every comfort that was offered; and verified the prediction, that the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.*

As it is man's own foolishness which ruins his prosperity, we must not omit to remark, that it is the same cause which aggravates and embitters his adversity. That you suffer from external afflictions of the world, may often be owing to God's appointment; but when, in the midst of these, you also suffer from the disorders of your mind and passions, this is owing to yourselves; and there are those inward disorders which add the severest sting to external afflictions. Many are the resources of a

*Prov. i. 32.

good and a wise man, under all the disasters of life. In the midst of them, it is always in his power to enjoy peace of mind, and hope in God. He may suffer; but under suffering he will not sink, as long as all is sound within. But when the spirit has been wounded by guilt and folly, its wounds open, and bleed afresh, upon every blow that is received from the world. The mind becomes sensible and sore to the slightest injuries of fortune; and a small reverse is felt as an insupportable calamity.

On the whole, the farther you search into human life, and the more you observe the manners and the conduct of men, you will be the more convinced of this great truth, that of the distresses which abound in the world, we are the chief authors. Among the multitudes who are, at this day, bewailing their condition and lot, it will be found to hold, of far the greater part, that they are reaping the fruit of their own doings; their iniquities are reproving them, and their backslidings correcting them. Unattainable objects foolishly pursued, intemperate passions nourished, vicious pleasures and desires indulged, God, and God's holy laws forgotten; these, these are the great scourges of the world; the great causes of the life of man being so embroiled and unhappy. God hath ordained our state on earth to be a mixed and imperfect state. We have ourselves to blame for its becoming an insupportable one. If it bring forth nothing to us but vexation and vanity, we have sown the seeds of that vanity and vexation; and as we have sown, we must reap.-I now proceed to make improvement of those truths which we have