Human Nature and Other Sermons Part 2

SERMON V. UPON COMPa.s.sION.

ROM. xii. 15.

_Rejoice with them that do rejoice_, _and weep with them that weep_.

Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to contribute to the good of others. Whoever will consider may see that, in general, there is no contrariety between these; but that from the original const.i.tution of man, and the circ.u.mstances he is placed in, they perfectly coincide, and mutually carry on each other. But, among the great variety of affections or principles of actions in our nature, some in their primary intention and design seem to belong to the single or private, others to the public or social capacity. The affections required in the text are of the latter sort. When we rejoice in the prosperity of others, and compa.s.sionate their distresses, we as it were subst.i.tute them for ourselves, their interest for our own; and have the same kind of pleasure in their prosperity, and sorrow in their distress, as we have from reflection upon our own. Now there is nothing strange or unaccountable in our being thus carried out, and affected towards the interests of others. For, if there be any appet.i.te, or any inward principle besides self-love; why may there not be an affection to the good of our fellow- creatures, and delight from that affection's being gratified, and uneasiness from things going contrary to it? {13}

Of these two, delight in the prosperity of others, and compa.s.sion for their distresses, the last is felt much more generally than the former.

Though men do not universally rejoice with all whom they see rejoice, yet, accidental obstacles removed, they naturally compa.s.sionate all, in some degree, whom they see in distress; so far as they have any real perception or sense of that distress: insomuch that words expressing this latter, pity, compa.s.sion, frequently occur: whereas we have scarce any single one by which the former is distinctly expressed. Congratulation indeed answers condolence: but both these words are intended to signify certain forms of civility rather than any inward sensation or feeling.

This difference or inequality is so remarkable that we plainly consider compa.s.sion as itself an original, distinct, particular affection in human nature; whereas to rejoice in the good of others is only a consequence of the general affection of love and good-will to them. The reason and account of which matter is this: when a man has obtained any particular advantage or felicity, his end is gained; and he does not in that particular want the a.s.sistance of another: there was therefore no need of a distinct affection towards that felicity of another already obtained; neither would such affection directly carry him on to do good to that person: whereas men in distress want a.s.sistance; and compa.s.sion leads us directly to a.s.sist them. The object of the former is the present felicity of another; the object of the latter is the present misery of another. It is easy to see that the latter wants a particular affection for its relief, and that the former does not want one because it does not want a.s.sistance. And upon supposition of a distinct affection in both cases, the one must rest in the exercise of itself, having nothing further to gain; the other does not rest in itself, but carries us on to a.s.sist the distressed.

But, supposing these affections natural to the mind, particularly the last; "Has not each man troubles enough of his own? must he indulge an affection which appropriates to himself those of others? which leads him to contract the least desirable of all friends.h.i.+ps, friends.h.i.+ps with the unfortunate? Must we invert the known rule of prudence, and choose to a.s.sociate ourselves with the distressed? or, allowing that we ought, so far as it is in our power to relieve them, yet is it not better to do this from reason and duty? Does not pa.s.sion and affection of every kind perpetually mislead us? Nay, is not pa.s.sion and affection itself a weakness, and what a perfect being must be entirely free from?" Perhaps so, but it is mankind I am speaking of; imperfect creatures, and who naturally and, from the condition we are placed in, necessarily depend upon each other. With respect to such creatures, it would be found of as bad consequence to eradicate all natural affections as to be entirely governed by them. This would almost sink us to the condition of brutes; and that would leave us without a sufficient principle of action. Reason alone, whatever any one may wish, is not in reality a sufficient motive of virtue in such a creature as man; but this reason joined with those affections which G.o.d has impressed upon his heart, and when these are allowed scope to exercise themselves, but under strict government and direction of reason, then it is we act suitably to our nature, and to the circ.u.mstances G.o.d has placed us in. Neither is affection itself at all a weakness; nor does it argue defect, any otherwise than as our senses and appet.i.tes do; they belong to our condition of nature, and are what we cannot be without. G.o.d Almighty is, to be sure, unmoved by pa.s.sion or appet.i.te, unchanged by affection; but then it is to be added that He neither sees nor hears nor perceives things by any senses like ours; but in a manner infinitely more perfect. Now, as it is an absurdity almost too gross to be mentioned, for a man to endeavour to get rid of his senses, because the Supreme Being discerns things more perfectly without them; it is as real, though not so obvious an absurdity, to endeavour to eradicate the pa.s.sions He has given us, because He is without them. For, since our pa.s.sions are as really a part of our const.i.tution as our senses; since the former as really belong to our condition of nature as the latter; to get rid of either is equally a violation of and breaking in upon that nature and const.i.tution He has given us. Both our senses and our pa.s.sions are a supply to the imperfection of our nature; thus they show that we are such sort of creatures as to stand in need of those helps which higher orders of creatures do not. But it is not the supply, but the deficiency; as it is not a remedy, but a disease, which is the imperfection. However, our appet.i.tes, pa.s.sions, senses, no way imply disease: nor indeed do they imply deficiency or imperfection of any sort; but only this, that the const.i.tution of nature, according to which G.o.d has made us, is such as to require them. And it is so far from being true, that a wise man must entirely suppress compa.s.sion, and all fellow- feeling for others, as a weakness; and trust to reason alone to teach and enforce upon him the practice of the several charities we owe to our kind; that, on the contrary, even the bare exercise of such affections would itself be for the good and happiness of the world; and the imperfection of the higher principles of reason and religion in man, the little influence they have upon our practice, and the strength and prevalency of contrary ones, plainly require these affections to be a restraint upon these latter, and a supply to the deficiencies of the former.

First, The very exercise itself of these affections in a just and reasonable manner and degree would upon the whole increase the satisfactions and lessen the miseries of life.

It is the tendency and business of virtue and religion to procure, as much as may be, universal good-will, trust, and friends.h.i.+p amongst mankind. If this could be brought to obtain; and each man enjoyed the happiness of others, as every one does that of a friend; and looked upon the success and prosperity of his neighbour as every one does upon that of his children and family; it is too manifest to be insisted upon how much the enjoyments of life would be increased. There would be so much happiness introduced into the world, without any deduction or inconvenience from it, in proportion as the precept of _rejoicing with those who rejoice_ was universally obeyed. Our Saviour has owned this good affection as belonging to our nature in the parable of the _lost sheep_, and does not think it to the disadvantage of a perfect state to represent its happiness as capable of increase from reflection upon that of others.

But since in such a creature as man, compa.s.sion or sorrow for the distress of others seems so far necessarily connected with joy in their prosperity, as that whoever rejoices in one must unavoidably compa.s.sionate the other; there cannot be that delight or satisfaction, which appears to be so considerable, without the inconveniences, whatever they are, of compa.s.sion.

However, without considering this connection, there is no doubt but that more good than evil, more delight than sorrow, arises from compa.s.sion itself; there being so many things which balance the sorrow of it. There is first the relief which the distressed feel from this affection in others towards them. There is likewise the additional misery which they would feel from the reflection that no one commiserated their case. It is indeed true that any disposition, prevailing beyond a certain degree, becomes somewhat wrong; and we have ways of speaking, which, though they do not directly express that excess, yet always lead our thoughts to it, and give us the notion of it. Thus, when mention is made of delight in being pitied, this always conveys to our mind the notion of somewhat which is really a weakness. The manner of speaking, I say, implies a certain weakness and feebleness of mind, which is and ought to be disapproved. But men of the greatest fort.i.tude would in distress feel uneasiness from knowing that no person in the world had any sort of compa.s.sion or real concern for them; and in some cases, especially when the temper is enfeebled by sickness, or any long and great distress, doubtless, would feel a kind of relief even from the helpless goodwill and ineffectual a.s.sistances of those about them. Over against the sorrow of compa.s.sion is likewise to be set a peculiar calm kind of satisfaction, which accompanies it, unless in cases where the distress of another is by some means so brought home to ourselves as to become in a manner our own; or when from weakness of mind the affection rises too high, which ought to be corrected. This tranquillity, or calm satisfaction, proceeds partly from consciousness of a right affection and temper of mind, and partly from a sense of our own freedom from the misery we compa.s.sionate.

This last may possibly appear to some at first sight faulty; but it really is not so. It is the same with that positive enjoyment, which sudden ease from pain for the present affords, arising from a real sense of misery, joined with a sense of our freedom from it; which in all cases must afford some degree of satisfaction.

To these things must be added the observation which respects both the affections we are considering; that they who have got over all fellow- feeling for others have withal contracted a certain callousness of heart, which renders them insensible to most other satisfactions but those of the grossest kind.

Secondly, Without the exercise of these affections men would certainly be much more wanting in the offices of charity they owe to cache other, and likewise more cruel and injurious than they are at present.

The private interest of the individual would not be sufficiently provided for by reasonable and cool self-love alone; therefore the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions are placed within as a guard and further security, without which it would not be taken due care of. It is manifest our life would be neglected were it not for the calls of hunger and thirst and weariness; notwithstanding that without them reason would a.s.sure us that the recruits of food and sleep are the necessary means of our preservation.

It is therefore absurd to imagine that, without affections, the same reason alone would be more effectual to engage us to perform the duties we owe to our fellow-creatures. One of this make would be as defective, as much wanting, considered with respect to society, as one of the former make would be defective, or wanting, considered as an individual, or in his private capacity. Is it possible any can in earnest think that a public spirit, _i.e._, a settled reasonable principle of benevolence to mankind, is so prevalent and strong in the species as that we may venture to throw off the under affections, which are its a.s.sistants, carry it forward and mark out particular courses for it; family, friends, neighbourhood, the distressed, our country? The common joys and the common sorrows, which belong to these relations and circ.u.mstances, are as plainly useful to society as the pain and pleasure belonging to hunger, thirst, and weariness are of service to the individual. In defect of that higher principle of reason, compa.s.sion is often the only way by which the indigent can have access to us: and therefore, to eradicate this, though it is not indeed formally to deny them that a.s.sistance which is their due; yet it is to cut them off from that which is too frequently their only way of obtaining it. And as for those who have shut up this door against the complaints of the miserable, and conquered this affection in themselves; even these persons will be under great restraints from the same affection in others. Thus a man who has himself no sense of injustice, cruelty, oppression, will be kept from running the utmost lengths of wickedness by fear of that detestation, and even resentment of inhumanity, in many particular instances of it, which compa.s.sion for the object towards whom such inhumanity is exercised, excites in the bulk of mankind. And this is frequently the chief danger and the chief restraint which tyrants and the great oppressors of the world feel.

In general, experience will show that, as want of natural appet.i.te to food supposes and proceeds from some bodily disease; so the apathy the Stoics talk of as much supposes, or is accompanied with, somewhat amiss in the moral character, in that which is the health of the mind. Those who formerly aimed at this upon the foot of philosophy appear to have had better success in eradicating the affections of tenderness and compa.s.sion than they had with the pa.s.sions of envy, pride, and resentment: these latter, at best, were but concealed, and that imperfectly too. How far this observation may be extended to such as endeavour to suppress the natural impulses of their affections, in order to form themselves for business and the world, I shall not determine. But there does not appear any capacity or relation to be named, in which men ought to be entirely deaf to the calls of affection, unless the judicial one is to be excepted.

And as to those who are commonly called the men of pleasure, it is manifest that the reason they set up for hardness of heart is to avoid being interrupted in their course by the ruin and misery they are the authors of; neither are persons of this character always the most free from the impotencies of envy and resentment. What may men at last bring themselves to, by suppressing their pa.s.sions and affections of one kind, and leaving those of the other in their full strength? But surely it might be expected that persons who make pleasure their study and their business, if they understood what they profess, would reflect, how many of the entertainments of life, how many of those kind of amus.e.m.e.nts which seem peculiarly to belong to men of leisure and education they became insensible to by this acquired hardness of heart.

I shall close these reflections with barely mentioning the behaviour of that divine Person, who was the example of all perfection in human nature, as represented in the Gospels mourning, and even, in a literal sense, weeping over the distresses of His creatures.

The observation already made, that, of the two affections mentioned in the text, the latter exerts itself much more than the former; that, from the original const.i.tution of human nature, we much more generally and sensibly compa.s.sionate the distressed than rejoice within the prosperous, requires to be particularly considered. This observation, therefore, with the reflections which arise out of it, and which it leads our thoughts to, shall be the subject of another discourse.

For the conclusion of this, let me just take notice of the danger of over- great refinements; of going beside or beyond the plain, obvious, first appearances of things, upon the subject of morals and religion. The least observation will show how little the generality of men are capable of speculations. Therefore morality and religion must be somewhat plan and easy to be understood: it must appeal to what we call plain common sense, as distinguished from superior capacity and improvement; because it appeals to mankind. Persons of superior capacity and improvement have often fallen into errors which no one of mere common understanding could.

Is it possible that one of this latter character could even of himself have thought that there was absolutely no such thing in mankind as affection to the good of others? suppose of parents to their children; or that what he felt upon seeing a friend in distress was only fear for himself; or, upon supposition of the affections of kindness and compa.s.sion, that it was the business of wisdom and virtue to set him about extirpating them as fast as he could? And yet each of these manifest contradictions to nature has been laid down by men of speculation as a discovery in moral philosophy; which they, it seems, have found out through all the specious appearances to the contrary. This reflection may be extended further. The extravagances of enthusiasm and superst.i.tion do not at all lie in the road of common sense; and therefore, so far as they are _original mistakes_, must be owing to going beside or beyond it. Now, since inquiry and examination can relate only to things so obscure and uncertain as to stand in need of it, and to persons who are capable of it; the proper advice to be given to plain honest men, to secure them from the extremes both of superst.i.tion and irreligion, is that of the Son of Sirach: _In every good work trust thy own soul_; _for this is the keeping of the commandment_. {14}

SERMON VI. UPON COMPa.s.sION.

PREACHED THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT.

Rom. xii. 15.

_Rejoice with then that do rejoice_, _and weep with them that weep_.

There is a much more exact correspondence between the natural and moral world than we are apt to take notice of. The inward frame of man does in a peculiar manner answer to the external condition and circ.u.mstances of life in which he is placed. This is a particular instance of that general observation of the Son of Sirach: _All things are double one against another_, _and G.o.d hath made nothing imperfect_. {15} The several pa.s.sions and affections in the heart of man, compared with the circ.u.mstances of life in which he is placed, afford, to such as will attend to them, as certain instances of final causes, as any whatever, which are more commonly alleged for such: since those affections lead him to a certain determinate course of action suitable to those circ.u.mstances; as (for instance) compa.s.sion to relieve the distressed.

And as all observations of final causes, drawn from the principles of action in the heart of man, compared with the condition he is placed in, serve all the good uses which instances of final causes in the material world about us do; and both these are equally proofs of wisdom and design in the Author of nature: so the former serve to further good purposes; they show us what course of life we are made for, what is our duty, and in a peculiar manner enforce upon us the practice of it.

Suppose we are capable of happiness and of misery in degrees equally intense and extreme, yet, we are capable of the latter for a much longer time, beyond all comparison. We see men in the tortures of pain for hours, days, and, excepting the short suspensions of sleep, for months together, without intermission, to which no enjoyments of life do, in degree and continuance, bear any sort of proportion. And such is our make and that of the world about us that any thing may become the instrument of pain and sorrow to us. Thus almost any one man is capable of doing mischief to any other, though he may not be capable of doing him good; and if he be capable of doing him some good, he is capable of doing him more evil. And it is, in numberless cases, much more in our power to lessen the miseries of others than to promote their positive happiness, any otherwise than as the former often includes the latter; ease from misery occasioning for some time the greatest positive enjoyment. This const.i.tution of nature, namely, that it is so munch more in our power to occasion and likewise to lessen misery than to promote positive happiness, plainly required a particular affection to hinder us from abusing, and to incline us to make a right use of the former powers, _i.e._, the powers both to occasion and to lessen misery; over and above what was necessary to induce us to make a right use of the latter power, that of promoting positive happiness. The power we have over the misery of our fellow-creatures, to occasion or lessen it, being a more important trust than the power we have of promoting their positive happiness; the former requires and has a further, an additional, security and guard against its being violated, beyond and over and above what the latter has. The social nature of man, and general goodwill to his species, equally prevent him from doing evil, incline him to relieve the distressed, and to promote the positive happiness of his fellow-creatures; but compa.s.sion only restrains from the first, and carries him to the second; it hath nothing to do with the third.

The final causes, then, of compa.s.sion are to prevent and to relieve misery.

As to the former: this affection may plainly be a restraint upon resentment, envy, unreasonable self-love; that is, upon all the principles from which men do evil to one another. Let us instance only in resentment. It seldom happens, in regulated societies, that men have an enemy so entirely in their power as to be able to satiate their resentment with safety. But if we were to put this case, it is plainly supposable that a person might bring his enemy into such a condition, as from being the object of anger and rage, to become an object of compa.s.sion, even to himself, though the most malicious man in the world; and in this case compa.s.sion would stop him, if he could stop with safety, from pursuing his revenge any further. But since nature has placed within us more powerful restraints to prevent mischief, and since the final cause of compa.s.sion is much more to relieve misery, let us go on to the consideration of it in this view.

As this world was not intended to be a state of any great satisfaction or high enjoyment, so neither was it intended to be a mere scene of unhappiness and sorrow. Mitigations and reliefs are provided by the merciful Author of nature for most of the afflictions in human life.

There is kind provision made even against our frailties: as we are so const.i.tuted that time abundantly abates our sorrows, and begets in us that resignment of temper, which ought to have been produced by a better cause; a due sense of the authority of G.o.d, and our state of dependence.

This holds in respect too far the greatest part of the evils of life; I suppose, in some degree, as to pain and sickness. Now this part of the const.i.tution or make of man, considered as some relief to misery, and not as provision for positive happiness, is, if I may so speak, an instance of nature's compa.s.sion for us; and every natural remedy or relief to misery may be considered in the same view.

But since in many cases it is very much in our power to alleviate the miseries of each other; and benevolence, though natural in man to man, yet is in a very low degree kept down by interest and compet.i.tions; and men, for the most part, are so engaged in the business and pleasures of the world, as to overlook and turn away from objects of misery; which are plainly considered as interruptions to them in their way, as intruders upon their business, their gaiety, and mirth: compa.s.sion is an advocate within us in their behalf, to gain the unhappy admittance and access, to make their case attended to. If it sometimes serves a contrary purpose, and makes men industriously turn away from the miserable, these are only instances of abuse and perversion: for the end, for which the affection was given us, most certainly is not to make us avoid, but to make us attend to, the objects of it. And if men would only resolve to allow thus much to it: let it bring before their view, the view of their mind, the miseries of their fellow-creatures; let it gain for them that their case be considered; I am persuaded it would not fail of gaining more, and that very few real objects of charity would pa.s.s unrelieved. Pain and sorrow and misery have a right to our a.s.sistance: compa.s.sion puts us in mind of the debt, and that we owe it to ourselves as well as to the distressed. For, to endeavour to get rid of the sorrow of compa.s.sion by turning from the wretched, when yet it is in our power to relieve them, is as unnatural as to endeavour to get rid of the pain of hunger by keeping from the sight of food. That we can do one with greater success than we can the other is no proof that one is less a violation of nature than the other. Compa.s.sion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food. This affection plainly gives the objects of it an additional claim to relief and mercy, over and above what our fellow-creatures in common have to our goodwill.

Liberality and bounty are exceedingly commendable; and a particular distinction in such a world as this, where men set themselves to contract their heart, and close it to all interests but their own. It is by no means to be opposed to mercy, but always accompanies it: the distinction between them is only that the former leads our thoughts to a more promiscuous and undistinguished distribution of favours; to those who are not, as well as those who are, necessitous; whereas the object of compa.s.sion is misery. But in the comparison, and where there is not a possibility of both, mercy is to have the preference: the affection of compa.s.sion manifestly leads us to this preference. Thus, to relieve the indigent and distressed, to single out the unhappy, from whom can be expected no returns either of present entertainment or future service, for the objects of our favours; to esteem a man's being friendless as a recommendation; dejection, and incapacity of struggling through the world, as a motive for a.s.sisting him; in a word, to consider these circ.u.mstances of disadvantage, which are usually thought a sufficient reason for neglect and overlooking a person, as a motive for helping him forward: this is the course of benevolence which compa.s.sion marks out and directs us to: this is that humanity which is so peculiarly becoming our nature and circ.u.mstances in this world.

To these considerations, drawn from the nature of man, must be added the reason of the thing itself we are recommending, which accords to and shows the same. For since it is so much more in our power to lessen the misery of our fellow-creatures than to promote their positive happiness; in cases where there is an inconsistency, we shall be likely to do much more good by setting ourselves to mitigate the former than by endeavouring to promote the latter. Let the compet.i.tion be between the poor and the rich. It is easy, you will say, to see which will have the preference. True; but the question is, which ought to have the preference? What proportion is there between the happiness produced by doing a favour to the indigent, and that produced by doing the same favour to one in easy circ.u.mstances? It is manifest that the addition of a very large estate to one who before had an affluence, will in many instances yield him less new enjoyment or satisfaction than an ordinary charity would yield to a necessitous person. So that it is not only true that our nature, _i.e._, the voice of G.o.d within us, carries us to the exercise of charity and benevolence in the way of compa.s.sion or mercy, preferably to any other way; but we also manifestly discern much more good done by the former; or, if you will allow me the expressions, more misery annihilated and happiness created. If charity and benevolence, and endeavouring to do good to our fellow-creatures, be anything, this observation deserves to be most seriously considered by all who have to bestow. And it holds with great exactness, when applied to the several degrees of greater and less indigency throughout the various ranks in human life: the happiness or good produced not being in proportion to what is bestowed, but in proportion to this joined with the need there was of it.

It may perhaps be expected that upon this subject notice should be taken of occasions, circ.u.mstances, and characters which seem at once to call forth affections of different sorts. Thus vice may be thought the object both of pity and indignation: folly, of pity and of laughter. How far this is strictly true, I shall not inquire; but only observe upon the appearance, how much more humane it is to yield and give scope to affections, which are most directly in favour of, and friendly towards, our fellow-creatures; and that there is plainly much less danger of being led wrong by these than by the other.

But, notwithstanding all that has been said in recommendation of compa.s.sion, that it is most amiable, most becoming human nature, and most useful to the world; yet it must be owned that every affection, as distinct from a principle of reason, may rise too high, and be beyond its just proportion. And by means of this one carried too far, a man throughout his life is subject to much more uneasiness than belongs to his share; and in particular instances, it may be in such a degree as to incapacitate him from a.s.sisting the very person who is the object of it.

But as there are some who upon principle set up for suppressing this affection itself as weakness, there is also I know not what of fas.h.i.+on on this side; and, by some means or other, the whole world almost is run into the extremes of insensibility towards the distresses of their fellow- creatures: so that general rules and exhortations must always be on the other side.

And now to go on to the uses we should make of the foregoing reflections, the further ones they lead to, and the general temper they have a tendency to beget in us. There being that distinct affection implanted in the nature of man, tending to lessen the miseries of life, that particular provision made for abating its sorrows, more than for increasing its positive happiness, as before explained; this may suggest to us what should be our general aim respecting ourselves, in our pa.s.sage through this world: namely, to endeavour chiefly to escape misery, keep free from uneasiness, pain, and sorrow, or to get relief and mitigation of them; to propose to ourselves peace and tranquillity of mind, rather than pursue after high enjoyments. This is what the const.i.tution of nature before explained marks out as the course we should follow, and the end we should aim at. To make pleasure and mirth and jollity our business, and be constantly hurrying about after some gay amus.e.m.e.nt, some new gratification of sense or appet.i.te, to those who will consider the nature of man and our condition in this world, will appear the most romantic scheme of life that ever entered into thought. And yet how many are there who go on in this course, without learning better from the daily, the hourly disappointments, listlessness, and satiety which accompany this fas.h.i.+onable method of wasting away their days!

The subject we have been insisting upon would lead us into the same kind of reflections by a different connection. The miseries of life brought home to ourselves by compa.s.sion, viewed through this affection considered as the sense by which they are perceived, would beget in us that moderation, humility, and soberness of mind which has been now recommended; and which peculiarly belongs to a season of recollection, the only purpose of which is to bring us to a just sense of things, to recover us out of that forgetfulness of ourselves, and our true state, which it is manifest far the greatest part of men pa.s.s their whole life in. Upon this account Solomon says that _it is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting_; _i.e._, it is more to a man's advantage to turn his eyes towards objects of distress, to recall sometimes to his remembrance the occasions of sorrow, than to pa.s.s all his days in thoughtless mirth and gaiety. And he represents the wise as choosing to frequent the former of these places; to be sure not for his own sake, but because _by the sadness of the countenance_, _the heart is made better_. Every one observes how temperate and reasonable men are when humbled and brought low by afflictions in comparison of what they are in high prosperity. By this voluntary resort to the house of mourning, which is here recommended, we might learn all those useful instructions which calamities teach without undergoing them ourselves; and grow wiser and better at a more easy rate than men commonly do. The objects themselves, which in that place of sorrow lie before our view, naturally give us a seriousness and attention, check that wantonness which is the growth of prosperity and ease, and head us to reflect upon the deficiencies of human life itself; that _every man at his best estate is altogether vanity_. This would correct the florid and gaudy prospects and expectations which we are too apt to indulge, teach us to lower our notions of happiness and enjoyment, bring them down to the reality of things, to what is attainable, to what the frailty of our condition will admit of, which, for any continuance, is only tranquillity, ease, and moderate satisfactions. Thus we might at once become proof against the temptations with which the whole world almost is carried away; since it is plain that not only what is called a life of pleasure, but also vicious pursuits in general, aim at somewhat besides and beyond these moderate satisfactions.

And as to that obstinacy and wilfulness, which renders men so insensible to the motives of religion; this right sense of ourselves and of the world about us would bend the stubborn mind, soften the heart, and make it more apt to receive impression; and this is the proper temper in which to call our ways to remembrance, to review and set home upon ourselves the miscarriages of our past life. In such a compliant state of mind, reason and conscience will have a fair hearing; which is the preparation for, or rather the beginning of, that repentance, the outward show of which we all put on at this season.

Lastly, The various miseries of life which lie before us wherever we turn our eyes, the frailty of this mortal state we are pa.s.sing through, may put us in mind that the present world is not our home; that we are merely strangers and travellers in it, as all our fathers were. It is therefore to be considered as a foreign country; in which our poverty and wants, and the insufficient supplies of them, were designed to turn our views to that higher and better state we are heirs to: a state where will be no follies to be overlooked, no miseries to be pitied, no wants to be relieved; where the affection we have been now treating of will happily be lost, as there will be no objects to exercise it upon: for _G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes_, _and there shall be no more death_, _neither sorrow_, _nor crying_; _neither shall there be any more pain_; _for the former things are pa.s.sed away_.

SERMON VII. UPON THE CHARACTER OF BALAAM.

PREACHED THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.

NUMBERS xxiii. 10.

_Let me die the death of the righteous_, _and let my last end be like his_.

These words, taken alone, and without respect to him who spoke them, lead our thoughts immediately to the different ends of good and bad men. For though the comparison is not expressed, yet it is manifestly implied; as is also the preference of one of these characters to the other in that last circ.u.mstance, death. And, since dying the death of the righteous or of the wicked necessarily implies men's being righteous or wicked; _i.e._, having lived righteously or wickedly; a comparison of them in their lives also might come into consideration, from such a single view of the words themselves. But my present design is to consider them with a particular reference or respect to him who spoke them; which reference, if you please to attend, you will see. And if what shall be offered to your consideration at this time be thought a discourse upon the whole history of this man, rather than upon the particular words I have read, this is of no consequence: it is sufficient if it afford reflection of use and service to ourselves.

But, in order to avoid cavils respecting this remarkable relation in Scripture, either that part of it which you have heard in the first lesson for the day, or any other; let me just observe that as this is not a place for answering them, so they no way affect the following discourse; since the character there given is plainly a real one in life, and such as there are parallels to.