Secondly, Where then fhall we difcover a grand fpecific for this epidemic diftemper, where fhall we find an antidote against this deftructive poifon? Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no phyfician there? Yes there is. Let us hear what reafon and religion, the great phyficians of mankind, will prefcribe unto us. Go, fay they both, and get thee the univerfal medicine, get thee the balm of innocence, to heal thine infirmities. By this only the health of the foul can be preferved, by this only it can be reftored. If thou art heavy laden, this will refresh thee; if thou art fick with forrows, this will heal them. Whilft we are in the temple of virtue, we are fafe; it is a facred afylum; and care and difquietude will not dare to enter into and profane it. He who hath her, will enjoy lafting peace and tranquillity; and he who is armed with her, need not fear what man can do unto him: he rifes fuperior to fortune, and looks down on the viciffitudes of life with an eye of calmnefs and indifference he fits on the fhore in fafety, and views at a diftance thofe waves and ftorms which can never injure, because they can never reach him. All the days of the afflicted are evil; but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feaft. But this is a feaft which only God and our own confcience can invite us to, and to which nothing but innocence can infure us a hearty welcome.

The next thing which offers itself to our confideration, and promifes immediate relief from difcontent and difquictude, is a firm re

liance on and confidence in the goodness of God, who is always able and always willing to relieve us. He is a God of mercy, and will not afflict us beyond what we are able to bear: he is a God of beneficence, and will make a way for us to escape. If we languish on the bed of pain and fickness, let us remember that the God of health, in whom are the iffues of life and death, is always able to restore us: if we fuffer hunger and thirft in the barren defart of poverty and affliction, let us call to mind that he is the Mafter of the whole earth: he who commanded water to flow from the rock, will he not quench your thirst? he who adorned with fuch tranfcendent beauty even the lilies of the field, will he not cloath you alfo? O ye of little faith!

And to this firm reliance on the divine goodnefs, therefore, we fhould be careful to add refignation, humility, and above all, devotion: when I am in heaviness, fays David, I will call upon God. To impart our forrows, to pour our griefs into the bofom of a friend, always gives relief and confolation: and to whom can we better impart them, than to that God who is fo able and ready to remove them: what friend fhall we chufe who is more ready to affist, than he who is always present with us? Whom have we in heaven but him, and who is there upon earth that we should defire in comparison of him?

After all then, Let every fober thinking being, every rational and religious man, confider these things. Let him seriously reflect on the

divine attributes, and on his own unworthinefs; and when any calamity overtakes him, when he is in any plague or trouble, when he is in forrow, need, ficknefs, or any other adverfitý, let him thus reafon with himfelf: Why art thou fo vexed, O my foul, and why art thou fo difquieted within me? Is not affliction the common lot of mankind, and the portion of mortality? What right therefore have I to expect that the fixed laws of nature fhould be reverfed for me? What have I done to claim

fuch a privilege, or to merit fuch an exemption? Why, therefore, art thou fo vexed, O my foul, and why art thou fo difquieted within me? I know that the evils which I fuffer are tolerable, because others have borne them; I know that there are hopes of deliverance, because others have been delivered from them.

Have

I not myfelf often been relieved from worfe than these? hath not God himself interpofed to fave my eyes from tears and my feet from falling? Why, therefore, art thou fo vexed, O my foul, and why art thou difquieted within me? Can an indulgence in forrow remove the caufe of it; will it not rather add fresh weight to the calamity? When I already feel fo much pain from the fharpness of the arrow, why fhould I dip it in poifon to increase the smart of it ?-Have I received good from the hand of God, and fhall I not receive evil alfo? Have I not had more happinefs than I expected, and infinitely more than I ever deferved? Have I not committed a thoufand errors which I might have avoided? Have I not omitted a thousand

duties which I ought to have performed? If my foul is vexed, therefore, it fhould be vexed for its own failings; if it is difquieted, it should be difquieted for its own guilt; not for what it fuffers, but for what it merits; not for the afflictions it has undergone, but for the miferies which it deferves. Turn then unto thy reft, 0 my foul, for the Lord, inftead of punishing, hath rewarded thee: thou haft led thyself into dangers, and yet he of his infinite goodness, if thou relieft on him, fhall make thee to dwell in fafety. Put thy truft therefore in him: for in fpite of all thy errors, thy infirmities, thy follies, and thy fins, thou fhalt yet thank him, who is the help of thy countenance, and thy God.

ΟΝ VISITING THE SICK.

SERMON

XXXV.

MATTHEW XXV. 36.

I was fick, and ye vifited me.

WHEN we feriously confider the frail,

corrupt, and diftrefsful ftate of human nature, when we reflect on the general lot and portion of mortality, to what variety of evils we are fubject, and how many enemies we have to contend with, how few things there are in this life which can impart real and subZ 2 ftantial

ftantial happinefs; and on the other hand, how many are pregnant with mifery and forrow; we are naturally led to imagine that it must be the bufinefs, the intereft, and concern of every individual to lighten as much as poffible the general burthen; that every office of tendernefs and humanity to our fellow-creatures would of course be daily and punctually performed by every one of us; well knowing that all the poor aid and affiftance which each particular could lend, would ftill be but little and infignificant prefervatives against universal calamity, as the most that we can do is but to foften that diftrefs which we cannot prevent, and to foothe thofe forrows which we cannot

remove.

Amongst all thofe duties, therefore, which are infpired by benevolence, taught by natural, or commanded by revealed religion, there is not one which can lay a ftronger claim to our obfervance than that which is inculcated in my text, the duty of vifiting the fick, fo ftrongly and pathetically enforced by our bleffed Saviour himself, who not only recommended, but conftantly and affiduoufly performed it on the difcharge of this kind and friendly office he hath more than once affured us, no lefs depends than our eternal happiness and falvation; thofe who do it fhall be fet on his right hand, and thofe who neglect it, on his left, when he fhall come in his glory to judge the world, and these fhall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.