XIV. patience, to give us an opportunity of dis- SERM. playing hidden virtues, both for own advantage, and the edification of others; sometimes, perhaps, he singles us out from the herd of sinners, to set us as a warning, that others, being spectators of our sorrows, may be brought to reflection and repentance, lest the same or worse evils should fall on them; but nothing from this can be inferred, but that the sufferer, as a man, is a sinner, not that he has sinned more deeply than other men. We are told in the second commandment, that God sometimes visits the "sins of the fathers upon the children even unto the third and fourth gene "ration;" a man, therefore, in affliction may be doing penance, not for his own. iniquities, but for those of his remote an cestors. There may indeed be instances, where the suffering is so evidently the effect of VOL. II. Р the SERM. the crime, or answers so exactly to it, that XIV. it is impossible not to see the connexion between them: thus, when the drunkard perishes by his intemperance, or the libertine by his sensuality, their fate may justly be looked upon not only as the consequence, but as the punishment, of their vices thus when dogs licked the blood of Ahab in the same place, in which they had before licked that of Haboth, whom Ahab had unjustly put to death; or when Adonibezek was the object of the same species of cruelty, which he practised on so many kings; in both these cases the correspondence between the crimes and the sufferings was so remarkable, that it might, without hesitation, be deemed the work of God. But then it is to be observed, here the sins were known, and not presumed; and it was not necessary to say, There men suffer greatly, and therefore we conclude they have sinned greatly;' but, we already ⚫ know XIV. know they have been guilty of great sins, SERM. to which their sufferings have so exactly answered, that we cannot but look on them as judgments.' Yet even in such instances as these, it is more decent to leave it to the afflicted person himself to draw the conclusion, which, in general, his own conscience is ready enough to do. "As I have done (says Adonibezek) so "God hath requited me.' Having thus shewn that it is a custom among men to ascribe signal misfortunes to signal sins, and that this custom is very unreasonable, and in general very unjust, it may be useful to inquire from what cause it arises; this leads me to the second instructive lesson which the text contains, namely, that we ought to apply the sufferings of others to ourselves, and break off our sins by repentance, lest we also perish. SERM. The consciousness of sin, and the dread of the effects of it are so extremely burdensome, that the wicked are in general very desirous to persuade themselves that they are less guilty than they really are; and as their conscience will not permit them to imagine that they are absolutely innocent, they are very eager to flatter themselves, that they are comparatively so; hence for the most part arises the desire to discover and to aggravate the faults of other men; and as there can be no clearer proof of a man's being enormously wicked, than his being declared so by heaven, there is a certain eagerness to interpret the calamities of our brethren into judgments, and thence to flatter ourselves, because we have escaped the like, that we are therefore comparatively virtuous. But this our Saviour tells us is a very false conclusion, and a far different consequence from that which we ought to draw XIV. draw on such occasions: "Suppose ye that SERM. these Galileans were sinners above all "the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay; but, except ye "repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Ye are not to imagine that greater temporal sufferings peculiarly belong to greater sins; ye are not to consider them at all in this light; but ye are to take warning by them, and hasten to forsake your own iniquities, lest the same or worse evils overtake you. It is very absurd and unreasonable to flatter ourselves with the belief, that because we have escaped those afflictions, which we have seen fall on others, we are therefore innocent, and free from danger: for, supposing it true that these sufferers were certainly greater sinners than we are, we cannot argue from this that we are no sinners at all; it ought rather to put us on examining ourselves, on repenting of our iniquities, and reforming our lives, lest P3 |