oafness; and all other things shall be added unto you. But alas! our Saviour's prophecy to the apostles frights us: Ye shall weep and lament, but the world fhall rejoyce. If we take up with the world, we shall swim in pleasure; if with Chrift, in tears. It is true; but then we must reflect on the end of both. But your forrow shall be turned into joy; and that of finners into an eternal despair. Oh the difference between the end of the fervants of God, and of the world! The enjoyments of thefe end in torments; the grief of those in glory. Nay, and this without change, without intermiffion, and what is more, without end: And your joy no man fhall take from you. The world can only reward our labours with things fubject to envy and violence; time confumes them ; and death puts an end to all earthly content. But oh! in heaven our recompence is out of the reach of violence, circumvention, and corruption: we fhall enjoy it without fear, and tafte it without anxiety; and for this reafon, our bleffed Saviour commanded his difciples to rejoyce in the midst of perfecutions; Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, Matth. v. 12. It will be infinite, because it is the poffeffion of an infinite Being. It will be eternal, because in heaven; where there is no alteration, no violence; and your joy no man fhall take from you. This reward is not far off: nothing but a few moments feparate us from its poffeffion, Again, a little while, and ye shall fee me. Forget therefore the paft, and take courage from the fhortness of the future: have patience a little; the goal is nigh; the combat draws to an end, and the crown is ready to fall upon your head. I confefs, dear Saviour, thou doft command us, not only to receive affliction without murmur, but even with joy. But alas! when thy hand lies heavy upon us, we feel no fymptoms of pleasure; nay, we flatter our felves we do much, if we keep in murmurs, and ftifle complaints. Yet we have the fame profpects of glory thy apoftles had the fame reward is propofed for us. Why then is our behaviour fo different? Ah Lord and Saviour! animate my faith, ftrengthen my hope; that, with thy great apoftle, I may be feriously convinced, that all we can do, or fuffer in this world, bears no proportion with the reward thou haft prepared for thofe that love thee. EPISTLE of James, Chap. i. Verse 16. Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. 18. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firft-fruits of his creatures. 19. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be fwift to hear, flow to speak, flow to wrath. 20. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. The MORAL REFLECTION. LL gifts, all advantages, whether natural or A fupernatural, come from God, and are the effects of his bounty, for which we owe him an eternal gratitude. But St. James teaches us here, that fome benefits are fo perfect and fo excellent, that we cannot receive them immediately from any but God alone: and among thefe, grace challenges the first place. The moft perfect creature, without it, is nothing in the fight of God: If I have not charity, I am nothing, 1 Cor. xiii. 2. and the most vile, with it, is amiable. God faw all he made was good, and is, if I may fay, fond of the vileft part of the creation. He loves the very infects in proportion to their perfection: but a finner, without grace, tho' enriched with all the advantages of nature and fortune, is the object of his hatred. In a word, this fanctifying grace is the greateft favour God can beftow on us in this world, and a neceffary requifite to enjoy him in the other. This being fo, we are obliged in prudence to part with all things, tho' never fo charming, never fo dear, rather than put this even to the venture. Expofe your felves to all the torments cruelty can invent, or nature fuffer, for the defence of this ineftimable treasure; and rather fall into your grave, than into fin for tho' you die, what do you lofe, but a life that in fome few years, and perchance days, muft furrender to age or difeafes? and, if you carry grace with you into the other world, you only exchange a mortal life for an eternal one, as happy, as it is fure to be everlafting. It gives you a title to all the promises of Jefus Chrift, and to the glory he has prepared in heaven for thofe that love him. Is it then not worth the while, not only to fight to the last gafp, but even to contemn death for fo noble a reward? I know we pretend, it is an ungrateful enterprize to war upon our felves; and a hard combat to overcome the fallies of our paffions: but why is it fo hard to refift nature, when heaven will be the recompenfe of our labour; and so easy, when we only Only expect a momentary advantage, fometimes unworthy of a man, and always below the dignity of a Chriftian? We force nature into a thousand dangers for intereft or glory. To rife in courts, we practise all that is hard, in patience, humility, and felf-denial: to make a fortune in the army, we expose our bodies to the extremities of heat and cold, thirst and hunger; and our lives to a hundred deaths almost every moment. Will we not therefore do for God, what we fuffer with pleasure for the world? to maintain our title to heaven, what we undergo to deferve an inconfiderable ftation upon earth ? Oh good God! how foolish are our judgments? how ill placed our fenfibility? Decay in our health overwhelms us with grief; and the loss of an estate drives us to defpair: but we forfeit the grace of Almighty God, not only without reluctance, but, what is more ftrange, without concern yet all the loffes in this world bear no proportion with that of grace this we believe, this we confefs: notwithstanding, oh fuperlative folly! we will not take the leaft pains to preferve this, nor fhew the leaft concern, when we lofe it. Let the flaves of the world labour to encrease their fortunes, or to preserve them : I am refolved to employ all my care for the prefervation of grace. This gives me an undoubted right to heaven, and adopts me child of the most High. Can my wifhes fly higher? I know, I have before me dangerous enemies; but you, O Lord, will fly to my affiftance and, if I fecond your grace, how can I be overcome? : If the value of this gift deserves our care, the kindness of the Giver deferves our gratitude. Of his own will (lays St. James) begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firfi-fruits of his creatures, Jam. i. 18. He faw nothing C. 3 nothing in us that merited his love; nay, he faw fin, that deferved his averfion. Yet out of pure kindness, he called us to his Church, and adopted us for his children by baptifm: he laid before us our duty in the gofpel; enables us by his grace to comply with it; and that nothing may be wanting to compleat the favour, he opens a prospect of the joys of heaven to allure us, and of the torments of the damned, to fright us into a compliance with his juft commands. He has bestowed on us this favour preferably to thousands, who are born in fin; who live in error, and die in both: yet perchance, had they received the gift of faith, the pious education, and half the graces God has fo plentifully furnished us with, they would have lived faints upon earth, and reigned fuch for ever in heaven. Thy judgments, O Lord, are an abyss of kindnefs to me, and of juftice to others: and my conduct is an abyfs of ingratitude to thee, and of cruelty to my felf. I have employed all thy favours to thy dishonour and my ruin, and have turned thofe arms, thou didft put in my hands for my fafety, to my deftruction: I can only, with the prodigal fon, caft my felf at thy feet, confess my difobedience, and with tears in my eyes, and forrow in my heart, beg pardon, and humbly fue for forgiveness. That we may more eafily preferve this fanctifying grace, and ufefully apply the other supernatural gifts; St. James exhorts us, to be fwift to bear, and flow to speak; that is, to have an eagerness to hear the word of God, not out of curiofity, or a fpirit of cenfure, but out of a fincere defire to learn the articles of our faith, and the principles of morality; that we may fquare our belief to thofe, and our practice to these. These ruths, deeply imprinted in our fouls, will influ ence |