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SERMON XIV.

On the MISFORTUNES of MEN being chargeable on themselves.

PROVERBS xix. 3.

The foolishness of man perverteth his way, and his heart fretteth against the Lord.

HOW

OW many complaints do we hear SE RM, from every quarter, of the misery

and distress that fill the world! In thefe the high and the low, the young and the aged, join; and fince the beginning of time, no topic has been more fertile of declamation, than the vanity and vexation which man is appointed to suffer. But are we certain that this vex

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SER M.ation, and this vanity, is altogether to

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be ascribed to the appointment of Heaven? Is there no ground to fufpect that man himself is the chief and immediate author of his own fufferings? What the text plainly fuggefts is, that it is common for men to complain groundlesly of Providence; that they are prone to accuse God for the evils of life, when in reafon they ought to accuse themselves ; and that after their foolishness hath perverted their way, and made them undergo the confequences of their own misconduct, they impiously fret in heart against the Lord. This is the doctrine which I now purpose to illuftrate, in order to filence the fceptic, and to check a repining and irreligious fpirit. I fhall for this end make fome obfervations, firft, on the external, and next, upon the internal, condition of man; and then conclude with fuch ferious and ufeful improvement as the subject will naturally fuggeft,

I. LET us confider the external con

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dition of man. We find him placed in SE RM. a world, where he has by no means the disposal of the events that happen. Calamities fometimes befal the worthieft and the best, which it is not in their power to prevent, and where nothing is left them, but to acknowledge and to fubmit to the high hand of Heaven. For fuch vifitations of trial, many good and wife reasons can be affigned, which the prefent fubject leads me not to dif cufs.

But though thofe unavoidable calamities make a part, yet they make not the chief part of the vexations and forrows that diftrefs human life. A multitude of evils befet us, for the fource of which we must look to another quarter.-No fooner has any thing in the health, or in the circumstances of men, gone cross to their wifh, than they begin to talk of the unequal diftribution of the good things of this life; they envy the condition of others; they repine at their own lot, and fret against the Ruler of the world.

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Full of thefe fentiments, one man

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SER M. pines under a broken conftitution. But let us afk him, whether he can, fairly and honeftly, affign no caufe for this but the unknown decree of Heaven? Has he duly valued the bleffing of health, and always obferved the rules of virtue and fobriety? Has he been moderate in his life, and temperate in all his pleasures? If now he be only paying the price of his former, perhaps his forgotten, indulgences, has he any title to complain, as if he were suffering unjustly? Were you to furvey the chambers of fickness and distress, you would find them peopled with the victims of intemperance and fenfuality, and with the children of vitious indolence and sloth, Among the thousands who languish there, you would find the proportion of innocent fufferers to be small. You would fee 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 thofe evils on themselves; while yet thefe martyrs of vice and fol

ly

ly have the affurance to arraign the hard SER M. 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 fuffer, and the difcouragements under which you labour; of the croffes and disappointments of which your life has been doomed to be full.Before you give too much scope to your difcontent, let me defire you to reflect impartially upon your paft train of life. Have not floth, or pride, or ill temper, or finful paffions, misled you often from the path of found and wife conduct ? Have you not been wanting to yourfelves in improving thofe opportunities which Providence offered you, for bettering and advancing your ftate? 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 thofe advantages which naturally belong to useful labours, and honourable pursuits? Have not the confequences

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