was the first thing proposed to be considered in this discourse; and should proceed to the second, which so naturally falls from it, of exhorting you, as our Saviour did the lawyer upon it, to go and do so likewise: but I have been so copious in my reflections upon the story itself, that I find I have insensibly incorporated into them almost all that I should have said here in recommending so amiable an example; by which means I have unawares anticipated the task I proposed. I shall therefore detain you no longer than with a single remark upon the subject in general, which is this: "Tis observable in many places of Scripture, that our blessed Saviour, in describing the day of judgment, does it in such a manner, as if the great inquiry then, was to relate principally to this one virtue of compassion — and as if our final sentence at that solemnity was to be pronounced exactly according to the degrees of it. "I was an hungred and ye gave me meat-thirsty and ye gave me drink — naked and ye clothed me I was sick and ye visited me-in prison and ye came unto me." Not that we are to imagine from thence, as if any other good or evil action should then be overlooked by the eye of the All-seeing Judge,

but barely to intimate to us, that a charitable and benevolent disposition is so principal and ruling a part of a man's character, as to be a considerable test by itself of the whole frame and temper of his mind, with which all other virtues and vices respectively rise and fall, and will almost necessarily be connected. — Tell me therefore of a compassionate man, you represent to me a man of a thousand other good qualities -on whom I can depend whom I may safely trust with my wife my children, my fortune and reputation "Tis for this, as the Apostle argues from the same principle "that he will not commit adultery

that he will not kill that he will not steal that he will not bear false witness." That is, the sorrows which are stirred up in men's hearts by such trespasses, are so tenderly felt by a compassionate man, that it is not in his power or his nature to commit them.

So that well might he conclude, that Charity, by which he means, love to your neighbour, was the end of the commandment, and that whosoever fulfilled it, had fulfilled the law. Now to God, &c. Amen.

SERMON IV

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man: and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die, &c. . . . And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. 2 SAMUEL Xii. 7, 1st part.

THE

HERE is no historical passage in Scripture, which gives a more remarkable instance of the deceitfulness of the heart of man to itself, and of how little we truly know of ourselves, than this, wherein David is convicted out of his own mouth, and is led by the prophet to condemn and pronounce a severe judgment upon another, for an act of injustice, which he had passed over in himself, and possibly reconciled to his own conscience. To know one's self, one would think could be no very difficult lesson; for who you'll say can well be truly ignorant of himself and the true disposition of his own heart? If a man thinks at all, he cannot be a stranger to what passes there he must be conscious of his own thoughts and desires, he must remember

his past pursuits, and the true springs and motives which in general have directed the actions of his life: he may hang out false colours and deceive the world, but how can a man deceive himself? That a man can is evident, because he daily does so. - Scripture tells us, and gives us many historical proofs of it, besides this to which the text refers "that the heart of man is treacherous to itself

and deceitful above all things," and experience and every hour's commerce with the world confirms the truth of this seeming paradox, "That though man is the only creature endowed with reflection, and consequently qualified to know the most of himself - yet so it happens, that he generally knows the least — and with all the power which God has given him of turning his eyes inward upon himself, and taking notice of the chain of his own thoughts and desires - yet, in fact, is generally so inattentive, but always so partial an observer of what passes, that he is as much, nay often, a much greater stranger to his own disposition and true character, than all the world besides."

By what means he is brought under so manifest a delusion, and how he suffers himself to be so grossly imposed upon in a point which