to truth; without considering that the end of such wit is misery and madness. The stage has often done mischief, but never more than in a well-known tragedy, wherein selfmurder appears with all the reputation of Roman courage, and all the wisdom of heathenish philosophy; because the politics of the time when that tragedy appeared were thought to require, that this sullen, sour republican should be brought out for a pattern of patriotism. The truth of the matter is no other than this; the pride of that man would not bear to see that the greatest man in the world was greater than himself: so he wounded himself with his own sword for envy and disappointment; and when his wound was dressed by those who wished to save his life, he tore it open, and died wallowing in his blood. All this foul rage of republican enthusiasm is turned into a fine scene of patriotic virtue; the man dies with honour, and the guilt of his blood is laid upon the world; that is, in effect, upon the providence of God, which raised Cæsar to be Emperor of Rome. This artifice has been attended with fatal effects: the story thus disguised has been adopted as a noble precedent, and pleaded as a sufficient reason by persons who have destroyed themselves; of which I might give you several examples, and some of them very striking. When the imaginations of men are thus wrought upon by false pictures, and fine verses, there is very little difference between poetry and poison: only the sin is greater in poisoning the mind than in poisoning the body.

Another artist of the same profession commemorates the death of a certain lady, who murdered herself because she had entertained a criminal passion, in which she was disappointed, and could not bear it. Here is a precious picture for a poet to work upon. In the first place, her crime is misfortune: instead of guilty and desperate, she is called unfortunate: then, the self-murderer is made an honourable character, because it is Roman, and as such must be great and brave: her desires were the more noble for being

*

unlawful, for so were the desires of Lucifer; and therefore her mind had in it the greatness of an angel; that is, of a fallen angel, a devil: in the ground where she is buried, she is pronounced to rest in peace: and angels make it

The Poet in his Elegy on an unfortunate Lady who killed herself for love (I believe incestuous), thus blends his praises with his lamentations.

First, it is made questionable whether it can be any crime in heaven to act the part of a Roman, and the lady is celebrated for thinking greatly and dying bravely: that as she soared above vulgar passion in the practice of incest, her ambition was sanctified by the example of aspiring to angels and gods, that is, devils; for he can allude to nothing but the fall of Lucifer, whose fall is called a glorious one. The poet, seeming to think himself in possession of St. Peter's keys, makes no doubt but that the pure spirit of this self-murderess (who made Lucifer her pattern) is gone to heaven, its congenial place. Yet such is the consistency of a poet's logic, that he prays heaven that the lasting lustre, the great sentiments, and the heroic death of this woman, may be sent as a curse, and a sudden vengeance on the posterity of those who crossed her desires. So are they all to perish; that is, they are to indulge the passion of angels and gods, and die an honourable Roman death, receive the protection of angels' wings over their graves, and consecrate the unconsecrated ground in which self-murderers are buried!

Our studies of late have encouraged a sort of religion which has no devotion in it; while it affects superior rationality, it leaves us there, and so we are destitute of that divine comfort without which the soul of a Christian cannot weather the storms of life. Want of employment renders the mind stagnant, vapid, and by degrees noxious to itself.

If the affections are violently set upon any thing in this world, whether fame, wealth, or pleasure, and are disappointed, then life becomes insupportable. Therefore the moral is this: "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth."

Lunacy, though sometimes accidental or natural, is generally artificial: ungovernable appetites fill the vessels with gross humours, and if they settle in the head, they generate disorders in the mind. I do not suppose there ever was a well-governed mind in an ungoverned body: and mortification being now totally out of fashion in the world and exploded in religion (so far have we unhappily carried on reformation) there is more self-indulgence than there used to be, and consequently the mind becomes distempered, and when vice co-operates, and inflamed passions are disappointed, lunacy succeeds, and ends in suicide. This is often the progress: the world is full of disappointment: he who would bear it well must reduce his passions, and he who would do this must mortify his body. There is no other course. I have heard it observed in a Roman Catholic country, "that the fulness which intemperance breeds in the gentry. is brought down by the meagre days of the week; and if that is not sufficient, when the Lent comes round, that it is sure to bring them into good order, good principles, resignation to the will of God in all things, and trust in his protection." God permits the troubles of the righteous, whose disappointments are productive of future good to pious men, and they then often live. Faith holds out a light in the darkest night of vexation, and hope raises the dejected spirit. They are not the passions of good people. that lead to suicide, but of the proud, the vain, and irreligious; who take their comfort from this world, and it forsakes them.

Temperance is the next preservative: and to open the mind to some faithful friend, especially to a spiritual counsellor. When the mind is filled with some bad subject and overloaded, it must be relieved, as the body is when it is too full of bad blood, Vanity and ungoverned passions breed extravagance; extravagance soon leads to

holy by spreading their wings over it. These are called flowers of poetry, but they are in reality the poisonous weeds of a wild and ungodly imagination. What grandeur and sublimity is here given to those unrestrained passions which ruin the world, and make a hell upon earth? Take these sentiments out of their poetical dress, and they are no better than madness and blasphemy; but in it, they dazzle the eyes of the vain and unthinking, and do irreparable mischief. When we see poets thus misapplying their talents, and combining with the great adversary of mankind, that they may be admired for their wit, while they are doing all they can to destroy the world, one could wish they were all banished out of a Christian country: but as if this were not enough, sentimental novelists add themselves to the party, and teach us, what is horrible to hear, that self-murder may be an act of piety! farther than which, madness itself can never go.*

From the whole of this subject, you must see what is the dangerous situation of miserable man: deceived by his imagination, how he is agitated by the winds of his own passion, and drawn out of his course by the false lights held out to him by the deceivers and corrupters of mankind ! Beware therefore of men, and fly to God, who alone can support and deliver us under the trials of this mortal life. distress and poverty: to remedy which they fly to gaming for a poor chance of mending their broken affairs, which becoming still worse by this dreadful expedient, desperation ensues, and self-murder is the end.

The doctrine of reprobation terrifies some ill-informed minds, who taking the notion of absolute unconditional predestination in a wrong sense, are driven to despair, and give themselves up as objects devoted to destruction; a most unhappy delusion, to remove which would require a discourse of itself; but here I can only touch upon it.

Ignorant and ill designing people tell us, that suicide is no where forbidden in the Scripture. If it be not expressly forbidden, it is because it is not supposed, as being a thing to which there is no temptation; for no man hateth his own flesh; he is in danger of loving it over much; when a man is forbidden to murder for robbery or revenge, to commit adultery, and to covet his neighbour's goods, there is the temptation of gaining or gratifying; and therefore there is something to be forbidden: but how strangely would it sound, if it were inserted into the commandments, “ Thou shalt not put out thine own eyes!" It would look as if the commandments were given for the benefit of fools and madmen; to whom no commandments can be of any service: and they that can argue in such a manner are surely no better.

Danger destroys many; but danger awaits all: even those that are saved must first be tried. There never was a saint who found his way to heaven, but after some great tribulation, of which the world perhaps knew little or nothing. Many things pass between God's providence and the heart of a poor sinner, which can neither be described, nor forgotten the soul is brought into some strait, out of which it seems impossible to escape, that it may feel its own insufficiency, and depend only and wholly upon the sufficiency of God: in other words, that it may be convinced of the truth of the principle, on which it is to be saved; of which principle the world knows nothing, and it is lost for want of it. We have a great pattern of this in the history of the children of Israel, when they were brought out of Egypt: the Church of God was led forth in a direction toward the Red Sea. The waters were before them; the Egyptians were behind them if they went forward, they were drowned; if they went backward, they were slain : they could do nothing but stand still; they did so; and they saw the salvation of God.* It is not a time to learn these lessons when the evil is upon us: they must have been learned before, or we shall not be able to stand in the evil day.

That God brings good men into difficulties out of which he alone can save them, is a doctrine which none but good men can understand or believe. And let them never be discouraged; such trouble is no sign that God has forsaken them; it is a sign that God hath adopted them for his children, and will save them at last. One of the greatest favourites of heaven, the patriarch Jacob, was exercised

When a man is surrounded with danger, and knoweth not in his distress which way to turn himself; it may sound like foolishness to bid him sit still, but it is good doctrine, even the doctrine of God himself, by the prophet Isaiah, (xxx. 7.) their strength, says he, is to sit still; and it is very true; for when it comes to this, God is their strength; and in that case they are sure to be delivered. There are situations, under which nothing can preserve the servants of God, but the faith and patience with which they wait upon him.

with these trials; but under them all God was present to his faith, redeeming him from all evil; and whenever we are in extremity, let his words be a lesson to us—“ I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord."

SERMON XLIII.

AND THEY CAME OVER UNTO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SEA, INTO THE COUNTRY OF THE GADARENES.—AND WHEN HE WAS COME OUT OF THE SHIP, IMMEDIATELY THERE MET HIM OUT OF THE TOMBS A MAN

WITH AN UNCLEAN SPIRIT.—Mark v. 1, 2.

HE miracles of our Saviour are commonly understood,

THE

as acts of divine power, which were intended to shew, that he was the Son of God and the King of Israel. All his miracles were undoubtedly so many testimonies that he was sent from God: but they were much more than this; for they were all of such a kind, and attended with such circumstances, as gave us an insight into the spiritual state of man, and the great work of his salvation.

In this miraculous account of the man with an unclean spirit in the country of the Gadarenes, we behold, on the one side, a work of the Devil, and on the other, a contrary work of Jesus Christ, who came "to destroy the works of the Devil." From the example of this poor wretch, in his state of possession, we see plainly what it is to be "under the power of Satan." of Satan." Such as this man was, such would he make of every man that is born into the world, if he were permitted of God so to do; he would make him restless, and shameless, and senseless, and furious. This poor Gadarene fled from the society of men, and had his dwelling in nakedness among the tombs and mountains; places which suited with the melancholy state of his mind. When he was bound with chains, they were broken in sunder;