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If we could, for one moment, take a glance into the divine councils, and should discover that our punishment here was applied for our benefit hereafter, what should we then say to the presumption of our complaints? How should we be confounded and put to shame, at perceiving we had murmured against Him who was leading us through the rough paths of temporal woe, to the glorious goal of our salvation; when the smoother way, which would have been our own ungoverned choice, could have only conducted to the regions of eternal death. The thistle, it is true, will be frequently found in the most wholesome pastures, but we had better occasionally pluck it to our momentary inconvenience, receiving from it a caution of warning and reproof, than gather from the hothouse of Luxury those forced blossoms, whose brilliancy and perfume, while they captivate the eye and intoxicate the sense, only allure us onward to our ruin.

Let us, then, trust in the Lord amidst all the vicissitudes of that brief but probationary period allotted to this life. Let not our hearts be sad, for "there is joy to them that mourn." Let us" cease to do evil," for "her way goeth down to the chambers of death." "Come and let us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, wherefore turn yourselves and live."

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SERMON V.

ON EVIL SPEAKING.

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EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. JAMES, IV. 11.

Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law; but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge."

WE find, that among the religious precepts which are conveyed to us in the Scriptures of the New Testament, many of the social virtues are included as of paramount importance in the great work of salvation; and in the epistle, more especially, to which you have been just referred, several of these virtues are strongly pressed upon us by a caution to refrain from their opposite vices. We should always bear in mind, that in every important work, we must first learn to perform the less, before we can hope to accomplish the greater; and upon this maxim we shall find that we never can successfully practise the more imperative duties of Christianity, whilst we altogether pass over those which, although, singly

viewed, they may appear inconsiderable, combine, nevertheless, the elements of every virtue, and in their aggregate, when blended with that spirit of devotion which looks up to the expiatory sacrifice of a Redeemer as the foundation of all our glorious prospects in eternity, form the most perfect characters among the sons of men.

There are many failings which, among lax moralists, pass current as venial offences, or, at the worst, but as those effervescences of constitution, temper, or habit, upon which the heart having no deliberate influence, they cannot, according to their doctrine, be laid to the charge of a vicious inclination, or of corrupt motives. But, whatever subtleties the casuist may advance to gloss over the failings of human nature, this simple truth will overturn all his vain distinctions between actual and venial sins, that whatever we know to be wrong, it cannot be right to do, and to do what we are satisfied is not right, must be, under any circumstances, a sin. No casuistry, however specious, can alter the determinate characters of moral good and evil. The practice, then, against which we are cautioned in the text, is, speaking evil one of another; a practice, indeed, but too prevalent among us, and but commonly so lightly regarded as to be considered rather one of the allowable recreations of life, than a vice which involves consequences often fatal to the happiness of individuals and to the peace of society. It has

been said by a wise man, 66 many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not so many as have fallen by the tongue."

The consequences of slander, although they may appear to be remote and indifferent, are but too frequently instant and terrible. And, surely, upon the general consequences which follow from general actions, will depend their relative virtue or iniquity. If this proposition be true, and I know of no argument that can show it to be false, wantonly to speak evil of another must indicate no inconsiderable obliquity of mind, when the slightest reflection cannot but point out to us how lamentable have been the issues of this uncharitable practice in many instances of almost daily occurrence. How often have the hot and fiery resentments of those who have been unaccustomed to impose a restraint upon their tempers, whose ardent spirits would rather be familiar with dangers than run on the course of life smoothly and at ease how often have such persons turned upon the slanderer their terrible vengeance, and wiped out the stains of injured honour in their defamer's blood? How often do the whispers of calumny generate that fatal strife, which so frequently ends in sanctioned, or, at least, tolerated murder sanctioned by the laws of polished life, although a direct violation of the express law of the land! These are, I might say, daily occurrences among us, and yet the voice of defa

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