"and thou man of Belial: the Lord hath returned upon "thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead "thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the "kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, be"hold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a "bloody mana.”

Shimei was a violent party man, of the house of Saul, and attached to Saul's faction; disaffected all along to David's person and government, and looking upon him as an usurper of the throne, against right hereditary, against the family of Saul, who had been his father-in-law. Now to Shimei, observing that by a strange turn of Providence David himself had been supplanted, and in a manner dethroned by his own son Absalom, the case and circumstances looked almost parallel to what had been done by David with respect to Saul's family and it was very natural, for a person of Shimei's persuasion, to fancy that, by this remarkable turn of affairs, God had declared from heaven in favour of Saul's friends, and in opposition to David's. The suggestion looked exceeding plausible, and carried in it a fairer colour of probability than such conjectures generally do. And yet we know for certain, that there was nothing of truth or justice in it. David had the clearest and best-grounded title to the kingdom that was possible for man to have: and he had done nothing amiss with respect to the house of Saul. That judgment of God upon him (for such it really was) respected quite another thing; being sent, as we learn from Scripture, on account of what David had transgressed in the matter of Uriah. This instance may be of use to teach us caution and reserve, as to passing our censures upon persons under affliction, and as to pointing out any particular sin, or sins, for which we may fancy the judgment to have been brought upon them. There is nothing more precarious, or fallacious, than our guesses of that kind: and we can never be certain, without revelation, that we have

a 2 Sam. xvi. 7, 8.

hit upon the truth. It is a large field for superstition and bigotry, for prejudice and passion, and great uncharitableness, as well as for bold presumption, and sometimes downright profaneness. The Pagans, of old time, played this engine upon the primitive Christians; as the Romanists of late years have also done upon the Protestants : and all sects and parties, more or less, as occasions have offered, have thus pelted one another, and have been pelted in their turns. The worst of the thing is, that it does no manner of service to any cause; but it does a great deal of harm, in turning men's thoughts from reforming their own lives, to condemning and censuring the lives of others; and, instead of answering the true design and purport of God's judgments, does nothing else but defeat both their meaning and use. I deny not, but that some kind of calamities have so plain a respect to some kind of vices, that one may even read the sin in the punishment consequent upon it. Thus, extravagance is often punished by extreme poverty, intemperance by diseases, and a dissolute life by an untimely end: but these, and the like, are rather the natural effects of vice, than judgments of God upon it.

There may be also some very peculiar circumstances in a punishment, as in that of Adoni-bezek, where the exact resemblance of the penalty to the crime may point out to us that the finger of God was in it. But such cases are very rare; and when they do happen, we must first know for certain, that the person has been really guilty of such or such crimes, before we can justly draw the parallel: and then the observation is of little use to us; because plain undisputed iniquities do not want any special notices from heaven for a warning against them; while we have the law of nature, and Divine revelation, to do it more effectually.

The result of what hath been now said is, that we learn to be modest and cautious, as to the naming or specifying any particular sins as the causes of God's judgments upon other men. Specify your own sins if you please, or if

you can, in such cases: but as to others, be content to lay the charge upon sin in general; and then, considering that we all have sinned, the use and application of God's judgments upon others will be brought home to ourselves, and will be an incitement to us to repent and reform; lest we also suffer for our sins, as others in our sight have. I have thus finished part only of what I intended from the text: the remainder (God willing) shall be dispatched another time.

SERMON VIII.

The Case of passing Judgment concerning Calamities examined: what Kind of Judgment on such Occasions is innocent and just ascertained; and the culpable extremes noted and censured.

The Second Sermon on this Subject.

LUKE xiii. 2, 3.

And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilæans were sinners above all the Galilæans, because they suffered such things?

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

IN a former discourse upon these words, after showing the occasion and the design of them, I proposed to treat of three particulars, as here follows:

I.

To observe what kind of reflections may be just and proper when any calamities befall our neighbours. And here I intimated that we may reasonably think, or say, that the calamities come from God, and that they are sent on the account of sin; inasmuch as all men are sinners, and all visitations have respect to sin in one view or other; either to original or actual sin; either to past or present; either to our own sins or the sins of others, or to both.

II.

In the second place, I proposed to take notice of the

extremes or excesses which many are apt to run into in judging their suffering neighbours, in loading the unfortunate beyond measure. One is, the charging them with some particular sin or sins, and pretending to be positive and peremptory, that their afflictions were a judgment of God upon them on that special account. And here I endeavoured to show the rashness, folly, and uncharitableness of thus judging others; since we have no warrant for doing it, nor can we do it, except in very rare and particular cases, with any truth or certainty.

The other excess which I mentioned, and barely mentioned, is the drawing uncharitable conclusions from greater sufferings to greater sins; as if they that are most afflicted must of consequence be the most guilty of any, or more guilty than those who escape. The folly and rashness of so judging is what I now intend to set forth at large, and then to proceed to a third particular; namely,

III.

To point out the practical use and application of the whole.

The proposition then which I now design to go upon is this; that however apt men may be to imagine that the greatest sufferers are the greatest sinners; yet there is really no evident reason for making any such inference, no truth or justice in drawing such a conclusion; but that, generally, all such reasoning is precarious, false, groundless, and often very presumptuous, as it is ill-natured and uncharitable. Our blessed Lord's design in the text was chiefly to rectify this common mistake, and to correct that censorious humour. "Suppose ye," says our Lord to the Jews, "that these Galilæans were sinners above all "the Galilæans, because they suffered such things? I tell 'you, Nay:" for ye who have escaped, and have not suffered, as they have done, may notwithstanding be as great or greater sinners than they were: and therefore it is but just to intimate, by way of caution and warning to you, that, "except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."