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vices, (being as much as, humanly speaking, he is capable of performing,) will be accepted as perfect, through the merits and mediation of him who is perfect: and from these considerations taken together, there will arise an inward calm, a peaceful serenity in every good man's breast. And though I will not say, but that a self-admirer may, through some strong delusion, depart hence as confident, or more confident of his own salvation, than the most humble saint may do; yet I know not whether such false confidence brings with it so divine a pleasure, as a more rational and more modest assurance will do: or if it should, yet the changing of the scene will soon manifest the dif ference between a wise man's humble expectations and a fool's paradise.

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So much for the Publican's humility with regard to himself: I should next throw in a word or two of his candour or his charity with respect to others; as to which also he deserves both our admiration and imitation. He brought in no invidious, no ill-natured reflections upon others he condemned no man, he accused no man but himself. He might have pleaded the many evil examples of a wicked world, to screen himself the better behind a crowd, or to make himself appear the fairer, by producing them as foils to himself: but he was wiser than to offer such poor excuses, such thin coverings as those, to an allseeing God: neither would he be hasty to condemn others, while he was imploring mercy for himself: he knew what offences himself had been guilty of: he knew nothing certainly of others, but that it was no business of his to accuse them before God, or to make himself a judge over them: this part of his conduct was wise and commendable; and so far he stands recommended to us, as a pattern for us to copy after.

Not that we are hereby totally prohibited forming comparisons between ourselves and others; for how is it possible altogether to avoid it? Neither is there any thing amiss in endeavouring to go beyond many, in our religious advances, or in believing that we do so, when we

have grounds sufficient for it: neither is it necessary for an humble man to think himself worse than he really is, or to condemn himself as the vilest of sinners, and the like: he may be allowed to think justly, and according to truth, as well with respect to himself, as with respect to other persons; for nothing unreasonable or untrue can be expected of us, or be well-pleasing to God. The fault of the assuming Pharisee lay in the making a false estimate of himself, and a false judgment also of others, upon the comparison. He was not so good a man, in the main, as the despised Publican; but his pride, disdain, and insolence, (as black vices as any can be,) showed him to be one of the vilest of sinners.

Take we care then to live circumspectly in our whole conduct, obeying every commandment of God, and guarding against all kind of vices; but more particularly against pride (spiritual pride) and censoriousness; uncreaturely sins, odious and abominable in God's sight. An humble temper of mind is the root of all virtue, and the perfection also of all godly living. The way to attain it and to preserve it is to dwell much and often upon our failings and miscarriages, upon our natural proneness to evil, and upon the many imperfections even of our best services; remembering that we are nothing in ourselves, but that all our sufficiency is of God; and that that very sufficiency will not render us accepted, without the additional imputed merits of our Saviour Christ.

If we are minded to compare ourselves with other persons, we may look into the exemplary lives and deaths of saints and martyrs, recorded in Scripture, or in Church history; observing what labours, what watchings, what fastings, what fatigues, what torments they waded through, for the kingdom of heaven; humble all the while, and lowly in their own eyes, looking upon themselves as no better than unprofitable servants of the Lord whom they served; as indeed they were no better.

May we follow such bright examples, at an humble distance, and in such a degree as we are capable of doing! that, while they shine as stars of the first magnitude in the kingdom of heaven, we may hope, however, after a well-spent life, to be received into some lower rank in the same everlasting habitations.

SERMON XIX.

The general Rule of God's Dealing with Mankind; and the same applied to the Case of Jews and Gentiles at large, and of Christians in particular, compared with each other.

MATTH. xx. 16.

So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

THESE words conclude the parable of the labourers hired into the vineyard at several different hours of the day; the morning hour, the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh.

The Jewish way of computing their time was, to begin with sunrise, and to end with sunset; reckoning twelve hours to the day: whereas our way, now in use, begins at midnight, and ends at mid-day; which makes six hours difference in the order of computation.

To understand the several hours at which the labourers were hired, they were, in our style, and according to our reckoning, thus: early in the morning, about six, the first labourers were hired; then again at nine in the morning were hired more; at twelve, our noon, more still; and at three in the afternoon, more; the last of all at five in the afternoon, answering to what the Jews called the eleventh hour.

At these several times, the householder in the parable hired labourers to work in his vineyard: and when "the

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" even was come," that is, six o'clock at night, the lord of the vineyard was to pay them for their day's work. Some of them had been labouring the whole day, from six to six, twelve hours; others from nine to six; others from twelve to six; others from three to six; and the last of all but a single hour, from five to six. Now the lord of the vineyard, however unequal their times of labour had been, was yet pleased to give them all the very same wages: that is, he paid every man the usual wages for a whole day's work; beginning at the last, and so going on to the first. The first had no just reason to complain, because they were paid their full hire, as much as they had agreed for, and as much as any man could reasonably demand for a day's work: they had therefore no injustice done them: but yet, it seems, they were not well pleased, but "murmured against the good "man of the house," for being so beneficent and liberal to others: "These last," say they," have wrought but one ❝hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which "have borne the burden and heat of the day." They could not pretend that he had given them too little, or that their work deserved more; but their complaint was, that he had been barely just to them, when he had been kind and liberal to others: and upon this they were disposed to murmur; putting in their claim to an equal share in their lord's goodness and generosity. In return to their complaint, the lord of the vineyard thus answers one of them: "Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with

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me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: "I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not "lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is "thine eye evil, because I am good?"—And thus endeth the parable. The moral of it then follows: "So the last "shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but "few chosen." The parable was undoubtedly intended to represent God's dealings with mankind, in regard both to their outward call to the means of grace, and to the future retribution in a state of glory. For the further clearing of the whole, my design is,

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