as necessary to preserve us from distraction, as from vanity and ostentation. When we have retired as much as we can from the world, we still carry too much of it along with us. The images of things sufficiently persecute and disturb us, though we be not exposed to the objects themselves. Our blessed Saviour thought not the mountains and deserts retired enough for his devotions; but would add the darkness and silence of the night. Little does the world understand those secret and hidden pleasures, which devout souls feel, when, having got out of the noise and hurry of the world, they sit alone and keep silence, contemplating the divine perfections, which shine so conspicuously in all his works of wonder; admiring his greatness, and wisdom, and love, and revolving his favours towards themselves; opening before him their griefs and their cares, and disburthening their souls into his bosom protesting their allegiance and subjection unto him, and telling him a thousand times that they love him; and then, listening unto the voice of God within their hearts, that still and quiet voice, which is not wont to be heard in the streets, that they may hear what God the Lord will speak : for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints; and will visit them, with the expressions of his love. No wonder, if those blessed souls who have tasted the pleasures of holy retirement, and found themselves, as it were, in the suburbs of heaven, grow weary of company and affairs, and long for the returning of those happy hours, as the hireling for the shades of the evening: no wonder they pity the foolish busy world, who spend their days in vanity, and know not what it is indeed to live.

Soli

But here I would not be mistaken, as if I recommended a total and constant retirement, or persuaded men to forsake the world, and betake themselves unto deserts. No, certainly; we must not abandon the stations wherein God hath placed us, nor render ourselves useless to mankind. tude has its temptations, and we may sometimes be very bad company to ourselves. It was not without reason, that one wise man warned another, who professed to delight in conversing with himself, 'Have a care, that you be keeping company with a good man.' * Abused solitude may whet men's passions, and irritate their desires, and prompt them to things which company would restrain. And this made one say that he who is much alone, must either be a saint or a devil.' Melancholy, which inclines men most to retirement, is often too much nourished and fomented by it; and there is a peevish and sullen loneliness, which some people affect under their troubles, whereby they feed on discontented thoughts, and find a kind of perverse pleasure in refusing to be comforted. But all this says no more, but that good things may be abused: that excess or disorder may turn the most wholesome food into poison. And therefore, though I would not indifferently recommend much solitude unto all; yet, surely, I may say, it were good for the most part of men, that they were less in company, and more alone.

Thus much of the first, and proper sense, of sitting alone, and keeping silence. We told you it might

* Vide, ut cum homine prot o."

M

also import, a quiet and patient submission to the will of God; the laying of our hand on our mouth, that no expression of murmur or discontent may escape us: "I was dumb," said the Psalmist, "I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it.” * And the prophet describes our Saviour's patience, that "he was oppressed, and was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." + Indeed, a modest and unaffected silence, is a good way to express our submission to the hand of God, under afflictions. The heathen moralists, who pretended much to patience, could never hold their peace; but desired always, to signalize themselves, by some fetches of wit, and expressions of unusual courage. But, certainly, the mute and quiet Christian behaves himself much better. That eloquent and expressive silence says more, than all their vain and stoical boastings. We cannot now insist, at any length, on this Christian duty, of patience, and submission to the will of God; we shall only say two things of it, which the text imports. First, That this lesson is most commonly learned, in the school of afflictions: "He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him." In that forecited place of Jeremiah ‡, Ephraim bemoaning himself, acknowledges “that he had been as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke;" which makes the greater reluctancy against it. Children that are much indulged, are the more + Isaiah, liii. 7.

Psalm xxxix. 9. + Ch. xxxi. 18.

silence, when the There is nothing

impatient if they come to be crossed; and there is too much of the child in us all. The Apostle tells us, that "tribulation worketh patience."* Custom makes every thing more tolerable; and, if it please God to sanctify the first stroke, the second is received with the greater submission. The other thing which I have to say on this duty, is, that this advantage of afflictions is very great and desirable; that it is, indeed, very good for a man to have borne the yoke in his youth, if he has thereby learned to sit alone and keep hand of the Lord is upon him. more acceptable unto God, no object more lovely and amiable in his eyes, than a soul thus prostrate before him, thus entirely resigned to his holy will, thus quietly submitting to his severest dispensations. Nor is it less advantageous to ourselves: it sweetens the bitterest occurrences of our life, and makes us feel an inward and secret pleasure, notwithstanding all the smart of affliction: so that the yoke becomes supportable; the rod itself comforts us; and we find much more delight in suffering the will of God, than if he had granted us our

own.

Now, to this God, who loveth us, and correcteth us for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness, and thereby of his happiness, to Him, Father, Son, and blessed Spirit, be all honour, praise, and glory, now and for ever.

* Romans, v. 3.

Amen.

164

SERMON IV.

THAT THERE ARE BUT A SMALL NUMBER SAVED.

LUKE, XIII. 23.

Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved?

THOSE who have so much charity and goodness, as to be nearly touched with the interests of mankind, cannot but be, more especially, concerned about their everlasting condition; and very anxious to know what shall become of poor mortals, when this scene is over; when they shall cease to appear on the stage of the world, being called off to give an account of their deportment on it. And, since we are assured, that there are different, and very opposite, states of departed souls, some being admitted into happiness, and others doomed to misery, beyond any thing that we can conceive, this may suggest a farther inquiry: how is mankind likely to be divided? shall heaven or hell have the greater share? Such a laudable curiosity as this, it was, that induced one of our blessed Saviour's followers to propose the question in the text, "Lord, are there few that be saved?"

Our Saviour had been lately foretelling the great success the gospel should have: how, like a little leaven, that quickly ferments the whole mass into which it is received, Christianity should soon pro