to vice? How are most of the scenes of public diversion crouded with the daughters of Midian, who are well aware, that what is there to be seen and heard will seldom fail to encourage the vicious, and betray some of the innocent into their snares! wherever any public meetings have this tendency to corrupt the manners, we may call them by what names we please, but they are as Moab and Midian, if they are enemies of Christian virtue.

Balak, the king of the Moabites, hated the camp of Israel, and bribed Balaam, a prophet, to curse them. Just thus doth the world hate the church, and is never happier than when it can hire the ministers of the church to turn against it and betray its interests. But it can no more succeed by all its curses than the wicked Balak could: it must seduce Christians to sin, and then it prevails; not by its own power, but by tempting the church to provoke the anger of God. When Balaam found that he could prevail nothing by his sacrifices and enchantments, then he gave counsel to Balak to corrupt the people of the camp with fornication; and that soon answered the purpose.

But now we are to learn another lesson, from the example of those who are said to have tempted Christ with their impatience under the ways of his providence. When the people expected to see an end of their journeyings, it pleased God still to lead them round about; but being weary of this unsettled life, we are told that the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way*: and, to punish their impatience on this occasion, fiery serpents were sent to destroy them. But when Moses prayed for them, he

Numbers xxi. 4.

was directed to place a serpent on a pole *, and when they who were bitten looked up to it, they were saved from death. Our Saviour hath applied this to the lifting up of himself upon the cross, where the serpent that hath the power of death, was to be vanquished; that they who are wounded by sin, and in danger of eternal death, may look up to him and live. What was the offence of the people? It was impatience. What was their punishment? they were delivered to the power of the destroyer. What was the remedy? They were directed to look up to a figure of the cross. And where should the impatient now look up, but to Jesus the author and finisher of their faith; that great example of patient suffering, who for their sakes endured the cross, and despised the shame of it. If we are tempted to be weary and faint in our minds, when the Providence of God is leading us by some tedious and disagreeable way against our will, then we are to look up to this pattern of patience, and to consider, how he took the painful way of the cross, and submitted his own will to the will of God. With this example before us, let us ask ourselves whether we have any thing to complain of; we who ought to have been there instead of him! In his death we see the victory that overcometh the world. For the joy that was set before him, he waited till the great work of our salvation was finished: and we are to wait in like manner, till all the designs of Providence are accomplished in us; for we can inherit the promises on no other condition : he that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved.

* In the heathen Mythology, a serpent, twisted about a stick, is the emblem of health, and the ensign of Esculapius.

But salvation, such as God hath promised, is not an object to all men. Some have no opinion of it; as there were those amongst the people in the wilderness, who thought scorn of that pleasant land to which they were going. When the spies who were sent to view the land of Canaan made their report of it, and brought back with them some of its fruits, they differed very much in their accounts. They who proved faithful and told the truth, said it was an exceeding good land flowing with milk and honey; and that they were well able, with God on their side, to take possession of it, and overcome the inhabitants, whose defence was departed from them. Others brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched: they described it as a land which ate up, that is, starved its inhabitants; and that these were men of a gigantic stature, to whom ordinary men were but as grasshoppers. This latter report found too much. credit: and the congregation was so discouraged and terrified by it, that they lift up their voices and wept; and they murmured against Moses and Aaron for bringing them into these insuperable difficulties, even determined to make them another captain and go back. This is the act of unbelief for which they were doomed to fall in the wilderness, without being permitted to see that land which they would take no pains to win.

The

Such is the case of those fearful minds and faint hearts, which say there is a lion in the way, and magnify all the difficulties of the Christian warfare. heavenly land, as they conceive of it, and as they hear from people like themselves, is not a place that would make them happy. Besides there are such temptations in the way as no man can resist. Vice is strong, and nature is weak. The gospel prescribes

a way of life that would starve people, and take away all their comfort. Therefore when all things are considered, nothing is to be done, but to give up the cause, and go back to the opinions and ways of the children of this world.

ness.

If I may give you my own sentiment, I do not suppose there is a sin upon earth more hateful to God, than this of undervaluing his promises, distrusting his protection, and making unjust representations either of his religion itself, or of the rewards of it; as if his service were hard, or the end of it not worth attaining. This I can tell you, that such people are often made more miserable, and suffer worse agitations of mind from disappointments in the way of their own chusing, than the most abstracted saint ever suffered from the practice of self-denial in the way of godliFor we may lay it down as a certain rule, that they who have not faith to see the value of the other world, have not the wit to use this properly: and no man need wish his worst enemy more wretched than the abuse of this world will make him. But, on the contrary, what words can describe the blessedness of him, who depending on the promises of God, conquers the difficulties of life, and hath hope in his death! such a hope as is signified by the divine Psalmist, in words much to our present purpose-I should utterly have fainted, but that I believe verily to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. As if he had said, "I believe the report concerning that good land, to "the possession of which we are journeying; I know "the value of it, and that the Lord himself is my "defence by the way; and so my heart hath not "failed me: therefore I give the same advice to all; "wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: he who led Joshua to vic

66

66

tory in the promised land, shall bring down the "walls of the mighty, and support thee against all "that appears gigantic and terrible in the way of thy "salvation." St. Paul, having pointed out to us, and applied all these figures as examples to us under the gospel, draws this weighty moral from the history of our fathers who journeyed in the wilderness: "where'fore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man: but God is faithful who will “not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, " but will, with the temptation also, make a way to es

cape that ye may be able to bear it." This is the doctrine we are to learn from their history. He that standeth may now fall through unbelief, as they did: he that has been brought out of Egypt, may fall in the wilderness; therefore let us pass the time of our sojourning here in fear. But then, as God is still with. us, we are never to be discouraged in the time of trial, nor to doubt of his protection. If there is a sea on one side, and a host of Egyptians on the other, and there seems no way to escape, the waters shall be divided and the Egyptians shall be overthrown. there is neither bread nor water in appearance, some improbable causes shall give us a supply of both; some flinty stone shall become a springing well, and the heavens above shall give us meat enough. Then for the sicknesses of the soul, we have the remedy of the cross; and against the gigantic race of Anak, a defender who will never leave us nor forsake us: howsoever great and formidable the enemies of the Christian may appear, Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world.

* 1 Cor. x. 12, 13.

If