rity toward the dead, the living have been preserved. By false indulgence toward the dead, the living may be lost; and often are so; a circumstance which neither reason, nor law, nor piety will justify. Some destroy themselves who are out of their minds, in a state of lunacy, not being accountable for their own actions; of such the law takes no account: but when a man, like this Ahithophel of the Scripture, discovers every sign of sobriety and deliberation, and brings himself to a fatal end by trusting to the world instead of trusting to God, it must have a very bad effect to make such a man innocent by calling him a lunatic: the persons who give such a verdict are PERJURED; the justice of the country is insulted; the public is abused and corrupted; and no good is done to the dead; the difference is all to the living. False mercy, or compassion against reason, notwithstanding the applauses it may find from the ignorant, is cruelty; the worst of cruelty, because it is lasting it promotes and multiplies the misery of posterity.

It is farther to be lamented, that the representations of poetry have tended very much to the corruption of the times. The world admires wit, though it is not agreeable to truth; without considering that the end of such wit

is misery and madness. The stage has often done mischief, but never more than in a wellknown tragedy, wherein self-murder appears with all the reputation of Roman courage, and all the wisdom of heathenish philosophy; because the politics of the time when that tragedy appeared were thought to require, that this sullen, sour republican should-be brought out for a pattern of patriotism. The truth of the matter is no other than this; the pride of that man would not bear to see that the greatest man in the world was greater than himself: so he wounded himself with his own sword for envy and disappointment; and when his wound was dressed by those who wished to save his life, he tore it open, and died wallowing in his blood. All this foul rage of republican enthusiasm is turned into a fine scene of patriotic virtue; the man dies with honour, and the guilt of his blood is laid upon the world; that is, in effect, upon the providence of God, which raised Cæsar to be Emperor of Rome. This artifice has been attended with fatal effects: the story thus disguised has been adopted as a noble precedent, and pleaded as a sufficient reason by persons who have destroyed themselves; of which I might give you several examples, and some of them very striking.

When

When the imaginations of men are thus wrought upon by false pictures, and fine verses, there is very little difference between poetry and poison: only the sin is greater in poisoning the mind than in poisoning the body.

Another artist of the same profession commemorates the death of a certain lady, who murdered herself because she had entertained a criminal passion, in which she was disappointed, and could not bear it. Here is a precious picture for a poet to work upon. In the first place, her crime is misfortune: instead of guilty and desperate, she is called unfortu nate: then, the self-murderer is made an honourable character, because it is Roman, and as such must be great and brave: her desires were the more noble for being unlawful, for so were the desires of Lucifer; and therefore her mind had in it the greatness of an angel*; that is, of a fallen angel, a devil: in the ground where she is buried, she is pronounced to rest in peace; and angels make it holy by spreading their wings over it. These are called flowers of poetry, but they are in reality the poisonous weeds of a wild and ungodly imagination. What grandeur and sublimity is here given to those unrestrained passions which

13

* See Note 1, at the end.

ruin

ruin the world, and make a hell upon earth! Take these sentiments out of their poetical dress, and they are no better than madness and blasphemy; but in it, they dazzle the eyes of the vain and unthinking, and do irreparable mischief. When we see poets thus misapplying their talents, and combining with the great adversary of mankind, that they may be admired for their wit, while they are doing all they can to destroy the world, one could wish they were all banished out of a Christian country: but as if this were not enough, sentimental novelists add themselves to the party, and teach us, what is horrible to hear, that selfmurder may be an act of piety! farther than which, madness itself can never go.

From the whole of this subject, you must see what is the dangerous situation of miserable man: deceived by his imagination, how he is 'agitated by the winds of his own passion, and drawn out of his course by the false lights held out to him by the deceivers and corrupters of mankind! Beware therefore of men, and fly to God, who alone can support and deliver us under the trials of this mortal life. Danger destroys many; but danger awaits all: even those that are saved must first be tried. There

*See Note 2.

never

never was a saint who found his way to heaven, but after some great tribulation, of which the world perhaps knew little or nothing. Many things pass between God's providence and the heart of a poor sinner, which can neither be described, nor forgotten: the soul is brought into some strait, out of which it seems. impossible to escape, that it may feel its own. insufficiency, and depend only and wholly upon the sufficiency of God: in other words, that it may be convinced of the truth of the principle, on which it is to be saved; of which principle the world knows nothing, and it is lost for want of it. We have a great pattern of this in the history of the children of Israel, when they were brought out of Egypt: the Church of God was led forth in a direction toward the Red Sea. The waters were before them; the Egyptians were behind them; if they went forward, they were drowned; if they went backward, they were slain; they could do nothing but stand still; they did so; and they saw the salvation of God.* It is not a time to learn these lessons when the evil is upon us; they must have been learned before, or we shall not be able to stand in the evil day.

That God brings good men into difficulties.