SERMON XLI.

PREACHED BEFORE THE SONS OF THE CLERGY.

For

PSALM CXxii. 8, 9.

my brethren and companions' sake, I will now say,

Peace be within thee:

Because of the House of the Lord our God I will seek thy good.

HE Psalm, from which these words are taken,

TH

bears inscription in the title of it, A Song of degrees t. A Title, we may observe, of great eminence and distinction, proper only to those services, where the occasion and performance were of a more than ordinary solemnity, demanding, what the words import, a more exalted elvation both in the voices, and in the stations, of the Levites, who recited them.

And never, surely, was there a performance more illustrious, never deliverance more remarkable, than the victory that occasioned it.

David, at once the King and the sweet singer of his Israel, did not think it was enough to adorn it with his

* Dr. St. John.

+ In the whole number of Psalms, there are but fifteen so dis tinguished.

presence,

presence, he composed himself the words, he not, improbably, set the music, it is more than probable he vouchsafed to assist at the execution of it.

The occasion of this great festivity, was the defeat of a rebellion, no less dangerous than unnatural, blown up, and maintained by the perfidiousness of his son, in the very bowels of his dominions.

And now, that he is suffered with his aged eyes once more to see, and with his feet to stand again within the walls of his Jerusalem, he, in a grateful reflection on the multitude of God's mercies, impatiently makes haste to worship towards His holy temple: There, prostrate at the altars he had fled from before Absalom, and, transported with the worship he had panted after in his banishment, he pours out his royal soul in intercessions for his Israel, and calls on others to accompany him in their prayers for its peace, and in their vows for its prosperity.

"I was glad," says the Royal Exile," when they "said unto me, we will go into the house of the Lord."

"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall 66 prosper that love thee."

"Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within "thy palaces."

"For my brethren and companions' sakes"-so the Monarch stiles his subjects" I will now say, "Peace "be within thee."

Descended from their tribes, he is not ashamed to call them brethren; bred up with them from his infancy, he salutes them his companions; dear to him in their civil relation, much dearer still in their religious; "Yea, for the house of the Lord our God, I will "seek to do thee good."

In compliance, therefore, with the order of the text, and the design of this solemnity, I shall take occasion to recommend the charity we are now employed about, from the following considerations:

I. From the obligations of our nature, and the common sentiments of humanity. "For my brethren's "sake," says the Psalmist, "I will now say, Peace be within thee."

H. From their civil relation to us in the government, and our regards to them, as we are countrymen. "For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will wish thee prosperity."

III. And more especially from the dignity of their employment, and the sacredness of their character, from whom these families are derived, beloved for their fathers' sake, and entitled upon their account, to our greatest tenderness and respect. "Yea, for the house "of the Lord our God, I will scek to do thee good."

I. I am to shew how strongly we are obliged to the exercise of this charity by the engagements of our nature, and the common sentiments of humanity: "For 66 my brethren's sake, I will say, "Peace be within "thee."

Now as concerning brotherly love, my brethren, as I would not have, so neither when I consider, can I suppose you ignorant.

"To rejoice with them that do rejoice, to weep "with them that weep"-not only to feel within ourselves, but to relieve in others, as we have opportunity, the pains, the misfortunes, the necessities they complain of concerning these things, I would presume ye have no need that I should speak unto you.

To do good in these instances, is no more in effect,

*

than

(

than to love others for your own sakes, and only another, and a better, way of gratifying yourselves. The instances I have now been mentioning, are the first elements of charity: we are not formed to them by discipline, but disposed by nature; they are born in us, they grow up with us: So far ye yourselves are taught of God, and inclined, by the very fashion of you, to love one another.

But, in this general pretension to our pity and benevolence, which the voice of nature has proclaimed so universal, that no exception may restrain, no unworthiness can forfeit it, great distinction we are to make, just preference we must observe to the merits, and condition of those to whom we minister.

Good-will towards men of all characters and conditions, is a debt we stand, strictly, charged with by the first principles of humanity; but our delight must dwell more particularly" on the saints that are in the "earth, and on such as excel in virtue." Great compassion there is due to all, who are any ways afflicted with the inconveniences of fortune, and the pressures of a low estate; a greater still to those whose birth and education had given them promises of a better.

Great charity sure is due to their unhappy circumstances, who, through age or disappointment, not lavish in their expences, but unsuccessful in their industry, are become, innocently, the objects of it.

What then shall we judge sufficient for the relief of those poor families who have been honorably undone, not by the vices, or ill-management, but by the virtues of their ancestor-too great an example himself of the hospitality he recommended?

To see the son of such a father, ingenuous in his descent

descent, not unhopeful in his improvements, who, as long as his parent lived, counted himself a happy man, thrust out in one sad hour, from the plenty he was born in, and the expectations he was bred to, into hardships and extremities he was untaught to fear, and unprepared to suffer!

To see the widow of such an husband lamenting, with equal grief, the father she cannot recal, and the children she cannot succor, "weeping, and wailing,

and refusing to be comforted:" to hear her say to her hungry little ones, Alas! my children, in my house is neither bread nor clothing for you. To see her desolate, a captive, removing to and fro, begging her bread with those hands with which she had, formerly, dispensed it, and of those very persons whom she had more than once sustained in her prosperity! remembering, all the while, as an aggravation of her miseries, all the pleasant things which she possessed in the days of old, now lost and gone for ever, ever, with the dead partner of her comforts, who had shared with her the enjoyment of them!" Have pity on her, O my friends, "have pity" on this poor destitute, "for the hand of "God hath touched her." Be not ashamed to go along with me into the cells of the disconsolate; there survey a scene of woe, less frequent, God be thanked, since the appointment of this charity. Hear the widow cry to one of you, "Thy servant, my husband, is "dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the "Lord, and the creditor is come to take unto him my "two sons to be bond-men. Is it nothing to you, all 68 ye that pass by? Behold and see, if there be any "sorrow, like unto this sorrow! To a mother thus "afflicted," pity will not only be shewn of a friend,

but