XIV. SERM. fuch high connexions. Christ, as your forerunner, hath entered into the highest heavens; Him, it is your part to follow, in the paths of piety and virtue. In those paths proceed with perfeverance and conftancy, animated by those words of your departing Redeemer, which ought ever to dwell in your remembrance: Go to my brethren, and fay to them, I afcend unto my Father and your Father; to my God and God. In your God. my Father's boufe are many manfions. I go to prepare a place for you. I will come again and receive you that where I to myself, am, there ye may be alfo*. * John, xx. 17. xiv. 2, 3. SERMON XV. On a peaceable Difpofition. ROMANS, xii. 18. If it be poffible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. IT cannot but occur to every one who SERM. has read the New Teftament, even in a curfory manner, that there is nothing more warmly and more frequently inculcated in it, than peace and love, union and good understanding among men. Were a perfon to form to himself an idea of the ftate of the chriftian world, merely from reading our facred books, and thence inferring how they would live who believed those books to be divine, he would draw, in his fancy, the fairest picture of a happy fociety: XV. XV. SERM. fociety: he would expect to meet with nothing but concord, harmony, and order; and to find the voice of clamour and contention for ever filent. But were fuch a perfon, fond to be himself a witnefs and a partaker of fuch a blissful ftate, to come amongst us from afar, how miferably, alas! would he be difappointed, when in the actual conduct of Chriftians he difcovered fo little correfpondence with the mild and peaceful genius of their profeffed religion; when he faw the fierce fpirit of contention often raging unreftrained in publick; and in private, the intercourfe of men embittered, and fociety disordered and convulfed with quarrels about trifles? Too justly might he carry away with him this opprobrious report, that furely those Chrif tians have no belief in that religion they profess to hold facred, feeing their practice fo openly contradicts it. In order to prevent, as much as we can, this reproach from attaching to us, let us now fet ourselves to confider feriously the importance and the advantages of living peaceably with all men.—This duty may be thought by fome to poffefs a low rank among among the christian virtues, and the phrafe a peaceable man, to exprefs no more than a very inferiour character. I admit that gentleness, candour, fenfibility, and friendship*, express a higher degree of refinement and improvement in the difpofition; and that a good Chriftian ought to be distinguished by active benevolence, and zeal for remedying the miferies and promoting the fe licity of others. But let it be remembered, that the love of peace is the foundation. of all thofe virtues. It is the firft article in the great chriftian doctrine of charity; and its obligation is ftrict, in proportion as its importance is obvious. Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God †.—I shall first show what is included in the precept of living peaceably with all men; and next, what arguments recommend our obedience to this precept. I. THIS precept implies, in the first place, a facred regard to the rules of juftice, in rendering to every man what is his due. • Vide Difcourfes on thefe virtues in the preceding Volumes. Without XV. . SERM. Without this first principle, there can be no friendly commerce among mankind. Juftice is the bafis on which all fociety refts. Throw down its obligation, and at that inftant you banish peace from the earth; you let rapine loose, and involve all the tribes of men in perpetual hostility and war. To live peaceably, therefore, requires, as its first condition, that we content ourselves with what is our own, and never feek to encroach on the just rights of our neighbour; that in our dealings, we take no unfair advantage; but confcientiously adhere to the great rule of doing to others, according as we wish they fhould do to us. It supposes that we never knowingly abet a wrong caufe, nor espouse an unjuft fide, but always give our countenance to what is fair and equal. We are never to disturb any man in the enjoyment of his lawful pleasure; nor to hinder him from advancing his lawful profit. But under a sense of our natural equality, and of that mutual relation which connects us together as men, we are to carry on our private interest in confiftency with what is requifite for general order and good, |