This prudent behaviour is not inconfiftent with a fteady and conftant adherence to the truth; for the truth is not to be deferted that it may not be evil spoken of, but it is to be practifed without offence.

In matters effential to religion there is no room for compliance; and in matters of Chriftian liberty there is hardly any room for denying it: where we are free, the greatest deference is to be paid to the opinions, nay, even to the prejudices of others. This diftinction is not of my own making; but we have the exception and the rule from the fame hand; for the Apostle, in the verse after the text, adds, For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. Take the whole of the Apoftle's admonition together, and you will eafily perceive the meaning of these words. The dispute was about the lawfulness of meats: I know, fays the Apostle, and am perfuaded by the Lord Jefus, that there is nothing unclean of itself-but if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkeft thou not charitably: that is, I allow it is lawful for you to eat; but yet, if you eat with the offence of your brother, you offend against charity. Let not then, fays he, your good be evil spoken of; for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. This being the case, forbear eating, when eating will give offence for it is not neceffary to your Gospel obedience, or to the establishing the kingdom of God, that you should eat; for it is a matter of Chriftian liberty, and you may act which way you please. From which it is plain, that, in matters that are neceffary to the establishing the kingdom of heaven, we are not at the fame liberty to please and humour

men: for the reason the Apoftle gives in this case, why it ought to be done, is, that the kingdom of God confifted not in it; which is by implication an exception to the rule, and amounts to faying, This advice which I give you, of forbearing things which are offenfive, extends only to matters of Chriftian liberty; for where the kingdom of God is concerned, you must be content to follow Chrift, and us his Apoftles, through good report and evil report.

DISCOURSE LVII.

NUMBERS xxiii. 10.

Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my laft end be like his.

THERE is fomething very affecting in these words, and apt to engage us upon the first hearing to become parties to the good with contained in them. Whatever our present thoughts, views, and inclinations are, yet when our eyes are called off from the prospects of the world, and fixed upon the last point of life, and we stand as it were beholding ourfelves under the arreft of death, and just ready to expire, we want no arguments to direct our choice to what is beft for ourselves. Thefe circumstances carry conviction with them; and how indifpofed foever we are to live the life of the righteous, we are willing to die his death, and that our laft end should be like his.

There is a comparifon implied in the words of the text, between the cafe of the wicked and the cafe of the righteous, which the mind readily fup-、 plies. The comparison is ftated under fuch circumftances as throw out all prejudices and partialities,

and bring only the merits of the cause on both fides into judgment. You are called upon to behold the wicked and the righteous, both at the point of death, and to say which condition you would choose for yourself in this view, the pleasures and allurements of the world on one fide, the fuppofed difficulties and hardships on the other, are equally fet afide: virtue and vice are brought naked to the bar, clothed only in their own natural features, without colour or disguise; and, being thus placed before you, your judgment is defired. We have no exceptions to take in behalf of virtue to any judge; let the most corrupt give fentence, yet corruption shall not prevail; but virtue fhall be justified out of the finner's mouth, whilft he wishes to die the death of the righteous, and that his laft end may be like his.

It may seem perhaps, that we have but little confidence in the cause of virtue under all other circumstances and conditions of life, when we defer the judgment to the last moments, and bring the wicked and the righteous to the very doors of death, before we venture to ask your opinion upon their feveral conditions: it may be thought unfair too, so to state the cafe as to exclude all the pleasures and enjoyments on one fide, all the difficulties and difcouragements on the other, which are the very confiderations that are known to weigh moft with the generality of mankind, and to leave nothing but the profpect, whether certain or uncertain, of a future ftate, when every thing is removed out of the contrary scale, which might serve, as in experience we find they do ferve at other times, to balance against fuch hopes and fears: it may be said too, that it is