CHRISTIAN CHARITY. jury, or even to the neglect, of all besides. "I have transgression, by which Adam fell from innocence, no more," it is often said, "than I want for my and by which his posterity fell with him, was an style of living; and that style I think necessary for effort to raise himself into a state of independence; my rank in life. I spend all I get upon my family, by selfishness, he laid the world under the burden of and hoard nothing; how, then, can I be selfish?" the divine condemnation. It is a rejection of all Mistaken mortal! do you forget that a man's fa- the claims, and an opposition to all the ends and inmily, is himself multiplied-himself reflected.terests, of society; for if all persons were under the Selfish! yes, you are detestably so, if you spend all influence of predominant selfishness, society could upon yourself and family, however lavish and un- scarcely exist: let each one covet and grasp his own, to the injury or neglect of the rest, and the sparing you may be to them. world becomes a den of wild beasts, where each ravins for his prey, and all worry one another. This disposition defeats its own end. God has endowed us with social affections, in the indulgence of which there is real pleasure; the exercise of kindness and the enjoyment of delight are inseparable. "If there be any comfort of love," says the apostle: by which he implied, in the strongest manner, that there is great comfort in it; and, of course, in proportion as we extend the range and multiply the objects of our love, we extend the range and multiply the sources of our happiness. He that loves only himself, has only one joy; he that loves his neighbors, has many. To rejoice in the happiness of others, is to make it our own: to produce it, is to make it more than our sorrows are lessened, and our felicities multiplied, by communication. Mankind had been laboring for ages under the grossest mistake as to happiness, imagining that it arose from receiving; an error which our Lord corrects, by saying, "That it is more blessed to give than to receive." A selfish man who accumulates property, but diffuses not, resembles not the perennial fountain, sending forth fertilizing streams; but the stagnant pool, into which whatever flows remains there, and whatever remains, corrupts: miser is his name, and miserable he is in disposition. Selfishness often brings a terrible retribution in this world: the tears of its wretched subject fall unpitied; and he finds, in the gloomy hour of his want or his woe, that he who determines to be alone in his fulness, will generally be left to himself in his sorrows: and that he who, in the days of his prosperity, drives every one from him by the unkindness of his disposition, will find, in the season of his adversity, that they are too far off to hear his cries for assistance. No expression, no sentiment, has ever been more abused than that of the apostle-"Do all to the glory of God." It has been employed to disguise the most improper motives, and never more frequently, nor more profanely employed, than when it has been used to give a character of religious zeal to actions which every eye could discern originated in an unmixed selfishness. It is to be feared, that when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, it will be found that, while much has been professedly done for the glory of God in the affairs of religion, pure zeal for God's glory is a very rare thing. Certain it is, that much of what has been carried on under the authority of this truly sublime phrase, has emanated from a far less hallowed principle. The gospel has been preached by ministers; places of wor-own. Lord Bacon has justly remarked, that our ship have been built by hearers; distant lands have been visited by missionaries; yea, imprisonment and death may have been sought by martyrs, in some cases, not from pure zeal for God's glory, but under the influence of selfishness. All sorts of artful practices have been supported, all kinds of stormy passions have been indulged, all kinds of injuries have been inflicted, under the pretence of glorifying God; but which, in fact, are to be ascribed to this disposition. When a man is identified with a party, that party is himself, and what he does for the one, he does for the other. The same remarks will apply to many of those actions which are performed on the professed ground of regard for the public good. Pure patriotism is a scarce virtue, and is found but rarely in the breasts of those who are loudest in their praises and professions of it. Many a noisy and self-eulogized patriot-many a zealous supporter of public instítutions-many an active reformer of popular errors many a liberal contributor to humane or religious societies could their motives be exposed, would be found to act from no higher aims than to get a name for themselves, and to be praised by their fellow creatures. This is not an incurable temper: but is a disease that requires immediate and diligent attention. Where it not only exists but predominates, the spring of human action must be renewed by regeneration, and we must have that new heart, which is brought to love God supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves. We must meditate often upon the deep criminality of this disposition, and look upon it in all its deformity, till we hate it: being careful in order to this, to strip it of all the disguises which the deceitfulness of the heart has thrown over it.We must abound in contemplation of the character of God, as infinite in love, and of Jesus Christ, as an incarnation of pure disinterested affection. We must exercise great mortification, laboring to the uttermost to subdue, and if possible to eradicate, this vile disposition; and repeating this again and again, till we begin to taste the pleasure, and to feel the habit of, kindness: at the same time praying It is time to contemplate the evil of selfishness.-earnestly for the help of the Holy Spirit, to asIt is a direct opposition to the divine benevolence, sist us in the mighty work of vanquishing a selfish and is contrary to the habitual temper of our Lord temper. Jesus Christ, "who pleased not himself." It is the cause of all sin, the opposite of all holiness and virtue: it is the source of innumerable other sins, and is placed by the apostle as the head and leader of the eighteen vices which he enumerates as the marks of perilous times, "Men shall be lovers of themselves." This was the sin which introduced all guilt and misery into the world; for the first Some indulge this disposition under the pretext of regard for the truth. Attaching an overweening importance to their own opinions, as if they possessed the attribute of infallibility, overbearing in debate, impatient of contradiction, determined to crush the opinions and resist the influence of those who are opposed to theirs-they quiet their conscience, and silence the voice of remonstrance, with the plea that their vehemence is pure zeal for the interests of truth. They should be less anxious, they say, if it were their personal interest at stake; but they have a right to be earnest, yea, even contentious, in defence of the faith. But they know not themselves, or they would discern that their conduct springs from a proud, imperious, and selfish spirit. CHAPTER XII. THE UNSUSPICIOUSNESS OF LOVE. "Charity thinketh no evil.” THERE are two senses which may be attached to this beautiful description of love. I. It does not devise evil. What a horrible demon- but employs all its counsels and its cares for his belike disposition has the Psalmist ascribed to the in-nefit. Like a good spirit it is ever opposing the addividual who has no fear of God before his eyes!-- vice, and counteracting the influence of envy, re"He hath left off to be wise and to do good; he de- venge, or avarice. It would make the miserable viseth mischief upon his bed." Such is the delinea- happy, and the happy still happier. It retires into tion given by the inspired writer of the character the closet, to project schemes for blessing manof some wretched men; and the original is often to kind, and then goes out into the crowded regions of be found. They are perpetually scheming to do in- want and wretchedness, to execute them: it devijury; even their hours of rest are devoted to the im- seth good on its bed, and riseth in the morning to pulses of a wicked heart, and they sleep not except fulfil the plans of mercy with which it had sunk to they have done mischief. Instead of communing rest. "Love thinketh no evil." with God upon their bed, this is to commune with the devil, and to hold nightly conference with him who goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. But without going to the extent of those who live by plunder, extortion, or oppression, and who, as the wolves and tigers of society, are ever prowling about for their prey, there are many who maintain a tolerably respectable character, but are still far too busy in devising evil; this may arise from various motives, to all of which Christian love stands firmly opposed. Desire of gain may lead them to devise means by which they may injure a more prosperous neighbor, a more thriving tradesman, than themselves.They cannot endure to witness his success, and leave no effort untried to hinder it. They are inventive in the way of insinuation, inuendo, or explicit declaration, to check the tide of his good fortune, and are ever scheming to circumvent and injure him. Or they may be moved by envy, to devise means for blasting the reputation of a popular rival, or at least to render him less a favorite with the public. Revenge is ever busy in laying plans to injure its object; it broods in wrathful silence over the real or supposed injury, and looks round on every side for the opportunity and the means of full retaliation. A love of sporting with the fears of the timid and the weak has led some to delight in finding means for exciting their alarms: they do not desire to inflict pain so much from a malignity of disposition as from a wanton pleasure in raising a joke. Such jests as occasion distress, are, whatever may be pretended by their authors, a kind of devil's play, who can never relax from the work of tormenting, except it be to occasion lighter pains, and whose very sport is the infliction of misery. It is dreadful that the human intellect should ever be employed in devising evil; and yet, passing by the cabinets of statesmen, where hostile and unprincipled aggressions are so often planned against a weaker state; and the closets of monarchs, where schemes which are to entail the horrors of war upon millions are contrived without compunction; and the slave-merchant's cabin, where the details are arranged for burning peaceful villages, and dragging into captivity their unoffending inhabitants; and the robber's cave, the murderer's chamber, and the swindler's retreat: passing by these haunts of demons, where. the master-spirits of mischief hold their conclave, and digest their dark and horrid purposes; what a prodigious movement of mind is perpetually going on among the subalterns! What a frightful portion of every day's employment of the mental and bodily energies, all over the globe, is seen by the eye of Omniscience, directed by the parent of evil, who is ever going about to do evil; so that a great part of mankind seem to have no other prototype but the scorpions which John saw rising out of the bottomless pit, armed both with teeth and stings! To all these persons, and to all this their conduct, love is diametrically opposed. It thinketh not evil, but good; it deviseth to communicate pleasure, not pain. It shrinks back with instinctive abhorrence from inflicting a moment's suffering, in body or in mind, "Love worketh no ill to its neighbor," II. But probably the apostle meant, that it does not impute evil. Lovely charity! the farther we go, the more we discover thy charms: thy beauty is such, that it is seen the more, the more closely it is inspected; and thy excellence such, that it never ceases to grow upon acquaintance. Thou art not in haste to criminate as if it were thy delight to prove men wicked: but art willing to impute a good motive to men's actions, till a bad one is clearly demonstrated. It is proper, however, to remark here, that love is not quite blind: it is not, as we have already said, virtue in its dotage-having lost its power of discrimination between good and evil; nor is it holiness in its childhood, which, with puerile simplicity, believes every thing that is told it, and that it is imposed upon by every pretender. No; it is moral excellence in the maturity of all its faculties-in the possession of all its manly strength. Like the judge upon the bench, penetrating, yet not censorious, holding the balance with an even hand, acting as counsel for the prisoner, rather leaning to the side of the accused than to that of the accuser, and holding him innocent till he is proved to be guilty. There are some persons of a peculiarly suspicious temper, who look with a distrustful eye upon every body and upon every action. It would seem as if the world were in a conspiracy against them, and that every one who approached them came with a purpose of mischief. They invert the proper order of things; and instead of imputing a good motive till the bad one is proved, impute a bad one till the good one is made apparent; and so extremely skeptical are they on the subject of moral evidence, that what comes with the force of demonstration to the rest of mankind, in the way of establishing the propriety of an action, scarcely amounts, in their view to probability. Those who suspect every body, are generally to be suspected themselves. Their knowledge of human nature has been obtained at home, and their fears in reference to their neighbors are the reflected images of their own disposition. But without going to this length, we are all too apt to impute evil to others. 1. We are too forward to suspect the piety of our neighbors, and to ascribe, if not direct hypocrisy, yet ignorance, or presumption, as the ground of their profession. Upon some very questionable, or imperfect evidence-upon some casual expression, or some doubtful action-we pronounce an individual to be a self-deceiver or a hypocrite. There is far too much proneness to this in the religious world; too much haste in excluding each other from the body of Christ; too much precipitancy in cutting each other off from the immunities of the Christian church. To decide infallibly upon character, is not only the prerogative of the Deity, but requires his attributes. There may be some grains of wheat hid among the chaff, which we may be at a loss to discover. We must be careful how we set up our views or our experience, as the test of character, so as to condemn all who do not come up to our standard. It is a fearful thing to unchristianize any one, and it should be done only upon the clearest evidence of his being in an unconverted state.Without being accused with lax or latitudinarian views, I may observe that we should make great al- and experience are quite sufficient, if we would be lowance for the force of education, for peculiar ha- guided by them, to correct. How often, how very bits acquired in circumstances different from our often, have we found ourselves mistaken in this' own, and for a phraseology learnt among those matter! How frequently has subsequent evidence whose views are but imperfect. To impute to a pro-shown us our error in imputing a bad motive to an fessor of religion the sin of hypocrisy, or mere for- action, which, at the time, to say the worst of it, mality, and to deny the reality of his religion alto- was only of a doubtful character! We have discovergether, is too serious a thing for such short-sighted ed that, to have originated in accident, which we creatures as we are, except in cases which are ab- once thought to have been the result of design; and solutely indisputable. have found that, to have proceeded from ignorance, 2. We are too prone to impute bad motives in re- which we had hastily set down to malice. How ference to particular actions. Sometimes, where the many times, have we blushed and grieved over our action is good, we ascribe it to some sinister or self-precipitancy, and yet in opposition to our experiish inducement operating in the mind of him by ence and to our resolutions, we still go on to think whom it is performed. This is not unfrequently evil. done where we have no contention with the indi- But "love thinketh no evil;" this divine virtue vidual, and the imputation is merely the effect of delights to speak well and think well of others; envy; but it is more frequently done in cases where she talks of their good actions, and says little or nowe have personal dislike. When the action is of a thing, except when necessity compels her, of their doubtful nature, how apt are we to lose sight of all bad ones. She holds her judgment in abeyance as the evidence which may be advanced in favor of to motives, till they are perfectly apparent. She its being done from a good motive, and with far does not look round for evidence to prove an evil less probability decide that the motive is bad. If we design, but hopes that what is doubtful will, by farare the object of the action, we too commonly con- ther light, appear to be correct; she imputes not clude instantly, and almost against evidence, that a evil, so long as good is propable; she leans to the bad motive dictated it. Although the circumstance side of candor rather than to that of severity; she is at worst equivocal, and admits of a two-fold in- makes every allowance that truth will permit; looks terpretation, we promptly determine that an insult at all the circumstances which can be pleaded in or an injury was intended, when every one but our-mitigation; suffers not her opinions to be formed till selves clearly discerns that no such design can be she has had opportunity to escape from the mist of fairly imputed. A person passes us in the street passion, and to cool from the wrath of contention. without speaking, and we immediately believe that Love desires the happiness of others; and how can it was an act of intentional insult-forgetting that she be in haste to think evil of them? it is probable he did not see us, or was so immersed If it be asked, Do all good men act thus? I in thought as not to recognize us. A general re-again reply, They act thus just in proportion as they mark is made in conversation, which we suppose are under the influence of Christian charity. The with no other evidence than its applicability to us, apostle does not say that every man who is possessed was intended to expose us before the company, of charity does so, but that charity itself thinketh no when, perhaps the individual who made it had no evil: and therefore implies that every good man more reference to us than to a man on the other will act thus in the same degree in which he subside of the globe. A thousand cases might be men-mits to the influence of this virtue. Divine grace! tioned, and in which, of two motives that may be imputed, we choose the evil one. If a person has previously injured us, we are peculiarly propense to this unchristian practice of thinking evil of him.We can scarcely allow ourselves to believe that he can do any thing relating to us, but from an improper inducement; we suspect all his words and all his actions; nor is the propensity less strong in those cases where we have been the aggressors; we then set down every thing done by the injured person to the influence of revenge. hasten thy universal reign on earth, and put an end to those evil surmisings by which the comfort of mankind and the fellowship of the saints are so much disturbed! CHAPTER XIII THE JOY OF LOVE. Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." by the apostle, we may observe that it has its joys and its sorrows; and its smiles and its tears are the expressions of good will-the tokens of benevolence. We are first told in what it does not take complacency-" It rejoiceth not in iniquity." The evil of such a disposition is manifest. It is ex-KEEPING up the personification of love as presented plicitly and frequently prohibited in God's word. This is the censoriousness forbidden by our Lord, where he says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged;" and which is condemned by Paul, where he says, "Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." James commands us "Not to speak evil one of another; for he that speaketh evil of his brother, judgeth his brother." "Evil surmisings" are placed by the apostle among the sins which oppose the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is an invasion of the prerogative of Deity, who alone can search the heart, and read the motives of the breast. It is injurious to the character of our brethren, and disturbs the peace of society. Half of the broils which arise in the world, and of the schisms which spring up in the church, may be traced to this wicked propensity of "thinking evil;" for if men think evil, it is an easy step to speak evil, and then to do evil: so that the origin of many quarrels will be found in the false impressions of a suspicious mind-the misapprehension of a censorious judgment. It is a disposition which our own observation Sin is, in itself, an evil of enormous magnitude. As committed against a Being whom we are under infinite obligation to love, and serve, and glorify, it must partake of infinite degrees of demerit. It is a violation of that law which, as an emanation from the perfection of the Deity, is itself perfect and well deserves the eulogium pronounced upon it by the apostle, when he declares it to be "holy, and just, and good." As this is the rule of government to the moral universe, and intended to preserve its order, dependence and harmony; sin, by opposing its authority, disturbs this order, breaks this dependence, and seeks to introduce the reign of confusion and misery. None, but the infinite mind, is competent to calculate the mischief which is likely to be produced by a single act of sin, if left to itself without a remedy, or without a punishment. We have only to see what sin has done, to judge of its most evil and hateful nature. All the misery which either is or ever will be on earth, or in hell, is the result of sin is the greatest and highest infelicity of the creasin. It is the greatest evil-the only evil in the uni- ture, depraves the soul within itself, vitiates its verse. It is the opposite, and the enemy to God; powers, deforms its beauty, extinguishes its light, the contrast to all that is pure and glorious in his corrupts its purity, darkens its glory, disturbs its divine attributes, and ineffably beautiful perfections; tranquillity and peace, violates its harmonious joyand, as such, it is that which he cannot but hate ful state and order, and destroys its very life. It with a perfect hatred. It is not merely the opposite disaffects it to God, severs it from him, engages his of his nature, but the opponent of his government-justice and influences his wrath against it. What! the rebel principle that disputes with him for his to rejoice in sin, that despites the Creator, and hath seat of majesty and the dominion of the universe, wrought such tragedies in the creation!-that turnsaying to him," Thus far shalt thou go and no far-ed angels out of heaven, man out of paradise!—that ther; seeking to cast him down from the throne which he hath prepared in the heavens, and to rise, with impious usurpation, into the holy place of the high and lofty one. Sin would thus stop the fountain of life and blessedness, by ending the reign of infinite bencficence; and is, therefore, the enemy of every thing that constitutes the felicity of the various orders of rational existence. The happiness of angels and archangels, of cherubim and seraphim, and of the spirits made perfect above as well as of those who are renewed by the grace of God on earth, arises from holiness; separate and apart from holiness, there can be no happiness for an intellectual being. Now sin is the contrary of holiness, and thus the enemy of happiness. How, then, can love delight in iniquity? If it wills the felicity of rational beings, it must hate that which directly resists and extinguishes it. And as it cannot delight in sin in the abstract, so neither can it take pleasure in committing it: for whoever commits it, in so far approves of it, upholds its dominion, extends its reign, diffuses its mischief, and does all he can to recommend it. If his transgression be a common one, he gives the patronage of his example to all of the same kind; and if it be a new one, he becomes an inventor and propagator upon earth of a fresh curse and tormentor. That many do delight in committing iniquity cannot be doubted; they follow it with greediness, and drink it in as the thirsty ox drinketh in water. The Scripture speaks of the joys of fools, and of the pleasures of sin. Horrid as is the association, between sin and gratification, it certainly exists. Some men have gone so far as to be selfmurderers, but who ever took pleasure in the act of destroying themselves? Who ever drank the poison, as he would wine, with a merry heart? Who ever dallied in sportive pleasure with the pistol or the dagger, or wound the cord in jocularity round his throat before he strangled himself with it? Who ever went skipping with a light fantastic step to the edge of the precipice, or to the brink of the river, from which he was about to plunge into eternity? And yet sinners do all this, in reference to their souls. They commit self-murder, the murder of their immortal spirits, to the song of the drunkard, the noise of music, the smile of a harlot, and the laugh of the fool. They sin, and not only so, but delight in iniquity. So does not charity. hath made the blessed God so much a stranger to our world; broken off the intercourse in so great a part, between heaven and earth; obstructed the pleasant commerce which had otherwise probably been between angels and men; so vilely debased the nature of man, and provoked the displeasure of his Maker towards him!-that once overwhelmed the world with a deluge of water, and will again ruin it by a destructive fire! To rejoice in so hateful a thing as sin, is to do that mad part, to cast about firebrands, arrows and death, and say, "Am I not in sport?"-it is to be glad that such an one is turning a man into a devil! a reasonable, immortal soul, capable of heaven, into a fiend of hell !—to be glad that such a soul is tearing itself off from God, is blasting its own eternal hopes, and destroying all its possibilities of a future well being. Blessed God! how opposite a thing is this to charity-the offspring of God! The birth of heaven, as it is here below, among mortals; the beauty and glory of it, as it is there above, in its natural seal. The eternal bond of living union among the blessed spirits that inhabit there, and which would make our world, did it universally obtain here, another heaven."*" No: it is the sport of devils, not of men who feel the influence of love, to delight in sin. We justly condemn the cruelty of the Romans, in glutting their eyes with the scenes of the amphitheatre, where the gladiators were torn in pieces by the fangs of lions and tigers; but theirs was innocent recreation, compared with that of the perverted and wicked mind, which can be gratified by seeing an immortal creature ruining and damning his most precious soul. Go, laugh at the agonies of the wretched man tortured upon the rack, and make merry with his distorted features, and strange and hideous cries;-go, laugh at the convulsive throes of the epileptic;-go to the field of battle, and mock the groans of the wounded and dying;-all this is more humane and merciful than delighting in sin. Could we look down upon the burning lake, and see there how the miserable ghosts are tossed upon the billows of the burning deep, and hear their dreadful exclamations,-"Who can dwell with devouring fire? Who can dwell with everlasting burnings?"-should we, then, divert ourselves with sin? Charity does thus look upon their misery, so far as her imagination goes, and feels a cold horror and a shivering dread. She mourns over sin wheresoever she sees it, and weeps for those who never weep for themselves. This is her declaration, as she looks around upon the sins of mankind-"Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law." Nor can it delight in the sins of others. It cannot do as fools do," make a mock of sin." It is most horrid to find pastime and sport in those acts of transgression by which men ruin their souls. Some laugh at the reeling gait, and idiot looks, and maniac gestures, of the drunkard, whom, perhaps, they have first led on to intoxication, to afford them Love cannot delight in the misconduct of an enemerriment; or they are diverted by the oaths of my or a rival. This, perhaps, is the precise meanthe swearer, whose malice and revenge are at working of the apostle, in the expression we are now to invent new forms of profanity; or they are made merry by the mischief with which the persecutors of the righteous often oppose and interrupt the solemnity of worship; or they attack, with raillery and scorn, the tender consciences of the saints, and loudly applaud the wit which aims its sharpened arrows against religion. But love weeps over sin, as that which brings the greatest misery. "For illustrating. Few of us are without some one or more who are considered by us, or who consider themselves in the character of an opponent, or a competitor; and in such cases there is great danger of our being pleased with their moral failures. Howe on "Charity in Reference to other Men's Sins" it not be known that the bad passions of the human heart build their nests, like obscure birds, round the altar of the Lord; or, like poisonous weeds, entwine their baleful tendrils round the pillars of his house. We do not mean to say, that any good man can rejoice in the open immorality and vice of an opponent; but are there not many, in all large communities, who, though of Israel in one sense, belong not to it in reality? And where the failure does not proceed to the length of a more awful delinof the law of propriety, are not even the best of men sometimes exposed to the temptation of rejoicing over them, if their cause is promoted by them? The weaker party, especially, if they have been ill used, treated with pride and scorn, oppression and cruelty, are very apt to take delight in those instances of misconduct by which their opponents have brought upon themselves the prejudice of the public. It is not often that any, except those who are more than ordinarily depraved, will allow themselves to go so far as to tempt an enemy to sin, in order to gain the advantage over him. Yet there are some such, who will lay snares for his feet, and watch with eager hope for his halting: and when unable to accomplish this by their own personal exertions, will not scruple to engage accomplices in the work. Weaker and junior agents, who probably may know nothing, or know but little of the purpose for which they are employed, may be drawn by the master-quency, but consists merely of some minor breaches spirit of mischief into the confederacy, and be made the instrument of tempting an immortal creature to sin against God, and ruin his own soul. This is the climax of revenge, the highest pitch of wickedness, and the greatest refinement of human malice. It is to extend the mischief of revenge to another world; to call in the aid of devils, and the quenchless fire, to supply the defects of our ability to inflict misery in proportion to our wishes; and to perpetuate our ill will through eternity. To tempt men to sin against God, with a view to serve ourselves by degrading them before the world, unites much of the malevolence of a devil, with as much of his ingenuity. But if we cannot go to such a length as to tempt an opponent or rival to sin, yet, if we feel a delight in seeing him fall by other means; if we indulge a secret complacency in beholding him rendering himself vile, blasting his reputation, destroying his popularity, and ruining his cause; if we inwardly exclaim, "Ah! so would I have it-now he has done for himself-it is all over with him-this is just what I wished and wanted;"-we delight in iniquity.And, oh, how inexpressibly dreadful to be seen with a smiling countenance, or an aspect which, if it relax not into a smile, is sufficiently indicative of the joyful state of the heart, to run with eagerness to proclaim the intelligence of the victory we have gained by that act of another which endangers his salvation: how contrary all this to the charity which delights in happiness! That Rival candidates for fame, or power, or influence, whether in ecclesiastical or secular affairs, are liable to the sin of rejoicing in iniquity. Hard, indeed, is it for such hearts as ours to repress all feelings of secret complacency in those acts of a competitor by which he sinks, and we are raised, in public esteem. That man gives himself credit for more virtue than he really possesses who imagines he should find it easy to weep over the follies and miscarriages of the rival who contends with him for what it is of much importance he should obtain, or of an enemy who has deeply injured him. Job mentions it as a convincing proof of his integrity, and a striking display of good conduct :-" If I rejoiced in the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him." And it was a fine manifestation of the generosity of David, that instead of rejoicing over those sins which, in the conduct of Saul brought on the catastrophe that elevated him to the throne of Israel, he bewailed them with as sincere and pungent grief, as he could have done had Saul been the kindest of fathers. we are in danger of the sin we are now considering, is also evident from the exhortation of SoloAl-mon-" Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth."Charity, if it had full possession of our hearts, and entire sway, would not only repress all outward exhibitions of this delight, but all inward emotions; would make us dread lest an opponent should fall into sin; would not allow us to see him go unwarned to transgression, but compel us to admonish him of his danger; and would make us cheerfully forego the greatest advantage to our cause or reputation, that we might gain by his misconduct. This is the holiness of love, and a reproof of the genuine hatred of sin; for if we mourn only over our own sins, or the sins of our friends, or of our party, there may be something selfish in our grief after all; but to mourn over iniquity, when, though it does harm to another, it may, in some sense, promote our cause, is, indeed, to hate sin for its own sake, and for the sake of him by whom it is condemned. Perhaps we only go so far as to be pleased that the object of our dislike has been himself injured in a way similar to that in which he has injured us. though we may not allow ourselves to inflict any direct injury in the way of revenge, nor to engage others to do it for us, yet if we see him ill-treated by another person and rejoice; if we exclaim, "I do not pity him, he has deserved it all for his behavior to me, I am glad he has been taught how to behave to his neighbor ;"-this is contrary to the law of love-it is a complacency in sin. Nor is the case altered, if our joy be professedly felt on account of the consequences which the sin has brought upon him. We may sometimes attempt to deceive ourselves, by the supposition that we do not rejoice in the iniquity that is committed, but only because it has been succeeded by those fruits which the misconduct has merited. We interpret it into a proof that God has taken up the cause of injured innocence, and avenged us of our adversary. We go on now to show in what love does rejoice: "Charity rejoiceth in the truth." There are many circumstances and situations which more particularly expose us to the violation of this law of charity. In the case of two different denominations in religion, or two congregations of the same party in a town, between whom a misun- By the truth we are not to understand veracity as derstanding and schism have been permitted to grow opposed to falsehood. The apostle is not speaking up and to operate, there is imminent danger of this of this subject. The truth means the doctrine of the unchristian spirit. Alas, alas! that the bosoms of word of God. This is a very common way of demen should be liable to such sentiments! Oh! scribing the revealed will of God in the Scriptures. shame, deep and lasting shame, upon some profess-"Sanctify them by thy truth," said our Lord; "thy ing Christians, "that such unhallowed emotions word is truth." The truth itself is the object of should ever be excited in their bosoms!" "Tell it complacency to love. Truth is the most glorious not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice-lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph." Let thing in the universe, next to God and holiness. It has been the great object of mental pursuits since the creation of the world: millions of minds have |