not to excuse your faults; confess them to God; (and to your neighbour also, if you have offended him ;) and bear with patience whatever blame you may receive from him. Endure the painful sense of your own infirmities, as the admonition of your heavenly Father; and assure yourself that a firm resolution to avoid the future commission of those faults, is the only way to atone for them, both to God and man. 8. Make use of all opportunities of leisure from worldly occupations, to recollect yourself, and to look into your account with God, without, however, relaxing in your fixed and daily intercourse with him. Let God (who is the merciful giver of all that you enjoy) be your first object; and shudder at the ingratitude of lavishing on any of his creatures, those affections which he has required for himself. Retire often, therefore, from your vain amusements, and examine your heart; remember that your God is a jealous God, and do not delay your return to him. Every moment that you willingly postpone this self-enquiry, is a criminal indulgence, and an offence to God. 9. Be not cast down, however, at a full and intimate knowledge of your own imperfections; nor at the repeated commission of errors, if they are but venial. We must be frail and imperfect as long as we are mortal: take care only that such errors are never wilful. Turn to God, and implore his assistance, and fear not that he will reject you, because you are not perfect. If you defer coming to God till you are free from sin, you will never approach him: Go, therefore, to his holy table, and by a worthy participation of the means of salvation, you will obtain his pardon for your past failures, and the grace of his Spirit, to strive against temptation in future; and as in this world trials will come, and sin will abound, it is our part patiently to receive the one, and stedfastly to resist the other, to the end of our lives. ON CHARITY, AND PEACE WITH 1. ONE of the greatest and most necessary virtues of this life is Charity; it is also one of the most acceptable in the sight of God, on account of its relation to our fellow-creatures. Charity, saith the Apostle, shall cover a multitude of sins; if we desire to live at peace (even with the best people) we must bear a great deal, and ask little; the most perfect of human beings is still full of imperfections. Let us set our own faults against those of our neighbours, and we shall soon find the necessity of mutual forgiveness. Happy are they, who, in bearing each other's burthens, fulfil (as the Apostle says) the law of Christ. 2. We cannot expect, nor even hope to pass through life in peace with each other, without the approbation and love of God; without humility, and a constant endeavour to subdue our pride and selflove. Self-love is, indeed, the root, from whence, in a greater or less degree, proceed all our passions, and the consequent mischiefs which arise to us from the indulgence of them among our fellowcreatures; it is the rock on which we too often make shipwreck of our happiness; for it is the greatest enemy to that peace with society, without which it is impossible to enjoy any comfort in this world. 3. In too warmly condemning the errors of others, we are guilty of a great fault; a haughty and strict severity towards their infirmities, or even their sins, shews a mind unwilling to acknowledge or perceive its own weakness. Who can say-"In their place I should have stood firm and unshaken?" Moreover, the re |
