fall a shower of tears! And elsewhere, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem-how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. And as the barbarous soldiers were leading him away to his crucifixion, and some good women that followed him lamented and bewailed his sad, forlorn condition, as to all outward appearance it was; he turned unto them and said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck a

Thus were our blessed Saviour's sorrows chiefly employed in bewailing the public calamities; nor was he unaffected with the private afflictions of his friends, or even of strangers, as they happened to come to his notice; as when he groaned and wept with the two mournful sisters of Lazarus, when they told him the sad story of their brother's sickness and death, though he was just then going to raise him again to life; and when he saw the widow of Nain's only son carrying forth to burial, and the poor helpless man that had lain so long at the pool of Bethesda; and in abundance of instances besides. For his grief and sorrow, as we observed before, was from compassion and tender pity, and moved him to relieve and succour those that were in distress; and when their obstinate wickedness put a bar to his help, that raised his sorrow to the greatest height. These were the workings of the passions in our z Matt. xxiii. 37, 38. a Luke xxiii. 28, 29.

blessed Lord; and thus did he rule and govern them, and made them useful to those ends and purposes for which his great and good Father designed them, when he implanted them in our nature, and made us subject to them. And may we in our poor proportion go and do likewise, through his divine aid and assistance, without whom we can do nothing, and with whom we may do all things, even Jesus Christ the righteous, our most blessed Saviour and Redeemer! Amen!

CHAP. XII.

THAT THE REGULATION OF OUR PASSIONS SHOULD BE OUR MOST DILIGENT AND

SERIOUS STUDY.

SECT. I.

What it is to make the government of our passions our serious study, and the great importance of it.

To study any thing is to endeavour thoroughly

to understand it, and be so far masters of it, as to know how to make it useful and serviceable to us upon occasion. And therefore to study the regulation of our passions, is to bend our minds with all the seriousness and application which a thing of that moment requires, in order to our having a right notion of the nature and the several motions of them, and wherein their regularity and usefulness, and their hurtful exorbitancy consists; that we may know how to keep them in due bounds, and receive that benefit from them which our gracious Creator did design us in them. For all moral knowledge is in order to practice, and we are not to content ourselves with bare notion and speculation in such matters, which have so great an influence upon the happiness of our lives here, and the salvation of our souls hereafter. But when we have had our minds duly instructed, our earnest study should be, how we may best and most effectually reduce to practice

what we have been taught; and which will require much thoughtful care, and the diligent endeavour of all our powers and faculties, that we may act suitably to the rules we have received, and make a dextrous application of them upon any emergent occasion, and govern our actions by them with a prudent readiness, and a kind of masterly command and sway. Now this cannot be attained to in any art, without great attention of mind, and curious observation, and dwelling upon the thing, and making it our constant, daily business, which we call being industrious in any calling and employment. And I am sure our Christian calling requires it more than any, both as to the transcendent excellency and infinite consequence of it; and this particular of the due regulation of the passions, as it is an epitome of the agenda, or practick part of it, so we shall find it a lesson, not only exceeding worthy and necessary to be learned, but such a one as cannot be learned as it should be, and to any purpose, without observing St. Paul's direction to Timothy, and meditating assiduously upon it, and giving ourselves wholly to it. And as it requires, so I am sure it will answer, our utmost pains at last.

For it is the art of Christian tranquillity that we are now recommending to every one's serious study: how we may acquire it, and wherein it consists, we have endeavoured to shew in the preceding chapters; and would now excite every one that has read them to set himself in good earnest, and with his best diligence, to do accordingly.

And what can be more truly desirable than to be of a sedate, peaceable, sweet disposition of mind,

a 1 Tim. iv. 15.

free from the irregularities and excesses of any passion, not discontented and complaining, wrangling and contentious, but in all our capacities and relations, public and private, in church or state, to be of a governable, submissive, and teachable temper, of a composed and placid spirit, a stranger to the heats of parties and factions, and behaving ourselves without turbulency under the various dispensations of Providence, in full persuasion that the great Governor of the world does, and cannot but do, all things for the best; and in such a due apprehension of the vanity, emptiness, and uncertainty of every thing here below, as will make us sit loose to the world, and wean our affections from it, and bend all our endeavours to that which is indeed our great end, the honour of our Creator and the salvation of our souls? And with respect to the disappointments and cross accidents of life, which intermix with every condition, and are apt to cause great fears, vexations, and disquietudes; to cease to be fretful and peevish, not to be fired presently with fury and impatience, when men and things are not as we would have them; not to be too fierce and eager in our desires and hopes and pursuits, too much elevated by good fortune, as we call it, and success, or sunk and dejected by adversity and affliction: but to possess our souls in patience, as our Lord's excellent expression is, and be able to keep up our spirits under the frowns and troubles of the world, and to keep them down when running into riot and swelling with a constant prosperity.

What can be more desirable than to learn such a lesson, and bring our minds to such an even, calm, and steady temper as this! how noble a study is it!