T GEN. xlix. 4. Unstable as Water, thou shalt not excel. HESE are part of the dying patriarch Jacob's words, when he bleffed the twelve, "leaning upon the top of his staff." Heb. xi. 21. Of the eldest of these [Reuben] the character he gives is contained in the words I have read to you; of which there are feveral very different inter pretations. Ifhall not trouble you with them, but take that, which they do most naturally and obviously bear. And according to that, Jacop does in these words feem to reprefent Reuben to be of a fickle, uncertain, irrefolute temper; not utterly void of all propenfions to goodness, but incapable of acting up to them; not without honeft and virtuous refolutions, but unable firm. - VOL. IV. Y ly ly to keep and practise them. And this being his cafe, he pronounces upon him that he fhall not excel. That is, that he fhall never arive to any pitch and perfection in virtue, nor ever com mand a thorough esteem and respect from good men; that he should never be able eminently to diftinguish himself by the exercife of thofe good qualities of mind, which procure honour and happiness to men in this world, and in another. "Unitable as water, thou shalt not excel.” From which words a natural occafion will be given me of difcourfing to you of the ill condition of that man, who like Reuben in the text, being unstable as water, is distracted between two courfes of life, a good and a bad one. The unhappinefs and wretchednefs of which ftate, after 1 have fet out and proved to you at large, I fhall apply myself to perfuade the man that is thus bewildered, to retrieve hinfelf by ferious confideration, as foon as he can, and to fix a fure principle of virtue in his mind, that may guide and govern him throughout, and make him uniformly wife and holy. I. Now the condition of a man who is divided between two contrary ways of life, between virtue and vice, Godliness and irreligion, is certainly very wretched and deplorable. For he is in the meanest ftate of mind that human nature is capable of. He is perpetually reftlefs and uneafy; full of anxiety and torment. He lofes all the advantages of this world; and most affuredly forfeits all pretences to any in the next. 1. This doubtful, uncertainty way of living and think thinking proceeds from a mean state of mind, fuch as is beneath the dignity of human nature. Man was made to discern and embrace truth; and, for this reafon, "is there a fpirit in him; and the infpiration of the Almighty has given him understanding." Job xxxii. 8. He has faculties, whereby he may diftinguish between true and falfe, right and wrong; and may fix to himself fure principles of action. When he does this, approves what is beft, and fticks to what he ap-proves, he does what he was defigned to do, and anfwers the end of his being. When he does not, but fuffers himself to be fwayed and bent different ways by different motives, and to float under uncertainties, then he forfeits the great prerogazive, and the most diftinguishing advantage that belongs to the reasonable nature. The feripture therefore alloweth not to the irrefolute and the inconftant the name of men: They are faid to be "children toffed to and fro with every wind of doctrine." Eph. iv. 14. They are in the weakness and nonage of their reafon, which is as yet not improved and ripened into its due ftrength and maturity. The perfection of man is to be like God; for "in his own image created he him ;" Gen. i. 27. to be like Ged in all his attributes, particularly in that glorious one of his immutability; whereby he is, as the feripture fpeaks, "without variablenefs, or fhadow of turning;" James i. 17. "the fame yesterday, to-day and for ever," Heb. xiii. 8. Now this immutability of God is twofold, relating either to his nature, or his purpofes. The I 2 unchangeableness of his nature we have no room to imitate; For he defigned us for a changeable state, made us creatures that were to purity our natures, and exalt them by degrees; till, by his laft great and glorious change, he-fhould tranflate us into an immortal and unalterable state, and make us eternally the fame in our natures, and eternally happy in the exercife of them. But his moral immutability, the fteddinefs of his counfels, purposes, and actions, we may in fome meafure, and therefore must imitate, as far as human frailty will fuffer us. We are like him in this perfection, when we get to ourselves, by thought and reflexion, a firm perfuafion of the eternal dif-erences of good and evil, and of that infeparable dependance which reward and punishment have upon them; and when we govern our lives under the fenfe of thefe perfuafions, evenly and uniformly. This is truly godlike! the great improvement, the honour, and the excellence of our natures! And this perfection he robs himfelf of, who wavers between different principles and practices; and is fometimes good and fometimes bad, as it happens. He puts not his faculties to that ufe, for which they were given him; employs not his reafon to thofe pupofes, for which it was defigned, the establishing, and ftrengthening of his mind in moral principles; but lives as much at random, and without hold, as if the breath of the Almighty were not in him. Indeed, unless reafon gives us a firmness and conftancy of acting, it is fo far from being the glory and the privilege, that it is really the reproach and difgrace of our natures; and makes us 173 us lower than even ❝ the horse and mule that have no understanding," Pfal. xxxii. 9. For they, without that, act always regularly and confonantly to themselves, under the never-erring guidance of instinct; a blind, but fure principle; whilst man, with all his boafted titles and privileges, wanders about in uncertainties, does and undoes, and contradicts himself throughout all the various fcenes of thinking and living. J 2. But the dignity of our nature, is a confideration capable of touching but few. Let us go onR therefore to more plain and affecting confiderations. For fuch an unfettled temper of mind as we have described, creates a great deal of trouble and disturbance to the man, who is so unhappy as to be mafter of it. al car And this follows plainly from what has been difcourfed upon the former head. For whatfoever is natural, becoming, and worthy of us, is attended always with ease and delight to the doer; whereas that which thwarts our firft end and defign, and is deftructive of our natural perfections, muft needs be pain and grief to us. For the truth of which, in this particular cafe, we may appeal to the feeling of all thofe, who have ever once made the experiment. How uneafy is that man always to himself, who acts backwards and forwards, and has no found bottom to reft upon ! What difquiets does it create in his mind, to fee himfelf perpetually condemning himself, allowing himself in that opinion or practice this hour, which he is fure he thall difallow and go against in the next! [And this, perhaps, is the only part of his temper that he ever can be fure, of.] Cer |