SERMON III.

DISTINCTION OF GOOD AND EVIL.

ISAIAH v. 20.

Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.·

THESE Words, with the preceding and subsequent context, charge God's ancient people with the want of that righteousness which alone exalteth a nation, and with the practice of those sins and vices, which fail not, sooner or later, to bring reproach and ruin upon any people. They are represented as covetous and rapacious, intemperate, sensual, and luxurious; profligate and abandoned in their manners; atheistical and licentious in their principles. Eager and impetuous in the gratification of their lusts,

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they drew iniquity with cords of vanity." By idle pretexts and sophistical arguments, they encouraged and promoted the practice of vice-drawing it along like a plough, by keeping it in perpetual action. Fixed in these evil habits, they bade defiance to the judgments of Heaven, and despised all the warnings

and threatenings of the Almighty. In answer to the denunciations of the prophets, they are described as saying in scorn and ridicule, "let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it."

With this contempt of God and religion, they at length degenerated into such stupidity and wickedness, as to lose all sense of the distinction between moral good and evil. Though, to the eye of reason, the difference be as manifest as that between light and darkness, or as bitter and sweet is to the taste; yet, by abandoning themselves to all manner of vice, and the most criminal excesses, many of the Jews destroyed their moral sense, and became so stupid and brutish as to confound the distinctions between virtue and vice. In this stage of their degeneracy, they became advocates for wickedness, and sanctified their vices by giving them the name of virtues. This brought upon them the denunciation in the text-"Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." In illustrating this passage of Scripture, it is proposed to remark,

First, Upon the proneness of sinful men to confound the distinction betwixt moral good and evil, and to practise the latter under the name of the former.

Second, To inquire whence this comes to pass, or the causes of it.

Third, Show that notwithstanding they are so often confounded in the opinions and practice of men, there is yet a real, essential, and immutable difference between them; and then

- Fourth, That God in the administration of his moral government over mankind, will ultimately support this distinction, and of course bring misery and ruin upon all who obstinately persist in disregarding it. I am in the

First place, To remark upon the proneness of sinful men to confound the distinction betwixt moral good and evil, and to practise the latter under the name of the former. The character especially referred to in the text, is that of the most abandoned sinners, who by a continued course of profligacy and guilt, have at length become shameless in vice, and lost to all sense and feeling of moral propriety. These, and these only, are the men who professedly confound good and evil, and disclaim in general the distinction between them. In the days of Isaiah, such characters abounded at Jerusalem. And though in some places and at some times they are more numerous than at others, yet through all ages and in all nations, there is a greater or less proportion of these licentious profligates. You may almost every where find some unprincipled people who have no fixed ideas of the nature of virtue and vice, and are accustomed to call every thing good or evil,

according as it happens to favour or thwart their predominant inclinations.

But besides those who have thus sunk themselves to the last degree of degeneracy and corruption -such is the general frailty or depravity of human nature, that if we look abroad in the world, or attend to what history has recorded of the manners and opinions of men, we shall find that there are scarcely any who do not, in some instances, call evil good, and good evil. Admitting that justice, truth, fidelity, and gratitude are approved and commended; and that their opposites, fraud, falsehood, treachery, and ingratitude are censured and condemned by the general suffrage of mankind; yet when these great and cardinal virtues and vices are carried forth into particular instances, and placed in circumstances favourable or unfavourable to the wishes and pursuits of individuals, there are few who do not in their practice confound them, and in their reasoning attempt to excuse and justify themselves by putting darkness for light, and light for darkness.

Even they who are reputed good men, are sometimes guilty of strange mistakes in their dealings with others. We are often astonished at the deviations from rectitude which we find in our neighbours, even while they themselves perhaps are wholly insensible of them. And would we be as severe in judging ourselves, we should probably find reason to exclaim, "who of us can understand his errors ?" At the time

we act, we think that we are right; but when passion has subsided, or when we are no longer influenced by interest or prejudice, we may then discern the unfitness of what we have done or what we have thought and said, and see that we have put darkness for light. But I proceed,

Secondly, To inquire whence it comes to pass that men are so prone to confound good and evil, or what are the causes of it. To account for this may seem the more difficult, when it is considered with what accuracy we distinguish between natural good and evil, and those things which are grateful and ungrateful to our senses. Light and darkness, bitter and sweet, are never confounded. Neither our sight nor taste ever mistakes the one for the other. The feelings of every man enable him to distinguish between sickness and health, pleasure and pain, riches and poverty, honour and disgrace. These things are never confounded in our desires and pursuits. It might be expected that creatures endowed with reason and the moral sense, would judge as infallibly with respect to moral qualities. But here, alas! our mistakes are numberless. Various circumstances conspire to delude and mislead us. Our senses soon arrive at maturity, and we are early in a capacity to judge of their objects. But the progress of reason is slow, and many years elapse before we attain to accurate or enlarged ideas of moral qualities. The things pleasing or offensive to our senses are immediately discerned; but a train of