XVI. TEXT IMPROVED.

I HEARD a preacher take for his text: Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? [Num. xxii. 30.] I wondered what he would make thereof, fearing he would starve his auditors for want of matter. But hence he observed:—

1. The silliest and simplest, being wronged, may justly speak in their own defence.

2. Worst men have a good title to their own goods. Balaam a sorcerer; yet the ass confesseth twice he was his.

3. They who have done many good offices, and fail in one, are often not only unrewarded for former service, but punished for that one offence.

4. When the creatures, formerly officious to serve us, start from their wonted obedience, (as the earth to become barren, and air pestilential,) man ought to reflect on his own sin as the sole cause thereof.

How fruitful are the seeming barren places of Scripture. Bad ploughmen, which make balks of such ground. Wheresoever the surface of God’s word doth not laugh and sing with corn, there the heart thereof within is merry with mines, affording, where not plain matter, hidden mysteries.