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upon worse terms in the fervice of God. But this is so far from being the case, that among the multitudes who devote themfelves to earthly pleasure, you will not find a single person who has completely attained his aim. Enquire into the condition of the high and the low, of the gay and the ferious, of the men of bufiness and the men of pleasure, and you fhall behold them all occupied, in fupplying some want, or in removing some distress. No man is pleafed with being precisely what he is. Every where there is a void; generally, even in the most profperous life, there is fome corner poffeffed by forrow. He who is engaged in business, pines for leifure. He who enjoys leifure, languishes for want of employment. In a single ftate, we envy the comforts of a family. In conjugal life, we are chagrined with domeftic cares. In a safe station, we regret the want of objects for enterprise. In an enterprising life, we lament the want of fafety. It is the doom of man, that his

sky

SER M.

XV.

XV.

SERM. fky fhould never be free from all clouds. He is, at present, in an exiled and fallen state. The objects which furround him, are beneath his native dignity. God has tinged them all with vanity, on purpose to make him feel, that this is not his reft; that here he is not in his proper place, nor arrived at his true home.

If, therefore, you aim at a condition which shall be exempted from every disquiet, you pursue a phantom; you increase the vanity and vexation of life, by engaging in a chace fo fruitless. If you complain of virtue, because there is incident to it a portion of that uneafiness which is found in every other ftate, your complaint is most unreasonable. You claim an immunity from evil, which belongs not to the lot of man. Reconcile yourselves, then, to your condition; and, instead of looking for perfect happiness any where on earth, gladly embrace that ftate which contains the fewest forrows.

II. THOUGH

XV.

II. THOUGH no condition of human SERM: life is free from uneafinefs, I contend, That the uneafinefs belonging to a finful course, is far greater, than what attends a courfe of well-doing. If you be weary of the labours of virtue, be affured, that the world, whenever you try the exchange, will lay upon you a much heavier load. It is the outfide, only, of a licentious life, which is gay and smiling. Within, it conceals toil, and trouble, and deadly forrow. For vice poifons human happiness in the fpring, by introducing diforder into the heart. Those paffions which it seems to indulge, it only feeds with imperfect gratifications; and thereby ftrengthens them for preying, in the end, on their unhappy victims.

It is a great miftake to imagine, that the pain of felf-denial is confined to virtue. He who follows the world, as much as he who follows Chrift, must take up his cross; and to him, affuredly, it will prove a more oppreffive burden. Vice allows all our paffions to range uncon

trolled:

XV.

SERM. trolled; and where each claims to be fuperior, it is impoffible to gratify all. The predominant defire can only be indulged at the expence of its rival. No mortifications which virtue exacts, are more fevere than thofe, which ambition imposes upon the love of ease, pride upon intereft, and covetoufnefs upon vanity. Self-denial therefore belongs, in common, to vice and virtue; but with this remarkable difference, that the paffions which virtue requires us to mortify, it tends to weaken; whereas, those which vice obliges us to deny, it, at the fame time, ftrengthens. The one diminishes the pain of felf-denial, by moderating the demand of paffion; the other increases it, by rendering those demands imperious and violent. What diftreffes that occur in the calm life of virtue, can be compared to thofe tortures, which remorfe of confcience inflicts on the wicked; to those severe humiliations, arifing from guilt combined with misfortunes, which fink them to the duft; to thofe violent agitations

XV.

agitations of shame and disappointment, SERM. which fometimes drive them to the most fatal extremities, and make them abhor their existence? How often, in the midst of those diftaftrous fituations, into which their crimes have brought them, have they curfed the feductions of vice; and, with bitter regret, looked back to the day on which they first forfook the path

of innocence!

But, perhaps, you imagine, that to fuch miferies as thefe, great criminals. only are expofed; and that, by a wary and cautious management, it is poffible to avoid them. Take vice and virtue, then, in the moft general point of view. Compare God and the world as two mafters, the one or other of whom you muft obey; and confider fairly, in whofe fervice there will be reafon for your being weary fooneft, and repenting most frequently. The world is both a hard, and a capricious master. To fubmit to a long fervitude, in the view of a recompenfe from which they are excluded in the end,

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