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ment of mind, is truly free.-But shall SERM, I call that man free, who has nothing that is his own, no property affured; whose very heart is not his own, but rendered the appendage of external things, and the sport of fortune? Is that man free, let his outward condition be ever so splendid, whom his imperious paffions detain at their call, whom they fend forth at their pleasure, to drudge and toil, and to beg his only enjoyment from the cafualties of the world? Is he free, who must flatter and lie to compass his ends; who must bear with this man's caprice, and that man's fcorn; must profess friendship where he hates, and refpect where he contemns; who is not at liberty to appear in his own colours, nor to speak his own fentiments; who dares not be honest, left he fhould be poor?-Believe it, no chains bind so hard, no fetters are fo heavy, as thofe which faften the corrupted heart to this treacherous world; no dependence is more contemptible than that under which the voluptuous, the covetous, or the ambitious

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SERM.bitious man lies to the means of pleafure, gain, or power. Yet this is the boafted liberty, which vice promises, as the recompence of fetting us free from the falutary restraints of virtue.

III. ANOTHER character of the flavery of vice, is that mean, cowardly, and difquieted state, to which it reduces the finner. Boldness and magnanimity have ever been accounted the native effects of liberty. He who enjoys it, having nothing to apprehend from oppreffive power, performs the offices, and enjoys the comforts of life, with a manly and undisturbed mind. Hence his behaviour is dignified, and his fentiments are honourable; while he who is accustomed to bend under fervile fubjection, has always been found mean-fpirited, timorous, and base.Compare, in these refpects, the virtuous and the vicious man, and you will eafily fee to which of them the characteristics of freedom moft juftly belong. The man of virtue, relying on a good confcience and the protection of Hea

ven,

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ven, acts with firmness and courage; SERM, and in the discharge of his duty, fears not the face of man. The man of vice, confcious of his low and corrupt aims, fhrinks before the stedfaft and piercing eye of integrity; is ever looking around him with anxious and fearful circumfpec. tion, and thinking of fubterfuges, by which he may escape from danger. The one is bold as a lion; the other flieth when ·no man purfueth. To the one, nothing appears contemptible, by which he can procure any prefent advantage. The other looks with difdain on whatever would degrade his character. "I will not," fays he, "fo demean myfelf, as "to catch the favour of the greatest "man, by this or that low art. It

fhall not be faid or thought of me, " that I did what was bafe in order to "make my fortune. Let others stoop "fo low, who cannot be without the

favours of the world. But I can "want them, and therefore at fuch a price I will not purchafe them." This

is

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SERM. is the voice of true liberty; and speaks that greatness of mind which it is formed to inspire.

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Correfponding to that abject difpofition which characterises a bad man, are the fears that haunt him. The terrors of a flave dwell on his mind, and often appear in his behaviour. For, guilt is never free from fufpicion and alarm. The finner is afraid, fometimes, of the partners of his crimes, left they betray. him; fometimes of those who have fuffered by his crimes, left they revenge themselves; frequently, of the world around him, lest it detect him; and what is worst of all, he is reduced to be afraid of himself. There is a witnefs within him that teftifies against his mifdeeds; and threatens him in fecret, when other alarms leave him. Conscience holds up to his view the image of his past crimes, with this infcription engraved upon it, it, God will bring every "work into judgment." How oppofite is fuch a state as this, to the peaceful fecurity arifing from the liberty enjoyed by

the

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the virtuous ?Were there nothing SER M. more in the circumstances of finners to affix upon them the marks of fervitude, this alone would be fufficient, that, as the scripture expreffes it, through fear of death they are all their lifetime fubject to bondage*. Death fets all other captives free. The flave who digs in the mine, or labours at the oar, can rejoice in the prospect of laying down his burden together with his life; and taftes the hope of being at last on equal terms with his cruel oppreffor. But to the flave of guilt there arises no hope from death. On the contrary, he is obliged to look forward with constant terror to this most certain of all events, as the conclufion of all his hopes and the commencement of his greatest miseries.

I HAVE thus fet before you fuch clear and unequivocal marks of the fervitude

* Heb. ii. 15.