SERM. vitude undergone by finners, as fully X. verify the affertion in the text, that a

state of vice and corruption is a state of bondage. In order to perceive how fevere a bondage it is, let us attend to fome peculiar circumstances of aggravation which belong to it.

First, It is a bondage to which the mind itself, the native feat of liberty, is fubjected. In other cafes, a brave man can comfort himself with reflecting that, let tyrants do their worst, let prisons or fetters be his lot, his mind remains unconquered and free. Of this liberty they cannot rob him; here he moves in a higher fphere, above the reach of oppreffion or confinement. But what avails the fhow of external liberty, to one who has loft the government of himself? A's our Saviour reasons, in another cafe, If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? So we may reafon here, if that part of thy nature, thy mind, thy will, by which only thou canft enjoy and relish liberty, be itself

in bondage to evil paffions and habits, SERM. how miferable must be that bondage?

Next, It is aggravated by this confideration, that it is a bondage which we have brought upon ourselves. To have been forced into flavery, is misfortune and mifery. But to have renounced our liberty and chofen to be flaves, is the greatest reproach added to the greatest mifery. Moments there frequently must be, when a finner is fenfible of the degradation of his ftate; when he feels with pain the flavish dependence under which he is brought to fortune and the world, to violent paffions and fettled habits, and to fears and apprehensions arifing from confcious guilt. In fuch moments, how cruel is the reflection, that of all this difgrace and mifery he has been the author to himself; that by voluntary compliance, he has given to his paffions that haughty afcendant which they now exercise over him; has forged the chains with which he is bound; and fold himself to do iniquity!

Laftly,

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SERM.
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Laftly, The fervitude of vice is accompanied with this farther aggravation, that it is fubjection to our own fervants. These defires and paffions, which the finner has raised to lawless rule, were given us as instruments of self-preservation; but were plainly defigned to be under the direction of a higher power. Of theinfelves, they are headftrong and blind; they bear all the marks of intended fubordination; and confcience is invested with every enfign of authority and fupremacy. But fin inverts the whole frame of human nature. It compels reafon to bow down before thofe paffions which it was formed to command; and leads it, as it were in triumph, to grace the fhameful conquest of its minifters and fervants. It has been always obferved that none are so infolent in power, as they who have ufurped an authority to which they had no right; and fo it is found to hold in this inftance. The defires and paffions of a vitious man, having once obtained an unlimited sway, trample him under their feet. They make

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make him feel that he is fubject to divers, SE R M. and contradictory as well as imperious masters who often pull him different ways. His foul is rendered the receptacle of many repugnant and jarring difpofitions; and resembles fome barbarous country, cantoned out into different principalities, who are continually waging war on one another.- -Such is the ftate into which finners have brought themselves, in order to be free from the fuppofed confinement of virtue. Where they had promised themselves nothing but ease, and pleasure, they are made to experience restraints more severe, and mortifications more painful, than any which they would have undergone under the discipline of religion.

It will perhaps be contended by fome, that although the reprefentation which has now been given of the flavery of fin holds true in certain inftances, yet that it is applicable only to those who come under the description of atrocious finners. They imagine that a certain moderate courfe may be held in vice, by means of

SERM. which, men, without throwing altoX. gether afide the restraints of reason, may enjoy an eafy and pleasurable life.

By reasoning thus, my friends, you flatter and deceive yourselves to your own deftruction. Be affured, that, by every vitious indulgence, you are making an approach to a state of complete slavery; you are forfeiting a certain share of your liberty; how foon the whole of it may be forfeited, you are not aware. It is true that all which has now been faid of the servitude of fin, applies only to a character corrupted in the extreme. But, remember that to this extreme no man ever arrives at once. He paffes through many of those intermediate stages, in one of which you are now perhaps found. Vice always creeps by degrees; and infenfibly twines around us thofe concealed fetters by which we are at last completely bound.-A's you value therefore your liberty and your happiness, avoid every approach to evil. Confider all vitious pleasures as enchanted ground, by entering on which, you will be farther

and