all, being put into the scale against this alone, they will prove lighter than vanity itself. To be the care, the delight, the love of an Almighty God, to be dear to him who is the origin and fountain of all Perfections; Lord, what reft, what confidence, what joy, what extafy, do thefe thoughts breed! how fublime, how lofty, how delightful and ravishing are those expreffions of St. John! 1 Epift. iii. 1, 2. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the Jons of God! therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the fons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know, that when he Shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall fee him as he is. And thofe again of the Pfalmift, Iam continually with thee; thou doft hold me by my right hand: thou shalt guide me with thy counfel, and afterwards receive me into glory, Pfal. lxxiii. 23,24. But I will defcend to cooler and humbler pleasures. It is no fmall happiness to the perfect mar, that he is himself a proper object of his own complacency. He can reflect on the truth and juftice, the courage and conftancy, the meekness and charity of his foul, with much gratitude towards God, and contentment in himself. And this furely he may do with good reason: For the Perfections of the mind are as juftly

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to be preferred before thofe of the body, as thofe of the body before the gifts of fortune. Nor is it a matter of fmall importance to be pleased with one's felf: for grant any one but this, and he can never be very uneafy, or very miferable. But without this there are very few things which will not disturb and discompofe; and the most obliging accidents of life will have no relish in them. 'Tis true, folly and vanity does sometimes create a felf-complacency in the finner; why, even then, 'tis a pleafing error. But there is as much difference between the just and rational complacency of a wife man in himself, and the mistaken one of a fool, as there is between the falfe and fleeting fancies of a dream, and the folid fatisfactions of the day. This will be very manifeft upon the flightest view we can take of those actions, which are the true reafon of the good man's fatisfaction in himself, and render his confcience a continual feast to him.

It is commonly faid, that virtue is its own reward: and though it must be acknowledged, this is a reward which is not fufficient in all cafes, nor great enough to vanquish some forts of temptations; yet there is a great deal of truth and weight in this faying. For a ftate of virtue is like a ftate of health or peace, of ftrength and beauty; and therefore defirable on its own

account. And if pleasure, properly speaking, be nothing else but the agreeable exercife of the powers of nature about their proper objects; and if it be then abfolute and compleat, when these powers are raised, and the exercise of them is free and undifturbed, then certainly virtue, which is nothing else but the perfect action of a perfect nature, as far as the one and the other may be admitted in this ftate of mortality, must be a very confiderable pleasure. Acts of wisdom and charity, the contemplation of truth, and the love of goodness, must be the most natural and delightful exercife of the mind of man: and because truth and goodness are infinite and omniprefent, and nothing can hinder the perfect man from contemplating the one, and loving the other; therefore does he in his degree and measure participate of his felf-fufficiency, as he does of other Perfections of God and enjoys within himself an inexhaustible fpring of delight. How many, how various are the exercises and employments of the mind of man! and when it is once polished and cultivated, how agreeable are they all! to invent and find out, to illuftrate and adorn, to prove and demonstrate, to weigh, difcriminate and diftinguish, to deliberate calmly and impartially, to act with an abfolute liberty, to defpife little things, and look boldly on dangers; to do all

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things dexteroufly, to converfe with a fweet and yet a manly air, in honeft and open, yet taking, obliging language! how delightful are these things in themselves! how much do they conduce to the fervice, the beauty, and dignity of human life! to thefe accomplished minds we owe hiftories, fciences, arts, trades, laws. From all which, if others reap an unfpeakable pleasure, how much more the authors, the parents of them? And all this puts me in mind of one great advantage which the perfect man enjoys above the most fortunate fenfualifts; which is, that he can never want an opportunity to employ all the vigour of his mind, usefully and delightfully. Whence it is, that retirement, which is the prison and the punishment of the fool, is the paradife of the wife and good.

But let us come at length to that pleasure which depends upon external objects; where, if any-where, the fool and finner muft difpute his title to pleasure with the wife and good. How many things are there here which force us to give the preference to the wife man? I will not urge, that a narrow, a private fortune can furnish store enough for all the appetites of virtue; that a wife man need not at any time purchase his pleafure at too dear a rate; he need not lie, nor cheat, nor crouch, nor fawn: this is the price of finful pleasure. I will not, I

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fay,

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fay, urge these and the like advantages, fince the world thinks it want of spirit to be content with a little; and want of wit not to practise those arts, let them be never fo bafe, by which we may compafs more. I'll only remark these few things. First, the wife man's profpect is enlarged. He is like an artist or philofopher, which difcovers a thousand pleafures and beauties in a piece, wherein the ideot can see none: he fees in all the works, in all the providences of God, thofe depths, thofe contrivances, which the fool cannot fathom; that order, that harmony, which the finner is infenfible of. Next, The pleasure of fenfe, that is not refined by virtue, leaves a ftain upon the mind: 'tis coarfe and turbulent, empty and vexatious. The pleasure of virtue is like a stream, which runs indeed within its banks, but it runs smooth and clear; and has a spring that always feeds the current: but the pleasure of fin is like a land-flood, impetuous, muddy, and irregular: and as foon as it forfakes the ground it overflows, it leaves nothing behind it, but flime and filth. Laftly, The wife man forming a true estimate of the objects of fenfe, and not looking upon them as his ultimate end, enjoys all that is in them, and is not fooled by an expectation of more. Thus having confidered the objects of human pleafure, two things are plain: First, That the perfect man has many fources or fountains