in the World than to strive in this Race, to gain Ground towards Heaven, to make, and to obferve our Progrefs in our Holy Course, to have the Crown ftill in our Eye, 'till we come at last to reach it with our Hand. And he that cannot account this pleasant, hath not a Soul capable of true Delight; nor a Spirit brave and gallant enough to be a Chriftian. Thus I have demonstrated to you, that the Pious is the only pleasant Life, both from the Suitableness of it to the Principles of our Reason, the comfortable Reflections of our Confciences, and the Hopes of Eternal Life. Let me add one Demonstration more. Fourthly, That must needs be most pleafant which calms all our Perturbations and Disturbances, and fits us to enjoy both God and our felves in a fedate Compofure; but this is the Effect only of Religion and true Piety. Our Difquiets proceed chiefly from the Hurries of our mutinous Paffions: Grief, Anger, Fear, and the reft, do oftentimes break forth upon the Soul, like fo many violent Winds upon the Sea, and ruffle it into a Tempest, fo that our Reafon is in Danger to be tofs'd and shipwreck'd. Now it is only the powerful Command of Religion that can 1 can say unto thefe Winds, Peace, be still. Certainly that Man can neither enjoy Peace, nor Pleasure, where thefe unruly Paflions tyrannize. What a troublesome vexatious Life doth he lead, that is a Slave either to Envy, or Fear, or Wrath? When he shall be continually fretting himself at another's Profperity, raging and studying Revenge for every petty Injury, grieving and desponding under every cross Providence; frighted beyond the Succours of his Reafon at every Shadow, and fufpected Danger? Certainly, if there can be any Pleasure in fuch a Man's Soul, there may be Pleasure and Peace where Fury dwells. Bat now Religion, and the Fear of God, fettles and compofeth all these Perturbations, and by its Majefty and Authority binds them all to the Peace, that we shall not dare immoderately to grieve or fear, not at all to Envy, or meditate Revenge. And although the curbing of our Paffions feems fo difficult a Matter, and is one of those Things which makes Religion uneasy, and unpleasant to those who are rap'd away with them; yet without Doubt he that checks and restrains the Exorbitancies of his Paffions lives a much more pleasant and eafy Life, than he who lets them fly out into all Extremities. I leave it to you to judge, whether it be not more for the Peace and Comfort of a Man's Life to forgive Wrongs, than to perpetuate them by Revenge? Befides the intolerable Torment of a malicious Spirit. Is it not far better to rejoice at thy Neighbour's Profperity, than to vex and fret at it? For by the one, thou enjoyeft a Share of his Bleffings, but by the other, thou dost not enjoy thine own. And to refign up thy felf to the Will of God with Patience and Contentedness, fuppreffing thy immoderate Grief for any Affliction brought upon thee, is certainly much more for the Comfort of thy Life, than to languish in Sorrow, and unfruitfully confume thy felf for what was not at thy Dispose: So that, I fay, Religion is the best Means to quiet all the Tumults of your Paffions to make your Minds ferene and calm, than which there is fcarce a greater Pleafure imaginable. Well then, to conclude at present: See here the woful Miftake of the World in Point of Pleasure. They all pretend to it, but they feek it in those Ways that are the Caufes of all their Difquiet and Trouble. True Pleasure confists not in Noife and Laughter; that's the Mirth of Fools And it is a Sign that all is not quiet within, when they are fo loud and clamorous to drown it. No; true Pleafure confifts in clear Thoughts, fedate Affections, fweet Reflexions, a Mind even and stay'd, true to its God, and true to it felf. There is indeed a little fordid brutish Pleasure in Sin; but it vanishes like fmoke, and if we be not utterly hardned, like Smoke, it will leave us nothing but Tears in our Eyes, Or if cuftomary finning hath made us unfenfible, it is but like giving Drink to an Hydropick Perfon, which though it please his Palate for the prefent, afterwards fadly increaseth and inrageth his Thirst. Compare the Pleasures that a true pious Chriftian enjoys, with the muddy Delights of a Swinish Senfualift, who gratifies all his carnal Defires, and you will find fo vaft a Difference between them, that the very Argument of Pleasure, which ufually lies as a main Prejudice against an holy Life, if it be rightly stated, will prove the most advantageous Motive to induce us to embrace it. For confider, whilst thou gratifieft all thy Propenfions and Defires, what exquifite Pleasure canft thou find, but fuch as are common to the very Beasts as well as thee? Yea, and thou fhewest thy felf more Irrational than the Brute Creatures; for they keep within P 4 the the Compafs of their Nature, but thou tranfgreffeft the Laws of thine: And eïther Shame or Confcience will give thee many a Secret Twitch and Gird, and whifper fad Things to thee, which will in Spight of thee make thy Heart heavy, when thy Face perhaps runs over with a Counterfeit Laughter. It is impoffible, if thou haft any Remainders of a Man left within thee, to debauch away the natural Impreffions of a Deity, of Death, Judgment, and future Punishments. These cold and hivering Thoughts will comè in, and be like Water caft upon all thy Delights, when they flame higheft; and in the midst of thy Cups and Jollity, and frolick Extravagancies, be like an Hand, not upon the Wall, but in thine own Confcience, writing bitter Things against thee. Well, when thou haft rup through all the Shapes of Voluptuousnefs, what remains but only a Damp and Dulness upon thy Spirits, a Sting and Anguish in thy Soul, a grating Remembrance of them, and dire Prefages of Eternal. Vengeance? Doft thou not, when the Pbrenzy is over, and the Rage of thy Lufts fomewhat abated, doft thou not a Thousand Times call thy felf Bealt and Fool for them? Haft, thou never feen a Drunkard, the next Morning Spewing : |