firmities, walk intrepidly and with a good confcience before God and man, neither shrink from your own inspection nor that of others, and as children. of light come to the light, that your deeds may be made manifeft? And if ye dare not do so, or but feldom, and then with many reservations, is not furely your way of thinking and living fuch as that you ought to be ashamed of it? And do ye not therefore yourselves confefs that it difhonours the man and redounds to his infamy and difgrace.

However, a finful, unchristian courfe of life is not only abftractedly confidered, infamous, but it likewise actually brings infamy on a man, frequently, yea commonly even in the prefent life. Becaufe a reverence for virtue and moral rectitude and the dif approbation of vice and an abhorrence for it are even among perfons, who are nothing lefs than virtuous, much more general, than would probably be imagined. It is only when a man is hoodwinked by paffion and self-love, that his notions of right and wrong are confounded, and then he often takes darkness for light or light for darknefs. In most other cafes he judges rightly concerning the good or ill condi tion of human fentiments and actions, and difapproves and detefts in others the very fame thing that he approves or at least excufes in himfelf. Who does not abominate, who does not fhun the fhuffler, the cheat, the falfe-hearted, the calumniator! Who can have any refpect for the thoughtlefs, for those who have no fettled principles, on whofe opinions, we can never rely, who are fickle and unftable in

all

all their ways? Who can behold the flave of fenfuality, of voluptuoufnefs, of wrath, of vanity in the inftant when his paffion has got the upperhand of him, without defpifing him? Who will fhew honour to him who is obdurate and cruel, who wantonly injures others, or who not only does no good, nothing generally useful, but is rapacious and felfifh? Will not both good and bad men, will not particularly the wifeft and best of mankind testify in vrious ways their difpleasure at fuch a difpofition and fuch a conduct, and how then can the man who leads a finful, vicious courfe of life be fafe from difgraceful reproaches, from public infamy and contempt ?

But, my dear friends, fhould even no infamy attach to him in this world; fhould his quality, his station, his office, his address, his money protect him from the outward demonftration of that fcorn, which we have in our hearts for him; fhould he even find the means of bribing, of fuborning, of overawing mercenary panegyrifts, vile fycophants, or bafe-born fouls to fhew him marks of refpect and honour; what will screen him afterwards at the day of judgment what in the future world, from the infamy, the most oppressive, most intolerable infamy? When his vile or wicked fentiments, his foolish and corrupt courfe of life, in direct oppofition to the true end of his creation, pernicious to himself and to others, his fecret artifices, his difguifed paffions, his fins and iniquities tranfacted in private are revealed; when all the wretched, the innocent, whom he has dif

treffed,

-

treffed, prejudiced, injured, corrupted, rise up against him; when he stands expofed in all his nakedne's and deformity - depraved, debafed, difgraced, undone as he is by fins and vice; when, whether he has been a king or prince, or magiftrate, or teacher, whether he have formerly acted ever fo fhining a part, divested of that falfe luftre, he is declared and known to be what he really is and was who can conceive the confufion, the fhame with which he will then be overwhelmed, and which, were it poffible, would utterly annihilate him? And in the unhallowed fociety of perfons, who are to share his fate in the future world, how will the reproaches of his confcience and the partners in his guilt how the consciousness of his folly and the fentiment of his merited degradation prey upon his vitals!

So certain is it, my dear friends, that an unchriftian, finful, vicious course of life is an infamous, a difgraceful courfe of life, that the fervice of unrighteoufnefs, as it is worded in our text, yields no other fruit, than fuch as we must be afhamed of, which is attended with extreme difgrace both in the prefent and especially in the future world. Men, chriftians, would we avoid experiencing fooner or latter this folemn truth to our confufion and difmay, and lamenting in vain, that we would not take warning of it in time; men, chriftians, have we still any fentiment of human dignity, of chriftian dignity, any fenfe of real, lafting honour remaining; men, chrift ians, are we still any way concerned, how we fhall face the tribunal of Chrift on that great day of judgment

and

and of retribution, whether we shall then have the reputation of good or the infamy of wicked persons, the reward of fincere or the wages of falfe, hypocritical chriftians: oh then let us deteft and abhor not only grofs trefpaffes and fins, not only the flagrant vices, but all, all fins, all base, unchriftian sentiments, affections, actions, as what will completely degrade, difhonour, difgrace us? Far, let each of us heartily exclaim, far be it from me any longer to act contrary to my nature, to my station, to the proper end of my being, to be and to do the reverfe of what according to the will of my creator I fhould be and fhould do! Far, far be it from me to weaken and enervate myself by folly and fin, thereby to render myself incapable of whatever is great, generous, honourable, to plunge myself in bondage, or to continue in thraldom, to be always at variance and in contradiction with myself, and fo to live as to be afraid of God and of mankind and of my own reflections, and to be obliged to love darkness rather than light, that my deeds may not be manifeft! No, my nature fhall be facred to me, my present state important and honourable, my future deftination ever before my eyes! Vigour of mind, liberty, truth, order, a good, unfullied confcience towards God and towards man, to walk in the light, fhall henceforth be the object of all my endeavours! Thus will I by truly chriftian fentiments, by patient continuance in well-doing feek for glory and honour and immortality, and afterwards I fhall affuredly reap from it everlasting life.

SERMON XLII.

The Mifery of a finful Courfe of Life.

GOD, father of light, primeval fource and dif

penfer of happiness, we thy human offspring long and endeavour after happiness; and this longing, this endeavour thou haft indiffolubly connected with our nature. Thou wouldft that we fhould be happy, and none of us haft thou left deficient in means for obtaining his defire, none need vainly to strive after that object. And yet are we not all, perhaps but few of us are happy! For but too often we look for happinefs in objects that cannot yield it, feek it on the road of fin and vice, which always carries us farther from it, and find trouble and wretchednefs, where we were in queft of pleasure and fatisfaction. Lord thou art righteous art fupremely gracious, a father who fuffers not his children to rush unadmonifhed on devious paths, and to mifs of their aim. But we must with fhame and confufion accufe ourselves of fo feldom fubmitting to be cautioned by thee, of hearkening more to our lufts and paffions, than to thy benign and holy will, and are then unjust and perverfe enough to murmur against thee, and arraign the conduct of thy provi

"VOL. II.

dence,