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principles of virtue-that deftroys domeftic peace, and entails mifery and ruin on those who depend upon us? What shall we fay of that injuftice and fraud that, in so many shapes, has risen up among us? Not that which is cognizable by the civil law, and may be remedied by its tribunals, but that which efcapes the eye and the arm of the lawthat criminal fpeculation that tends, in its progrefs, to proftrate moral principle, and cafts honor and honefty into the lottery of chances that unfairness in dealing-thofe iniquitous advantages-thofe impofitions on the credulity, the fimplicity, or the neceffities of others which can be proved, or punished only at the tribunal of confcience? What fhall we fay of that ludicrous jefting on the most facred fubjects, that indecency and impurity of discourse, which virtue cannot hear without difguft, nor delicacy name without a blufh, that difhonour the convivial meetings of thoughtlefs youth, and, fometimes alas! even of profligate age? What fhall we fay of that impious profanation of the name of God, and thofe infernal imprecations that fo frequently infult our ears both among the great and the little

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vulgar? Juft God! wilt thou not at length pour out that damnation on the head of the finner which he audaciously invokes from thy juftice?-Can men plead principle to vindicate, or ignorance to excuse these crimes? No; they are prefumptuous of fences--they are palpable violations of that inward law which God hath placed in the breafls of man to regulate his conduct.

II. The abuse of great and distingushing mercies conflitutes another aggravation, and forms a new class of prefumptuous offences.

To enjoy the mercies of Heaven without thankfulneis, especially, when we have been, in any way, dillinguifhed by its goodnessand, ftill more, to enjoy them only to abufe them, is a proof of a depraved mind, and of a bafe and ignoble heart. Ingratitude is an aggravation of prefumption.

These mercies may confift either in external advantages of fortune-in intellectual improvements--or in the means of religious knowledge and inílruction.

If it hath pleafed God to put it in the power of fome men to enjoy the common bleffing of exiftence with more dignity and fatisfaction than others, by crowning them with affluence, or raising them to honourable flations, are not their vices marked with a guilt proportioned to their misimproved advantages in life? Yet, how often does the facility of gratifying their paffions raise them above the controul of the laws of God? Perhaps no men are more prone to abuse his goodness, and to turn it against himfelf, than those who enjoy it in the greatest profufion. A pernicious idlenefs, profligate manners, impiety and licentioufnels are at once their fin, and their difgrace. "Hear

O Heavens! and give ear Ŭ Earth! faith the Spirit of God, appealing to all nature against these crimes, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me! The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his mafter's crib, but Ifrael doth not know, my people doth not confider."

How frequently, likewise, are their distinctions in fociety made to fofter a spirit of unbecoming pride, infolent to mankind, and unthankful to Almighty God, as if all

that they enjoyed belonged to them by an independent poffeffion; or, were the natural reward of fuperior worth and merit in themfelves?-What! a worm of duft! a vain and gorgeous atom proud of the crust that it inhabits! proud before the Maker of the univerfe in whofe prefence all human diftinctions are annihilated! Blind and impious prefumption! Thefe vain reptiles pervert the unmerited bounty of Heaven into hoftility equally against God and man.

It is a fill higher crime to employ in the fervice of impiety the advantages of natural talents, or intellectual improvements.

Such talents, or fuch improvements are capable of being employed to the best, or the worst purposes in human life. And the guilt of their mifapplication is to be meafured both by the good which they have not done, and by the evil of which they have been the active caufes. What illumination and perfuafive energy might they not have added to the principles of virtue and piety? What unhappy extenfion and force have they not given to the pernicious cause of infidelity and vice? Impious philofophers!

licentious wits! who fludy to shake the eternal foundations of truth and morals, and to destroy the falutary influence of religion on the human mind! how many crimes, not your own, will at laft be imputed to you!

It is a lamentable proof of the corruption of human nature that the powers of genius, which fhould discover to man his own imperfection, and the profound and unfathomable depths of the divine wisdom, should so often ferve only to intoxicate the heart, and to inflate it with vanity--should, inftead of proving the bleffing, prove the curfe of mankind, by unfettling the principles of fociety and morals-nay, fhould carry this presumption fo far as to attack the eternal fource of light and truth itself, and place in its room the faint and dubious fpark of their own reafon. Ah! vain and purblind reafon! It resembles a proud ininfect which, because it can emit a feeble and deceptive luftre in the dark, fhould pretend to eclipse the fun by the ftrength of its beam, and fay, I will enlighten the univerfe.- -Children of ignorance and vanity! the light of eternity fhall bring a