performed his daily task, repofes himself on his hard pillow, and fleeps without anxiety or care. The ambitious, he fawns and flatters, ftoops to thofe he hates, croffes his own inclinations, and does even violence to his own feelings, in order that he may rife by favour. He waits the will of the great, and watches the motions of his eye, with as much fubmiffion as the tamest slave does the eye of his master. The drunkard, too, fuffers `himself not only to be deprived of his freedom, but of his reafon and his wealth, and consents to act on a level with, or rather below, the beafts who perish: and, though when he firft awakes from his cups, having flept qut the frolic humour, and finds that the whole animal frame has fuffered by the excefs, he condemns himself, and forms new refolutions that he will forfake his cup and his companions in vice; yet, almost as foon as the fumes of the liquor are out of his head, and his con science is a little pacified with promises of reformation, and his appetite has recovered its former taste, he, on the firft invitation from those whom he calls his friends, goes with them, as the ox goeth to the flaughter, and acts over again the fordid fcene. The luxurious and the fenfual will talk much of health and long life-will praise temperance and fobriety, and will refolve upon a refor mation, and that for the future they will keep within the bounds of moderation; but the fight of a well-fpread table dashes all their refolutions, and they are borne away by the strength of their appetites beyond the bounds of nature and reason, and feed as freely as if they were fattening themfelves for the day of flaughter. And when they find an opportunity to gratify their unclean defires, and lafcivious inclinations, (which by intemperance grow impetuous) they pursue the object of thier flefhly lufts, till a dart strike through their liver; as a hird hafteth to the fare, and knows not that it is for his life.

Thus thefe high claimers of freedom are the verieft flaves; for while they promife themselves freedom, they are the fervants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the fame is he brought into bondage. But the good man is in a good meafure free. He is indeed the fervant of God, and the difciple of Chrift. Thefe our Saviour faid he had made free-and those whom the Son of God shall make free, they are free indeed. It is religion, the religion of the gofpel, which reftores true freedom to the foul; it is divine grace which conquers the turbulence of the paffions, and creates peace within ; it is divine grace which gives us the command and the free poffeffion of ourselves; it is divine grace which mortifies fleshly lufts, purifies from all iniquity, and infpires with a laudable ambition to excel in goodness. When religion gets a feat in the heart, it corrects the thoughts, and governs the defires, and fo attempers the mind to duty, that the matter of duty is the matter of choice and delight 3 fo that his actions are voluntary, when he is under the proper influence of religious principles. He poffeffes, therefore, the happiest freedom, and in this refpect he excels his neighbour whofe mind is not balanced with the principles of religion, as much as freedom excels flavery.

VI. Another thing in which the righteous excel the wicked is, the purity and spirituality of the mind. The fincerely good man rifes above the fumes of the vaporous fphere of fenfual pleasures, which darken and debafe the foul; they fully its luftre, and abate its native vigour and activity. While the vicious and profane are wallowing in impure lufts, and finking themselves below the character of men, can there be any thing noble, any spark of generofity, or any degree of excellency in them-while they make their belly their God, and place their felicity in the fenfuality of the brutes? Oh, no! no! Did men,

but

but of tolerable capacity, open their eyes, or allow rea fon and common fenfe to fpeak, they could not but fee, nay, feel, the amiable and excellent form of virtue and godlinefs-the beauty and majefty of religion-as what at once adorns human nature, diffufes a fanctity through the whole conftitution, and elevates to a near alliance with angels. And at the fame time they muft discover the ugly deformity of vice and wickednefs, and that the heart which is under the influence of vicious principles is a cage of unclean birds, and the habitation of foul fpirits, who enter and dwell there, and the laft end must te worfe than the firft.

VII. Another thing in which the righteous excel the unrighteous, and which completes the character of the righteous min, is, a truly benevolent and benign fpirit. Nothing can be a more evident mark of a bafe and ignoble ́ mind, than confining our benevolence to the fmall circle of our friends and relatives. The righteous man embraces the whole family of mankind within his benevolent wish. As a man, he pities all in distress, and relieves all' within his reach; and if he could have his wifh, there would not be pain and poverty in the world: and, where his alms deeds fail, and his acts of kindness cannot relieve, he fupplies their impotency with his counfel and his prayers for the righteous man is gracious and full of compaffion, he fheweth favour, and lendeth; and by opening the heart to the exercise of such extenfive benevolence, he acquires a nobleness of mind, an habit of greatness and excellency, beyond what is poffible to be obtained while a felfifh and contracted spirit is indulged. And, befides, it is a godlike temper, and a mark of the children of God, who is the bounteous Father of angels and men, and who is ever diffufing his benevolence through his mighty empire, and liberally conferring his bounties on the members of his numerous family. Therefore our Saviour urged his followers to univerfal benevolence, not excluding their

most spiteful enemies, from this weighty confideration→→ that they might be the children of their Father who is in heaven, for he maketh his fun to rife and fhine on the evil and the good, and fendeth his rain on the just and on the unjuft.

IMPROVEMENT.

I think we may infer the fad and fatal mistake which a great part of the world make about true excellency ; as they seem to place it in mean and fordid things, merely fenfual, nay, in vicious things, in an indulged appetite, lawless paffions, in a freedom from the restraints of reafon and religion, and in being above the facred rules of virtue, and the dictates of a well-informed and tender confcience. Poor, mistaken mortals! they must have mistaken the body for the foul, an empty found for folid good, a fhadow for the fubftance, earth for heaven, and their belly for their God, and their fhame for their glory.

If the mind is the man, if to be like God is the perfec tion of our nature, if heaven is the home of holy fouls, and the only state of future happiness; then the fenfual and vicious man, who defpifes the restraints of virtue, reafon and religion, and fuffers his appetites and paffions to give law to his action, and direct his conduct, is not only mistaken in a capital point, but is ruining himself, and is doing what he can to disturb fociety and deftroy the world; and is therefore an enemy to himself, to his God, and to his fellow-men, and is in combination with infernal fpirits, and muft, on the principles of fair reason, expect to share with them in that punishment originally prepared for the fallen angels.

What madness and folly are thofe guilty of who neglect or contemn religion, and despise and scoff at the righteous! What can fuch fcoffers mean! would they banish religion out of the world, and make her retire afha

med

med into oblivion! Alas! what a world would this be, were that the cafe! This earth would be but another hell, without the righteous, and the happy restraints of religion. Without the divine and facred guard of the religion of the gospel, tumults, fedition, anarchy, rapine, murders, fecret malice, open fraud, fierce revenge, in fhort, every evil, every enemy, and every calamity, would reign without controul and without bounds; order would forfake the earth, the facred boundaries of property and conscience (if conscience there was) would be broken up, and the whole world would become miferable. It is only the fmall remains of the religion of Jefus, that superexcellent thing, which keeps the world in any tolerable order and condition.

What an enemy, then, muft the vicious man be to his God, to his country, to the Saviour, to himself, and to mankind in general! How does he oppose the benevolent Jefus, who came to fave and blefs the world with peace, and truth, and grace; to atone for fin by the facrifice of himself, to regenerate the human heart, and to fubdue the malignant paffions of our fallen nature, to fanctify the finner by the influences of his Spirit co-operating with the truths of his gofpel, and thereby to raise him to the nobler forms of the divine life; and in fine by the fame grace to animate him in the way of well-doing to feek for glory, honour and immortality, until he fhall obtain eternal life, and be made meet to enter upon the inheritance of the faints in light!