reason to a greater clearness and strength. So

that we shall be the better able to use all other helps, for the curing all the fpiritual diseases we labour under.

What remains then, but our hearty endeavour, thus to fettle and compose our felves? Let us ftrip our fouls of their former conceits, and cloath them with thefe notions. We must root out of our minds these weeds of bitterness,--highesteem of our selves and of worldly things, earthly love, unreafonable defire, fond hopes and expectations, rafhnefs and inconfideration; and plant in their ftead fuch good principles as I have been now recommending, and take care that they grow up there.

The government of the foul must be altered from the rule of popular opinions, and the tyranny of fancies and imaginations, to the fole command of reafon and religion. In this great alteration, let us engage all our forces. Let us think how fhameful it is, to get all knowledge, and not to know our selves, nor how to enjoy our felves; and how miferable he is, that fearcheth into all things,

only

only neglects his own peace, or feeks it among the occafions of his trouble.

Let us discharge our felves therefore, with all speed, of our inordinate paffions, of rashness and hafty thoughts. Let us learn our duty, and do it. Let us know God, our felves, and the world. And when we are once humble, prudent, thankful, and heavenly-minded; we shall not be displeased at what God or men do: but shall pafs evenly, and with tranquility, thro' this vale of tears, until we arrive at the land of everlasting bleffedness.

SERMON

SERMON III.

The house of feafting.

[From Bishop TAYLOR'S Sermons.]

Į COR. XV. 32.

Let us eat and drink, for to morrow we die,

HIS is the Epicure's proverb, be

TH

gun upon a weak miftake, ftarted by chance from the discourses of drink, and thought witty by the undiscerning company, and which prevailed infinitely, because it ftruck their fancy luckily, and maintained the merry-meeting. But, as it happens commonly to fuch difcourfes, fo this alfo, when it comes to be examined by the confultations of the morning, and the fober hours of the day, it seems the most witless, and the most unreasonable in the world. For what can be more unreasonable, because men fhall die to morrow, and by the fentence of God are now defcending to

their graves, that therefore they fhould first destroy their reason, and then force dull time to run fafter, that they may finifh their lives fooner, and die like beasts? But they thought there was no life after this; or if there were, that it was without pleasure. Therefore, say they, now let us enjoy the delicacies of nature, and lofe no time; for the fun drives hard, and the fhadow is long, and the days of mourning are at hand, but the number of the days of darkness and the grave cannot be told.

Thus they thought they difcourfed wifely; but their wifdom was turned into folly. For all their arts of provision, and fecurities of pleasure, were nothing but unmanly prologues to death and fear and folly, to fenfuality and beastly pleasures.

But they are to be excufed rather than we. They placed themselves in the order of beafts and infects, and esteemed their bodies nothing but receptacles of food, and their foul the fine inftrument of perception; and therefore they treated themselves accordingly. But then, why we fhould do the fame things, who are led by other

principles, and a more fevere inftitution, and better notices of immortality, who understand what fhall happen to a fou hereafter, and know that this time is but a paffage to eternity, this body but a servant to the foul, and the whole man in order to God and to felicity; this, I fay, is more unreasonable, than to eat poifon to preserve our health, and to enter into the flood that we may die a dry death; this is a perfect contradiction to the ftate of good things, whither we are defigned, and to all the principles of a wife philofophy, whereby we are instructed that we may become wife unto falvation.

That I may therefore contribute fome affiftances towards the curing the miferies of mankind, and reprove the follies and improper motions towards happiness; I fhall endeavour to represent to you,

I. That plenty, and the pleasures of the world, are no proper inftruments of happiness.

II. That intemperance is a certain enemy to it, making life unpleasant, and death troublesome and intolerable.

I. Plenty,