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ter understand, by comparing it with worldly forrow, and fhewing the difference between them.

Thirdly, then, you may obferve that worldly forrow is faid immediately to work death: it brings forth nothing analogous to repentance, but does confirm and ftrengthen the evil difpofition from which it grows.

There is fuch a connection between the paffions, that one cannot be powerfully fet on work, but it muft move and engage the others in their several fpheres. Thus the Apoftle, in the chapter of my text, tells us that the godly forrow of the Corinthians produced fear and indignation, zeal and vehement defire, and revenge. And thus it must be: whatever afflicts us is the object of our hatred and fear; whatever we lament the lofs of, that we muft needs vehemently defire and long after; and our grief for the lofs will roufe us to recover, if poffible, the thing we lament for. This being agreed, you need only confider the caufes from which worldly forrow and godly arife, to fee the workings of both, and the different effects which they muft produce. The covetous man laments for the lofs of his wealth, or regrets that his gains have been no larger what must the confequence be? This grief will produce no change in him: covetous he was before, his forrow for his wealth will make him still more fo: his induftry to grow rich will be inflamed by his forrow, his concern not to part with what is left will increase by his anxiety, and he will be ten times more a flave to the world than ever he was before. Confider the ambitious man's disappointment, and his forrow that flows from it; the cafe will be

still the fame : how will his vexation urge him to repair his defeat, and make him perhaps divest himself entirely of all the regards to good and evil, virtue and vice, especially if he has once found them to stand in his way? Thus, you see, in all cases worldly forrow confirms the evil habits from which it grows, and is therefore the moft direct way to death.

For the like reafon godly forrow will lead to life; for fin being the cause of forrow, all the paffions will be moved to difpoffefs it: hope and fear, and zeal, and vehement defire, will unite their force to throw out fin, which ftands in the way of all their views. From whence muft proceed an entire change of the man, and he that is heartily forry for his fins will most certainly forfake them.

In godly forrow we grieve for having enjoyed too much of the world, to the hazard of lofing the more valuable pleasures of immortality in worldly forrow we lament our having had too little of the world. It is evident then that forrow in one cafe will make us fly the world and its allurements; in the other it will render us but the more eager to pursue and overtake them. In one .cafe, forrow does as it were new make the man, gives him new defires and difpofitions of mind, teaches him to fhun the pleasures he once embraced with eager appetite, and to feek new joys and comforts which before he was a stranger to. In the other case, grief confirms the old habits, quickens the old defires, and makes a man ten times more worldly-minded than he was before; fo that his laft ftate is even worse than his firft. And this will appear by con fidering, in the last place,

Fourthly, That the death which is wrought by worldly forrow is oppofed to the falvation which follows repentance, and may therefore fignify eternal death as well as temporal, the truth of the propofition admitting either or both of these explications.

The natural effect of grief, confidered as fuch, is to waste and impair the strength, to deaden the faculties of the mind, and to make a man useless to himfelf and his friends: fo that where this paffion inflamed to any degree has been long in poffeffion, it leaves nothing of the man, but the outward form, and hardly that. This, I fay, is the effect of forrow in general: but then here lies the difference between godly forrow and worldly forrow: the first, in every step, tends to peace and joy, and its most natural effect is to destroy itself, and leave the mind in perfect ease and tranquillity. The finner's tears, though they spring from grief, are yet the most sovereign cordial to an afflicted heart, and like fhowers in fummer portend a cooler and more refreshing air. But worldly forrow knows no rest, it has no period; it ftill urges men to new pursuits after the world, and the world has new disappointments in reserve to baffle all their eager care. a new occafion of grief; this paffion for the world, amounts to this, Vanity and vexation of fpirit. Thus the case stands if we regard only the comforts of this life. The forrow for fin produces the pleasure of righteousness, which is a perpetual fpring of joy and fpiritual confolation: whilft the worldly man, pursuing false enjoyments, is ever reaping real tor

Every disappointment is and the whole gain of being fairly computed,

ments. But if we change the fcene, and look into the other world, the difference grows wider ftill: the time is coming when the tears of repentance fhall be wiped away, when the finner's grief shall stand between him and judgment, and the fhame which he took to himself fhall protect him from fhame at the great appearance of the world. But worldly forrow will then have an heavy account to pafs; thofe guilty tears, which were fhed for tranfitory pleasures of mortality, will stand in judgment against you, and exclude you from the joys of that life which is for evermore.

The confufion and diftrefs of that time will be more than I can describe, or you imagine; they will exceed even the fears of guilt, and be more gloomy than even despair could ever paint them. The whole is comprised in the words of the text, The forrow of the world worketh death.

DISCOURSE XXIII.

PART I.

I PETER ii. 11.

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as ftrangers and pilgrims, abftain from flefbly lufts, which war against the foul.

THE exhortations of Scripture to abftain from fleshly lufts, or lufts of the flesh, are fo many, the expreffion itself is fo familiar to Chriftians, and fo well understood, that there is no need, I think, of many words to explain the subject matter of the advice now before us. Some fins are privileged by their impurity from being exposed as they deserve a modeft tongue cannot relate, nor a modeft ear receive an account, without great pain, of the various kinds of lewdness practifed in the world: for as the Apostle to the Ephefians remarks, It is a fhame even to speak of thofe things which are done of them in fecret. Had he lived in our times, he might perhaps have varied his phrase, and said, which are done of them in public. These impurities are, in one sense of the word, no longer works of darkness, they appear at noon-day. Since therefore they no longer affect to be disguised, they will

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