caft behind him all regards to justice, equity, and compaffion, in the eagerness of obtaining the object of his defires. Hence it is that the covetous man is apt to defraud all he deals with, to betray the truft committed to him, and to make a prey of the widow and the orphan unhappily placed under his protection. Hence it is that the ambitious man lays all wafte about him, and fills the world with blood, violence, and rapine; facrificing his country, friends, and relations to his inordinate defire of power. Hence it is, that the luftful man breaks the bonds of friendship and hospitality, and entails dishonour and reproach upon the man who loves him beft; hence it is that he lies in wait to betray unguarded innocence, and is content, for the fake of his paffion, to bring shame, reproach, remorse of confcience, and all the evils of life, upon a fellowcreature. It is the effence of morality to bound the defires within the limits of reafon, juftice, and equity. It is not having or exercising great power that makes an ambitious man; a king may be as virtuous as any of his subjects; but it is getting and ufing it unjustly. It is not much wealth that denominates a man covetous, but it is the method of obtaining and difpenfing riches that makes the differAnd for the other cafe mentioned, you shall have the refolution of it in the words of an Apostle, Marriage is honourable in all men, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

ence.

It is plain from these inftances, that the virtue of a man confifts in bounding his defires, and restraining them within the limits prescribed by reafon and morality thefe limits the lufts of the flesh are per

petually tranfgreffing; every fuch tranfgreffion is a wound to the foul, which weakens its natural faculties, and renders it lefs able to difcharge its proper office for reafon will not always strive with a man; but if often fubdued by corrupt affections, it will at last give over the conteft, and grow hard, stupid, and void of feeling.

And this fuggefts another confideration, to fhew how effectually fenfual lufts do war against the soul, by extinguishing the force of natural confcience, and not leaving a man reafon and religion enough to repent of his iniquities. The mind grows fenfual by degrees, and lofes all relish for serious thought and contemplation; it contracts an hardnefs by long acquaintance with fin, and is armed with a brutal courage which regards neither God nor man. Age and infirmities may free us from our fenfual paffions, the finner may outlive his fins; but what is he the better, fince his fins perhaps outlived his confcience, and left him without either will or power to turn to God? This is no uncommon cafe and whenever it is the cafe, the circumstances which furround a man conspire to make it defperate. His mind, by being long immersed in sensuality, is unapt for ferious reflection, and indisposed to receive the truths which reafon offers: and befides this, the little glimmering lights of religion, which shine but faintly in his mind, yield no comfort or confolation to him, and he dreads the breaking in of more light upon him, left, by knowing more, he fhould become more miferable: this makes him love the darkness in which he is, which helps to skreen him from a fenfe of his own mifery. And

thus the fenfual man fpends the poor remains of life with very little sense, and yet much fear of religion. And yet were this the worst, happy were his case, in comparison to what it really is: for fenfual lufts war against the soul, against the very being itself, and will render it for ever unhappy and miferable.

The fenfual man has but one hope with refpect to futurity, and a fad one it is, that he may die like the beafts that perish: but nature, reafon, religion, deny him even this comfort, and with one voice proclaim to us, That God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world. When that day

comes, and he shall stand before the throne of God with all his fins about him, and every injured perfon ready to accuse and demand justice against him, it is much easier to imagine what his diftrefs and mifery will be, than for any words to describe it. Be the confequence of that day what it will, it must be fatal to finners. Should the much talked-of, and the more wifhed-for annihilation be their doom, it is a sentence that deftroys both body and foul; a sentence shocking to nature, and terrible to all our apprehenfions; and to which nothing but a guilty confcience, and a fearful expectation of fomething worse, could poffibly reconcile the fentiments of a But neither will this be the cafe: there is a fire that fhall never go out prepared for the fpirits of the wicked, a worm that never dies ready to torment them. It may be asked perhaps, Do you mean a material fire, and a material worm? In good truth I am little concerned to answer this queftion: there is one who will anfwer it, even he who faid it. There is nothing I think fo weak as the disputes

man.

about future punishments. Do you imagine that God wants means of punishing finners effectually or do you think that, when he comes to punish fin, you fhall have a faving bargain, and that your prefent enjoyments will be worth all you can suffer for them hereafter? If you imagine this, you must think God a very weak being: but if you think him a wife governor, reft fatisfied that there is nothing to be got by offending him; and that it is a foolish encouragement you give yourself, in imagining that the pains of hell will be lefs tormenting than they are reprefented to be, when you may be fure, from the power and wisdom of God, that the pleasures of fin will be too dearly purchased at the price of them.

But to return to the argument before us: let us look back, and take a fhort view of the fenfual man's condition. In this world his paffions find fo much employment for his reason, that he is excluded from the improvements peculiar to a rational being, and which might recommend him to the favour of his Maker: with refpect to his fellow-creatures he is void of morality: with respect to God he is void of religion: he has a body worn out by fin, and a mind hardened by it: in his youth he ftrives to forget God, in his old age he cannot remember him: he dies fuller of fins than of years, goes down with heavinefs to the grave, and his iniquities follow him, and will rife with him again when God calls him to appear and answer for himfelf: then will his lufts and appetites, and all the fins which attended on them, rife up in judgment against him, and fink his foul into everlasting mi

and

fery. The fum then of his account is this: the fenfual man has his portion of enjoyment in this world with the brutes, and in the next his punishment with wicked fpirits. This is the war which the lufts of the flesh wage against the foul: from fuch enemies a wife man ought to fly, for they have power not only to deftroy the body, but to caft both body and foul into hell.