Jure, it is more and more debilitated and broken.

For peace repairs all the faculties of the mind, just as pleasure wears them out. - And age and time, which take off all the vigorous sense of pleasure, add still a new taste and relish to inward peace: The mind which, during its hurry and violent attachment to pleasure, overlooked the sweet allurements of peace, being, by the fubdual or fubfidence of the more violent paffions, now become attentive to, and fenfible of, the foft and gentle impreffions of tranquillity.

Our bleffed Mafter, therefore, could not bestow, at his departure, a richer Legacy on his faithful Servants, than this of inward peace: the fecurity and reward of Virtue, and the balm of the wounded spirit.

But as the Giver, fo was the gift, Divine. And though a temporal good, yet fo purified, ennobled, and exalted by Religion, as to accompany us through thefe dark regions of forrow (over which it throws a conftant funthine), and to pafs with us to the celeftial realms of joy and immortality.

But there is an Impoftor, a Counterfeit of this Peace, which reftlefs and overburthened mortals are always feeking for in vain. This Phantom is ever flitting before us, and affuming a variety of Forms to engage the purfuit of the miftaken follower; who, when he thinks to hold her in his grafp, finds nothing but empty air; though Fancy have embodied it in all the specious fhapes of wisdom, power, wealth, reputation, glory, and every gaudy Form, which draws deluded mortals to feek for peace amidst their miferies.

To thefe Counterfeits, our gracious Mafter alludes, when he diftinguishes the genuine bleffing, which is his gift, from these wretched inventions of Men. My Peace I give unto you: not as the WORLD giveth, give I unto you: Words that imply an immenfe difference both in the GIFT and in the GIVER.

Let us firft then confider, What that Peace is which the World promises to beftow upon its Votaries; and where it is to be found.

The World would think it strange, if we should deny, that peace is to be found in what it calls wisdom, power, wealth, reputation, and glory. Yet it is certain, that when fought for amongst any or all of these, no more is to be found than the mere shadow of peace; and generally not so much.

Human wisdom, or science, bids fairest to content the reasonable mind; because the object of knowledge is nature, and the object of the fairest branches of knowledge, human nature, whofe perceptions and ideas it attempts to trace; and whofe paffions and appetites it pretends to regulate: yet, wanting thofe principles, difcoverable only by Revelation, which teaches man's true end, and which excites his endeavours to the attainment of it, human knowledge only fluctuates in the head, but comes not near the heart, where peace of mind is engendered. While the whole ftate of the Sage or Man of Wisdom, though fet off with all the trappings and gaudy equipage of Letters, is a state of anxiety and difquiet, of doubt and disappointment.

If peace then keep at fuch a distance from worldly wifdom, we can hardly think the will become more intimate with Power and Grandeur: where, inftead of restraint on the paffions and appetites (which Wisdom attempts) every thing concurs to raise and inflame them. Now inordinate and irregular appetites are the immediate bane and deftruction of inward peace.

But it is not only from within, but from without alfo, that peace is violated by power. In the pursuit of Wisdom all our Concurrents are our afliftants, and fometimes our Guides and Directors. And every Rival's acquifition is an addition to our own ftore. But in the purfuit of power it is juff the contrary: All our Concurrents are our Enemies: every advantage of theirs throws us further back from the point we had in view: and their fucceffes prove fatal to our own projects. For corporeal good is, in this, effentially different from mental; it leffens by communicating, and fuffers an exclufive appropriation. And as the rivalry for corporeal advantages is, for this reafon, as well as others, always more violent and constant;

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the Candidate for power has generally but a small share of peace: for the fame ftruggle continues as conftantly, and often as violently, after the acquifition of Power as during the purfuit of it.

Riches, the next pretended means of Peace, are ftill lefs efficacious to procure us this bleffing. If wealth be attended with the avarice of boarding, it fo narrows and contracts the mind as not to leave fufficient entrance to Peace; or at leaft that entrance is fo guarded by anxiety for the prefent, fearful apprehenfions of the future, and mistrust of every thing about us, that Peace flies frighted from fo inhofpitable a dwelling.

And if the rich man employs his wealth, as wealth is commonly employed, it brings on a large train of uneafy wants, and unruly appetites; which, as oft as they are relieved, are fucceeded, in an endless fucceffion, by new wants and returning appetites; every one more abfurd and fantaftic, more mifchievous and unnatural, than the other. So that there is no interval for peace to get footing in a mind so agitated, distracted and