SERM. fublime and beautiful language of Holy II. Scripture, that riches take to themselves

wings, and fly away from their owners. And as for the pleafures of fenfe, they are, at best, but a fuperficial flash of delight, followed by lofs of appetite, if not by remorse; but, generally, they are nothing more than a prefent relief from the troublesome and importunate cravings of violent and restless defires.-The finner, at the fame time that he seems fo gay and elate, fo free and unreferved in his pleafures, and so entirely devoted to his corrupt inclinations, may be fubftantially and inexpreffibly miferable; and have the fource and fpring of his mifery wholly in himself. And thus "the inward scene, " which is of the highest importance, "and which alone denominates and cha"racterizes the man, may be a scene of "distraction, of felf-upbraiding, of gloo"miness and horror; while the outward

glares with falfe lights, and is a mere fallacious and unnatural disguise." LET me add to all this, that he who places his fupreme good in animal gratifications (as he is the flave of capricious and variable

variable paffions) must be liable to be SERM. difgufted with his very pleasures; that eve- II.:

ry entertainment in this low kind of irrational life, instead of allaying and calming, has a direct tendency to inflame those defires, for which there is in nature no adequate object: And, therefore, however, he may flatter, blind, and impofe upon himself, and expect to find an end of all his folicitude, and the full completion of his wishes, in indulgences of fenfe and appetite, he must certainly be disappointed in all his hopes of Happiness as a man.

It may perhaps be faid, that this is, in truth, no difappointment to him at all, because animal pleasures are his ultimate end, and he never afpired after any thing more high or refined. Allowing this to be the cafe, is he, upon a fair and impartial eftimate, ever the lefs unhappy? Is he the less unhappy for not knowing his Happiness; the less unhappy, merely because he is infenfible of his fhame and mifery? As long as this delufion continues, he can have no inclination, no motive, and consequently, it can scarce be truly faid

that

II.

SERM. that it is in his power, even to endeavour to be happy. And yet Happiness is what he profeffes to pursue, and it is for the fake of this, that he follows the bent and course of appetite: So that the conclufion is unavoidable, that he muft fuffer a total disappointment with refpect to the propofed fcope of all his defigns and actions, tho' he may neither fee his difappointment, nor feel the anxiety and pain of a difappointment. The diforders of tumultuous paffions may, in numberlefs cafes, deprefs and obfcure the understanding; but they can never alter, never confound, the fix'd and immutable differences of things. "The scene, "which vanity and paffion reprefent, is "generally fictitious in a great degree, high-wrought and figur'd beyond the life. A light and diffolute mind is apt to be extravagant and unbounded in its profpects, and to magnify beyond all the proportions of reason, and all the possibi"lities of things, as the world is at pre"fent conftituted, its particular and fa "vorite object. It must furely then be an extreme of folly, when its chief

pleasures

pleasures are at the highest in fancy, i.c. SERM. "before they actually exist; and leaft II "when they are real."

SOLOMON, therefore, who had shone in the height of luxury and fplendor, had> indulged himself even in most of our fa→ shionable exceffes, and given large scope to his fenfes and tafte for vanity, upon a review of his conduct disapproved of, def pifed, and feverely condemned the whole as a scene of impertinence and difquietude. And we know, from the unalterable na ture of things, that this must be, in fome degree, the experience of every other fen fualift; though he has not ingenuity and honour enough to acknowledge it, nor perhaps a fufficient fhare of reflection to inable him to discern it aright, and make: the proper use of it: Nay, though his understanding should be fo wofully weakened and defaced, as to look on Solomon: as having entirely loft the politeness of his tafte, as foon as he was recovered to the juft exercife of his reafon, to fobriety, and a sense of virtue. Prodigious it is, as well as highly to be deplored, that such strange infatuations should prevail amongst mankind!

2

SERM, kind! Inconfiftencies, that one would II. think no ftrain of invention, not even prejudice and vice itself, could find out a way to reconcile. And yet, "though the "flave of appetite is apt to admire those "inftances of fagacity, which fhew like "Sparks and faint glimmerings of reason " in brute creatures, and looks upon them "as marks of diftinction and fuperiority in "the animal race, because they, thereby,

approach nearer to the rank of Human

nature; he, at the fame time, does his ❝utmoft to obliterate that intelligence and "those excellent moral capacities, which "are the chief preheminence of man :” He affects to defpife the chafte, the fedate, the strictly virtuous, men of ingenuous thought and fublime dispositions; and to value himfelf for his infamy. And as all this fprings, principally, from what I have just hinted at before, viz. from falfe notions of politeness (which word feems to operate like a charm upon the inconfiderate, the gay, the voluptuous) I beg leave to conclude this head with obferving, that, whatever accidental differences may happen, Human nature is in all the fame, and Human happiness