indifference by the cold and phlegmatic;-and fo oddly perplexed are the accounts of both human happiness and mifery in this world, that trifles, light as air, fhall be able to make the hearts of fome men fing for joy;-at the fame time that others, with real bleffings and advantages, without the power of ufing them, have their hearts heavy and difcontented.

Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us,-the height of station and worldly grandeur will as foon add a cubit to a man's ftature as to his happiness.

SERMON XLIV. P. 258

AGAINST HASTY

TH

OPINION.

HERE are numbers of circumftances which attend every action of a man's life, which can never come to the knowledge of the world, yet ought to be known, and well weighed, before fentence with any justice can be paffed upon him.-A man may have different views and a different sense of things from what his judges have; and what he understands and

feels

feels and what paffes within him, may be a fecret treasured up deeply there for ever.-A man, through bodily infirmity, or fome complectional defect, which perhaps is not in his power to correct, may be fubject to inadvertencies,-to ftarts-and unhappy turns of temper; he may lay open to fnares he is not always aware of; ór, through ignorance and want of information and proper helps, he may labour in the dark:in all which cafes, he may do many things which are wrong in themselves, and yet be innocent; -at least an object rather to be pitied than cenfured with severity and ill will.-Thefe are difficulties which stand in every one's way in the forming a judgment of the characters of

others.

SERMON XLIV. P. 255.

VANIT Y.

VANITY bids all her fons to be generous and

brave, and her daughters to be chafte and courteous. But why do we want her inftructions?-Ask the comedian who is taught a part

he feels not.

SERMON XVII, PAGE, 45.

$ 3

AFFECTED

AFFECTED HONESTY.

OOK out of your door,-take notice of that man: fee what difquieting, intriguing, and fhifting, he is content to go through, merely to be thought a man of plain-dealing:—three grains of honefty would fave him all this trouble -alas! he has them not.

SERMON XVII, PAGE, 45•

'AFFECTED PIETY.

BEHOLD

EHOLD a fecond, under a fhow of piety hiding the impunities of a debauched life: -he is just entering the houfe of God:-would he was more pure-or less pious:-but then he could not gain his point.

IBID. PAGE, 46.

AFFECTED

AFFECTED SANCTITY.

ABSERVE a third going on almost in the fame track, with what an inflexible fanctity of deportment he fuftains himself as he ad vances: every line in his face writes abftinence; -every ftride looks like a check upon his defires: fee, I beseech you, how he is cloak'd up with fermons, prayers, and facraments; and fo bemuffled with the externals of religion, that he has not a hand to fpare for a worldly purpofe ;he has armour at least-Why does he put it on? Is there no ferving God without all this? Muft the garb of religion be extended fo wide to the danger of its rending?-Yes truly, or it will not hide the secret-and, what is that?-That the faint has no religion at all.

SERMON XVII P. 46.

OSTENTATIOUS

OSTENTATIOUS GENEROSITY.

-BUT here comes GENEROSITY; giving—

not to a decayed artift-but to the arts

and fciences themselves..

See, he builds not a chamber in the wall apart for the prophet; but whole schools and colleges for thofe who come after. Lord! how they will magnify his name! 'tis in capitals already; the firft-the higheft, in the gilded rent-roll of every hospital and afylum.

-One honeft tear fhed in private over the unfortunate, is worth it all.

SERMON XVII. PAGE, 47.

WE

OPINION.

E are perpetually in fuch engagements and fituations, that 'tis our duties to fpeak what our opinions are-but God forbid that this ever should be done but from its beft

motive