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were intended to prevent.-These are misfortunes to which we are fubject in this state of darkness;—but when men without fkill,-without education,--without knowledge either of the diftemper, or even of what they fell,-make merchandize of the miferable, and, from a difhoneft principle,-trifle with the pains of the unfortunate,-too often with their lives, and from the mere motive of a difhoneft gain,-every such inftance of a perfon bereft of life by the hand of ignorance, can be confidered in no other light than a branch of the fame root.-It is murder in the true fenfe; which, though not cognizable by our laws,by the laws of right, every man's own mind and conscience must appear equally black and deteftable.—

In doing what is wrong,—we stand chargeable with all the bad confequences which arife from the action, whether forfeen or not. And as the principal view of the empiric in those cafes is not what he always pretends, the good of the public,-but the good of himself, it makes the action what it is.

Under this head, it may not be improper to comprehend all adulterations of medicines, wilfully made worse through avarice.—If a life is loft by such wilful adulterations, and it may be affirmed, that, in many critical turns of an acute distemper, there is but a fingle caft left for the patient,-the trial and chance of a fingle drug in his behalf;-and if that has wilfully been adulterated, and wilfully defpoiled of its beft virtues, what will the vender anfwer?

SERM. XXXV. P. 199.

REGULATION OF SPIRIT.

THE great bufinefs of man is the regulation of his fpirit; the poffeffion of fuch a frame and temper of mind, as will lead us peaceably through this world, and in the many weary ftages of it, afford us, what we shall be sure to stand in need,-Rest unto our fouls.

Reft unto our fouls!-'tis all we want- the end of all our wishes and purfuits: give us a prospect of this, we take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermoft parts of the earth to have it in poffeffion: we feek for it in titles, in riches and pleafures-climb up after it by ambition, come down again and stoop for it by avarice, try all extremes; ftill we are gone out of the way; nor is it, till after many miferable experiments, that we are convinced at laft, we have been feeking every where for it, but where there is a prospect of finding it; and that is, within ourselves, in a meek and lowly difpofition of heart. This, and this only will give us reft unto our fouls :-rest from those turbulent and haughty paffions which disturb our quiet: -reft from the provocations and difappointments of the world, and a train of untold evils too long to be recounted, against all which this frame and prepara tion of mind is the best protection.

SERM. XXV. P. 189.

JUSTICE AND HONESTY.

JUSTICE and honefty contribute very much to

wards all the faculties of the mind: I mean, that it clears up the understanding from that mist, which dark and crooked designs are apt to raise in it,—and that it keeps up a regularity in the affections, by fuffering no lufts or by-ends to disorder them.-That it likewife preferves the mind from all damps of grief and melancholy, which are the fure confequences of unjuft actions; and that by fuch an improvement of the faculties, it makes a man fo much the abler to difcern, and fo much the more cheerful, active, and diligent to mind his business-Light is fown for the righteous, fays the prophet, and gladness for the upright in heart.

Secondly, let it be observed, that in the continuance and courfe of a virtuous man's affairs, there is little probability of his falling into confiderable difappointments or calamities;-not only becaufe guarded by the providence of GOD, but that honefty is in its own nature the freeft from danger.

First, because fuch a one lays no projects, which it is the intereft of the other to blast, and therefore needs no indirect methods or deceitful practices to fecure his interest by undermining others. The paths of virtue are plain and straight, so that the blind, perfons of the meaneft capacity, fhall not err.-Dishonefty

requires skill to conduct it, and as great art to conceal-what 'tis every one's interest to detect. And I think I need not remind you how oft it happens in attempts of this kind--where worldly men in hafte to be rich, have over-run the only means to it,-and for want of laying their contrivances with proper cunning, or managing them with proper fecrecy and advantage, have loft for ever, what they might have certainly fecured with honefty and plain-dealing. The general caufes of the difapp intments in their business, or of the unhappiness in their lives, lying but too manifeftly in their own diforderly paffions, which, by attempting to carry them a fhorter way to riches and honour, difappoint them of both for ever, and make plain, their ruin is from themselves; and: that they eat the fruits which their own hands have watered and ripened.

SERMON XXVIII. P. 253.

THE TEMPTATION.

W

PARIS.

HEN I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young woman with a band-box had been that moment enquiring for me.--I do not know, faid the porter, whether he is gone away or no. I took the key of my chamber of him, and went up stairs;

and when I had got within ten steps of the top of the landing before my door, I met her coming eafily down.

It was the fair fille de chambre I had walked along the Quai de Conti with: Madame de R**** had fent her upon fome commiffion to a merchante de modes within a ftep or two of the Hotel de Modene; and as I had failed in waiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I had left Paris: and if fo, whether I had not left a letter addreffed to her.

As the fair fille de chambre was fo near my door, she returned back, and went into the room with me for a moment or two, whilft I wrote a card.

It was a fine ftill evening in the latter end of the month of May-the crim fon window-curtains (which were of the same colour of thofe of the bed) were drawn close-the fun was fetting, and reflected thro' them fo warm a tint into the fair fille de chambre's facethought she blush'd-the idea of it made me blush myfelf-we were quite alone; and that fuperinduced a fecond blush before the first could get off.

-I

There is a fort of pleafing half guilty blush, where the blood is more in fault than the man-'tis fent impetuous from the heart, and virtue flies after it—not to call it back, but to make the sensation of it more delicious to the nerves'tis affociated

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But I'll not defcribe it I felt something at first within me which was not in ftrict unison with the leffon of virtue I had given her the night before-I fought five minutes for a card—I knew I had not one.

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