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II. IF by Folly the spirit is thus liable to be wounded, it is exposed by Passion to wounds still more severe. Passions are those strong emotions of the mind which impel it to desire, and to act, with vehemence. When directed towards proper objects, and kept within just bounds, they possess an useful place in our frame; they add vigour and energy to the mind, and enable it, on great occasions, to act with uncommon force and success; but they always require the government and restrain of reason, It is in the mind, just as it is in the body. Every member of the body is useful, and serves some good purpose. But if any one swell to an enormous size, it presently becomes a disease. Thus, when a man's passions go on in a calm and moderate train, and no object has taken an inordinate hold of any of them, his spirit is in this part sound, and his life proceeds with tranquillity. But if any of them have been so far indulged, and left without restraint, as to run into excess, a dangerous blow will then be given to the heart.-Supposing, for instance, that some passion, even of the nature of those which are reckoned innocent, shall so far seize a man as to conquer and overpower

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power him, his tranquility will be destroyed. SERMON The balance of his soul is lost; he is no longer his own master, nor is capable of attending properly to the offices of life which are incumbent on him, or of turning his thoughts into any other direction than what passion points out. He may be sensible of the wound. He feels the dart that is fixed in his breast, but is unable to extract it.

But the case becomes infinitely worse, if the passion which has seized a man be of the vicious and malignant kind. Let him be placed in the most prosperous situation of life; give him external ease and affluence to the full; and let his character be high, and applauded by the world: yet, if into the heart of this man there has stolen some dark jealous suspicion, some rankling envy, some pining discontent, that instant his temper is soured, and poison is scattered over all his joys. He dwells in secret upon his vexations and cares, and while the crowd admires his prosperity, he envies the more peaceful condition of the peasant and the hind. If his passions chance to be of the more fierce and outrageous nature, the painful feelings they produce will be

SERMON Still more intense and acute.

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By violent passions the heart is not only wounded, but torn and rent. As long as a man is under the workings of raging ambition, disappointed pride, and keen thirst for revenge, he remains under immediate torment. Over his dark and scowling mind, gloomy ideas continually brood. His transient fits of merriment and joy, are like beams of light breaking, occasionally, from the black cloud that carries the thunder. What greatly aggravates the misery of such persons is, that they dare make no complaints. When the body is diseased or wounded, to our friends we naturally fly; and from their sympathy or assistance expect relief. But the wounds given to the heart by ill-governed passions, are of an opprobrious nature, and must be stifled in secret. The slave of passion can unbosom himself to no friend and, instead of sympathy, dreads meeting with ridicule or contempt. How intolerably wretched must the condition of Haman have been, when, before all his assembled friends, he was reduced to make this humbling confession of his state; that, in the height of royal favour, and in the

midst of the utmost magnificence and gran- SERMON deur, "all availed him nothing, so long as

" he saw his rival, Mordecai the Jew, fitting at the King's gate!"

III. THE Wounds which the heart receives from guilt, are productive of still greater pain and misery, than any which have been already mentioned. If beyond being misled by folly, or overcome by passion, a man be conscious to himself of having deliberately committed deeds of injustice or cruelty; of having, perhaps, by wicked arts, seduced the innocent and unwary, to fall the miserable victims of his licentious pleasures; of having ruined, by his dishonesty, the unsuspicious trusting friend; of having amassed wealth to himself, by fraud and oppression, from the spoils of the industrious: in such and similar cases, deep and lasting is the sting which is sent into the heart.

I am aware of the arts which have been devised by criminal men to shelter themselves from the attacks of conscience; of the sceptical principles to which they have recourse; and of the self-deceiving opinions

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SERMON with which they flatter themselves concernIV. ing their own character, concerning the goodness of God, and the allowances which they hope will be made for human infirmity and strong temptations. But all those palliatives of guilt are no other to the soul, than the empiric medicines that are applied to the diseases of the body; which disguise the disease, without removing it; which procure a little temporary ease, and conceal from the patient the danger of his state; but drive the distemper to the vitals, and make it break forth in the end with redoubled force. Thus may those dangerous opiates of conscience soothe a man for a while, in the days of his prosperity. Amidst the bustle of active life, and as long as the fluster of gay and youthful spirits lasts, he may go on in the commission of many crimes with smoothness and seeming peace. But let the sober and serious hour come, which, sooner or later, must come to all; let the amusements of life be withdrawn, and the man be left alone to his own reflections; the power of truth will soon prove too strong for all that is opposed to it and pierce into his heart. The