with it in another, than the proud man himself? It is the fame with the paffionate, the defigning, the ambitious, and fome other common characters in life; and being a confequence of the nature of fuch vices, and almoft infeparable from them, the effects of it are generally so grofs and abfurd, that where pity does not forbid, it is pleasant to observe and trace the cheat through the feveral turnings and windings of the heart, and detect it through all the shapes and appearances which it puts on.

SERMON IV, P. 72.

HOUSE OF MOURNING.

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ET us go into the house of mourning, made

fo by fuch afflictions as have been brought in, merely by the common crofs accidents and difafters to which our condition is expofed,where, perhaps, the aged parents fit brokenhearted, pierced to their fouls with the folly and indifcretion of a thanklefs child-the child of their prayers, in whom all their hopes and expectations centered :-perhaps a more affecting scene-a virtuous family lying pinched with want, where the unfortunate fupport of it hav ing long ftruggled with a train of misfortunes, and bravely fought up against them, is now

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pitecufly

piteously borne down at the laft-overwhelmed with a cruel blow which no forecast or frugality could have prevented.-O God! look upon his afflictions-Behold him diftracted with many forrows, furrounded with the tender pledges of his love, and the partner of his cares-without bread to give them, unable from the remembrance of better days, to dig;-to beg, aflamed.

1

When we enter into the houfe of mourning fuch as this it is impoffible to infult the unfortanate even with an improper look-Under whatever levity and diffipation of heart, fuch objects catch our eyes, they catch likewife our attentions, collect and call home our fcattered thoughts, and exercife them with wisdom. A tranfient scene of diftrefs,fuch as is here sketched, how foon does it furnish materials to fet the mind at work? how neceffarily does it engage it to the confideration of the miferies and misfortunes, the dangers and calamities to which the life of man is fubject? By holding up fuch a glafs before it, it forces the mind to fee and reflect upon the vanity,-the perifhing condition and uncertain tenure of every thing in this world. From reflections of this ferious caft, how infenfibly do the thoughts carry us farther?-and from confidering what we are-what kind of world we live in, and what evils befal us in it, hów naturally do they fet us to look forwards at

what

what poffibly we shall be ?-for what kind of world we are intended-what evils moy befal us there and what provifion we should make against them here, whilft we have time and opportunity. If these leffons are fo infeparable. from the house of mourning here fupposed-we fhall find it a ftill more inftructive fchool of wif dom when we take a view of the place in that more affecting light in which the wife man feems to confine it in the next, in which, by the houfe of mourning, I believe he means that particular scene of forrow, where there is lamentation and mourning for the dead. Turn in hither, I beseech you, for a moment. Behold a dead man ready to be carried out, the only fon of his mother, and she a widow. Perhaps a more affecting fpectacle, a kind and indulgent father of a numerous family, lies breathlefsfnatched away in the ftrength of his agetorn in an evil hour from his children and the bofom of a difconfolate wife. Behold much people of the city, gathered together to mix their tears, with fettled forrow in their looks, going heavily along to the house of mourning, to perform that laft melancholy office, which, when the debt of nature is paid, we are called upon to pay to each other. If this fad occafion which leads him there, has not done it already, take notice, to what a ferious and devout frame of mind every man is reduced, the moment he enters

this gate of affliction. The bufy and fluttering fpirits, which in the houfe of mirth were wont to tranfport him from one diverting object to another-fee how they are fallen! how peaceably they are laid! In this gloomy mansion full of fhades and uncomfortable damps to feize the foul-fee, the light and eafy heart, which never knew what it was to think before, how penfive it is now, how foft, how fufceptible, how full of religious impreffions, how deeply it is fmitten with fenfe and with a love of virtue. Could we, in this crifis, whilft this empire of reafon and religion lafts, and the heart is thus exercifed with wifdom and bufied with heavenly contemplations could we fee it naked as it is-stripped of its paffions, unfpotted by the world, and regardless of its pleasures-we might then fafely reft our cause upon this fingle evidence, and appeal to the most fenfual, whether Solomon has not made a juft determination here, in favour of the houfe of mourning? not for its own fake, but as it is fruitful in virtue, and becomes the occafion of fo much good. Without this end, forrow, I own, has no ufe but to shorten a man's days nor can gravity, with all its ftudied folemnity of look and carriage, ferve any end but to make one half of the world merry, and impofe upon the other.

SERM. II. P. 33.

FRAILTY

FRAIL TY.

HE beft of men appear fometimes to be ftrange compounds of contradictory qualities and, were the accidental overfights and folly of the wifeft man, the failings and imperfections of a religious man,-the hafty acts and paffionate words of a meek man;—were they to rife up in judgment against them, and an illnatured judge be fuffered to mark, in this manner, what has been done amifs-what character fo unexceptionable as to be able to stand before him? SERM, XXXI. P. 33.

INSENSIBILITY.

Tis the fate of mankind, too often, to feem infenfible of what they may enjoy at the ea

fieft rate.

SERM. XLII. P. 226.

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UNCERTAINTY:

HERE is no condition in life fo fixed and permanent as to be out of danger, or the L 3

reach