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to torment him. He has reafon: this reafon is ever at variance and in conflict with his paffions. He has a tafte for decency and virtue: this tafte ferves only to make him loath and abhor himself amidft his exceffes. He is half-brute and half-angel: he wants to be wholly of this earth; and yet his faculties and capacities are too grand and refined for its pursuits. But take the other state into view, and the mystery clears up; and he becomes a confiftent creature. He is truly defigned for both worlds; by the difcipline of his paffions he is qualified for the enjoyments of both. By confining himself to pleasures, fo far as they are innocent, he adds fentiment to pasfion, refines the animal into the angel, and prepares himself for that spiritual inheritance, for which he is ultimately defigned.

Bur to proceed that particular ac of reflexion upon moral actions, which we call confcience, which we can neither controul

controul nor ftifle, bears still stronger testimony to this important truth.

No man's mind upbraids him for not being ten foot high, or wanting strength to remove mountains. The reason is, nature formed us to a certain ftandard of

fize and strength. Whence comes it, then, that the mind dwells with complacency upon every manly and generous action; and abhors itself upon the recollection of every thing base, mean and immoral? Why does a man abhor himself for base deeds, known only to himself, hid under the deepest veil of darknefs, and skreened from the eyes of the world beyond the poffibility of discovery? Why turns the villain pale at every frightful appearance of nature; and thinks every flash of lightning levelled at himself? Why does a painful consciousness cloud his brow in company, follow him into retirement, plant thorns under his fofteft pillow, and with dreadful vifions disturb his sweetest flumbers?

IT

It is the work of GOD; and his counfels no man can alter. He made us accountable creatures; he gave us a power of obeying him, and he thus warns us, that he intends to call us to account for the abuse of our powers.

LET us pause here a while, and obferve the different iffues of vice and virtue as far as we can trace them in the prefent life, and fee what judgment we fhould form upon the obfervation. How different is chriftian fortitude from the difmal tragedy of expiring guilt! When evil overtakes the wicked, or the pains of death take hold upon him, what fhame, what horror, what felf-condemnation is he tortured with! He hopes to be annihilated; yet he dreads the approach of the departing moment. He hopes there is no God, yet he fees him feated above in all his terrors.. He wishes to repent; and yet he cannot fhed one refreshing tear, or utter one comfortable prayer. He wants to lay

hold

hold of mercy, yet in the next breath he blafphemes, and pronounces himself unworthy of forgivenefs. Dreadful fecrets weigh down his foul; yet he dares not reveal them, he dares not face them, he dares not recollect them. Unutterable distress! What a proof of the vengeance awaiting wickedness in that other state! Why otherwise would the foul labour with all those conflicting thoughts, diftort the manly features with that ghostly look, and plunge from its guilty companion, the body, with that indignation and defpair?

MARK now, on the contrary, the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace. Pfal. xxxvii. 37. Look at him in the worst state of distress, and see the comforts of a good confcience. The world has frowned upon him, loads his name with dishonour, and his pureft intentions with reproach. All this cannot make him think worfe of himself; in the consciousness of his

innocence, he hears the ftorm of calumny without emotion, and filently appeals from men to a more upright tribunal. He labours under a tedious and painful diforder. How could he have fo much compofure in all his actions, and ferenity in his looks, did not God fupport and animate him with the hopes of a blessed immortality? Bleffed GOD! This is thy work: by this doft thou teach wisdom to the fons of men: let me live in thy fear, and, when I die, let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his! Num. xxiii. 10.

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To die the death of the righteous, we muft live his life. And if, in the days of health, we made views of this nature familiar to us, we could not mistake our end and deftination. It is under the vifitations of GOD, that nature speaks her genuine language: the flush of health and pampered fenfe is not the time that is a feverish ftate deluding us with the vaineft phantoms: the

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