ERMON gain,, or power. Yet this is the boasted X. liberty, which vice promises, as the recompence of setting us free from the salutary restraints of virtue.

III. ANOTHER character of the slavery of vice, is that mean, cowardly, and disquieted state to which it reduces the sinner. Boldness and magnanimity have ever been accounted the native effects of liberty. He who enjoys it, having nothing to apprehend from oppressive power, performs the offices, and enjoys the comforts of life, with a manly and undisturbed mind. Hence his behaviour is dignified, and his sentiments are honourable; while he who is accustomed to bend under servile subjection, has always been found mean-spirited, timorous, and base.-Compare, in these respects, the virtuous and the vicious man, and you will easily see to which of them the characteristics of freedom most justly belong. The man of virtue, relying on a good conscience and the protection of Heaven, acts with firmness and courage; and, in the discharge of his duty, fears not the face of man. The man of vice, conscious

X.

conscious of his low and corrupt aims, SERMON shrinks before the stedfast and piercing eye of integrity; is ever looking around him with anxious and fearful circumspection, and thinking of subterfuges, by which he may escape from danger. The one is bold as a lion; the other flieth when no man pursueth. To the one, nothing appears contemptible, by which he can procure any present advantage. The other looks with disdain on whatever would

degrade his character. "I will not," says he," so demean myself, as to catch the

Let

favour of the greatest man, by this or "that low art. It shall not be said or thought of me, that I did what was base, "in order to make my fortune. "others stoop so low, who cannot be "without the favours of the world. But I can want them, and therefore at such a price I will not purchase them." This is the voice of true liberty; and speaks that greatness of mind which it is formed to inspire.

Corresponding to that abject disposition which characterises a bad man,

fears that haunt him.

are the The terrours of a

SERMON slave dwell on his mind, and often appear in his behaviour, For guilt is never free from suspicion and alarm. The sinner is afraid, sometimes, of the partners of his crimes, lest they betray him; sometimes, of those who have suffered by his crimes, lest they revenge themselves; frequently, of the world around him, lest it detect him; and, what is worst of all, he is reduced to be afraid of himself. There is a witness within him, that testifies against his misdeeds; and threatens him in secret, when other alarms leave him. Conscience holds up to his view the image of his past crimes, with this inscription engraved upon it," God will bring every "work into judgment." How opposite is such a state as this, to the peaceful security arising from the liberty enjoyed by the virtuous? Were there nothing more in the circumstances of sinners to affix] upon them the marks of servitude, this alone would be sufficient, that, as the scripture expresses it, through fear of death they are all their lifetime subject to bondage

Death sets all other captives free. The SERMON slave who digs in the mine, or labours at the oar, can rejoice at the prospect of laying down his burden together with his life; and tastes the hope of being at last on equal terms with his cruel oppressor. But, to the slave of guilt there arisés no hope from death. On the contrary, he is obliged to look forward with constant terrour to this most certain of all events, as the conclusion of all his hopes and the commencement of his greatest miseries.

I HAVE thus set before you such clear and unequivocal marks of the servitude undergone by sinners, as fully verify the assertion in the text, that a state of vice and corruption is a state of bondage. In order to perceive how severe a bondage it is, let us attend to some peculiar circumstances of aggravation which belong to it,

First, It is a bondage to which the mind itself, the native seat of liberty, is subjected. In other cases, a brave man cạn comfort himself with reflecting that, let tyrants

Q 4

SERMON tyrants do their worst, let prisons or fetX. ters be his lot, his mind remains uncon

quered and free. Of this liberty, they cannot rob him; here he moves in a higher sphere, above the reach of oppression or confinement. But what avails the show of external liberty, to one who has lost the government of himself? As our Saviour reasons in another case, If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? So we may reason here, if that part of thy nature,, thy mind, thy will, by which only thou canst enjoy and relish liberty, be itself in bondage to evil pas-. sions and habits, how miserable must be that bondage?

Next, it is aggravated by this consideration, that it is a bondage which we have brought upon ourselves. To have been forced into slavery, is misfortune and misery. But to have renounced our liberty and chosen to be slaves, is the greatest reproach added to the greatest misery. Moments there frequently must be, when a sinner is sensible of the degradation of his state; when he feels with pain the

slavish