and vigour, and peace, and liberty; and, therefore, the greatest happiness.-Vice, on the contrary, is flavery, diforder, and fickness. It distorts our inward frame, and unfettles the adjustments of our minds. It unduly raifes fome of our powers, and depreffes others. It dethrones confcience, and fubjects it to the defpotism of blind and lawless appetites. In short; there is the fame difference, in refpect of happiness, between a virtuous and a vicious foul, as there is between a distempered body and a body that is well; or, between a civil ftate where confufion, faction, and licentiousness reign; and a state where order prevails, and all keep their proper places, and unite in submiffion to a wife and good legiflature.

Again thirdly; It is worth our confideration, that, by practising virtue, we gain more of the united pleasures, arifing from the gratification of all our powers, than we can in any other way. That is, in other words; our moral powers, when

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prevalent, encroach lefs on the inferior enjoyments of our natures than any of our other powers when they are prevalent. In order to explain this, I would defire you to confider, that the course most favourable to happiness, must be that which takes from us the leaft that is poffible of any of the gratifications and enjoyments we are capable of. We can take no course that will give us an equal and full share of all the gratifications of our appetites. If we will gain the ends of fome of our affections, we must sacrifice others. If, for inftance, we will rife to fame and power, we must give up ease and pleafure. We must cringe and truckle, and do violence to fome of our strongest inclinations. In like manner; if we make money our principal purfuit, and would acquire wealth; we must often contradict our defires of fame and honour. We must keep down generofity and benevolence, and the love of fenfual indulgences. We must pinch, and toil, and watch, and

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eat the bread of carefulnefs.-An ambitious man muft facrifice the gratifications of the covetous man. A covetous man, likewife, muft facrifice the indulgences of a man of pleasure: And a man of pleasure those of the ambitious and worldly minded. -Since, then, in every course of life, there is fuch an interference between the feveral objects of our affections, that course in which there is the least of it, must be likely to make us moft happy. And it is certain, that there is lefs of it in a virtuous courfe than any other. Virtue brings with it many exquifite pleafures of its own (as I fhall presently observe more particularly) and, at the same time, does not neceffarily encroach on other fources of pleasure. It is the very best means of obtaining the ends of most of our lower powers and affections. It is, for instance, the best means of gaining honour and distinction among our fellowcreatures; for the virtuous man is always the man who is moft honoured and loved.

It

It is, likewife, one of the best means of becoming profperous in our affairs, and gaining a competent share of worldly bleffings; for, agreeably to a maxim which we hear often repeated, "honefty is the beft policy." A virtuous man is the man who is most industrious, and likely to be most encouraged and trusted in every trade and profeffion.-In short; it is a part of virtue to make use chearfully of all the materials of happiness with which Divine bounty has fupplied us. There is no lawful and natural pleasure of which it does not leave us in poffeffion. It is favourable to every innocent purfuit, and an excellent friend to every just and laudable undertaking.

Thefe obfervations remove entirely the objection to the happiness of virtue, taken from its requiring labour and circumfpection, and obliging us to restrain our paffions, and to practise felf-denial. It is, indeed, true, that virtue requires this: But you should recollect, that it is by no

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means peculiar to virtue. I have, on the contrary, been shewing that it is lefs applicable to virtue than to any other object of pursuit. What labour and self-denial do men often practise in pursuing fame, or honour, or money? What a facrifice does the man of pleasure make of his health and fortune; and to what fatigues does he often put himself ?—It is, therefore, the utmost injustice to virtue to imagine that the restraint of inclination, and the practife of felf-denial, are peculiar to it. These are common to virtue and vice, and neceffary whatever courfe we take.—It would be very unreasonable to mention as an objection here, that virtue may oblige us to facrifice to it even our lives. For this is what happens perpetually in vicious courses. Thousands are every day dying martyrs to ambition, to luft, to covetoufness, and intemperance. But feldom does it happen, that virtue puts us to any fuch trial. On the contrary; its

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