querable is Pride. And this will be the SERM.IV. Cafe of the Damned. For as the Good are to be as the Angels of God; the Bad will be as the Angels of Darkness.

Whatever inborn Freedom of Mind we might have; an inbred, habitual Slavery to depraved Affections, will, in Process of Time, destroy it: The Abilities may be cramped, and the Powers of the Soul, as well as the Organs of the Body, fo far maimed, as to be incapable of answering those valuable Purposes, for which they were originally defigned. From him that bath not any Improvement, our Saviour exprefly faith, shall be taken away even that which he bath, the original Faculty and Power to do Good. Befides, though we may endeavour to get rid of those outward Calamities, which are generally forced upon us, in Oppofition to our strongest Inclinations; we feldom make it heartily our Business to remove thofe inward Miseries, which we voluntarily bring upon ourfelves. Though we feel ourselves unhappy; yet as they are our own Choice, we applaud and justify ourselves in it, through the unrelenting Stubbornness of a corrupt Will. Thus the Jealous, the Melancholy,

SERM.IV. the Envious, the Revengeful, dwell upon

every thing that may foment and heighten
their respective Paffions, whatever Torments
they may labour under from them; and
fhut out each Confideration that may make
against them.
A Man cannot practise Vir-
tue,
without effectually willing it: And
how can he effectually will that, to which
his Will, by a long uninterrupted Attach-
ment to Vice, is utterly averfe? A long
Continuance in vicious Pleasures is to the
Soul, what Iron Chains are to the Body of
him, who has lain long in them: The
Chains may be ftruck off, but the Canker,
and Ruft, if they have eaten into the Flesh,
will remain, and may disable him ever af-
ter. Just so worldly Pleasures may cease
with this World; but the Pollution, grofs
Conceptions and the Indifpofition to refined
and liberal Delights, which they leave be-
hind, may continue to obftruct the Free-
dom of the Soul, and deftroy it's native
Energy *.
Now when the whole Bent
of the Soul stands the wrong Way, when all

Qui in compedibus corporis femper fuerunt, etiam cum foluti funt, tardius ingrediuntur; ut hi, qui ferro vincti multos annos fuerunt. Ciceronis Tufculana Difputa tiones: Page 66. Editio Davif.

our

our Defires are rivetted to vicious Objects; SERM. IV. it is no hard Matter to forefee, that Mifery, eternal Mifery, must be the unavoidable Result. When we are as it were bound Hand and Foot by ill Habits; when the Spring of the Soul, by which she should recover herself, which every vicious A& muft weaken, is, by a continued Re-iteration of them, quite broken; the Confequence is, that we must be caft into outer Darkness.

Now where can be the Injustice, that God fhould fuffer thofe Evils to take Place, which a Man has brought upon himself, by counteracting the Will of God? Where can be the Injuftice, that those should be for ever excluded from Heaven, who, by a viciated Relish, have difqualified themfelves for heavenly Blifs? If Happiness be nothing but the Employment of the Faculties of the Soul upon fuitable Objects; it is certain, that cæleftial and spiritual Objects cannot fuit a Soul, which being long and deeply immerfed in fenfual Delights, has contracted an habitual Diftafte for them. As Man was the Creature of God's Hands, he was enabled and defigned to be a Partaker of Happiness, and a Sharer of a blessed Immortality with himself: But as he is an habitual

SERM.IV. habitual Sinner, and in that Respect the Creature of his own Hands, he has made himself eternally miferable, by those Habits, which are the Foundation of Hell.+

So far, perhaps, you may be willing to allow, there is no Colour of Injustice: But this, you will fay, does not account for the Perpetuity of pofitive Punishments for temporary Crimes. To which I anfwer, that even the Threats of eternal pofitive Penalties are not the rigorous Decrees of mere Will and Pleafure; they are fo many kindly Forewarnings of the neceffary Effects of a rooted Averfion to Goodnefs. For it may be neceffary to fecure the Happiness of the Bleffed, that, though the Good and Bad, like the Wheat and Tares, are blended together here; they should, at the End of the World, be finally fevered the one from the other. It may be neceffary, that if every Region of Joy and Comfort throughout the Creation be peopled with unoffending Beings; the desperately Wicked fhould be thruft down (which is a pofitive Punishment) into Places, where no Joy and Comfort dwells, and there for ever imprisoned; that their Rancour and Malice might prey upon themfelves, or be

discharged

discharged upon their Fellow-Criminals, SERM.IV. which, if let loose, might difturb the innocent Part of the World. The divine Sanctions, you fee then, are not the arbitrary Impofitions of Sovereign Power; they are the genuine Refult of infinite Wisdom and Goodness, which, in Pity to the Univerfe, has enacted them, that the whole may receive no Detriment. And whatever other pofitive Punishments may be fuperadded; they will be exactly adjusted to the Demerits of each Offender. The Scripture exprefsly declares, that the Wicked will be beaten with fewer or more Stripes, in Proportion to the different Degrees of their Wickedness.

2dly, Let thofe, who infift fo much upon it, that the Punishment is difproportioned to the Crime; reflect, whether they do not confider Sin in one View, either as to the Fact abftractedly, or as to the Time which the Perpetration of the Fact takes up; without confidering it in all Views, and in all it's Confequences; which yet is the only Way to form a true Judgment of the Malignity of it. For the Punishment is not difproportioned to Sin, habitual Sin, if confidered with all it's numerous Train

of