fcripture warning verified: An inheritance may be gotten haf tily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed *.

You fee then how many and great the prefent and worldly inconveniences of wickednefs are; and I have dwelt on them fo largely, because present and worldly things are apt to affect us fo much. Yet ftill it must be acknowledged, that all of them do not follow conftantly, and that fometimes confiderable advantages in appearance may be gained by tranfgreffing our duty. But perhaps even then as confiderable ones of the fame kind may be loft by it; for men cannot have the benefit of two oppofite characters and behaviours at the fame time. Or, if every thing fhould happen to their wish, the probability notwithstanding lay greatly on the other fide: the contrary was to have been expected: and therefore no wife person would ever run the hazard, though now and then, fome one may chance to find his account in it.

But indeed we are as yet only in the first article of the account; and have by no means completed that. Not only the pofitive outward evils, that wickedness brings upon us, but the inward fatisfactions and comforts of which it deprives us, muft be taken in. Sincerity of good will, opennefs of confidence, faithfulness of friendship, tenderness of affection, consciousness of merited esteem, are the sweeteft ingredients in human life. Now all these, with all the complacency and joy of heart that flows from them, the wicked, by their ambitious, their covetous, their fenfual purfuits, by their refentments, their falfehoods, their neglects, their provocations, exclude themselves from enjoying wear out from their hearts by degrees the most delightful sfenfibilities of which human nature is capable; and leave nothing there, but the wretched feelings of hating or difregarding others, and being hated or difregarded by them. Then, in the various afflictions and croffes of life, in decaying health, finking fpirits, and declining age, a good man hath many supports, from the innocence and integrity of his past life, from the love and gratitude of his friends, from the firm belief of a wife and kind providence, continually watching over him. But none of these confolations belong to a wicked man, when he is in the fame condition: the things in which he placed his whole happiness have failed him and are gone; the companions

Y y 2

Prov. xx. 21.

of

of his profperity defert him, the world rejoices over him, heaven frowns upon him, and his own heart condemns him.

But this would lead me to the second head, the fhame attending fin. After that, there remains a third, of the future pu nithment awaiting it. Both thefe, God willing, shall be dif tinctly fet before you: and then you will fee in the fulleft light, whatever may feem wanting to the evidence of it now, that the knowledge of wickedness is not wifdom; neither at any time the counfel of fianers, prudence *.

God grant we may all be convinced of this while it will de us good! To him, with his Son and bleffed Spirit, be all ho nour and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

• Ecclus xix. 22.

SER.

SERMON LXXII.

THE PRESENT DISADVANTAGES, SHAMEFULNESS, AND
PUNISHMENT OF A WICKED Life.

ROM. vi. 21.

What fruit bad ye then in thofe things, whereof ye are NOW afbamed? For the end of those things is death.

N discoursing on these words, I have proposed to lay before

IN

you,

I. The prefent disadvantages of a wicked life.
II. The fhamefulness of it.

III. The punishment, which awaits it hereafter.

'The first of these heads I have finished : and shewn, from the teftimony of the wicked themselves, from the inconfiftence of all fin with the principles of our reafon, from its repugnancy to the original dictates of our affections, from its pernicious influence on every branch of human-fociety, that it must in general produce unspeakable harm to us. Then I proceeded to prove, in relation to feveral fins more particularly, that some of them are in their very nature painful; and that the pleasures, which others promife, are either falfe and imaginary, or inconfiderable and short-lived, or, to all the purposes of real happinefs, equally attainable, for the most part, by virtuous means: but that the evils, which they bring on, are various and great, and often speedy, and seldom avoided by the utmost care: that even thofe fins which may feem peculiarly calculated for profit and advantage, are in truth as unprofitable and hurtful as the reft and that laftly, befides leading men into the most grievous inconveniences and fufferings, wickednefs deprives them of the

moft

most valuable even of their worldly enjoyments, comforts, and fupports.

Were we therefore only to confider, how unhappily it affects all the common and acknowledged ingredients of our prefent well-being, a course of fin, on ftating the account merely thus, would be found, though perhaps not without exceptions, yet with but few exceptions, and fuch as no one could rationally expect in his own favour, a course of folly: as accordingly we fee it conftantly reprefented, even with refpect to this world, not only by the facred writers, but the greatest and ableft of heathens themselves; but fuch as had fome belief of a future ftate, and fuch as had none.

But for our fuller fatisfaction in a point of this moment, let us proceed farther to confider,

II. The shamefulness of it.

Now fhame is of two forts: arifing from a consciousness of having acted, either foolishly against our intereft, or wickedly against our duty. I begin with the firft.

An immoral life being fo full of imprudence and fuffering as you have seen it is, many and severe reflections on their own miftaken choice muft unavoidably torture the minds of the vicious from time to time, be they ever fo induftrious to banish them. The abfurdity of the things, which they fay and do in the madness of their debauches; the contemptiblenefs of their condition, while they languish under the effects of them: the miferable wages, which they receive for their hard fervitude to low appetites; the meannefs of going on with what they have a thousand times refolved to leave off; the wretched fhifts, that they must use to fupport the expences of their irregularities; the embarrassments into which the most circumfpect of them are continually running by unfair practices; the grievous difappointments, which the wifeft of them experience, from what promised, as they imagined, the trueft and highest fatisfaction; the extraordinary pains which they have taken, to be never the happier, and are taking ftill, only to be farther from their end than ever these are confiderations, that will find a feafon to make their way both into the gayest and the busiest minds, and often embitter the relish of their pleasures and their profperity, even while they are at the height.

But when any remarkable check hath been given to the finner in his courfe; when the iniquities of the fraudulent

have

have expofed him to difgrace and loss, or the extravagances of the spendthrift reduced him to indigence, when the strength and fpirits of the diffolute are worn out, or advancing years have brought on fatiety and disguft: then, with full leisure for thinking of their doings, and perhaps inability for thinking of any thing else, to fee that they have fcorned the dictates of reason and the counfels of the difcreet and good, only to become miferable: what confufion must they feel from it: they, who applauded fo highly the wisdom of their own way of life, as the only one worth living for, and ridiculed with such unfpeakable contempt the filly fcruples of the poor virtuous man, whose conduct they now find so vastly preferable to their

own!

But further: this inward self-displeasure and dislike will, in fuch cafes, be greatly aggravated by the cenfure and upbraiding of the world, redoubled upon them when they can bear it least. Sinners in diftrefs are usually despised and condemned by their very tempters, and partners in fin. All, whom they have injured, will claim a right to infult them. Thofe, to whom they apply for affistance or comfort, will have a fpecious plea for disregarding and rejecting them. The generality will be eager to fhew the fuperiority, fome of their goodness, and some of their prudence, by reproaching them bitterly for their want of both. Even the best and beft-natured perfons, while they mourn over them, must remind them how unwise they have been; and on proper occafions mention them as warning to others. Lo, this is the man, that made not God bis ftrength, but Strengthened himself in his wickedness. Now think, I beg you, what must their feelings, amidst all this, be!

But, befides the fhame of folly, they have a much worse kind to undergo, that of guilt, from the consciousness, that their behaviour hath been wrong and unworthy and of ill defert. For with what indifference foever many may affect to fpeak of this, all have at times, a fenfe of it extremely acute. Let any one afk his heart, what it thinks, when seriously disposed, of ingratitude for the being, which God hath bestowed on us, and the bleffings, present and future, which he hath provided for us of wilful and contemptuous disobedience to laws, fo reasonable and beneficial, as he hath enjoined us; fo fcornfully

1

Pfal. lii. 7.