scholars, who were fo much less fenfible than he, who at times were almost totally infenfible! How manly in fhort was not his language and his whole behaviour! How far from all constraint, all artifice, and all oftentation! How fuitable to his character, his vocation, and to temporary circumstances! What noiseless, tranquil dignity appeared in all he uttered, and in all he did!

Oh imitate him likewife in this, all ye who have the happiness and the honour to be his confeffors. Strive after the perfection of your nature with all the faculties of your foul. Attend to your mind as well as to your heart; cultivate the one with no lefs care than the other; learn to think as juftly as you feel forcibly. Let reafon and fenfibility go hand in hand with you along the path of life, let this be governed and directed by that, and that be encouraged and animated by this, that you may never want light, for avoiding all deviation and error, nor warmth and energy, for pursuing refolutely and indefatigably the right way.

03

SERMON XII.

The Value of Virtue.

GOD! our creator and our father, thou haft

incribed thy law, the law of truth and order on all our hearts, endowed us all with an inward fentiment of what is right and good; thus willing to lead us to virtue, and by virtue to happiness. O God! of what perfection, of what joy, of what blifs haft thou not made us fufceptible, by having called and ordained us to virtue, and having rendered it so venerable to us, and by having given and still continuing to give us the capacity of becoming, from fenfual, corrupted creatures, wife and virtuous men, and of ever becoming more completely fuch! O that we were all what thou wouldst have us to bethat we all fought our greatest advantage, our highest dignity in virtue fubmitted ourselves entirely to her gentle fway, fuffered ourselves to be en,

tirely animated and governed by her, and thereby ever brought ourselves nearer to thee, the eternal fount of goodness and perfection! How bleffed

fhould we not then be even here, and how much more bleffed hereafter! and with what complacency couldst thou not then look down upon us, thy children, and take thy pleasure in us! Oh then let virtue present herself to our mind in all her beauty, in all her irresistible attractions; caufe us thoroughly to feel her precedence above all that we elfe efteem and revere, and fo take poffeffion of our whole heart our moft cordial attachment! Enlighten us then, o Ged! with thy light, and quicken us with thy good fpirit, that we may judge rightly of the value of things and learn wifely to chufe between them. To this end accompany with thy bleffing the difcourfe that is now intended to conduct and encourage us thereto. Let not the preacher recommend and extol virtue to us in vain, caufe him to feel her worth himfelf, and fo impart to us thofe feelings, that the number and the zeal of her votaries may be augmented among us. We implore it of thee as the difciples of thy fon Jefus, and addrefs thee farther in his name and words: Our father, &c.

Q4

PROV. viii. 11.

Wifdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be defired are not to be compared to it.

T

"

'O despise virtue, and not to prize it enough, are two very different things. The former is a fault, of which but few are guilty; the latter an error which great numbers of perfons fall into. Virtue, my pious hearers, is of so harmless, so venerable, and fo captivating an afpect; fhe leaves us fo little to fear, and allows us to hope for fo much from thofe with whom we perceive her, and by whom we fee her act and operate; her fentiments and her conduct are so just, so harmonious, fo natural and fimple; her connection with our happiness and with the welfare of the whole community, is in most cases, at least in many, fo apparent; fhe is frequently fo indifpenfably neceffary; is conftantly fo beautiful; holds out fo much indulgence and patience to the frail and feeble: that neither great fagacity, nor erudition, nor habitual reflection, nor a fuperior degree of perfonal excellence, are requifite for allowing her a certain value, for acknowledging her to be fomething good and refpectable, and for fhewing her more or less esteem. The wife and the ignorant,

the

the good and the bad, the virtuous and the vicious, the confiderate man and the volatile youth, are all agreed in this general judgment on the value of virtue; and none will venture, unless he be under the deceitful influence of fome headstrong paffion, plainly and in direct terms to defpife her. Wherever confcience, wherever the fentiment of truth and goodness still remains in man, there virtue finds an advocate in the hearts of her enemies as well as of her friends, which dares not venture plainly to condemn her.

But, certain as this is, it is no lefs certain, that all men do not, that probably only the leaft part of mankind acknowledge the whole value of virtue, and fo highly prize, and fo inwardly revere her, as she deferves. The reverence fhewn to virtue is with great numbers more prejudice, or obfcure fenfation, than vital reflected knowledge, real fentiment, or firm internal conviction. They have a refpect for virtue at large and in general; but not as it appears in every particular incident, and every particular perfon. They hold it, indeed, to be fomething good and defirable; but they feldom, upon mature confideration and in a decided manner, give it the preference to all other good and defirable things. But feldom are we thoroughly perfuaded by fincere conviction, that we must not part with it on any account, that we can never purchase it at too dear a rate, nor make too great facrifices to it; that with it we poffefs all things, and without it nothing; that it is infinitely better to be poor and mean and unlearned and defpifed, but

virtuous,