cause they confider the Sunday as over at that time: for they begin to observe it strictly the evening before, and we do not. But ftill many of them think even this an infufficient defence of the practice; though travellers may happen, and no wonder, to be chiefly acquainted with the freer fort. That it doth no harm, is easily said, but hard to be proved. And were it to do but little, where men have been long accustomed to it, and are withheld, by a more general feriousness, and a feverer exercise of authority, from abufing it; yet it may do infinite mischief, where it comes recommended by the charms of novelty; and is fo unlikely, fo impoffible, to be confined within moderate bounds, as in this moft licentious nation. We have much more need therefore to learn from foreign countries their practice of going to church both the morning and afternoon of the day, than of recreations in the close of it: for it is extremely perverfe to reject their authority in the former cafe, while we rely on it in the latter. And furely, upon the whole, every good, every prudent perfon, instead of being zealous to propagate things of this nature, must sée cause to discourage them, at leaft by abftaining from them; and to labour in every way, both for their own fakes and that of the public, to preserve, (what there is much want of increafing,) the small remainder of Christianity that is left amongst us. Confidered in our private capacities, our business here is, not to please ourselves without regard to confequences, but fo to spend the few Sabbaths and few days, which we have to come on earth, that we may be qualified, at the end of them, to enter into that eternal Sabbath, that rest, which remaineth for the people of God* in heaven. And confidered as a nation, we have great cause to remember, for our direction, the promise and the warning, which God gave the Jews for theirs: If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing my pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight; the holy of the Lord, honourable—I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the beritage of Jacob thy father: But if ye will not hearken unto me, to ballow the Sabbath day-Iwill kindle a fire in the gates of ferufalem, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, and shall not be quenched ‡. SER • Heb. iv. 9. † Ifa. Iviii. 13, 14. + Jer. xvii, 27. On the Great, but Little UNDERSTOOD, DUTY OF MODERATION IN SENTIMENT AND MANNERS. PHIL. iv. 5. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at THE band. HE word moderation fignifies, in the original, that reafonableness of mind, which curbs the exorbitancies of all our paffions, appetites and imaginations; confining us to proper degrees of being affected by the things about us, and of exerting ourselves in relation to them: from which larger meaning, it is naturally and easily contracted to express more especially the due restraints of defire and anger, fear and forrow. In difcourfing upon it, therefore, I shall so treat of the temper in general, as to have a more immediate regard to these inftances of it in particular, whilst I endeavour to recommend the virtue of moderation : I. From its conduciveness to the practice of our duty. here on earth. III. From its importance to that fucceeding ftate, the near approach of which the text places in our view. I. I would fhew how conducive the keeping all our inward movements within juft limits, is to the practice of our duty. But here it must be obferved, that a merely natural vehemence of spirit, is not strictly an actual fin, though it be one of the confequences of our original depravity, which we have ufually much cause to lament. For it always puts us on a harder harder trial than perfons of a cooler temperament have to undergo. Yet ftill, the greater is our virtue if we stand this trial; and the lefs our guilt, if we fometimes fail, from infirmity or furprise. But if we act wrong, through grofs negligence or deliberate indulgence, that we were strongly inclined to it, is no good excufe; for as we could not but know our inclination, we ought to have watched against it, and checked it. Therefore it is not the warmth of temper with which we are born, and against which we strive, but the wil ful or heedless indulgence of it, that unfits us for the duties of life. We are all of us very fenfible, in the main, what thofe duties are. We seldom err much in any particular, when we really defire to know what is incumbent on us: the fitness of pious and virtuous behaviour is evident to our understandings, and the esteem of it natural to our hearts. A ftranger to human affairs would, from this account, immediately conclude, that surely scarce any one ever miffed then of doing as he ought. We are unhappily too well acquainted with them to judge thus; and fee the cafe to be fo very much otherwise, that, had we no other guide to direct our inquiries than our own reason, it would be impoffible for us to fay, with any certainty, how we come to be fo inconfiftent with ourselves. But when once the fcripture hath taught us, that we have loft the primitive ftrength and uprightnefs in which God created man, all the rest is easy. For we are surrounded here, on every fide, with worldly objects, capable of giving us pleasure and pain; and of stirring up, in our corrupted natures, exceffive emotions of defire, hope, fear, anger, forrow. These paffions importunately folicit our attention; and, according to the degree in which they are gratified, engross it to themselves, till we find so many earthly things to long after or to dread, to love or to hate, to rejoice in or to lament; and that with fuch immoderate earneftnefs, that virtue and religion are feldom thought of, and feldomer still to any good purpose: their obligations are, at Tome times, with miferable fubtlety eluded; and at others refolutely and desperately broken through, even when we fee what we are doing, and fee the confequences. 6 Thefe These are the daily effects of being too strongly moved by the things of this life. And they are bitter ftreams, that will flow till the fountain of our hearts is healed and purified by faith, in that grace which our bleffed Lord hath procured for us by his death, and offers to us in his gofpel. Whatever we allow to make the greatest impreffion upon our minds, that will have the greatest influence on our conduct; and by degrees exclude every thing elfe. It is our Saviour's determination, that no man can ferve two mafters ; that is, when their commands interfere. We may, indeed, change from one to another, and fo be faithful to neither, and displease both. But whatever we permit for the present to engage our attention, that for the present we shall purfue, and pass by or trample upon every thing else which may stand in our way to it. Thus, if we indulge confiderably the love of pleafure, of gain, of advancement, we may defign indeed, or think we defign, along with it, to keep within the bounds of temperance, of justice, of humility, and preserve a due regard to the interests of a future state; but these purposes will be ineffectual: the objects to which our fallen nature is prone, will, by the help of but a little partiality in their favour, fill our fouls, and bias our actions. Again: if we suffer ourfelves to be discompofed by the happiness of others, we shall grow envious; if by injuries from others, we shall grow revengeful. If we let the more harmless paffions of fear and forrow become predominant, we fhall unfit ourselves for ufefulness in our stations, and weaken our sense of gratitude for the bleffings of life. If we only give a loose to unmeaning fancy and caprice, we shall degrade the dignity of our species, and be hurried, not only into folly, but fin. In what way foever inclination bears us along, beyond the fober dictates of reason, we shall be continually, and almoft irresistibly, tempted to overlook and tranfgrefs those rules of duty, which a better command of ourfelves would have enabled us to perceive, and difpofed us to obferve. Our Maker expects from us, that we should first measure the value of things rightly, then efteem them fuitably to it. And 2 Kings i. 21, 22. James iii. 2. + Acts xv. 9. And almost the only error by which we fail of this, is being affected too much by the concerns of the prefent world, and from thence too little by thofe of the next. There is, it must be owned, a great variety of wickedness amongst men, and fins directly oppofite to each other. But in one point they agree notwithstanding; that the commiffion of them all is greatly owing to the fame inconfiderate eagernefs, by which we paint to ourselves things here below in much too ftrong colours, and receive fuch deep impreffions from them, as efface, for the time at least, all the dictates of prudence and of confcience. Indeed, over-much vehemence, even in matters that appear to have no tendency towards guilt, is both wrong in itself, and habituates men to the fame vehemence on worse occafions. Nay, zeal for things that feem, or even are, good and laudable, if it exceed bounds, frequently mifguides great numbers, either to mistake very strangely what they mean to aim at, or to use methods for attaining it which are quite unjuftifiable. This hath been fo dreadfully the cafe in political and religious disputes, that every one difpofed to uncommon · heat about either, hath peculiar need to examine his heart, whether what he imagines to be neceffary earnestness in the cause of God or his country, be not wholly or in part finful impetuofity; and to watch carefully against that extreme, which may be as bad, or worse than the lukewarm indifference of others. Moderation then, about every thing relative to this world, is highly requifite for the practice of our duty. I proceed now to fhew you, II. That it is not lefs for the prefent happiness of our lives. Every one of our paffions, appetites and inclinations, when raised too high, is capable of giving us very uneafy agitations of mind; and fome, if indulged at all beyond reafon, are grievously painful to ourselves, and many ways prejudicial to thofe amongst whom we live. They, of courfe, will be enticed or provoked to the fame unreasonableness of which they have feen us guilty and thus it is, that fins and fufferings. propagate one another, and increafe without end. But here I would confider more diftinctly the bad confequences of immoderate defire and anger, fear and grief. Kk VOL. III. They |