Religious Pleasures productive of the greatest Happiness.

PROV. III. 17.

Her Ways are Ways of Pleasantness.

HE turbulent Paffions, fuch as SERM. X.
Anger and Revenge, are disagree-

able to our Nature, because they are

open and declared Enemies to our Repose: they alarm the Soul at their first Insurrection, and afterwards command it with an overbearing Tyranny. But Pleasure steals upon Us by infenfible Degrees, fmooths it's Paffage to the Heart by a gentle and infinuating Addrefs, and foftens and difarms the Soul of all it's Strength. It is more therefore to be guarded against, as being more dangerous, and what we have a greater Inclination to. To arm Us then against the Deceitfulness of unlawful fenfual Delights, I have chofen the Words of Solomon, which

fet

SERM. X. fet before Us the genuine and fincere Plea

fure which Religion affords. Her Ways are Ways of Pleasantness. In difcourfing on which Words I fhall endeavour to fhew,

I. First, That the Pleasures of Religion and Virtue are superior to the Pleasures of the Animal Life; and,

II. Secondly, How neceffarily those must be disappointed, who place their Happiness in any Thing exclufive of Religion and Virtue.

First then I am to fhew, that the Pleafures of Religion and Virtue are fuperior to the Pleasures of the Animal Life.

And here we expect to be told by the Men of Pleasure, that spiritual Satisfactions are nothing but the Product of an over-heated Fancy, and mere Enthusiasm. But we except against them as very incompetent Judges. A good Man by tasting the Pleasures of Senfe, as far as they are confiftent with Reason, is very well qualified to form a true Eftimate of them. But the fenfual Man, by being an utter Stranger to Religion, is no more able to make a Judg

ment

ment of the Satisfaction it yields, than a SERM. X. Man of no Taste is to pass a decifive Verdict upon the Elegancies of Poetry, or an Idiot upon a Point of Philosophy.

Difmiffing him therefore as an improper Judge, we appeal to the Virtuous for the Superiority of rational Delights; -whe

ther others are not for the most Part either idle Diverfions to lull our unquiet Thoughts to fleep, to footh the Mind into a Forgetfulness of itself, and to make Life pass away unperceived; or rather, whether they are not tumultuous Joys, that put Us in a Ferment, and give the Soul too fudden and violent Emotions. Whereas virtuous Pleasures produce a ferene and lasting Composure of Mind; they fatisfy, but never fatiate. They flow not, like a Torrent, with a fhort-lived Noife and Impetuofity; but like a peaceful River in its own Channel, ftrong without Violence, and gentle without Dulness.

But what am I going to prove that he who strives to resemble God in Holiness and Purity, muft have fuperior Gratifications to him, who makes himself like the Beafts that perish? A Man that is funk into Brutality may indeed deny, that those

SERM. X. Delights must be the higheft, which are feated in the highest and noblest Part of Us, the Soul: but all the World befides will own, that the Joys which fpring from a distempered Appetite, and are accompanied with a Feverishness of Defire, are infinitely inferior to thofe of a well-regulated Mind, and a Confcience void of Offence towards God and towards Man.

We fee in feveral Inftances, that Men prefer their Reputation before the Gratification of a brutal Appetite, when put in Competition with each other; and though free from Confcience, they are yet Slaves to Fame. Now the Pleafure of a good Name is feated in the Mind; it comes not from Sensation but Reflection. They own then, that an intellectual Good is preferable to the grofs Indulgencies of the Animal Life. But if Reputation, which is but the Shadow of Virtue, claims the Ascendant and Superiority over fenfual Enjoyments ; certainly Virtue, which is the Substance itfelf, ought to take Place of them in the true and impartial Eftimate of Things.

I would gladly perfuade the Voluptuary to try an Experiment, and then tell me, when he has cherished the Worthy, and relieved

1.

relieved the Diftreffed by fome well-placed SERM. X. Act of Charity; whether the Consciousness

of having made an human Heart to fing for

Foy, and the Bleffing of him that was ready

to perish come upon him, did not impart a more liberal, manly, and unallayed Complacency, than all the cheating Blandishments and Allurements of Senfe. The latter are the Pleasures of the Brute; whereas the former are the Pleasures of the Man, fhall I fay? rather of good Angels, nay even of God, who, wanting nothing himself, fupplies the Wants of every other Being. And what can more tranfport, what can more ennoble the Soul, than to be so temperate, as to have as few Wants as poffible in ourselves; and yet so charitable as to do as much Good as poffible to others? A remarkable Inftance of this difinterested Virtue, and the fuperior Satisfaction that attends great and worthy Actions, we have in the generous Scipio, who, in the Bloom of Youth, returned his fair Captive, a Mafter-piece of Beauty, to her future Husband and Parents, whom Conqueft gave him an abfolute Right to, in the Opinion of the Heathen World. When he refused a confiderable Sum of Gold, which was offered

by