our Defires are riveted 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 Act muft weaken, is, by a continued Reiteration 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 celestial and spiritual Objects cannot fuit a Soul, which being long and deeply immersed 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 bleffed Immortality with himself: But as he is an

habitual

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

So far, perhaps, you may be willing to allow, there is no Colour of Injuftice: 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 Pleasure; they are fo many kindly Forewarnings of the neceffary Effects of a rooted Averfion to Goodnefs. For it may be necessary 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 ceffary, that if every Region of foy and Comfort throughout the Creation be peopled with unoffending Beings; the defperately 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 themselves, or be discharged

be ne

discharged upon their Fellow-Criminals, SERM.IV. which, if let loofe, 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 superadded; 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 disproportioned 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 its 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 its numerous Train

of

SERM.IV. of ill Confequences; the Confequences being fuch, that if unrestrained it would foon involve the whole World in one promifcuous Ruin and Defolation. It is true, one Man cannot do all this Mifchief. But then one Man, who, for Inftance, acts unjustly, contributes his Part to the Introduction. of univerfal Disorder and Mifery. If all fhould act as unjustly as himself, (and all have as much Right as any one Man) the Foundations of the moral World would be quite out of Course.

To explain this by a familiar Instance, one Perfon robs another of a small Sum of Money; he is taken and fuffers Death for the Fact: Now what Proportion is there between the Punishment and the Crime; between depriving a Man of what he perhaps could very well spare, and depriving the Perfon that did it of his Life, of his all in this World? None at all, if we confider the Crime in this Light only: But if we view it in all its Tendencies, then the Crime is adequate to the Punishment; fince it tends to tender Property, and what is valuable in this Life, precarious, and to subvert the Peace of Society.

We know not, we cannot know, how

far

may

far the Confequences of any one Sin SERM.IV. extend, how far the Influence of our Behaviour may affect all that lie within the Sphere of our Activity, thofe beneath us, and about us, our Domeftics, Relations, and Neighbours. And thefe again may fpread the Contagion farther. Those that are vicious in a lefs Degree, however they may blame the Corruption of the World in general, are acceffary to that very Corruption. It is here as in a Battle: Every Perfon who fled, is apt to shift off the Blame from himself, and to lay it upon his FellowSoldiers: But if each Perfon, who gave way, had stood his Ground; what was a general Rout, would have been a complete Victory. Sin then deferves the greatest Evil, because it is opposite to the greatest Good, the univerfal Intereft: and as a confirmed Habit of Sin implies the Love of it, a continual Love of what is oppofite to the greatest Good, must continually or for ever deserve the greatest Evil.

We may harangue as long as we please upon God's Benevolence. But no Arguments can be drawn from it to foften the feeming Rigour of the divine Sanctions. For univerfal Benevolence muft confult the Good

of