SERM.measure, the privilege itself, and are in a kind II. of fervitude; fo the fcripture represents it and

very juftly. A liberty to act against reason, and against the principal end of our being, is not worthy of the name, but is a real bondage.

This having been the wretched condition of mankind generally, fo far that they were dead in trefpaffes and fins, overcome of their corruptions, and by them brought into bondage, it was the glorious defign of christianity to recover them to true freedom; fo our Saviour himself exprefly declares in the 8th of St. John's gofpel, 31ft and 32d verses: Then faid Jefus to the Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth fhall make you free. This is the high privilege which by my religion ye fhall obtain ; if ye firmly believe the truths I have taught you, if you adhere to them conftantly, and improve them faithfully, you fhall be free. And when they misunderstood his words, apprehending that he referred to an outward fervitude to men which they never had been under, he explains himself at the 34th ver. Verily, verily, I fay unto you, whofoever committeth fin is the fervant of fin; to be freed from that flavery is the trueft freedom, which he intended to reftore to men; and he adds 36th ver. If the

Son

pro

H.

Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free SERM. indeed. Thus we are to understand the phetic declaration of Ifaiah, chap. Ixi. which our Lord applies to himself, Luke, iv. 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he bath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of fight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruifed. Agreeably to which the apostle in my text gives the gofpel the excellent character of the law of liberty, as he alfo doth in the ft chap. of this epiftle, and 25th ver. with the addition of this epithet, the perfect law of liberty; and as this is a very amiable reprefentation and moft worthy of our ferious attention, I will endeavour in the following difcourfe, firft, to explain it :. 2dly, I will confider the apostles direction to chriftians, that they should constantly endeavour to form their whole conduct, by a refpect to the future judgment, which will be dispensed according to the gofpel, the law of liberty. So Speak ye, and fo do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

First, To explain this character of the chriftian religion, that it is a law of liberty. It is evident that it is a law, that is, a reve velation of the will of god to men for the direction

SERM.direction of their lives, enforced by the fancII. tion of rewards and punishments. Yet our condition is not rendered fervile by it; for we ought not to imagine that every kind of restraint, and whatever is intended to give a direction to the exercise of these powers, which are the subject of liberty, that I say, every thing of this kind is inconfiftent with freedom. We can't in any cafe act without motives, but they do not make us flaves. The brutes are determined by the appearance of fenfible good, in which proportionably to the degrees and kind of their perception, they have liberty. The human nature being rational, reafon does not destroy its freedom, but establish it, and is the rule of it; then only are we indeed free when we conduct ourselves with understanding. Nay, the liberty of the Supreme Being, the most perfect of all, is always exercised with the exacteft wisdom and rectitude. Perhaps fome imagine that it is a high privilege to act without regard to any motive, and that the will should determine itself with a kind of fupremacy independant of reafon; but it cannot be, the very frame of our nature does not allow it, that our minds fhould not be influenced by motives; and whether is he more free who is governed by those of fenfe merely, or of reafon? It is true they are in this refpect alike free, that they equally act with

out

II.

out constraint; but furely it cannot be difficult SERM. to determine whether the liberty of a man or a beast be the most valuable, and whether the real excellence of that privilege does not always depend on, and is proportioned to the wifdom with which it is exercifed. A man in a fever, or a difturbance of mind from any other outward caufe, acts with all the appearance of freedom, and yet no one will fay that he is really free; which muft reft on this principle as its foundation, that the exercise of true human liberty depends on the exercise of reason, and still the lefs reafon, the lefs liberty.

Again, as the creator of all things is infinitely good, he must have bestowed this high prerogative on man, not to make him miferable, but to make him happy. But, if we confider the intire human conftitution, it will appear that the use of liberty without reason or against it, tends to mifery. We cannot be happy otherwise than in the harmony of our powers and affections; and if there must be harmony there must be government, a fubordination of some to others, because our affections have very different, nay, very oppofite tendencies. The man who gives himself wholy up to the direction of his fenfes and appetites, will find that the fuperior faculties

make

SERM. make contrary demands; and if those demands II. be not complied with, they give him very

great uneafinefs, the greatest often that the mind is capable of, fo that he cannot enjoy his lower pleasures without controul. It is true, that by a customary indulgence to vicious inclinations, that uneafinefs abates; but the peace and the liberty then enjoyed is unnatural, and rather a real ftupidity. Befides, that it is of no certain continuance; when outward gratifications fail, when afflictive events prefs the mind, or any other inevitable occafions of selfreflection, it comes then with a greater force and more exasperated feverity, because confcience has been fo long laid afleep, and the tormenting prefages of future mifery as the penal confequences of fin, are a most painful ingredient in it. On the other hand, when reafon and Confcience have their full force in the mind, when the inferior springs of action are fubject to them, and controuled by their law, there is an inward fecurity and peace, folid and lafting, and all the uneafinefs which arifes from the rebellion of the appetites and paffions, is over-ballanc'd by the very pleasure of thwarting and denying them. Upon the whole, then, it appears, that the only true. liberty fuitable to the human nature, worthy to be defired by us, and which tends to our real