This deviation difcovers it felf. one, that is, 1. In false ends. I. like are we in our converfation, to our felves in retirement? How unlike are we in the devotions of our closets, to our felves in the employment of our feveral profeffions? How calm, fedate, wife, holy, and refolv'd in the one? How anxious and uneafy; how foolish, earthy, and inconftant in the other? But in nothing does our deviation from reafon more evidently appear, than in two things. Firft, In our propofing to our felves falfe and irrational ends of life; and Secondly, In our infincerity in pursuing the true and rational happiness. As to the First, who fees not how the life of man is perverted, the force and tendency of nature crook'd and bow'd to defigns utterly unfuitable to the capacities and faculties of a rational mind, and to the great end of our creation? Who can look into the life of man, and not easily conclude, that his chief aim is wealth and greatness, not happinefs? Or, which is fomething fillier, that his defign is fome unneceffary accomplishment, not virtue and goodness; or a vain efteem and popular applause, not the peace and wisdom of his mind? Who fees not how greedily men pursue those sensual fatisfactions, which natu rally tend to enflave the foul, and to extinguish the rational pleasure and vigour of our minds? In a word, wealth, and honour, and power, and pleasure, are the idols of mankind thefe are the things for which they live, for which they love and value life: thefe are the glo : rious poffeffions which enflame our emulations and our industry: thefe are the things which the unfortunate man envies, and the fortunate honours thefe are the things which diftinguifh and discriminate mankind into their feveral ranks and degrees, the contempt or efteem of the world; the refpects and affronts; the love and hate of mankind being ever proportion'd to the degrees of wealth and power, which they fancy others poffeffed of. To thefe noble ends the fage and experienc'd parent trains up his young ones, inftilling daily into them all the fuitable maxims of covetousness and ambition; and judging of their proficiency and hopefulness, by the progrefs they make towards thefe ends; that is, the more enflav'd they are, the more hopeful, the more promifing is their youth. Nor are men more zealous in pursuing the falfe, than cold and infincere in pursuing the true ends of life, virtue and happiness. This is 2. Coldness in pur fuit of our true end. too too evident to any one who fhall confider how fond we are of our diseases and our errors, how impatient of that inftruction or reproof, which tends to cure, undeceive, and difabuse us; how fluggish we are in the study of important truths, how liftlefs and remifs in the use of thofe means which conduce to virtue, to the freeing of our minds, and to the confirming our refolutions. And therefore, laftly, how light, wavering, and unconftant we are in the practice of those things which right reafon convinces us to be our duty. P 4 СНАР. CHAP. II. The particular and immediate cause of ill fuccefs. Three more particular and immediate caufes of ill fuccefs affigned. 1. The frame and contexture of human nature. 2. Vicious education. 3. Vicious converfation; the natural effects of which are; 1. Inconfideratenefs; 2. Falfe notions; 3. Vngovernableness and impotency of will; 4. ไทfincerity; 5. Levity and inconftancy. The whole exemplified. A LL this that I have faid in the former chapter, is plain and evident: we see and feel it, and bemoan it; but yet we live on in the fame manner ftill: whence therefore is this infatuation of our understanding, that enflaves us to falfe and irrational ends? Whence is that impotence of mind? Whence is that infincerity that deludes our defires, and produces nothing but feeble and unsuccessful endeavours? Neither is this a difficult matter to discover that we live and act irrationally, proceeds evidently from three caufes. First, The contexture and frame of our nature, Secondly, A vicious education. Thirdly, Vicious converfation, The irrational de. The firft fpring or fource of fires and actions, is the contrivance and compofition of our nature: our fenfual and brutish appetites have their foun The contexture of nature the firft caufe of an irrational life. dation in our natural constitution, as well as our rational affections: for we are made up of body as well as foul. Hence is it that there is in man a doubtful fluctuation and indetermination to different objects; the reason of the mind, and the appetite of the body dif tracting and dividing him by their different propofals; the impreffions of fenfe and reprefentations of reafon fucceffively awakening in him very different, and generally very contrary defires; whereas angels by the perfection, and beafts by the imperfection of their nature, are determin'd and confin'd to their proper and neceffary objects: man is left to a strange uncertainty, undetermin'd by the reafons of the mind, or the inftinct or appetite of the body; mov'd indeed fucceffively by each, perfectly govern'd and over-rul'd by neither. But it were well for man, that the inclinations of these two different principles were fo juftly pois'd, that he were naturally left in a true liberty and pure indifference, equally able to follow the dictates of reafon and the appetites of flesh and blood: but, alas! how impetuous are the lufts of the body! how irresistible are those paffions which the objects of sense, aided by a carnal imagination, raise in us! on the other fide, how cold are the representations of reason, when we moft need its affiftance and authority! how faint and feeble the natu ral ral inclination of the foul to what is truly good and great! how remote and diftant the rewards of virtue; and confequently how weak and cold their influence, and how faint and impere fect is the pleasure that attends it, abstracted from future rewards in all other minds besides those who are arriv'd in fome fort at perfection! 'Tis true, at fome seasons and upon fome occafions, the remonftrances of confcience are fo fharp, its reproaches fo bitter, the difdain and confufion of the mind fo unfufferable, that they render that which is a pleasure to the fenfe, a torment to the foul; and its agreeableness to our imagination cannot make amends for its harfhnefs and contradiction to our reafon. But, alas! thefe are but short-liv'd fits which foon pafs over; for business diverts, pleasure inchants, and repeated violence offer'd to our reason, ftupifies and deadens the natural confcience; and what is worse than all this, a filly and vicious education does generally fo corrupt our judgments, and prepoffefs us with vain and foolish affections, that the checks of confcience are extremely feldom, and extremely faint, unlefs the commiffion of fome grofs fin do awaken it by a deep and deadly wound. This is, 2. A fecond caufe of that general apoftacy and defection from reafon fo notorious in the word, A filly and vicious education. How well does it fare with children, when they derive only their original corruption from their parents? Ah! how often are their weak difpofitions to vice nurs'd and cherish'd by their Education a fecond caufe of man's mifery. parents |