juft limits, it is obvious, that it will be most prudent to curb and restrain it, and act in fo guarded a manner as to be fecure against tranfgreffion. And in all queftionable cafes whatsoever, if we ferve GoD with fincerity, we fhall make it our first care to enfure our integrity, and to avoid even doubtful and fufpected, as much as avowed and apparent, guilt.

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From these various tefts and evidences, then, which have been mentioned, we may form a judgment of the fincerity and integrity of our heart. If we act, not merely from fecular views and confiderations, but from principles of religion and fentiments of duty; if we are equally religious and honest in private, where GOD is the fole fpectator of our deportment, as when we appear upon the public stage of the world; if we endeavour to pay an equal obedience to the whole law, and mean not, by a ftricter attention to fome duties, to atone for the violation or neglect of others; if we find that our integrity is determined, and proof against feducements,

and that in doubtful cafes we always take the part which will beft fecure a good conscience, and guard against every approach even to fufpected guilt; we may conclude, that we obey the instruction in the text, and that we ferve God in fincerity and in truth.

SER

THE in

'HE heart, in ancient philosophy, and in the language of moralists, is fuppofed to be the feat of the foul; and is ufed by the facred and other moral writers, to denote the defires, propenfions, paffions, and affections of our nature: and to keep the heart, fignifies, duly to regulate and govern those paffions and affections by the dictates of reafon: A duty than which none can be more neceffary and effential to our prefent peace and future felicity:

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licity: "For out of the heart are the iffues of life;" i. e. according as we guard our hearts, our lives will be well or ill 'conducted; and rendered, in confequence, happy or miferable. Our happiness, we may be affured, muft depend upon the due regulation and conduct of our paffions: for if rational beings could, like inferior creatures, find their happiness in implicitly yielding to every impulse of appetite and paffion, our Creator would not have laid us under the obligation of laws and precepts, but left us to the free, unreftricted indulgence of inclination. Selfgovernment, then, or a due fubjection of the paffions to reafon, is a duty abfolutely requifite to our well-being.

In difcourfing on which, I fhall confider, If, When our paffions become culpable; 2dly, How much our happiness depends on the right government of our paffions; and, lastly, By what means this government may be attained.

I. Let us confider when our paffions become culpable. One fect there was of

ancient

ancient philofophers, who condemned all emotion of mind, held every paffion to be culpable, because inconsistent with that serenity of temper, that equal tranquillity of mind, which they thought fhould ever be preferved. They admonished their difciples, therefore, to fupprefs and extinguish all paffions, as incompatible with wisdom, and unbecoming the character of a rational being. But this inftruction was an affected and impracticable refinement, illfuited to the nature of man, who is a compound of reafon and paffion. Our affection to fome objects, and averfion to others, are not creatures of the mind, depend not our own choice; they are of Nature's planting; nor can we, by any act of the will, lay afide thofe innate difpofitions, and with equal indifference meet health or fickness, pleasure or pain. As our nature is the work of an infinitely wife and good Being, we cannot fuppofe there are any principles or affections planted in us in vain, or that ought to be totally extirpated; nor can we think, that he would form us with

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