pofterous and wild. That a course of conduct obliges us to run counter to our sense of moral good and evil, and to give up the fatisfactions founded on this fenfe, ought to be allowed its just weight in judging of the happiness of an agent; and to be confidered as a circumstance diminishing his pleafures, in the fame manner as if he ran counter to any of his other powers, or gave up any other gratifications.-Now, every fpecies of vice interferes directly with our fenfe of moral good and evil. It gratifies one part of our natures at the expenfe of our judgment and reason; and this is as much an argument proving its hurtfulness, as if it oppofed our defires of ease, or honour, or any of our other particular affections. There is, therefore, on this account, a fevere and cruel felf-denial in vice. At the fame time that it encroaches on many of the lower fprings of action, it puts a force upon the higheft. It obliges us to deny our confciences; and, these be ing most properly ourselves, it obliges us to practise a more proper and unnatural selfdenial than any denial of paffion and appetite.

But to fay no more on this head. What I have meant chiefly to inculcate is, that the course most conducive to happiness must be that which is moft agreeable to our whole natures; and that, this being evidently true

of a virtuous courfe, it follows that it is our greatest happiness.

Hitherto you have feen, that I have argued for the happiness of virtue from the confiderations, "that it affords our highest

powers their proper gratifications; that "it implies health, and liberty, and order "of mind; and that it is more agreeable "than any other end we can purfue, to all "parts of our natures taken as making to"gether one fyftem." There is a great deal more to be faid, to which I must requeft your attention; for,

Fourthly, It deferves your confideration, that much of the pleasures of vice itself depends on fome fpecies or other of virtue combined with it. All the joys we derive from friendship, from family connexions and affinities, from the love and confidence of our fellow creatures, and from the inter courfe of good offices, are properly virtus us joys: And there is no courfe of life which, were it deprived of these joys, would not be completely miferable. The enjoy ments,therefore,of vicious men are owing to the remains of virtuous qualities in them.There is no man fo vicious as to have nothing good left in his character; and could we conceive any fuch man; or meet with a perfon who was quite void of benevolence, temperance, good humour, fociablenefs, and honour

honour; we should deteft him as an odious monfter, and find that he was incapable of all happiness. Wickedness, when confidered by itfelf, and in its naked form, without any connexion with lovely qualities, is nothing but fhame, and pain, and diftrefs. If the debauchee enjoys any thing like happinefs, it is becaufe he joins to his debauchery fomething laudable; and his tender and focial feelings are not extirpated. In like manner; if a covetous man has any thing befides perplexity and gloominess in his heart, it is because there are fome virtues which he practifes, or because he disguises his covetoufnefs under the forms of the vir tues of prudence and frugality. This then being the cafe; fince even the pleasure that vice enjoys is thus founded upon and derived from virtuous qualities, how plain is it that thefe conftitute our chief good; and that the more of them we poffefs, so much the more muft we poffefs of the fources of pleasure?-The virtuous man is the moft generous man, the moft friendly, the moft goodnatured, the most patient and contented. He has moft of the fatisfactions refulting from fympathy, and humanity, and natural affection; and fo certain is it, that fach a perfon must be the happiest, that the wicked themselves, if in any respect happy, can be so only as far as they eith

er

er are the fame that he is, or think themfelves the fame.

Fifthly, I have already obferved, that virtue leaves us in poffeffion of all the common enjoyments of life. It is necessary now to add, that it goes much beyond this. -It not only leaves us in poffeffion of all innocent and natural pleasures; but improves and refines them. It not only interferes lefs with the gratification of our different powers than vice does; but renders the gratification of many of them more the caufe of pleasure. This effect it produces by restraining us to regularity and moderation in the gratification of our defires. Virtue forbids only the wild and extravagant gratification of our defires: That is, it forbids only fuch a gratification of them as goes beyond the bounds of nature, and lays the foundation of pain and mifery. As far as they were defigned by our Maker to yield pleasure, we are at liberty to indulge them; and farther we cannot go without lofing pleasure. It is a truth generally acknowledged, that the regular and moderate gratification of appetite is more agreeable than any forced and exorbitant gratification of it. Excefs in every way is painful and pernicious. We can never contradict nature without fuffering, and bringing upon ourfelves inconveniences.--Is there

there any man to whom food and fleep are so pleasant as to the temperate man? Are the mad and polluted joys of the fornicator and adulterer equal to the pure and chaste joys of the married ftate? Do pampered and loaded appetites afford as much delight as appetites kept under difcipline, and never palled by riot and licentioufnefs? Is the vile glutton, the loathfome drunkard, or the rotten debauchee, as happy as the fober and virtuous man who has a healthful body, a ferene mind, and general credit?

Thus is virtue a friend even to appetite. But this is not the obfervation I intended to infift on. What I meant here principally to recommend to your attention was, that virtue improves all the bleffings of life, by putting us into a particular difpofition for receiving pleasure from them. It removes those internal evils which pollute and impair the fprings of enjoyment within us. It renders the mind easy and satisfied within itfelf, and therefore more fufceptible of delight, and more open to all agreeable impreffions.. It is a common obfervation, that the degree of pleasure which we receive from any objects depends on the difpofition we are in to receive pleafure. Nothing is fweet to a depraved taste; nothing beautiful to a diftempered eye. This obfervation holds with particular force in the prefent cafe. Vice. D

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