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gard, confider her ways, and be wife. And, SER M. on the contrary, diligence is preffed as true wisdom. It is plain too, that the wisdom. Solomon teacheth comprehends the right government of the tongue, which other infpired writers reprefent as an eminent branch of religion, directing us when to be filent, and when to speak; but especially he ditecteth us to keep the heart, restraining furious paffions, preferving equanimity and composure of spirit, and exercifing humility and meeknefs.

But I need not infift on particulars; every one must be convinced that folly is, according to the judgment of Solomon, the character of every vice; and wisdom, of every virtue; and that his intention is to fet moral good and evil in that light, that we may chuse the one, and refuse the other. If any are inclined to become his difciples, and to form their lives by his inftructions, there is nothing they must be fo careful to preferve as their integrity, and with the utmost cau→ tion they must avoid every fin; to accomplish which ends is the invaluable benefit he propofeth by the wisdom he hath taught. When vice, of any fort, hath the greatest outward advantages on its fide, when multitudes

SERM. titudes are combined to enrich themselves I. by its unlawful gains; by their united coun

fels projects are form'd, and by their united force to be executed, fo that there is the greatest probability of fuccefs; and honours, profit, and pleasure, are in profpect to be attained by unrighteous methods, it is the province of wisdom to preferve us from the fnare, and to deliver us from all crooked and forbidden paths; chap. i. 10. My fon, when finners entice thee, confent thou not. And, chap. ii. 11, 12. Difcretion shall preferve thee, understanding fhall keep thee, to deliver thee from the way of the evil man.

And whereas in all the affairs and circum ftances of life we are furrounded with temp tations, and our own frailty is apt to betray us into fnares of one kind or other, the wisdom Solomon recommendeth is proposed as an univerfal defence and antidote against all evil, and that which will effectually preferve us from every deftructive way. Chap. iii. 21. My fon, keep found wisdom and difcretion, fo fhall they be life unto thy foul, and grace to thy neck; then shalt thou walk in thy way fafely, and thy foot shall not Stumble

This, I think, is fufficient to answer the SERM defign I at first proposed, that is, to shew I. the nature, characters, and uses of the wif dom Solomon recommendeth in the Proverbs. But there are two obfervations farther to be made, which both the nature of the subject, and the express declarations of the author direct us to. The first is, that virtue and integrity, to be preferved from the ways of fin and wickednefs, that it may amount to true wisdom, muft be the refult of deliberation and choice. Wisdom is the quality of a free felf-determining agent, whose fprings of action are under the guidance of his own understanding; chance, or neces fity, or outward impulfe, have no part in it. If you suppose a perfon reftrained from any vicious course by force, or that he efcapeth it by a natural incapacity, or by accident, without any defign of his own, without any exercise of understanding, or confideration of the grounds he goeth upon; the innocence of his life, if it may be called fo, hath nothing in it of wifdom, and therefore nothing of virtue. Difcretion confifteth in weighing maturely the motives of action, in comparing them together, and being determined freely by that which, upon the

whok,

SERM. whole, appeareth to be the jufteft and the I. best. From which it is a plain confequence,

that the more calm and fedate, the more
deliberate and free our minds are in acting,
our conduct is the wifer and the better.
For a man to stumble into the right road,
or be hurried with vehemence, without con-
fidering whether he goeth, or what he is
doing, is not worthy to be called either
wife or good. A contrary accident or im-
pulfe, for any thing in him to prevent it,
might as well have driven him the oppofite
way. And in this confifteth the folly of a
wicked courfe of life, that the unhappy
finner, as the prophet fpeaketh, Ifaiah xlvi.
8. doth not fhew himself a man; he doth
not act, according to the privilege of his
nature, as the refult of a calm inquiry into
the motives of action, but rather is acted
upon by external objects, driven by his ap-
petites and paffions, the weight which
moves the brutal kind, or as if human na-
ture were meerly a piece of mechanism.
Solomon's account is this, chap. xiv. 8. That
it is the wisdom of the prudent to understand

bis
way; and ver. 15. The fimple believeth
every word, but the prudent man looketh well
to his goings. Therefore he giveth this di-
rection

rection, chap. iv. 20. My fon, attend to my words; incline thine ear to my fayings. A rash, inconfiderate, thoughtless conduct, must come short of religion, because it is unworthy of wisdom; for it is plain, by all the notions which our reafon fuggefteth to us of the Deity, he will moft approve his reasonable creatures when they act the most deliberately, and have impartially confidered all things which ought to determine them, in order to their making the best choice they can. It followeth then, that the more precipitately we act, still the lefs religiously, if religion be indeed wifdom; and always when we find ourselves vehemently preffed to any defigns or measures, fo as to exclude confideration, which is often the unhappiness of men, we have the more reason to fufpect that our minds are under an undue influence, and in a tempted ftate; for confideration leadeth to virtue and religion, but the views of fin and folly shun it as a mortal enemy.

.

The fecond obfervation from the account which this book giveth us of religious virtue, and the light in which it places it as wisdom, is, that a good man ufeth forefight, and looketh to the laft iffue of things, that

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SERM.

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