of religious impreffions, how deeply it is fmitten with fenfe and with a love of virtue. Could we, in this crisis, whilft this empire of reafon and religion lasts, and the heart is thus exercifed with wifdom and bufied with heavenly contemplations-could we see it naked as it is -stripped of its paffions, unfpotted by the world, and regardless of its pleafures-we might then fafely rest our cause, upon this fingle evidence, and appeal to the moft fenfual, whether Solomon has not made a juft determination here, in favour of the house of mourning?-not for its own fake, but as it is fruitful in virtue, and becomes the occafion of fo much good. Without this end, forrow I own has no use but to fhorten a man's days-nor can gravity, with all its ftudied folemnity of of look and carriage, ferve any end but to make one half of the world merry, and impose upon the other. Confider what has been faid, and may God of his mercy bless you! Amen. |