SERM. like you; fo fhall your righteousness far

IX.

exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharifees, and ye shall enter into the kingdom of God: ye fhall enter into a place where there fhall be no pride or haughtiness to opprefs; no fraud or hypocrify to deceive you; but where truth and happiness, joy and fincerity, righteousness and peace fhall kifs each other.

O N

FOLLOWING THE MULTITUDE.

SERMON X.

EXODUS XXIII. 2.

Thou shalt not follow a Multitude to do

O great

Evil.

So is the power of example, fo SER M.

dangerous its prerogative, and fo

extenfive its influence over the human mind, that we can never be fufficiently on our own guard against the evils which it may create, and the inconveniencies that may arife from it. The defire of imitation is perceivable, even from the moment of our birth, in all the faculties of our fouls, and in all the actions and emotions of our bodies, infomuch, that every habit and gefture we acquire, and every fentiment we exprefs, is but the copy or transcript from those who are

about

X.

SERM. about us; it is a long time before we

X.

begin to know and feel that we are free
and accountable beings, and that it is
incumbent on us to think and act for
ourselves; nor even when we are arrived
at this neceffary truth, do we retain the
fteady and conftant conviction of it;
many
have not the capacity, many have
not the inclination, and many more have
not that industry and vigilance which
are required in the discovery of truth,
and in the practice of virtue: and hence
it arises, that so many of the blind fol-
low their blinder leaders into fin and
mifery; that fo many are drawn away
infenfibly, and misled by bad example
into the commiffion of those things
which their reafon rejects as ridiculous
and abfurd, or their confcience condemns
as finful and unwarrantable; and the
danger of the feduction must always rife
in proportion to the art and
power of

the