Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/448

 he means to make the good part of his conduct balance the bad, is to be censured and instructed; if he means to gain the applause of men, and to make outward sanctity an instrument of mischief, he is to be detested and avoided; but he that really endeavours to obey God in secret, neglects part of his duty, if he omits the solemnities of publick worship. The form of godliness, as it consists in the rites of religion, is the instrument given us by God for the acquisition of the power; the means as well as the end are prescribed; nor can he expect the help of grace, or the Divine approbation, who seeks them by any other method than that which infinite Wisdom has condescended to appoint.

SERMON XIV.

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." xxvi. 3.

In order to the explication of this text, or the enforcement of the precept implied in it, there seems to be no necessity, either of proving, that all men are desirous of happiness, or that their desire, for the most part, fails of being gratified. Every man is conscious, that he neither performs, nor forbears any thing upon any other motive than the prospect, either of an immediate gratification, or a distant reward; that whether he complies with temptation, or repels it, he is still influenced by the same general regard to his own felicity: but that when he yields to the solicitation of his appetite, or the impulse of his passions, he is overborn by the prevalence of the object before him; and when he adheres to his duty, in opposition to his present interest, he is influenced by the hopes of future happiness.

That almost every man is disappointed in his search