they are; if we confider them in their connection with the will of God and with the laws of order; if we connect the present with the past and with the future; if we have constantly in view the whole of our condition, the whole of our defignation, and judge partially neither of the one nor the other; if laftly we regard and use all as means to our improvement and completion: fo fhall we, even when we meet with misfortune, not cease to be happy. We shall not fail of perceiving the great good, the ef fential good that still remains to us, we shall feel in a lively manner the great preponderance of it to the evil, and be fatisfied in the grateful enjoyment of it. Hold not therefore every misfortune for unhappinefs; complain not of a deficiency in happiness immediately on undergoing a deficiency in the goods of fortune; by no means rank every unfortunate perfon in the class of the unhappy; accurately dif criminate between them in your own condition, and in the condition of mankind in general, if ye would avoid committing the most pernicious errors in this moral statement.

To conclude; the laft caufe, my pious hearers, why not fo much happiness is to be found among us, as might be, is this: we judge of moft matters too partially throw every thing, as it were, out of the combination in which it stands, and whereby it is that which it is; and thus deprive many goods of their greatest value, and many evils of the utility and the consequences whereby they ceafe to be evil.

We

We consider, we enjoy, we use the things of this world not fufficiently in their connection with the whole, in their connection with the will and the views of the creator, in their connection with the nature and deftination of man, in their connection with the all-unfolding and all-completing futurity. We judge of the whole immenfe fabric, by fmall diftinct fragments of the whole of the infinitely extending chain of human events and fortunes, by the first link of it alone. Whereas, did we but accustom ourselves to fee farther and to contemplate farther; to feparate nothing that belongs to fomething else; to force nothing out of its natural combination; and to confider everything, as much as poffible, in its varied connection, according to its different relations and effects and confequences: how many objects would then affume a totally different afpect, how many fad and dismal appearances would then put on a brighter form, how many agreeable circumftances wear a still more agreeable complexion! How many difquieting doubts, how much forrow and trouble would then be quite removed! How very much would the amount of our agreeable ideas and fenfations, the fum total of our happiness be augmented!

Ye know now, my pious hearers, the principal caufes that diminish and confume your happiness. Let it be your care to remove them, and to avoid their baleful influence. Improve therefore that I may comprise all that has been faid in few words - Improve

Improve therefore carefully your capacity for being happy enjoy all the good that ye have, and that befalls you, with more confcioufnefs and confideration require and expect not things impoffible and incompatible: heedlessly pass by no fource of true fatisfaction and of pure pleasure, but draw from them all feek for happiness more within you than without you distinguish carefully between adversity and unhappiness; and judge of particulars in their connection with the whole, the evil in its connection with the good, the prefent in its connection with the future. So will you infallibly not strive in vain after happiness, but perpetually be advancing from one degree of it to another.

SERMON XLIX.

Caufes of the Failure of Happiness among Mankind.

GOD, thou haft formed all thy creatures for

happiness, and leaveft none of them deficient in the necessary means of attaining the proper end of their being. Sooner or later, in this way or in that, thou wilt conduct them all to their object, and glorify thyfelf in all as the God of love. To us, whom thou haft favoured, both as men and as chriftians, with fo many advantages, to us thou haft greatly facilitated and fmoothed the path to happinefs, and rendered us thereby capable of a much fuperior degree of it. The more we understand of thee, our father, and thy gracious difpofitions towards us; the more we are acquainted with our nature and our destination: the more contented and happy might and ought we to be even in the present life. And if we are not fo, if we complain of a want of happiness, it is certainly our own fault. Instead of searching for truth, and following her fafe and steady light, we allow ourselves to be deceived by prejudices, dazzled by errors, and pursue a variety of deceitful and fugacious fantoms, glittering before us like the false fires which embarrass the benighted travel

traveller; ftill we advance, and ftill the meteor flies; in vain we double our fpeed, and reach after what is not; the gay delufion ftill mocks our toil and eludes our grasp; yet we still pursue. At last, having fufficiently sported with our credulity, it vanishes at once, and leaves us on the brink of a precipice. We form wrong conceptions of thee and of ourfelves, of our present and future destination: and how then can we fail of being difcontented and wretched! Do thou, almighty parent, lead us back from our deviations, by caufing the light of truth to illuminate us with a brighter beam, and to lead us on a fafer path. Grant, that we may continually advance in the knowledge of thee and of ourselves, and more and more willingly and faithfully live up to that knowledge. Blefs to this end the confiderations in which we are now to engage. Let them render us thoroughly attentive to the causes of our deficiency in happinefs, and continually more careful to avoid and remove them. In filial confidence we ask this of thee as the votaries of thy son Jefus, and trusting in his promises we farther addrefs thee: Our father, &c.

PROV. iii. 21.

My fon, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep found wif dom and difcretion.

EXPERIENCE but too well informs us, that numbers of people are far lefs happy, than, according to their natural dispositions and capacities,

they