it is no lefs manifeft that the causes of them lie within us, and that properly we have none but ourselves to accuse on that account. Would you then remedy thefe complaints, my pious hearers, would ye enjoy more focial fatisfaction; would ye enjoy it more pure and complete: avoid the errors which have hitherto deprived you of it. of it. Set in earnest about acquiring thofe qualities of mind and heart, which may render you capable of it. Cultivate your understanding with care; exercise yourselves in reflecting on whatever ye fee and hear, and thus collect a ftore of knowledge, various, useful and entertaining, which ye may exchange with your brethren against theirs. Never make your appearance in their company without being accompanied and animated by all the focial virtues. Shut up the avenues to your heart against thofe inimical paffions which disturb the peace and kill the pleasure of fociety, against envy, jealousy, pride and vanity. Learn to esteem and honour your fellow creatures as men, without regard to outward diftinctions; learn fincerely to rejoice in whatever is beautiful and good, let who will be the poffeffor and the doer of it; learn to turn your attention more on what is good and excellent, than on what is bad and defective in your companions. Let benevolence and humanity be the foul of all your difcourfes and actions, the rule of your judgments, the standard of your pretenfions. Take a real intereft in all the concerns of others. Rejoice with the joyful, weep with the mourner; ne

ver be absent and reserved, expand your heart to every fenfation of humanity and generous affection, and likewise impart your fentiments without anxious refervation to others. Never expect from men and among mankind perfectly pure and unmingled pleasure; expect from no one more than according to his capacities, in his circumftances and in his fituation he is able to afford, and if you yourself ftand in need of indulgence and candour, let others experience the fame. Never require only to receive, without giving anything in return; never pretend to be the principal perfonage of the company, or to perform the capital part in it; never ufurp exclufively to yourself all the means of entertainment and pleasure. Receive and give, learn and teach alternately, and do and enjoy all things in common. At the fame time, try and eftimate the value of things, not by the reigning prejudices, but by just perceptions. In the selection and enjoyment of your pleafures be not fwayed by the laws of a fickle and often tyrannical fashion, but by the laws of found fenfe, and your own experience. Seek rather to be contented and pleased than to appear fo. Be not ashamed of preferring the care for the health of your mind and your body to every other care, and even of facrificing to it the reputation for good breeding and polished manners. And if it fo happen that you muft after all comply with the prevailing cuftoms and manners, never do it fo blindly and unconditionally, as to become a flave to them. Maintain your native

AA 3

native liberty with prudent moderation, and never moleft others in the use of theirs. If ye follow thefe precepts of wisdom and virtue, my pious hearers, certainly many, nay moft of the complaints of the deficiency in focial pleasure will be remedied, and ye will draw real happiness from this fource also.

SERMON LII.

Caufes of the Deficiency in Domeftic Pleasure and
Domeftic Happiness.

GOD, thou haft caufed us all to proceed from one blood; we compofe but one family, whofe father and provider thou art. What obliga

tions to mutual efteem and affection arife from this alliance! And what fources of focial pleasure and of social happiness are opened to us by it! May we fulfil thefe duties with ever increafing fidelity and care, and thereby render ourselves capable of enjoying in continually greater purity and perfection this pleasure and this happiness! Do thou teach us thyfelf, o compaffionate father, ever better to underftand thy defigns upon us, our neceffities and our destination, and to feek our happiness where, according to thy paternal will, we ought to feek, and certainly fhall find it. Teach us always more rightly to chufe between the various pleasures that offer themselves to us, and preferve us from the illufions of fenfuality and prejudice. Let our tafte for whatever is beautiful and good be continually more purified and refined by the light of truth, fo that we may never quit the fafe path of nature and

innocence. Let wisdom and virtue and real piety be our infeparable companions and guides on the journey of life; let their precepts, their admonitions, their declarations be ever facred to us, and our approximation to that perfection, to which they are adapted to conduct us, our weightieft concern. Beftow thy gracious heavenly benediction in this refpect alfo on the confiderations we are now entering upon. Let us inwardly digest their truth, have a powerful fense of their importance, and become better and happier by them. For these things we implore thee, the author and dispenser of every good and perfect gift, with filial confidence as becomes the votaries of Jefus, and conclude our petitions in the form which he prescribed: Our father, &c.

PROV. iii. 21.

Let not them depart from thine eyes: keep found wisdom and difcretion.

OMESTIC life is of all the fources of human

pleasure and human happiness the most copious and abundant; and yet it is that fource perhaps, which, at least in the middling and higher claffes is the seldomest and most sparingly drawn from. It is conftantly open to mankind; the use of it is confined to no particular time; neither toilfome preparatives nor previous expenditure are neceffary to the enjoyment of it. The more pleasure the wife man draws from this fource, the more copious and