it then procures us complete and diverfified plea fures, folid and lafting utility. However, the more particular statement of the pleasures and benefits arifing from fociability, and the arrangement of them in their proper light, as the matter is fo copicus, we must defer to another opportunity. In the mean time, we will just draw a few inferences from what has been already remarked.

Collect from the foregoing caufes, how it happens that fociety is so often irksome to you; that it fo feldom answers you expectations; that you fo frequently go into company, as it were against your inclination; and much oftener leave it, with a heart diffatisfied or totally empty. Either you yourself are deficient in thofe good qualities and virtues, to which focial life is indebted for all its value, or you miss them in others. Either you fuffer yourself to be overtaken and beguiled by thofe failings, which diminish or deftroy the pleafures of fociety, or you are obliged to experience the disagreeable effects of them in others. More carefully combat or avoid these failings, more ftrenuously strive to acquire thofe good qualities and virtues, and exercife yourself in the practice of them; fo will the principal caufes of languor and disgust be certainly banished from your converse with others, and that fource of fatisfaction and pleasure will be open to your use.

Learn farther from what has been obferved, that, although, to the best use and most solid enjoyment

of

of focial life, outward appearance, genteel and agreeable manners, and what is only to be acquired by frequenting polite circles, are very requifite; yet that likewise these things do not conftitute the fole, nor even the principal requifites; but that moft depends on good moral qualities, on real virtues, on christian difpofitions, on actual and distinguished merit both of mind and heart. Thence conclude, that he who comes to his brethren with an empty head and a cold heart, has no reafon to expect either pleasure or profit from his intercourse with them, and that he who brings with him no difpofition for harmless elegant gaiety, can likewise have no pretenfions to the enjoyment of fuch fatisfactions, and has no right to complain of the want of them. Forget not, that the fatisfactions and pleafures of focial life confift in the mutual interchange and communication of what each perfon poffeffes and knows that is eminently beautiful, good, and agreeable; that they depend on a reciprocal giving and receiving; and that he who has nothing, or but little, to give, is only capable of receiving as little, and has no right to demand any more. The greater stock therefore, the more wealth in good thoughts, fentiments, opinions, perceptions, various kinds of knowledge, views and accomplishments, you take with you, so much the more opportunity and means will you meet with for bartering your ftores against the commodities that others poffefs, and at the fame time improve and augment your ftock.

: VOL. II.

с

Learn

Learn thirdly from what has been faid, that the wife, the virtuous man, the real christian, whether in fociety or folitude, is in his proper place; that he conftantly carries about him the most copious fources of pleasure, which he imparts to others and enjoys himself; that he everywhere encounters the leaft hazard of either doing or fuffering injuries, of affronting others or of being affronted by them; that he is everywhere eminently good and eminently happy and that he has always the means at hand, in his reflecting mind, his honeft heart, and his contented disposition, of rendering very indifferent, and in many respects disagreeable company, pretty tolerable. His well trained mind difcovers even there more materials for thought, his benevolent and humane heart finds more of the beautiful and the good, overlooks and excuses more failings and follies, enjoys every pleasure and fatisfaction in greater purity and perfection; and his temperate defires, his modeft pretenfions, are far more easily fatisfied, than if he brought with him into company a vacant head, a drowzy mind, an auftere or envious eye, a morofe, peevish, discontented heart, or ungoverned appetites and proud pretenfions.

Learn laftly, my pious hearers, that folitary and focial life fhould be mutually interchanged for each other, if we would receive the greatest possible advantage from both, and that the focial alone, without the folitary life, can have no great value. In the filence of folitude we fhould qualify ourselves

for

for the fatisfactions and pleasures of fociety. There we fhould learn to think judiciously in the christian fense of the term, if we would here speak rationally and agreeably. We should there collect and adjust the knowledge, acquire the virtues and the good qualities we here are to use, and by which we are to merit esteem and approbation and love. There we fhould form our taste to the beautiful and good, which we are here to cherish and apply. We should there procure our heart that peace, and replenish it with those benevolent, generous fentiments and difpofitions, which we find fo neceffary here, and afford fo much fatisfaction and delight both to ourfelves and to others. We fhould there arm ourfelves against the affaults and temptations which may here lead us into error or plunge us into guilt. Combine them therefore together, and labour in folitude at the cultivation of your understanding and the improvement of your moral state, with so much the more zeal, as it is so neceffary to you in focial life, that you may be fo much the more useful and agreeable to others, and that you may reap again in return more profit and fatisfaction from your intercourse with them. Yes, believe me, my dear friends, wifdom and virtue and piety, are and continue in all places, at all times, in all circumftances, in domestic and in focial, as well as in folitary life, the best, the fureft guides of man, the moft folid basis of his fatisfaction, the richeft, the only inexhaustible fources of his pleasure and his happiness.

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SERMON XXIX.

The Value of Social Life, continued.

GOD, the numberless streams of bleffings, which are continually flowing everywhere around us abundantly prove, that thou art the only original fountain of life and happiness. They illustrate and display thine unfearchable greatness, thine unerring wisdom, and thy diffufive and inexhaustible goodnefs. We acknowledge and worship thee, the maker and the lord of all. We revere the power which weighed the world's foundations, which formed and which continually upholds the earth and the heavens and all worlds. We admire the wisdom, which at first established the order of nature, and which constantly directs the vast concerns of the universe. We adore and love the goodness which is manifefted in all thy works, and which makes all thy creatures happy. We rejoice in the felicity of thy numerous offspring; and, as children of thy family, we unite with all our brethren, to give thanks unto thee our common parent, for all

thy,