me is inciting you to beneficence, that you will be acceptable to him, and that he will give you his bleffing.

SERMON XLII.

The Value of Human Happiness itself.

GOD, eternal, neverfailing fource of life and happiness! on us thy children, life and happinefs of various kinds and in rich abundance inceffantly flow down from thee; and in which we here rejoice before thee; for this we thank thee with united hearts. No, thou haft not doomed any of thy creatures, any of mankind, to misery; thou haft devoted and called them all to happiness: and even the mifery which our own mifdeeds either have or have not wrought, must be and is the means and way to that desired end. This we are taught by the various difpofitions and capacities of our na ture; this we learn from thy feveral difpofals and fettlements in the material and in the intellectual world; of this we are certified by what thy fon Jefus has communicated to us and done for us. Innumerable fources of pleafure and delight are daily opened around us, whence we may all draw, and which we never can exhauft. We daily re

VOL. II.

Y

ceive

ceive from thy liberal hand innumerable benefits and bleffings, demanding of us gratitude and joy. And if fometimes thofe fources of pleasure are troubled by our tears, and thefe benefits lofe a part of their value to us by fufferings; yet the agreeable and the good with which thou doft blefs and gladden us, retains a great preponderance over the difagreeable and evil that thou findeft good to difpenfe amongst us. Yes, o bounteous author of our being, love is effential to thy nature! Thy will and thy operations tend folely to happiness; and thou doft will and effect it even when we leaft think fo. Thanks and praise and adoration ever be to thee, the Allgracious, the Father of men! Happiness and salvation to us and all thy creatures in heaven and on earth! Oh that we were ever more attentive to thy bounties, ever more fociable in the enjoyment of them, ever more fatisfied with thy difpofals and appointments, ever more faithful and blithe in the use of thy benefits. May even now our reflections on these important subjects shed a clear light upon our minds and much ferenity and joy into our hearts! Bless them to these ends, o gracious God, and hearken to our prayer through Jefus Chrift, our lord, in whofe name we further addrefs thee, faying: Our father, &c.

PSALM Civ. 24.

The earth is full of thy riches.

IT is a matter of great and near concernment, my pious hearers, to know how to form a juft calculation of human happiness, or of the stock of fatisfaction and pleasure, of the fum of agreeable fenfations fubfifting among mankind. He that makes the amount of it too great, he that looks on the earth as a paradife, and the present state of man as a state of continued enjoyment, must be fo often and fo grievously deceived in his expectations as to become ill-humoured and impatient. On the other hand, he who overlooks, if not the whole, yet at least the greater part of the various kinds of benefit that are in the world and amongst mankind, or does not afcribe to them the value they really deferve; he that imagines he perceives on all fides, only imperfection and defect, only misery and diftress, near and at a distance, around him; who fees as it were tears gufhing from every human eye, and fighs arifing from every human breaft; how can he revere the creator of himself and all mankind as the allbountiful parent of the world! How can he rejoice in his existence, and the existence of his fellowcreatures! How enjoy the advantages and benefits, the fatisfactions and comforts of life, with a grate

ful and a cheerful heart! And how prejudicial must this be to his virtue and piety, to his inward perfection! How negligently at times will he fulfil his duties! How apt will he be to grow languid and weary in acts of justice and humanity! We should be on our guard against this gloomy and pernicious way of thinking, my pious hearers, as we are defirous of having the conscious enjoyment of life and punctually anfwering its feveral obligations. Let us not charge God, the best, the moft beneficent being, the father of mankind, with being deficient in kindness. Let us not fhut our eyes and our hearts to the beautiful and good that is diffused throughout the world and distributed among mankind, nor mifapply our difcernment to the difparagement of it. Let us appreciate human happiness for what it actually is, neither thinking too meanly nor too highly of it; and in the fentiment of its copioufnefs and magnitude exclaim with the pfalmift in our text: The earth is full of thy riches. Indeed it is difficult, it is even impoffible, exactly to poize the fatisfaction and the dif guft, the pleasure and the pain, the happiness and the mifery, which fubfift among mankind, against each other, so as to obtain the just amount of either. This can only be done by that eternal majesty who weighed the world's foundations, who holds in his hand the balance of both, who proportions them among his creatures according to his wife and good pleasure, who comprehends them both in his al