SERMON XLVIII.

Rules for forming proper Estimates of Things.

GOD, who art effential love and benignity, and intendest and promoteft only happiness, how many capacities, how many means for being happy haft thou also granted to us! Our senses and our mind, nature and religion, the visible and the invifible, the present and the future, all open to us numberlefs fources of fatisfaction and pleafure, all promise and procure us delight, all are defigned and adapted to render us progreffively more perfect and happy. Yes, thou, the affectionate, beneficent parent of the universe, providest for our body and for our foul, for our animal and for our intellectual wants, for our outward welfare, and for our inward perfection, for our firft, terreftrial, and for our fuperior, eternal life, for whatever has a tendency to render easy and agreeable.our course to the mark, and to fecure to us the actual attainment of it. Father eternal, how condefcending, how gracious thou art! How much haft thou done for us!

With what parental care provided for our welfare! Oh that we but loved ourfelves as thou loveft us, and provided as carefully for our own happiness, as thou providest for it! Thou haft made us rational, free agents. Thine is to decree, our's to chufe between the good and the bad, between the better and the worse, to diftinguish between fpecious appearance and reality, to elevate ourselves above the fenfible and the visible, to learn to connect the futúre with the present, and in all things to do thy will. Our happiness is to be the consequence of our wife and good behaviour; and this is to give it firmness and stability, and fweeten to us the enjoy ment of it. But we frequently err in our judgment and in our choice; we frequently suffer ourselves to be deluded by the fpecious appearance of objects; we often let sensuality get the better of our reason; often prefer deceitful, fugacious, tranfient goods and pleasures, to the most effential and durable advantages and bleflings. And therefore it is that we are fo often difcontented and wretched; therefore we are fo often urged to complain of the want of fatisfaction and happiness. God, merciful God, lead us back from our deviations. Teach us better to understand thy kind, beneficent purposes, and to think and act more conformably with them. Caufe the light of thy truth to pour increafing radiance on our path of life, that we may walk it with increafing intelligence and fafety. Grant that we may be always learning to form jufter estimates of

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the various privileges and endowments that we meet with on it, offering us fatisfaction and pleasure, joy and felicity, and always more difcreetly to chufe between them. Blefs to this end our reflections on the doctrines of religion which are now to be delivered to us. Let us perceive and feel their truth, and employ them as a clue to guide us in the whole of our future conduct. We ask it of thee as chrif tians with filial confidence, addreffing thee further in the name of thy fon, after whom we are called: Our father, &c.

PSALM, iv. 6.

There be many that fay, Who will fhew us any good ?

MAN may poffefs a variety of endowments, en-joy various pleasures, acquire various privile ges, feek and obtain various kinds of perfection and happiness; but all of them are not of equal value, and rarely can we poffefs and enjoy them all, and much feldomer all in the fame proportion or degree. These several endowments, these pleasures, thefe privileges, thefe feveral kinds of perfection and happiness, are not always compatible with each other. The acquifition and the poffeffion of one frequently militates with the poffeffion and the acquifition of another. The one frequently cannot be purchafed

or acquired without the lofs or the voluntary facrifice of the other. There are cafes where I can neither duly cultivate and improve my mind, nor enjoy the pleasure arifing from the proper discharge of my duty, without weakening my body and hurt. ing my health; cafes where I cannot maintain and fecure my peace of conscience and serenity of mind, without manifest loss of fome earthly interest; cases where I am under the neceffity of chufing between the good pleafure of God and the approbation and esteem of mankind, between inward perfection concealed from the notice of the world, and outward fplendid diftinctions; between fenfual and intellectual pleasures, between present and future happiness; and muft relinquish the one for the fake of the other. Perfons who act not upon firm principles, who neglect to take wifdom and virtue and piety for their guides, are very liable in fuck cafes to be confused and thrown into diftrefs. The lefs a man knows of the value of things; the more he fuffers himself to be dazzled by outside appearance and fhow; and the more wavering his fentiments and inclinations are: the more uncertain will he be in this election; and the oftener will he prefer the bad to the good, the worfe to the better. To guard you against this tormenting and dangerous uncertainty, my pious hearers, and to furnish you with fure motives of determination in fuch cafes, is the fcope of my prefent difcourfe. Accordingly, I mean to answer the queftion in our text: "There be ma

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that fay, who will fhew us any good," what is the beft on every occafion?

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We have already, at various opportunities, poized the value of the principal objects that relate to human happiness, or fuch as are generally thought to belong to it. We have investigated the worth and excellence of life, of health, of riches, of honour, of fenfual, of intellectual pleafure, of piety, of virtue, of devotion, of religion, of public worfhip; we have examined the advantages of folitary, of focial, of bufy, of rural life, of domestic happinefs, of friendfhip, of liberty, of learning, and others; and we have found that they all abstractedly deserve our regard and esteem, that they all more or lefs contribute to our happinefs. Let us now compare these objects together, or fee which of them we should prefer to the other, which we ought to facrifice or relinquifh for the fake of the other, when we cannot obtain or poffefs them at once. As thou wouldft proceed fafely in thy choice, my chriftian brother, let the following rules and decifory principles be recommended to thee.

In the first place, prefer the neceffary to the agreeable and convenient. That is the foundation of happiness; this a part of the structure thou art to erect upon it. Of that thou canst not be deprived, without being miserable; the want of this only leffens thy profperity and thy pleasure. It is agreeable to increase riches and to live in opulence: but neceffary to have an unfullied confcience, and not