wilt be only attended by thy intellectual distinctions, thy good difpofitions and actions; there nothing will avail thee except wisdom, virtue, integrity, a found understanding, a well regulated heart, a happy alacrity in the exercife of justice and mercy. These alone are lafting privileges and endowments; privileges and endowments that are not fubject to the viciffitudes of things, which neither death nor the grave can ravish from thee. If thou learn here to think reasonably and nobly; if thou learn here to govern thyself, to conquer thy lusts; if thou learn here to use all thy faculties and capacities according to his will who gave them to thee, and to the good of thy brother; if thou learn to love God above all things, and thy neighbour as thyfelf; if thou acquire here an unwearied, effective inclination to all that is right and good, to all that is beautiful and great; if thou make at present the discharge of thy duty thy joy, and beneficence thy pleasure: then art thou happy, and wilt remain fo for ever, even though thou art neither rich nor great, nor powerful nor healthy, nor vigorous, nor of long life. Oh never forget thea that all visible things, however brilliant and captivating, are tranfient, and only remain for a little while; but that thy mind is immortal, that thy fu ture appointment is great, that this life is only a preparation for a higher, and that therefore, in regard to thy real felicity, thy whole concern is this, that thou advance the perfection of thy mind, answer

answer to thy grand appointment, and render thyself capable and worthy of thy fuperior life.

And these, my pious hearers, are the decifive reasons, these the rules that fhould guide us in our judgment and our election of the objects which relate to human happiness, or are fo reputed, and will certainly guide us aright. If with regard to all the goods, the affairs, the privileges, the pleasures and fatisfactions of this life, we prefer the neceffary to the merely convenient and agreeable, what we acquire by reflection and skill to what accident and fortune bestow, what is in our power to what does not depend upon us; if we prefer activity to reft, the spiritual to the fenfible, the lasting to the tran fient and eternals to temporals: then fhall we make no step in vain on the path that leads to hap piness, and as certainly lay our hand on the glo. rious prize, as we pursue that path.

SERMON XLIX.

The Vanity of all earthly Things.

GOD, inexhauftible fountain of being, of life, of happiness, thee we adore in the profoundeft humility as the Eternal and Immutable; and the thought of thee, our creator and father, prevents us, even under the deepest conviction of our vanity and the vanity of all earthly things, from being spiritlefs and dejected. Yes, we feel that we are extremely feeble and frail, and that all that furrounds us, is as weak and tranfitory as ourfelves. By every day that we pafs we approach nearer the term of our course, and with it the moment, when every visible object vanishes from our view and finks into night. Though here thou conferrest on us many bleffings, many fatisfactions and pleasures; yet their tenure is extremely precarious, their enjoyment is but of fhort duration. Nothing could foothe us amidft this manifold viciffitude, nothing fatisfy our minds ever panting after happiness, were we unacquainted with thee and thy gracious difpofitions

fitions towards us, did we not believe and know that thou art goodness and love from everlasting to everlasting. Yes, in this fentiment we have a firm, immovable ground of ferenity and content. By thee we are, by thee we fubfift, by thee we already enjoy innumerable benefits, and by thee we may hope to continue eternally and to be eternally happy. Oh might this grand, this bleffed fentiment be constantly prefent to us; might it be our guide, our inftructor, our comforter on every path of our lives! How justly should we then judge of all things, how wifely use all things, how fafely and confidently proceed to the proper end of our being! Oh teach us then to hold the things of this world for what they are, to moderate our wishes and defires in regard to them, and to look more at the invisible than at the visible. Blefs likewife to the promotion of thefe views the meditations we are now about to begin. Lead us to know the truth, and by the knowledge of it to become wife and bleffed. We implore it of thee with filial confidence, as the votaries of Jefus; and repofing a firm faith in his promises, further address thee, faying: Our father, &c.

ECCLES. i. 2.

Vanity of vanities, faith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

SOME truths there are which every one allows to be not more certain than important: and yet, in regard of most men, are as barren and inert as though they related to infignificant trifles, and were extremely doubtful. Nor ought we to be surprised at this, pious hearers. Man, corrupted man, is a creature feldom confiftent with himself, and whose knowledge and actions are but too often at variance. Whence does this arife? He ftands still at general conceptions, which, because they are general, affect him but little, or even not at all. He lofes himself amidst the prodigious multitude of the particular objects to which they relate. He gives himself no concern about the particular relation every truth has to him and his moral ftate, knowing beforehand that such investigations must end in his humiliation, his confufion, his embarraffment, his difquietude.

Who doubts, (that I may illustrate what I advance by a familiar example), who doubts for a moment about the vanity of all earthly things? Who does not believe that our lives are precarious and fhort; that all the privileges, endowments and pleasures of the carth, are frail and tranfient; and

that