nifold gifts and bleffings, more intimately connects
the whole of his family, fo widely extended, toge-
ther, brings them closer to each other, and in such
various methods animates, fuftains, benefits and
cheers them all. Do therefore whatever you are
called to do by your profeffion in reference to this
honourable appointment; do it from obedience and
love to God, our univerfal Father in heaven; do
it as by commiffion from him, and in the manner
moft conformable to the wife and benevolent pur-
pofes of his adminiftration. By this means you
will confer the greatest dignity on all
on all your employ.
ments and labours, and exalt the faithful discharge
of your calling into actual piety. You will ferve
God by ferving your brethren; accomplish his will
by fulfilling the duties of your vocation; carry on
his work by profecuting your own; and fo may
you also, as men worthily filling a station affigned,
them by God, promise yourselves a cheerful exit
from this scene of things, and the enjoyment of a
happy, a bleffed futurity.

1

SERMON XXXII.

The Value of a Country-Life, or the edifying Sojourn in the Country.

GOD, thou art not far from every one of us. Wherever we perceive the work of thy hands, there art thou, there acteft thou; there revealest thou thyself to us as the great eternal caufe, the original fource of all that is and lives, as fovereign wisdom and benignity. And wherever thou art and acteft, there speakest thou to us by thy works, there thou informeft us of thy will; there warnest thou us of mifery, and sheweft us the means and way to be happy. Oh then that we fought and found thee, the Omniprefent, every where, that we faw and worshiped thee in all thy works, and never loft the apprehenfion of thy prefence! Oh that we everywhere and at all times attended to thy voice, readily fubmitted to be taught of thee, and willingly followed thy call to happiness! How totally otherwife, how much wiser and better fhould we then reason and judge and act! What light would then

be

be diffused over all our ways! How fafely, how confidently, how cheerfully fhould we then pursue our courfe! How tranquil should we be under thy fatherly inspection, how cheerful and happy in the fentiment of communion with thee! Do thou indue our apprehenfions with the knowledge, the inward conviction of this truth, o ever gracious Father, and let it be promoted by the confiderations in which we are now about to be employed. We present unto thee our prayers in humble dependance on thy everlasting and unchangeable mercy, as declared and manifefted by our lord and faviour Jefus, concluding our petitions in his comprehenfive words: Our father, &c.

MATTH. xiv. 13.

Jefus departed thence into a defart place, apart.

CITIES, large and populous cities, have incontestibly their benefits as well as their difadvantages. The foundation of them, and the concourse of their inhabitants, are means in the hand of Providence for attaining its views with regard to mankind. And to this they greatly conduce in various ways. The clofer aggregation, the more intimate connection of so many individuals together, strengthens their powers, and renders them capable of many enterprises and bufineffes, for which a greater dif

perfion

perfion or feparation would abfolutely incapacitate them. Trade and commerce, arts and fciences, are brought by fuch clofer connections, by fuch a union and reciprocal communication of defigns, abilities, talents, and aptitudes, to a higher degree of perfection than they could otherwife reach. By the daily intercourse of such numbers of men, of fuch various tempers and difpofitions, the natural genius and faculties are more quickly, more easily, more confiderably unfolded, fet in motion, and applied. Emulation and ambition are more excited and employed, and produce more diverfified and vigorous effects than in folitude, or in the narrow circle of a few acquaintances and neighbours. The manners will be refined; the accommodations and elegances of life improved; the means and opportunities of focial pleasure will be multiplied; and the fallies of inordinate and violent paffions will lefs and feldomer offend. Striking advantages, for which, in conjunction with many others, we ftand indebted to civil life, and which certainly are of no small value.

On the other fide, in great and populous cities, bad example is more contagious; the temptations to folly and vice are far greater, and harder to avoid; the prevalence of fafhion is univerfal and tyrannical; the implicit imitation of the noble, the great and the rich is fervile; the fway of received manners and customs, fevere and oppreffive. Innocence, veracity, franknefs, there more quickly dif

appear;

appear; nature is ftifled by art; fincerity is there obliged to yield to artifice; fimplicity is ridiculed as puerile inexperience; the paffions put on a mask, but act with greater impetuofity and danger in their disguife. Taste is refined, but at the fame time is enervated and faftidious; pleasures are multiplied, but the capacities for enjoying them obtufed. Befides all this, the multiplicity of affairs, the noify buftle, the numerous avocations of diverfion in populous cities, are powerful obftacles to collectednefs of mind, to confideration, to vigilance over oneself, to frequent dispatches of an animated look to heaven, and confequently are powerful obftacles to wisdom, to virtue, to devotion.

The more therefore a man is fmitten with the love of nature and the creator and father of nature; the more attractions innocence, veracity, integrity, fimple manners have for him; the more tafte he has for filent meditation; the more he is able to entertain himself; the dearer to him wisdom and virtue and cordial devotion are: the more agreeable will it be to him at times to exchange the tumult of the town for the quiet of the country; as he there can breathe and think and live more freely; as he there can completely retire within himself and converse with his own heart, can hearken to the voice of God in nature, and in lefs artificial, lefs corrupted men, and refign himself to the most natural and real reflections and emotions without reluctance or restraint. This, my pious hearers,

VOL. II.