the good he has effected about him! How sweet must not each longer or fhorter recreation be to him, the enjoyment of each innocent pleasure, either fenfual or intellectual, to which he has obtained a right by useful employment, and to which his appetite is not blunted by too copious an indulgence in this seasoning of life! Pure advantages, pure pleasures and joys, unknown to the unemployed and the idle. To them their faculties and powers are often a downright burden. To them every day, every week, every year of their lives, is alike empty of actions and events that might gladden and refresh their minds. Them the past afflicts, the present perplexes, and the future confounds. And as often as they are forced to reflect upon themselves, they muft ftand ashamed before God and man. Their very pleasures are uniform and tastelefs. And how often must they be an incumbrance, how often difguftful to them! How great then must be the advantage in this respect of the industrious over the idle!

To conclude, a bufy life, conducted with intelligence, with regularity, confcientiousness, and directed to the common welfare, is the best preparation for a fuperior, a more perfect, and a more blissful ftate in the future world. The more we here unfold our faculties, and elevate and improve our talents by practice; in fo much greater and more important matters fhall we there employ them; fo much the more fhall we there be able to do with them; fo much

much the more quickly and eafily fhall we there proceed towards the mark of fupreme perfection. The more carefully and earnestly we do in this province of the kingdom of God, what he has delivered us to perform; fo much the more will he confide to us to tranfact and to use in other provinces of his kingdom. The more extenfively we here operate about us in views of general utility; fo much the larger is the sphere of operation he there will affign us. The better we here allow ourselves to be educated and formed by our heavenly father, the better will he be able to employ us there when we fhail have exchanged this state of childhood for the manly age. Reft and refreshment without previous toil, payment without fervice, perfection without the best and faithfulleft ufe of our powers, blifs without an active, bufy life, can no more be thought of in heaven than it can upon earth, can there no more exift than here. What an encouraging profpect for the man that leads a life of business! And what a comfortless, melancholy idea for the slothful, who paffes his days in loitering and idleness.

And now take all this into your minds at one view. Reflect that a bufy life exempts a man from the oppreffive load of languor of fpirits; that it fe cures him from a thousand follies and finful exceffes; that it most cogently incites him to unfold his capacities, to exert and exercife his faculties, and thereby to advance his perfection; that it furnishes him with means and opportunities of being

ufeful to mankind in the greatest variety of ways, and of acquiring a vaft influence on the general welfare; that it is a rich fource of pleasure and happinefs to himself; that, in fhort, it prepares and fits him for a higher and better state: and fay, after all, whether a life of business is not of real and of great value; whether it is not far preferable to an inactive, unemployed, and lazy life.

Certainly, my dear brethren, this is the best and nobleft ufe of life. Hereto are we ordained and called; hereto has God entrusted to us capacities and powers, and given us fo many urgent wants. By this alone can we become as perfect, as happy as man can be in the present state of things, and extract from this, ufually fo fhort and uncertain a life, as much advantage as it is able to afford. Thus no moment of it paffes empty and unenjoyed away. Thus a man, as it were, multiplies his existence, and lengthens his life. Thus a man lives and operates by others as well as himself, and frequently even to the latest pofterity. Render therefore thanks to God if he has placed you by his providence in a busy station, proportionate to your powers, and adequate to your time. Complain not of the quantity and trouble of it. Be not fluggifh and flothful in the performance of it. It is proper for the state of exercife and education wherein we live at prefent; and if you carry it on with underftanding with regularity and confcientiousness, if you treat and manage it as work committed to you by God,

you

you will purfue it with comfort and pleasure, and not without advantage. Therefore, long not after the imaginary happiness of an inactive repose, or

you will foon feverely pay for the foolish wifh. Let it rather be to you, as it was to our Saviour, your meat and your pleasure, to perform what God has given you to do, to work indefatigably while yet it is day, left the gloomy night of affliction and forrow, or the impenetrable fhades of death, come on before you have finished your task. Be like the faithful fervants, whom their lord, at his coming, be it late or early, finds employed in his service.

SERMON XXXI.

The Value of Commerce.

O GOD, who art the governor and ruler of all,

the parts as well as the whole, the fmall as

well as the great, what connection, what order and harmony prevail not throughout the whole of thy immenfe domain; and how much more fhould we not be loft in profound astonishment and joyful transport, could we furvey and comprehend in our minds a larger portion of it! But even on our terrestrial globe, even in the government which thou exercisest over us men, what traces of the wifeft, benignest inspection and providence are not difcoverable! How exactly adapted is every thing to the greateft poffible welfare of all living creatures! How intimately all is connected and interwoven together! What an all-embracing, indiffoluble chain of caufes and effects, the ultimate aim and confequence

whereof