former rarely depends, the latter always depends on ourselves. The former is a gift of providence, generally dispensed without regard to merit; the lat ter is the fruit and reward of wisdom and of virtue.

Seek therefore your happiness, not in earthly, tranfitory things, not in riches, not in elevation and power, not in a foft voluptuous life, Seek it within you, and not without you. Seek it in the qualities and advantages of your mind and your heart, and not in the advantages of station, of rank, of honour. and of refpect. Reduce your appetites, your defires, your inclinations, your paffions to order. Submit them all to the laws of truth and of chriftianity. Set bounds to your defires in regard to worldly things, give all your inclinations the best direction, let rea fon, let the love of God and man bear rule over all your paffions.

Seek your happiness in virtue, in the willing and refolute performance of your duty, in the unremitted endeavour after higher perfection, in innocence of heart and purity of life, in a meek and gentle fpirit, in the enjoyment and promotion of peace and concord, in benevolence and beneficence towards all men, in magnanimous facrifices for truth and integrity.. -Seek it in whatever is profitable to you and promises you pleasure, not only in this world, but alfo in that which is to come, in whatever has the approbation of your confcience, the approbation of all the wife and upright, the approbation of God, and fecures to you the loving-kindness and the gra

cious retributions of your lord and judge, your father in heaven. Seek, in fhort, not to feem happy, but actually to be fo. Be not fo merely in the opinion and in the judgment of others, but in deed and in truth. Prefer the quiet, unobferved, enjoyment of real and lafting goods and advantages, the enjoy ment of rational, fedate and chearful reflection, the enjoyment of a good and quiet confcience, the enjoy ment of a virtuous heart and life, the enjoyment of the fatisfactions of beneficence, the enjoyment of a fervent devotion, the enjoyment of an affured and joyful profpect into a better world, prefer thefe enjoyments to all the marks of respect, all the pleasures and amufements that occupy the fenfes more than the mind, gratify the eyes more than the heart, afford more tumult than ferenity, and shed more falfe luftre than gentle light around them. Seek only that, revere and love only that, strive only after that which can calm, rejoice, and bless you at every time, in every ftate, in filence as well as in noife, in the hour of reflection and devotion as in the hour of recreation, in death as in life, in the future as in the prefent world. By these means, with fuch fentiments and efforts, ye will as certainly be happy and ever become more happy, as certainly as God, the father and giver of all happiness, has promised it by his fon Jefus.

SERMON XLVII.

Arguments against Vanity.

GOD, our destination is great; and thy goodnefs leaves us in no want either of means or encouragements for being and ever more completely becoming that to which thou haft destined us. Intelligent, wife, virtuous beings; creatures, raifing themselves from one ftage of perfection and bleffedness to another, thus ever coming nearer to thee their creator and father, and ever farther capacitating. themselves for a fuperior better life, and for communion with thee is what we all might and fhould become. Hereto haft thou called us as men and as christians. Hereto haft thou given us, in thy son Jesus, the most perfect precurfor and leader. But alas, too

frequently, o God, too frequently we

lofe fight of

him and of our destination, and of the dignity of our nature and the grand defigns of thy wisdom and

bounty;

Do

bounty; unmindful of what we are and ought to be; think, judge, act, as ignobly, as meanly as though we were creatures of a quite different, far inferior kind; instead of allowing ourselves to be guided by that generous ambition, that avidity for real, durable perfection, which thou haft planted in our hearts, fubmitting to be governed by childish vanity; and thus, instead of rifing, are ever falling lower! O God of all mercies, do thou preferve our nature, the work of thy hands, from its total downfall. thou raise it again, by teaching us to think more justly, to strive after better and worthier objects, and to hasten with unabated ardour towards the glorious mark which thou haft fet before us. Let us ever perceive more plainly the folly and the danger of whatever might remove us from it, and ever avoid it with greater caution. Blefs to this end the leffons now to be delivered. Grant that we may thoroughly perceive and feel their truth, accept them freely, lay them up in a good heart and make a faithful use of them. For all this we beseech thee as the votaries of thy fon Jefus, addreffing thee farther in his name and words: Our father, &c.

TH

PHILLIPP. ii. 3.

Let nothing be done through vain-glory.

This

HERE are faults and vices, which so manifeftly appear to be what they really are, and the hameful nature and injurious effects whereof prefent themselves fo clearly to the eyes of every perfon not the-eyes totally destitute of thought, that none will venture a word in their behalf; which all men, every where, wherever they are found, and under whatever form they affume, immediately pronounce to be faults and vices, and abhor them as fuch, or at least account them worthy of deteftation and abhorrence. is the cafe, for example, with robbery, murder, perjury, avarice, lying, open vengeance, the groffer and more depraved kinds of gluttony and voluptuoufness. Their very name is infamy; the bare fufpicion of them pollutes; and their baleful influence on the welfare of the whole community is fo undeniable and apparent, that they are ever oppofed by the majority, and therefore can never become univerfally prevalent, nor dare to hold up their heads in public without exciting horror.

But there are alfo other faults and vices, my pious hearers, that are fe feldom entirely taken for what

they