SERMON LIII.

Prudential Rules to be obferved in judging of the Happiness of other Perfons.

OD, thou doeft good to all, and thy mercy is

GOD,

over all thy works. Happiness is the end to which thou haft created and deftined all, and never canft thou, the Omnipotent and Omnifcient, fail of thy purpose. But happiness the most diverfified in kind, the most various in degree is the mark and the prize which thou haft fet before us. Every flage of our existence determines our temporary capacity and our behaviour its nature and its magnitude. One thou conducteft fooner, another later, one along a smooth and eafy way, another by toilfome, thorny paths, one already in the prefent, another not until the future life, to the enjoyment of it. At prefent we judge concerning the means whereby thou attaineft thy defign, as fhort-fighted ignorant mortals, judge often falfely of them, do not always perceive the juftice and benignity of thy wife conomy on earth, and many times lament and complain, where there is no actual reafon for it. Forgive us, thy frail, thy feeble children, and teach us with ever greater impartiality to view and to judge of

our

our condition and that of our brethren, to confider the true end and deftination both of them and us continually more in their whole extent, and thus continually open to us new fources of fatisfaction and of gratitude towards thee, the ever-flowing fountain of benignity and love. Bless in this view the contemplations we are now to commence. Let them be instrumental in thy holy hand to extend our perceptions, to correct our judgments, to fhew us the inftitutions and ordinances which thou haft eftablifh

ed

among mankind in an adorable light, and furnish us with new arguments for content and acquiefcence. As the votaries of thy beloved Jesus we put up these our prayers to thee in childlike boldness, and invoke thee further in his facred name. father, &c.

Our

PSALM CXlv. 16.

Thou openeft thine hand, and fatisfieft the defire of every living thing.

PROPERLY to estimate and determine of the

happiness of our fellow-creatures, is of greater confequence than we are apt to imagine, my devout audience. How otherwife could we entertain fuch fentiments and behave in fuch a manner towards God, the fovereign ruler of the world, and towards mankind, our brethren, as truth and our duty require? Does not the judgment that we pass on the ordinances and institutions of God, on his over-ruling

providence and the administration of his govern ment in human affairs greatly depend on the right or wrong estimates we form of human happiness? Do not the esteem and affection, or the coolness and contempt with which we regard and treat others, in a great measure depend on it; does not the complacency or the diffatisfaction with which we live and walk among them and converfe with them, depend upon it? This due eftimation of human happiness is indeed attended with great difficulties. Appearances are here extremely fallacious. Happinefs is an affair of fentiment. It refides and is feen more in domeftic than in focial life, more in ftillness and retirement, than in the tumult of company and in the face of the world. It is at the fame time feen in a great diverfity of ways; it prefents itself in a vaft variety of forms; it is as different as the conftitution, the temper, the education, the culture, the habits of life, the connections of mankind. Its magnitude is not abfolutely fixed and determined, and cannot in all men be measured by one and the fame fandard. It is always analogous to the particular cirumftances, fituations, capacities, affections, wants, habits of the individual. We may however preferve ourselves from many prevailing errors and prejudices in this refpect, and learn in general to judge more justly on this head, by exercifing ourfelves in reflection upon it. This we will now do, my devout hearers. We will namely employ ourfelves in the contemplation of a few prudential rules

to

to be observed in judging of the happiness of others. This contemplation will at once illuftrate the declaration of the pfalmift in our text: God, thou openest thine hand, and fatisfieft the defire of every living thing, and fupply us with convincing arguments of the fact.

Wouldst thou then, my chriftian brother, properly eftimate and judge of the happiness of others; meafure not the wants of thy brother by thine own. Every ftation, every clafs, every generation, every age of man, every individual has its peculiar wants. The countryman and the townfinan; the youth and the hoary head; the rich and the poor; the learned and the unlearned; he who is brought up in the lap of cafe and luxury, and he who is hardened by labour and toil; the man refined by arts and fciences, and the rude uncultivated child of nature: how great the difference that in this refpect fubfifts between them! How various their wants! How numberlefs and infatiable with the one; how confined and easily supplied with the others! Thou hast perhaps a thousand wants in regard to thy body, to thy mind, to thy dwelling, thy drefs, the whole of thy external condition, which millions of perfons know nothing of, of which they have never once heard, the gratification whereof they therefore neither feek nor defire; and wants which we know not, feel not, by which we are not preffed, are in fact not wants. They it is true be defirable goods, real advantages; but fo long as they are not held to be fuch and not required

may

required by fome one, the abfence of them cannot produce mifery in him. He may be as happy, perhaps happier, more contented and pleased, than thou

The fewer wants he has, and the more fimple and natural they are, the more easily and furely he can supply them as on the other hand thy cares, thy troubles, thy defects, thy disappointments, are increased in proportion as thy wants increase. Class therefore no one among the number of the unhappy, pity therefore no one as miferable, because he is not lodged, not fed, not apparelled, not waited upon, as thou art; because he poffeffes not and knows not a thousand things, which by thee are deemed neceffary ingredients of propriety and convenience, without which, in thy opinion, thou couldst not live, at least not live contented and pleased. Probably this defect may be compenfated to him by many more effential benefits; probably thefe very deficiencies may be the foundation of his happiness, of his health and vigour, of his bufy and unfolicitous life, free from the languor of idlenefs, free from the fatiety which follows ease and indulgence, and the disgust that waits on the fickly appetite.

Wouldst thou farther, my chriftian friend, properly estimate and judge of the happiness of others; beware of poizing the troubles and burdens which they bear, the afflictions which befall them, the wants which they feel, against the weight with which fimilar evils opprefs or would opprefs thee. The troubles and burdens, under which thou perhaps

wouldft