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 prime fource of all that is and lives, as fovereign wisdom and goodness. And wherever thou art and acteft, there fpeakeft thou to us by thy works, there thou informeft us of thy will; there warnest thou us of mifery, and fheweft us the means and way to be happy. Oh then that we fought and found thee, the Omnipresent, every where, that we saw and worshiped thee in all thy works, and never lost the sentiment of thy presence! Oh that we every where and at all times attended to thy voice, readily fubmitted to be taught of thee, and willingly followed thy call to happiness! How totally otherwise, how much wifer and better fhould

we

we then not think and judge and act! What light would then not be diffused over all our ways! How fafely, how confidently, how chearfully should we not then pursue our courfe! How calm fhould we not be under thy fatherly inspection, how chearful and happy in the fentiment of communion with thee! Teach us to know this, to know it with intimate conviction, o gracious Father, and let it be promoted by the confiderations in which we are now about to be employed. We invoke thee for it in the name of 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 incon

testibly their benefits as well as their disadvantages. 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 fo many individuals together, strengthens

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their

their powers, and renders them capable of many enterprises and bufineffes, for which a greater difperfion or feparation would abfolutely incapacitate them. Trade and commerce, arts and sciences, 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 intercourfe of fuch numbers of men, of fuch various tempers and difpofitions, the natural genius and faculties are more quickly, more eafily, more confiderably folded, 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 conveniences 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 stand indebted to civil life, and which certainly are of no fmall 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 fashion is univerfal and tyrannical; the implicit imitation of the noble, the great, and the rich is fervile; the fway of received manners and cuftoms, fevere and oppreffive. Inno

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cence,

cence, truth, and fincerity, there more quickly dif appear; the fimplicity of nature is ftifled by art; integrity is there obliged to yield to artifice; fimpli city is ridiculed as puerile inexperience; the paffions are concealed, but act with greater impetuofity and danger in their concealment. The tafte will be refined, but at the fame time be enervated and fafti dious; pleafures will be multiplied, but the faculties for enjoying them obtufed. Befides all this, the multiplicity of affairs, the noify bustle, the nu merous diffipations which prevail in populous cities, are powerful obftacles to collectedness of mind, to confideration, to vigilance over oneself, to frequent and animated aspirations towards heaven, and con. fequently are powerful obftacles to wisdom, to virtue, and to devotion.

The more therefore a man is fmitten with the love of nature, and his Creator and Father; the more eharms he fees in innocence, truth, integrity, and fimple manners; the more tafte he has for filent reflection; 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 himfelf and converfe with his own heart, can hearken to the voice of God in nature, and in lefs artificial, lefs corrupted men, and indulge himself in the most natural and unadul

terated

terated meditations and feelings without reluctance or restraint. This, my pious hearers, has been, in all ages of the world, the nutriment of the mind and the wages of industry to the wisest and best among the fons of men.

have thought

He withdrew brethren, nor

Our Saviour likewife, that fublime exemplar to all the wife and good, feems thus to and judged on this material point. not indeed from the company of his from populous towns and cities, not even from the capital itself; as he could there beft profecute the work his father had commiffioned him to carry on, the work of enlightening and improving his contemporaries and mankind in general. Yet these populous cities and towns were not his conftant refidence. At times he forfook them, and retired, as it is faid in our text, to the defert, that is, to fome unfre quented or lefs frequented place. At times, as we are likewise told in the chapter whence our text is taken, he afcended the mountain, and there past the evening alone. There he recruited his fpirits after the wearifome labours of the day; thought upon his grand concern; collected, by contemplation and prayer, by familiar intercourfe with his heavenly Father, fresh energies for accomplishing his work on earth; recreated himself in thinking on what he had already done, and what remained for him still to do; and was happy in the fentiment of his dignity and his proximity to him that sent him.

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