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forrow or remorse. It is real enjoyment; and the fincerity of it conftantly maintains its worth. It is innocent enjoyment; and innocence fears no reproach. It is focial, affectionate enjoyment, which excites no jealoufy, and attracts no envy; by which no one is injured, with which none are unfatisfied, from which none are fent empty away, and all are contented with each other. It is an enjoyment, that is grateful to our Father in heaven, which is not difturbed but exalted by reflecting on his prefence, and which often confifts in pious joyfulness for his bounty, in the heart-felt worship and praife of the Supreme eternal fource of being. After this pure enjoyment, these lofty pleasures, you have nothing to fear in calling yourself to account; you need not be ashamed of what you have spoken or done; you will have no caufe to think of appeafing those you have affronted, or of repairing the injury you have done to your brother; will chearfully think on God, on your immortality, and on the world to come. Reft and fleep will not shun your embraces; but you will the more completely relish the comforts of them both, and delightful visions of the innocent pleafures you have enjoyed will frequently even there be floating in your mind. And can you boast of this, you that feek your folace and happiness principally in great and fhining companies, in loud tumultuous pleasures, in places of thronged refort? Have ye never lamented the preparatives, the expence, the time, the pains you have bestowed upon them?

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Are ye not frequently far more languid and heavy on returning from them than when you went to them? Have not often perturbation and concern about the confequences of what has paffed, or reproaches for your indifcretions, accompanied you to your dwelling? Have they not often, for a longer or a fhorter time, deftroyed your peace? Have they not often incapacitated you for prayer, or rendered it irksome to you? And if you have experienced this, and do so still, then confefs the advantages which the quiet, innocent joys of domestic life poffefs over yours.

Laftly, the happiness of domestic life is restricted to no class of men. It is attached neither to ftation, nor to opulence, nor to elevation and power; confined neither to the palace nor to the cottage. It may be enjoyed by all mankind, by persons of every rank, of every age, in every place. The fources of it stand open to all; to the poor no less than to the rich, to the low as well as to the high, to youth and age alike; every one may draw from these wells, and every one draw pleasure to his heart's defire. And which is that external boon that in this respect may be compared to the happinefs of domeftic life? How few perfons are able to acquire an afcendency over others! How few to fhine in the splendours of exalted station! How few to obtain wealth and opulence! How few to raise themselves above others by personal distinctions, or by arts and erudition, or by great and heroic exploits, and folace themselves

with the applause and admiration of their contemporaries! But all intelligent and good perfons, the fervant as well as his lord, the countryman as well as the citizen, the unlearned as well as the fcholar, all may enjoy the happiness of domeftic life, and may enjoy it in its full perfection. It is human fentiment, it is human happiness, which every creature that is human has an equal right to enjoy, and the fame means to obtain. And what a great, what an eminently great value must not this confer upon it!

Now lay all this together. Confider what an agreeable relaxation from labour, and requital for it, what a filent and ferene felf-enjoyment, what a free delightful communication of our inmoft thoughts and feelings, the enjoyment of domestic happiness is; confider that it is as diverfified as inexhaustible; that it makes up for the want of every other happiness, but can never be itself fupplied by any; that while it is fo pleasant, it is alfo instructive and useful; that to the enjoyment of it neither great preparations nor peculiar dexterity and addrefs are required; that it draws after it neither disgust nor remorfe; and that, in fine, it is peculiar to no condition of men, but is capable of being enjoyed by all; and fay, after all this, whether you know of any other external that has a greater worth than this, or even a worth so great? No, my dear brethren, if you would enjoy pleafure, innocent, pure, daily-renewing, never difgrac

ing, never cloying; delights worthy of the man and the christian: then feek them not at a distance from you, fince they lie at home; feek them not in things which are not in your power, but in what is more your own; feek them in the happiness of domeftic life. If you may venture to expect them any where, it is certainly there they must be found!

SERMON XXXIV.

The Value of Friendship.

GOD, the eternal, inexhaustible source of all affection and happiness, what joys, what felicities haft thou not prepared for us, by making us capable of affection towards each other, and of elevating that affection to pure and generous friendship! What a counterbalance to all the troubles and burdens of life haft thou not given us therein! Affording us a genial light through the roughest and gloomiest paths of it! Yes, all the dispositions, all the energies, all the propenfities and instincts which thou haft planted in our nature, are good; they all testify that thou loveft us with parental tenderness, that thou haft not ordained us to grief, but to joy; not to mifery, but to happiness! Might only all these difpofitions be unfolded, thefe energies be fo exerted, these propensities acquire fuch a direction, and these

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