This is

to the realizing of thefe glorious hopes? what you will do; I expect it from your christian and beneficent difpofitions: and if ye do it heartily and in fincere intentions, I can confidently promise you, in the name of God, who through me is incit ing you to beneficence, that you will be acceptable

to him, and that he will give you his bleffing.

SERMON XLII.

The Value of Human Happiness itself.

GOD, the eternal, inexhauftible fource of all

life and happiness, on us thy children, life and happiness of various kinds and in rich abundance inceffantly flow down from thee; and in which we here rejoice before thee; for this we thank thee with united hearts. No, thou haft not doomed any of thy creatures, any of mankind, to mifery; devoted and called them all to happiness

the misery that with or without our fault

thou haft

and even

befalls us,

must be and is the means and way to that desired end. This we are taught by the various difpofitions and capacities of our nature; this we learn from the feveral arrangements that thou haft made in the material and in the intellectual world; of this we are certified by what thy son Jesus has communicated to us and done for us. Innumerable fources of plea

fure

fure and delight are daily opened around us, whence we may all draw, and which we never can exhaust. We daily receive from thy liberal hand innumerable benefits and bleffings, demanding of us gratitude and joy. And if fometimes those fources of delight are troubled by our tears, and these benefits lofe a part of their value to us by fufferings; yet the agreeable and the good with which thou doft bless and gladden us, retains a great preponderance over the disagreeable and evil that thou findeft good to dif pense among us. Yes, o God, thou art love itself! Thy will and thy operations tend folely to happiness; and thou doft will and effect it even when we leaft think fo. Thanks and praise and adoration ever be to thee, the All-gracious, the Father of mankind! Happiness and falvation to us and all thy creatures in heaven and on earth! Oh that we were ever more attentive to thy bounties, ever more fociable in the enjoyment of them, ever more fatisfied with thy difpenfations and ordinances, ever more faithful and blithe in the use of thy benefits. May even now our reflections on these important fubjects fhed a clear light upon our minds and much ferenity and joy into our hearts! Blefs them to these ends, o gracious God, and hearken to our prayer through Jefus Chrift, our Lord, in whofe name we farther addrefs thee, faying: Our father, &c,

T is a matter of great confequence to know how

IT

to form a right estimate of human happiness, or of the stock of delight and pleasure, of the sum of agreeable fenfations fubfifting among mankind. He that makes the amount of it too great, he that looks on the earth as a paradife, and the prefent ftate of man as a state of continued enjoyment, must be fo often and fo grievoufly deceived in his expectations as to become difpirited and impatient. On the other hand, he who overlooks, if not the whole, yet at least the greatest part of the various kinds of benefit that are in the world and amongst mankind, or does not afcribe to them the value they really deferve; he that imagines he perceives, on all fides, nought but imperfection, wretchednefs and want, near and at a distance, around him; who fees, as it were, tears gufhing from every human eye, and fighs arifing from every human breaft; how can he revere the creator of himself and all mankind as the all

bountiful parent of the world!

How can he rejoice

in his existence, and the existence of his fellow-creaAures! How enjoy the advantages and benefits, the

fatisfactions

fatisfactions and comforts of life, with a grateful and a chearful heart! And how prejudicial must not this be to his virtue and piety, to his inward perfection! How negligently at times will he fulfil his duties! How easily will he grow languid and weary in acts of justice and beneficence! We fhould be

on our guard against this gloomy and pernicious way of thinking, my pious hearers, if we would enjoy our lives, and faithfully fulfil the duties of them. Let us not charge God, the best, the most beneficent being, the father of mankind, with being deficient in kindness. Let us not shut our eyes and our hearts to the beautiful and good that is diffused throughout the world and distributed among mankind, nor misapply our difcernment to the vilification of it. Let us appreciate human happiness for what it actually is, and in the fentiment of its copioufnefs and magnitude exclaim with the pfalmift in our text, " The earth is full of thy riches." Indeed it is difficult, it is even impoffible, exactly to weigh the fatisfaction and the disgust, the pleasure and the pain, the happiness and the mifery, which fubfift among mankind, against each other, fo as to obtain the just amount of either, This can only be done by him who holds in his hand the balance that contains them both, who proportions them among his creatures according to his wife and good pleasure, who comprehends them both in his almighty mind, and perceives all their poffible and actual effects in every event. We may, however, form a jufter estimate of human happiness

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