conform to. All fair traders allow them, though among precife puritanical people they would not readily be admitted. In felling or buying, you muft often praife and depreciate beyond the truth. You muft, now and then, take advantage of fome for the loffes you may have fuftained by others. Trade might otherwife be a lofing bargain. It is fair alfo to fpeculate, and, by monopolizing, to keep the price of fome useful commodity in your own hands.-Or if any perfon oppofe you in bufinefs, and fland between you and the accomplishment of fome favourite scheme, you may undermine him, and privately attack his character. It is felf-defence. He attacks you firft.-With regard to mercantile and qualifying oaths, I know not what to say. I must leave you in those matters to your own judgment. If by any cafuiftry you can avoid the force of them, it is all I defire. My great inftruction, on the whole, is to raise yourselves in life. Let that thought be always uppermoft. Never be fatisfied with what you have, but always look forward to fomething more. You may talk of contentment, if you will, and of being fatisfied with moderate things. You will make your way cafier under fuch declarations. Only take care never to make

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make fuch fentiments, the fentiments of your

hearts.

Thus the World fpeaks on the fubject of contentment. Let us now hear what Christianity says:

༣

When I enjoin you to be content with fuch things as you have, I mean to enjoin you literally to shut in all your defires. I allow industry and frugality in your several employments; but I ftrictly forbid you to be folicitous about the event of things. Leave that entirely in the hands of God. He may ordain you to lead a life of poverty. Bear it with refignation, depending upon that God, who has declared he will never forfake you, if you never forfake him. Recollect also, that if you can be content in your low eftate, contentment is real happiness. On the other hand, it may please God to profper your industry with great fuccefs or raise you, in other ways, to a state of affluence. In thefe cafes, ftill draw in your defires. Your riches are not given you merely for yourselves. Except what a conscientious respect to your stations in life may fairly require, your wealth is, in fact, no more your own, than if you did not poffefs it. It engages you only in a more arduous employment. You are taught to consider yourself as a fteward of God's bounty, for

the

the good of others. Guard therefore against the temptations of riches, and make to yourself a friend of the mammon of unrighteoufnefs. This indeed should check your defire of riches; because if you confider them in a true religious light, they only engage you in more arduous employment.-Draw in therefore all your defires, and confider yourself merely as a perfon travelling through a country, in which you have no property, to your great home, where, at length, you will meet with every comfort.

If this be thought too ftri&t, let us hear St. Paul's opinion in the cafe:

"I have learned," fays he," in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and how to abound. Every where, and in all things, I am inftructed, both to be full, and to be hungry, both to abound, and to fuffer need."

Thus differently the World and Religion, accoft you on the fubject of contentment, and you have an option to which you will liften.But obferve one thing, (adds Religion,) the advice of the World is calculated only for a few years-mine for eternity.

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XXXIV.

I COR. xiii. 1.2.

NOW I KNOW IN PART; BUT THEN SHALL I KNOW, EVEN ALSO AS I AM KNOWN.

THE

HE apoftle is here drawing a comparison between several circumftances in this world and the next; and, among other inftances, mentions the imperfections of our knowledge here, and the enlargement of it hereafter.

1 fhall firft explain the text, and then make a few reflections upon it.

The apoftle fays we know in part-that is, our knowledge is very confined. It is indeed beft characterized by negatives-not fo much by what we know, as by what we do not know. The wifeft and most learned men have been the most ready to acknowledge their ignorance. In what branch of

know

knowledge can any man fay, he knows more than in part?-But the ignorance of man is ground fo well known, that it is unneceffary to run it over. I shall only observe, that as no exception is made, we may fuppofe this confined knowledge relates. to religion, as well as to fcience. The great work of redemption in all its parts and extenfive range, (except those parts which immediately relate to ourfelves,) is moft probably just as much hidden from us, as the nature of the heavenly bodies-the mode of vegetation-or of animal growth.

For our comfort, however, we are told, that although we now only know in part, yet hereafter we shall know, even as also we are known. Our faculties fhall be enlarged, and opened into a knowledge of many things, of which we have now no conception.

Spirits hereafter may probably have the fame difpofition for diverfity of purfuits, which is found on earth. Variety in the works of God is one of its principal characteristics.-Some may employ themselves in tracing the various causes and chain of events in human affairs, which we call evil, and ⚫ in acquainting themfelves with the reafons of thofe perplexing circumftances in the government of the world,