4. It must be fuch a good as none can deprive us of, and take away from us.

5. It must be eternal.

6. It must be able to fupport and comfort us in every condition, and under all the accidents and adverfities of human life.

7. Laftly, It must be fuch a good as can give perfect reft and tranquillity to our minds.

Nothing that is fhort of all this can make us happy: and no creature, no not the whole creation, can pretend to be all this to us. All these properties meet only in God, who is the perfect and fupreme good; as I fhall endeavour in the following difcourfe more particularly to fhew; and confequently, that God is the only happiness of man.

I. God is an all-fufficient good. And this does import two things; wifdom to contrive our happiness, and power to effect it; for neither of thefe without the other is fufficient, and both these in the highest and most eminent degree are in God.

He is infinitely wife to defign and contrive our happinefs; because he knows what happiness is, and how to frame us fo as to be capable of the happiness he defigns for us; and how to order and difpofe all other things fo as that they fhall be no hinderance and impediment to it.

He perfectly understands all the poffibilities of things, and how to fit means to any end. He knows all our wants, and how to fupply them; all our hopes and defires, and how to fatisfy them: he forefees all the dangers and evils which threaten us, and knows how to prevent or divert them, if he thinks fit; or if he permit them to come, how to fupport us under them, or to deliver us out of them, or to turn them to our greater benefit and advantage in the last iffue and refult of things.

His wifdom cannot be surprised by any accident which he did not forefee, and which he is not fufficiently provided against. The wisdom of men is but short and imperfect, and liable to infinite errors and mistakes: in many cafes men know not what is fafest and best for them, nor whether this or that will conduce most to their happiness nay, it often happens, that those very means which the wifeft men chufe for their fecurity, do prove

the

the occafions of their ruin; and they are thrown down by those very ways whereby they thought to raise and establish themselves.

Especially if God breathe upon the counfels of men, how are their designs blafted? how are they infatuated and foiled in their deepest contrivances, and fared in the work of their own hands? When it is of the Lord, the wisdom of the greatest politicians is turned into foolishnefs: for there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counfel against the Lord.

But the divine wisdom, being founded upon infinite knowledge, is thereby fecured against all poffibility of error and mistake. God perfectly knows the natures and the powers of all his creatures, and therefore can never be mistaken in the ufe and application of them to any of his purposes: fo that none of his defigns of love and mercy to the fons of men can mifcarry for want of good contrivance, or wife conduct.

And as he is perfectly wife to contrive our happiness, fo is he infinitely powerful to effect it, and to remove out of the way all the obstacles and impediments of it. We may understand many times what would conduce to our happiness, but may not be able to compafs it; but nothing is out of the reach of omnipotency: many things are difficult to us, but nothing is too hard for God: many things are impoffible with us, but with God all things are poffible. For he is the fountain and original of all power, from whom it is derived, and upon whom it depends, and to whom it is perfectly fubject and fubordinate: he can do all things at once, and in an instant, and with the greatest ease; and no created power can put any difficulty in his way, much less make any effectual refiftance; because omnipotency can check, and countermand, and bear down before it all other powers.

So that if God be on our fide, who can be against us? We may fafely commit our fouls into his hands; for be is able to keep that which is committed to him. He can give us all good things, and deliver us from all evil, for his is the kingdom and the glorious power. Though all creatures fhould fail us, we may rely upon God, and live upon his all-fufficiency for our fupply; and may fay with the Prophet, Though the fig-tree should not bloom, neither

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neither fruit be in the vine; though the labour of the olive fhould fail, and the fields fhould yield no meat; though the flock fhould be cut off from the fold, and there should be no herd in the ftalls: yet would I rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my falvation.

II. As God is an all-fufficient good, fo he is perfect goodness. He is willing to communicate happiness to us, and to employ his power and wisdom for our good. He made us that he might make us happy; and nothing can hinder us from being fo but ourfelves. Such is his goodness, that he would have all men to be faved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; and when we have provoked him by our fins, he is long-fuffering to us-ward, not willing that any fhould perish, but that all should come to repentance: for he delighteth not in the death of a finner, but rather that he would turn from his wickedness, and live. So that, if any of us be miferable, it is our own choice; if we perifh, our deftruction is of ourselves: for, as the wife man, in one of the apocryphal books, fays excellently, God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the deftruction of the living. But men feek death in the error of their life; and pull deftruction upon themselves, with the works of their own hands.

So great is the goodness of God to mankind, that he hath omitted nothing that is neceffary to our happiness. He defigned it for us at firft; and to that end he hath endued us with powers and faculties, whereby we are capable of knowing, and loving, and obeying, and enjoying him the chief good. And when we had forfeited all this by the wilful tranfgreffion and difobedience of the first parents of mankind, and were miserably bruised and maimed by their fall, God of his infinite mercy was pleased to restore us to a new capacity of happiness, by fending his only Son to fuffer in our nature, and in our ftead; and thereby to become a propitiation for the fins of the whole world, and the author of eternal falvation to them that believe and obey him; and he hath likewife promifed to give us his Holy Spirit, to enable us to that faith and obedience which the gofpel requires of us as the neceffary conditions of our eternal falvation.

III. God is alfo a firm and unchangeable good. Notwithstanding his infinite wifdom, and power, and good

nefs,

nefs, we might be miserable, if God were mutable. For that cannot be a happiness which depends upon uncertainties; and perhaps one of the greatest aggravations of mifery is, to fall from happiness; to have been once happy, and afterwards to ceafe to be fo: and that would unavoidably happen to us, if the cause of our happiness could change, and the foundation of it be removed. If God could be otherwife than powerful, and wife, and good, all our hopes of happiness would be fhaken, and would fall to the ground. But the divine nature is not fubject to any change: as he is the father of lights, and the author of every good and perfect gift; fo with him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. All the things of this world are mutable; and for that reason, had they no other imperfection belonging them, cannot make us happy.

IV. God is fuch a good as none can deprive us of, and take away from us. If the things of this world were unchangeable in their nature, and not liable to any decay, yet they cannot make us happy; because we may be cheated of them by fraud, or robbed of them by violence. But God cannot be taken from us. Nothing but our fins can part God and us: Who shall feparate us (faith the Apostle, Rom. viii. 35.) from the love of God? fhall tribulation, or diftrefs, or perfecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or fword? We may be ftripped of all our worldly comforts and enjoyments, by the violence of men ; but none of all these can separate us from God: I am perfuaded, (as the Apoftle goes on with great triumph,

38.39.), that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor things prefent, nor things to come, nor any other creature, fhall be able to feparate us from the love of God which is in Chrift Jefus our Lord. Nor any other creature: Here is a fufficient induction of particulars; and nothing left out of this catalogue but one, and that is fin, which is none of God's creatures, but our own. This indeed deliberately confented to, and wilfully continued in, will finally part God and us, and for ever hinder us from being happy.

But if we be careful to avoid this, which only can separate between God and us, nothing can deprive us of

him the aids and influences of his grace none can intercept or hinder: the joys and comforts of his Holy Spirit none can take from us. All other things may leave us, and forfake us; we may be debarred of our best friends, and banished from all our acquaintance: but men can send us no whither from the prefence of God. Our communication with heaven cannot be prevented or interrupted. Our prayers and our fouls will always find the way thither from the uttermoft parts of the earth.

V. God is an eternal good; and nothing but what is fo can make us happy. Man having an immortal spirit, and being defigned for an endless duration, must have a happiness proportionable: for which reafon nothing in this world can make us happy, because we shall abide and remain after it. When a very few years are paft and gone, and much fooner for any thing we know, all the things of this world will leave us, or else we fhall be taken away from them: but God is from everlafting to everlafting: he is the fame, and his years fail not: Therefore well might David fix his happinefs upon God alone, and fay, Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I defire befides thee. When my heart faileth, and my ftrength faileth, God is the ftrength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

VI. God is able to fupport and comfort us, in every condition, and under all the accidents and adverfities of human life. Outward afflictions may hurt our body, but they cannot reach our foul; and, fo long as that remains unwounded, the Spirit of man can bear his infirmities. God is intimate to our fouls, and hath fecret ways whereby to convey the joys and comforts of his Holy Spirit into our hearts, under the bittereft afflictions and fharpeft fufferings. He can enable us, by his grace, to poffefs our fouls in patience, when all other things are taken from us. Where there is nothing but trouble about us, he can give us peace and joy in believing; when we are perfecuted, afflicted, and tormented, he can give us that ravishing fight of the glories of another world, that ftedfast affurance of a future bleffednefs, as fhall quite extinguifh all fenfe of prefent fufferings. How did many of the primitive Christian martyrs, in the