SER M. it. Although a man know that he de

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ferves punishment, yet he will not allow every one to inflict it. A child will fubmit to his parents, a fervant to his mafter, a subject to the magistrate, when he would not bear correction from another hand. But no parent can have so complete a right to authority over his children, no mafter over his fervants, no magistrate over his fubjects, as the Almighty hath over us. When we were born, we brought nothing with us into God's world. During our continuance in it, we have lived on the good things which God was pleafed to lend us; and of which, God and our own confcience know that we have made but a forry improvement. When he thinks proper to take any of them away, no wrong is done us; for they were not ours. To have enjoyed them so long, was a favour, To enjoy them always, was what we neither deserved, nor had any title to expect.

IN the third place, the good things

memory

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which at different times we have received S ERM. and enjoyed, are much greater than the evils which we fuffer. Of this fact, I am fenfible it will be difficult to perfuade the afflicted. But would they weigh, in a fair balance, the whole of their circumftances, they would find it true. Whatever perfons feel at the prefent, makes fo ftrong an impreffion upon them, as very commonly to obliterate the of all the paft. When one is oppreffed with fome painful disease in his body, or wrung with fome fore diftrefs of mind, every former comfort, at that moment, goes for nothing. Life is beheld in all its gloom. A dark cloud feems to hang over it; and it is reviled, as no other than a scene of wretchedness and forrow. But this is to be unjust to human life, as well as ungrateful to its author. Let me only defire you to think how many days, how many months, how many years, you have paffed in health, and ease, and comfort; how many pleasurable feelings you have had;

how

SERM. how

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many

friends you have enjoyed; many bleffings, in fhort, of different kinds you have tafted; and you will be forced to acknowledge, that more materials of thanksgiving present themselves than of lamentation and complaint.

Do

-Thefe bleffings, you will fay, are past. But though past, ought they to be gone from your remembrance? they merit no place, in the comparative estimate of the goods and evils of your ftate? Did you, could you, expect, that in this mutable world, any temporal joy was to last for ever? Has gratitude no influence to form your minds to a calm acquiefcence in your Benefactor's appointments? What can be more reasonable than to say, "Having in former "times received fo many good things ❝ from the hand of God, fhall I not now, " without murmuring, receive the few "evils which it pleases him to fend?"

In the fourth place, not only the goods of life are upon the whole greater than

its

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its evils; but the evils which we fuffer S ER M. are feldom, or never, without fome mixture of good. As there is no condition on earth of pure unmixed felicity, so there is none fo miferable, as to be deftitute of every comfort. Entire and complete mifery, if ever it take place, is of our own procuring, not of God's fending. None but the moft grofs and atrocious finners can be in fuch a fituation, as to discover no ray of relief or hope. In the ordinary diftreffes of life, it is generally our own folly and infirmity which, upon the lofs of fome one bleffing that we had highly prized, deprives us of fatisfaction in all other things. Many of our calamities are purely imaginary, and felf-created; arifing from rivalship or competition with others, and from false opinions of the importance of objects, to which cuftom and fashion have annexed an ideal value. Were these mistaken opinions once corrected by reason, the evil would difappear, and contentment would refume its place. With respect to thofe calami

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SER M. ties which are inflicted by God, his Providence has made this wife and merciful conftitution, that, after the first shock, the burden by degrees is lightened. Time brings a gentle and powerful opiate. to all misfortunes. What is very violent cannot last long; and what lafts long we become accustomed to bear. Every fituation that is permanent, at length is felt to be tolerable. The mind accommodates itself to it; and by degrees regains its ufual tranquillity. Hence the greatest part of the evils of life are more terrible in the previous apprehenfion, than in the actual feeling; and it feldom happens but, in one corner or other, fomething is found on which the mind can lay hold for its relief.

How

many,

for inftance, do we behold around us, ftraitened in their worldly circumftances, and yet` finding the means to live chearfully, with poverty and peace in the fame habitation? If we are deprived of friends whom we tenderly loved, are there not ftill fome remaining, from

whom