cafions, wherein thou who knoweft, or pretendest to know more, art driven and toffed from doubt to doubt, and no where findeft peace.

Here oh learn what real happiness is, by what means and in what path thou mayft feek and find it. Here learn that happiness is not confined to affluence; does not confist in outward glare; not in rank and titles; not in a foft, luxurious, idle, inactive life; not in a perpetual round of amufements; not in the unhappy means of hearkening to every childish foolish fancy, and in exploring the methods of its gratification. No, learn that it consists in the genial fenfe and the alert application of our faculties, in an active and bufy life, in the due difcharge of the duties of our calling, in the controul of our defires, in the diminution of our artificial wants; to know that it confifts in contentedness of heart and in the confoling apprehenfion of God and the better world hereafter; that it therefore is far more dependent on ourselves and our manner of viewing and judging of objects, than on our outward circumstances and the regard we draw; and that no man is utterly 'fecluded from the poffeffion and enjoyment of it, be his station in life what it may.

Learn therefore with fhame to difmifs thy complaints, and no longer accuse the creator and father of the universe; accufe thyfelf and thy froward taste, and thy exorbitant defires, and thy fervile propensity to imitation, and thy falfe, perverted judgment on the worth of things, and the weakness>

by

by which thou fuffereft thyfelf to be deceived by appearance and show, or fwayed by fenfelefs fashion, and the waste or abuse of thy more extenfive knowledge-these things accufe; in these things change and correct thyself, if thou art not happy, or only happy in a leffer degree than thou mightst with all the fources of happiness which nature, art, society and religion open to thee. And when thou haft learned this, thou haft learned the art which is the most important of all, the art of being cheerful, pleafed and happy and of constantly becoming more fo.

So inftructive, my pious hearers, may the time we pass in the country be to us, and fo inftructive it ac tually is to the man of reflection. Thus to him what appears to be no more than recreation and pleasure, will prove a copious fpring of wifdom. Thus will he at once invigorate both his mind and his body, the health of the one and at the fame time the health of the other. Thus does he draw nigh unto God, his creator, his father; learn to behold and apprehend him in all his works; and to rectify his judgment on the worth and destination of man, and on his real felicity. May we all reap these experiences to our own information and improvement, from our excurfions into the country; and on every fresh occafion in more abundant measure!

SERMON XXXIII.

The Value of Domeftic Happiness.

GOD, eternal, inexhaustible fountain of all happiness and joy, how various, how abundant are the fources of fatisfaction and pleasure which thou haft opened to us thy children, and to the enjoyment whereof thou inviteft us by thy good providence! If thou have befet our path of life with numerous obstructions and difficulties for our discipline and correction, yet haft thou embellifhed it with numberlefs beauties and fatisfactions which impart to us courage and strength to vanquish those difficulties. If thou lay upon us fometimes heavy duties, toilfome businesses, severe afflictions; thou doft mitigate and alleviate them to us by still more various and greater recreations and comforts. Yes, we may, we should be even here on earth delighted and happy; and if we are not fo, it is by our own fault. In the capacities, in means, in opportunities, in encouragements to it, thou letteft none of us be wanting. But too frequently we let ourselves be

wanting

wanting in the wife and faithful ufe of that which in its native tendencies by thy decrees would make us happy! But too often we allow ourselves to be cheated by the semblance of things; disdain truth and wisdom and virtue, the only fure guides to happiness; and are fubmiffively misled by error, by folly and vice into the road of trouble and mifery. And then we doubt of thy goodnefs, murmur at thy constitutions and difpenfations, and complain of the lamentable lot of humanity! God, how unjust are we frequently towards thee, and how inimical to ourselves! Ah, forgive us our tranfgreffions, moft merciful father, and lead us back from our deviations. Let the light of truth diffipate the errors and prejudices that fo often mifguide us. Teach us ever better to know and more worthily to use the wife and kind provifions thou haft made for our happiness. Grant that we may all feek and find it there where thou wilt that we fhould feck and find it, and let us all become conftantly more intelligent and good, and thereby more qualified for its enjoyment. Blefs to this purpose the meditations that are now to employ our thoughts. Enable us to perceive the happiness of domeftic life, to which we are called by thee, in its real form, and derive from it all the felicity that it is capable of procuring us. Grant our requests, which we implore of thee in the name of our faviour Jefus, and entirely relying on his promifes and refigned

to

to thy will, in his own words we further pray for ourselves and for others to thee: Our father, &c.

MATTH. xxi. 17.

And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany, and he lodged there.

IT not unfrequently happens, that man goes to a distance in search of what lies by him, for what is inviting him at home to immediate enjoyment; and this is commonly the reason that he either does not find what he feeks for at all, or not fo complete as he could wish. Thus all mankind are in quest of fatisfaction and happiness. But probably they least search for it where it would be the most easily, the most certainly, and the most completely found. They overlook or difdain the fources of it which lie nearest to them, and are already in their poffeffion; which no man can debar them from, no man can render tasteless or contestable; which flow indeed without noife, but in a copious and uninterrupted stream: and rove about in anxious perplexity after others, which can only be discovered with great labour, only sparingly enjoyed, from which they cannot always, from which they can but feldom draw undisturbed, can never entirely flake their thirst, and often run the hazard of

taking