But nothing of this kind can affect the intercourse of gratitude with Heaven. Its favours are wholly difinterested; and with a gratitude the most cordial and unfufpicious, a good man looks up to that Almighty Benefactor, who aims at no end but the happiness of those whom he bleffes, and who defires no return from them but a devout and thankful heart. While others can trace their profperity to no higher fource than a concurrence of worldly causes, and, often, of mean or trifling incidents, which occafionally favoured their defigns; with what fuperior fatisfaction does the fervant of God remark the hand of that gracious Power, which hath raifed him up; which hath happily conducted him through the various fteps of life, and crowned him with the most favourable diftinction beyond his equals ?

a title to enjoy, While bad men

Let us farther confider, that not only gratitude for the past, but a chearing sense of God's favour at the prefent, enters into the pious emotion. They are only the virtuous, who in their profperous days hear this voice addreffed to them; Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart ; for God now accepteth thy works. He who is the Author of their profperity gives them with complacency, his own gift. snatch the pleasures of the world as by stealth, without countenance from God the proprietor of the world; the righteous fit openly down to the feast of life, under the fmile of approving Heaven. No guilty fears damp their joys. The bleffing of God rests upon all that they poffefs; his protection furrounds them; and hence, in the habitations of the righteous, is found the voice of rejoicing and falvation. A luftre unknown to others, invefts, in their fight, the whole

ature. Their piety reflects a funfhine from

Heaven

Heaven upon the profperity of the world; unites in. one point of view, the fmiling afpect, both of the powers above, and of the objects below. Not only have they as full a relish as others, of the innocent pleasures of life, but, moreover, in these they hold communion with God. In all that is good or fair, they trace his hand. From the beauties of nature, from the improvements of art, from the enjoyments of focial life, they raise their affection to the fource of all the happiness which furrounds them; and thus widen the fphere of their pleasures, by adding intellectual,, and fpiritual, to earthly joys..

For illuftration of what I have faid on this head, remark that chearful enjoyment of a profperous ftate which King David had, when he wrote the twentythird Pfalm; and compare the highest pleasures of the riotous finner, with the happy and fatisfied spirit which breathes throughout that Pfalm.-In the midst of the fplendour of royalty, with what amiable fimplicity of gratitude does he look up to the Lord as his Shepherd; happier in afcribing all his fuccefs to divine favour, than to the policy of his counfels, or to the force of his arms! How many inftances of divine goodness arose before him in pleafing remembrance, when with fuch relish he speaks of the green paftures and fill waters befide which God had led ; of his cup which he hath made to overflow; and of the table which he hath prepared for him in presence of his enemies! With what perfect tranquillity does he look forward to the time of his paffing through the valley of the fhadow of death; unappalled by that Spectre, whofe most diftant appearance blafts the profperity of finners! He fears no evil, as long as the rod and the staff of his Divine Shepherd are with him ;; and, through all the unknown periods of this and of

bim

a future

a future existence, commits himself to his guidance with fecure and triumphant hope. Surely goodness and mercy fall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. What a purified, fentimental enjoyment of profperity, is here exhibited! How different from that grofs relish of worldly pleafures, which belongs to thofe who behold only the terrestrial fide of things; who raise their views to no higher objects than the fucceffion of human contingencies, and the weak efforts of human ability; who have no protector or patron in the heavens, to enliven their profperity, or to warm their hearts with gratitude and truft!

II. RELIGION affords to good men peculiar fecurity in the enjoyment of their profperity. One of the first reflections which muft ftrike every thinking man, after his fituation in the world has become agreeable, is, That the continuance of fuch a fituation' is moft uncertain. From a variety of caufes he lies open to change. On many fides he fees that he may be pierced; and the wider his comforts extend, the broader is the mark which he fpreads to the arrows of misfortune. Hence many a fecret alarm to the re-flecting mind; and to thofe who reject all fuch alarms, the real danger increafes, in proportion to their improvident fecurity.

By worldly afliance it is vain to think of providing any effectual defence, feeing the world's mutability is the very cause of our terror. It is from a higher principle, from a power fuperior to the world, that relief must be fought, amidst fuch difquietudes of the heart. He who in his profperity can look up to One who is witness to his moderation, humanity, and charity; he who can appeal to Heaven, that he

has

has not been elated by pride, nor overcome by pleafure, but has ftudied to employ its gifts to the honour of the giver; this man, if there be any truth in religion, if there be any benignity or goodness in the administration of the universe, has juft caufe for encouragement and hope. Not that an intereft in the Divine grace will perpetuate to a good man, more than to others, a life of unruffled profperity. Change and alteration form the very effence of the world. But let the world change around him at pleafure, he has ground to hope that it shall not be able to make him unhappy. Whatever may vary, God's providence is ftill the fare; and his love to the righteous remains unaltered. If it fhall be the Divine will to remove one comfort, he trufts that fome other fhall be given. Whatever is given, whatever is taken away, he confides, that in the last refult all shall work for his good.

Hence, he is not difturbed, like bad men, by the inftability of the world.

Dangers, which overcome others, shake not his more fteady mind. He enjoys the pleasures of life pure and unallayed, becaufe he enjoys them, as long as they lat, without anxious terrors. They are not his all, his only good. He welcomes them when they arrive; and when they pafs away, he can eye them, as they depart, without agony or defpair. His profperity ftrikes a deeper and firmer root than that of the ungodly. And for this reafon he is compared in the Text, to a tree planted by the rivers of water; à tree, whose branches the tempeft may indeed bend, but whose root it cannot touch; a tree, which may occafionally be stripped of its leaves and bloffoms, but which still maintains its place, and in due season flourishes a-new. Whereas the finner in his profperity, accordin

according to the allufion in the book of Job, refembles the rush that groweth up in the mire; a flender reed, that may flourish green for a while by the fide of the brook, as long as it is cherished by the fun, and fanned by the breeze; till the first bitter blast breaks its feeble ftem, roots it out from its bed, and lays it in the duft. Lo! fuch is the profperity of them that forget God; and thus their hope fhall perish.

III. RELIGION forms good men to the most proper temper for the enjoyment of profperity. A little reflection may fatisfy us, that mere poffeffion, even. granting it to be fecure, does not conftitute enjoyment. Give a man all that is in the power of the world to bestow; furround him with riches; crown him with honours; inveft him, if you will, with abfolute dominion ; but leave him at the fame time under fome fecret oppreffion or heaviness of heart; you bestow indeed the materials of enjoyment, but you. deprive him of ability to extract it. You fet a feaft before him, but he wants the power of tafting it. Hence profperity is fo often an equivocal word, denoting merely affluence of poffeffion, but unjustly ap plied to the miferable poffeffor.

We all know the effects which any indifpofition of the body, even though flight, produce on external profperity. Vifit the gayeft and most fortunate man on earth, only with fleepless nights; diforder any fingle organ of his fenfès; corrode but one of his fmalleft. nerves; and you fhall presently fee all his gaiety vanish; you shall hear him complain that he is a miserable creature, and exprefs his envy of the peafant and the cottager. And can you believe, that a disease in the foul is lefs fatal to enjoyment, than a difeafe in the animal frame; or that a found mind is not as effential, as a found body, to the profperity of man?

-Let