find that thing, whatever it is, that can preferve us, in the midst of plenty, from being undone by the allurements and temptations of the world; that can secure our peace against the cafualties of fortune, and the torments which the disappointments of the world bring with them; that can fave us from the cares and folicitudes which attend upon large poffeffions, and give us a mind capable of relishing the good things before us; easy and satisfied as to the prefent, fecure and void of fear as to the future. And what is this remedy? and who is he that can supply it? He only it is who is the author of every good and perfect gift; whom to know and to love, is a perpetual fpring of joy and felicity. The man who enjoys the world under a sense of religion, and of the power and goodness of God, will fo use the world as not to abuse it; will look upon the uncertainties of life with the unconcernedness of a man who knows he has a much nobler poffeffion, of which no one can rob him: he will part with his riches without torment, he will keep them without anxiety, and use them fo as to make them a bleffing to himself and all around him. If the courfe of the world be difordered, and threatens the inhabitants thereof with calamity and diftrefs, he will maintain his inward peace, knowing that the Lord is King, be the earth ever fo unquiet he will look with pleasure into all the scenes of futurity, being well affured, that the world that now is, and the world that is to come, are in the hands of God. Thefe are the comforts which, in the multitude of forrows which furround us, will refresh the foul of a religious man, whilst they who forget God are spending a wretched life

in lamenting over the misfortunes of this world, and are ending it to begin a more wretched life in the world that is to come.

As the comforts flowing from a true sense of religion are the only true fupport of the spirit of a man, in all circumftances and conditions; fo the lofs of them is frequently attended with a mifery, of all others the sharpeft, and which the mind of man can leaft bear. We call this mifery by the name of defpair: a grief it is, which pierces through the foul, and racks it in every part. There are two forts of it. One has God for its object, but God clothed in anger and vengeance; it has no truft or confidence in him; it is all fear and dread, as living under a Being fuppofed to want no power, and to have no mercy; or thinking itself incapable of all mercy, as a veffel of wrath, fitted to deftruction: the other disbelieves the being of a God, or his providence and care over his creatures; it fees the world in diforder and confufion, the righteous afflicted, the wicked in great prosperity, and haftily concludes, that there is no God, or that he regards none of these things: a conclufion which either fills our hearts with all the pains of defponding melancholy, feeing ourselves furrounded with innumerable troubles, and no helping hand near to lend us affiftance; or elfe makes them obdurate and fully fet to do evil, seeing the prosperity of the wicked, and none near to call them to account. Need I now add any thing to fhew the wretchedness of these conditions? Is it not a miferable state to live in a world where no juftice is to be expected; to ftruggle not only with the acci

dents of life, but with the wickednefs of men, with the violence of the oppreffor, with the fraud of the deceitful, with the envy of the malicious, and with the jealoufies and fufpicions of all about us? to have all our hopes and expectations confined within this narrow scene of wickedness and confufion, and no power to overrule this disorder, no hand to guide us through the ftorm? Is it not ftill more wretched to live under the conftant dread of an incenfed power; in daily expectation of the time fhortly to come, which will deliver us up to his wrath; a wrath which no repentance can appeafe, no tears can foften? No imagination can form to itself a mifery exceeding this.

These are the forrows to which we are expofed, when once we let go our truft and confidence in God, and render ourselves incapable of his comforts. As long as we have hope in God, we fee our way through the world, and move within fight of a fure haven of reft and peace: if the wicked profper, we know there is a day of account; if the righteous fuffer, we know his reward is not far off: if all things about us feem disturbed, we know whose word can bring order out of confufion : whatever our state and condition are, we poffefs our fouls in patience, and in full affurance that all things are fubject to him, who is our God, and our Redeemer.

I fhall detain you no longer than to lay two confequences before you, arifing from what has been faid. First, Since the evils of life do fo neceffarily force us to have refort to the comforts of religion, being capable of no other cure or remedy, it may

fhew us fome marks of God's goodness and care of us, even in his permitting thefe many evils in the world: they are fo many calls to us, to fearch out and fecure to ourselves that real happiness to which we are ordained. Had we been made for this world only, it would be impoffible to imagine a reason, why a Being of infinite goodness fhould place us in the midst of so many fears and forrows: but as we are formed for a more lafting ftate than this, and are placed here for our trial only, it was neceffary and agreeable to the wife ends of Providence to furround us on all fides with warnings not to fet up our reft here, but to remember, and with all our might to labour for the life that shall never perish. To this end the evils of the world are very fubfervient; they are diffufed through all conditions of life, and are calls to perfons of all conditions to remember God in all their ways, and to keep a fteadfaft eye upon the things which God has prepared for those who love him.

Secondly, Since the evils of life cannot be avoided, nor yet be cured without the helps and affiftances which religion alone can afford; let us confider, what a fad choice we make for ourselves, when we throw from us the hopes and comforts which flow from a due acknowledgment of God. If we have hope in this life only, we must be miferable. We are born to misery, and we must die to be happy. But if we add to the terrors of death, by renouncing or forfeiting all hopes of futurity; if we corrupt the few pleasures of life by the fears of guilt, and give weight and sharpness to all our other afflictions, by a fearful looking for of judg

ment to come; our condition, even in this world, will be deplorable, and our life but one continued scene of hopeless mifery. As we value therefore even the pleasures of this life, and our fhare in the good things of the world, which the providence of God has placed before us, let us keep ourfelves in a capacity of enjoying them, by holding faft the comforts of religion. Thefe only can give us a true relish of our pleasures; these only can enable us to bear like men our fhare of evil and affliction : our hearts will often be disquieted within us, and we fhall, in the multitude of our thoughts, find a multitude of forrows: let us therefore keep God our friend, whofe comforts will refresh our fouls.