SERM.
VIII.

No Doubt, our highest Affection, in the Reason of the Thing, is a Tribute due to GOD confidered as the highest Good. Yet it must alfo be granted, that dry and abftracted Reafons of Love operate very faintly, unless we take into the Account thofe affecting Confiderations of His being our Creator, Redeemer, Preferver, and univerfal Benefactor and Parent. For this Cause the Scripture tells us, we love GOD because He first loved us. His Internal and Effential Excellency may claim our Admiration, and convince the Understanding, that we ought to love Him; but His Relative Dignity, His making, preferving and redeeming us, touch the inmoft Springs and Movements of our Nature, and powerfully work upon the Will and Paffions, the two active Principles in the Mind of Man.

Let then, O Man, thy labouring Soul ftrive to conceive (for 'tis impoffible to exprefs) what an immenfe Debt of Gratitude thou oweft to Him, who, by His Creating Goodnefs, called Thee out of Nothing to make Thee a Partaker of Reason, and even a Sharer of Immortality with Himself: Who, by His Preferving Goodness, defigns to conduct Thee fafe through the various Stages of thy Eternal Exiftence: And who, by His Redeeming Goodness, hath prepared for Thee an Happiness too big for the

Com

Comprehenfion of an human Understanding. S ER M. Canft Thou receive fuch Endearments of VIII. Love to Thee and all Mankind with Infenfibility and Coldness? Shouldft thou treat a tender Parent with an undutiful Behaviour, we would call Thee an unnatural Monfter; fhouldft Thou treat a generous Benefactor with a difobliging Behaviour, we would call Thee bafe and ungrateful: Nay, fhouldft Thou ufe a brute Creature, which expreffed his Kindness in the most fignificant Manner he could, with Cruelty, we would brand Thee with the Names of unmerciful and hard-hearted. But in the whole Compafs of Language what Word is expreffive enough to paint the black Ingratitude of That Man, who is unaffected by, and entirely regardlefs of, the Goodness of his Creator, and the Mercies of his Saviour? Did He, the Lord of Life and Glory, condefcend to make the firft Advances of Love and Friendship to us; and shall not we cherish an affectionate Remembrance, and a grateful Refentment of thefe His invaluable Favours?

On the other Hand, what a delightful. Complacency muft diffufe itself over the Mind of Him, who has the leaft Tinctureof Good-will to the Universe, to confider, that what he wished is brought about, the Happiness of the whole Universe of Rational Creatures, if it is not their own Fault; N 4

and

SER M. and to think at the fame Time that he VIII. himself is in the happy Number of them? To reflect, that He, who spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for our fakes, will with Him alfo freely give us all Things, muft beget in us a Delight in Him, of whom are all Things as He is our Creator, through whom are all Things as He is our Preferver, and to whom are all Things as He is our Final Happiness and Sovereign Good.

But this leads me from the Pleasures of Benevolence to confider Thofe of Hope and Expectation.

Now prefent Hope is prefent Good; and a certain Expectation of future Bleffings is in fome Measure a Bleffing in Hand. Hope is the great Cordial that muft fweeten Life, and make the naufeous Draught go down, We are indigent Creatures, infufficient of ourfelves for our own Happiness, and therefore ever seeking it fomewhere else. But, where to feek it? there is the Question. The thoughtful and penfive, who are Enemies to the Vanities of Life, are eaten up with (what is the greatest Vanity of all) a perpetual Vexation of Spirit; unless they direct their Thoughts to, and caft their Care upon, GOD: No: If there were not another Life, our Bufinefs would be, not to alarm the thinking Faculty, but to lull our too unquiet Thoughts to Reft. Our Mind would be, like

a fro

VIII.

a froward Child, ever crying and fretful SER M. whilst awake; and therefore to be played, and lulled asleep as fast as poffible. And our main Happiness would be to fteal ourselves gently and infenfibly from a feeling of, or Reflection upon, our Mifery.

If Man had an ample Fund of Happiness within himself without any Deficiency; whence is it that he is continually looking out abroad for foreign Amusements? Amufements, which rather fufpend the Sense of Uneafinefs, than give any substantial Satisfaction; which keep the Soul in an even Poife between Pleasure and Pain, and are of no other Ufe but to make us infenfible of the Tediousness of living, to fill up the vacant Spaces of Time, and to shut out that importunate Intruder Self-reflection. Whence is it that That restlefs Thing, the Soul, too enterprizing to trace every Thing, yea, the deep Things of GOD, is yet too cowardly to inquire into itself, and to view the inward Workings of that ever-loved, yet everavoided Object, Itself? Whence is it that the Mind, whofe active Energy prompts it to give a free and unconfined Range to her Thoughts on other Subjects; nay, to make, were that poffible, the Tour of the whole Universe, yet when she comes to dwell at Home, and to furvey the little World within, flags in her Vivacity, feels herself in a forlorn Condition, and finds a Drowfinefs

and

SER M. and melancholy Gloom hanging upon her? VIII. Whence is it, but because the Soul, whenever

it turns it's Thoughts inward, finds within itself a frightful Void of folid Happiness without any Poffibility of filling it up?

Indeed in a Circle of gay Follies, or in a Multiplicity of Bufinefs, when different Objects are in Succeffion continually ftriking upon the Mind, the Capacity of the Soul is taken up, and it forgets that inward Poverty and Indigence, which nothing can effectually relieve but the unfearchable Riches of the Love of GOD: But when we ftep afide from the Noife and beaten Tracks of Life into Solitude and Retirement, having no Employment to fix, no Recreation to diffipate, our Thoughts; we foon find that we are an infupportable Burden to curfelves without our GOD. Hence none is more miferable than a Man diftracted with Variety of Bufinefs, excepting Him, who has no Business, no Amusement, at all. Recreations and Paftimes, properly fo called (for they serve for no other End but to pass away our Time) may footh the Mind into a pleafing Forgetfulness of it's Mifery. But nothing can give us an exquifite Relish and Enjoyment of this Life but the Hopes of a better through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST.

Should any Person ask then, "Who "will fhew us any Good? Who will point

out