God's love, and love will make all sweet and pleasant. The music and ribaldry and wantonness of the play-house, the itch of gaming, the bewitching idleness of a dissipated life, will of themselves grow burdensome and nauseous to your spirit, when it has once tasted any thing of the love of God.' I have found,' you will say, 'true pleasure; I never knew it before.' Let me entreat you to weigh these thoughts, and pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit to impress them on your souls, and to work in you true repentance and true faith, that you may live to enjoy the goodness of God both here and to eternity.

2. But, secondly, a word to backsliders will be. proper also on this occasion.-I speak to you, who have known formerly what it is to be drawn with the cords of a man, with bands of love. Confess, did you ever find any thing so sweet, so pleasant, in your lives, as the love of God? Did any man's kindness ever move and melt your souls like that of God? You were drawn, but you moved freely, with ingenuous motions: the captivity of the love of Christ constraining you was your sweetest liberty, the service of God was your freedom: one spark of the love of God was the most precious sensation in the world. But Oh,' you say, that it were with me as in months. past! I sinned away all this happiness; I was ungrateful for mercies received; and, oh, how hard, blind, and senseless is my soul at present,

But,

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are less apt to see their own sincerity. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempests and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires; and I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near thee." Yes, O gracious God, thou canst speak to their hearts; and if by thy Spirit thou wilt speak, when thou workest none shall let it. Oh, speak the comfort of the Gospel to the souls of such this day. And do thou prevent careless, presumptuous professors from hardening themselves with comforts to which they have no right, though they are so ready to snatch them. However, though God only can create your peace, ye mourners, take a word of advice: Endeavour to shake off your bonds, heartily to trust in Jesus Christ, and to wait patiently for him: do not give way to those thoughts which encourage your bondage: refuse not to see the evidences of your own sincerity, when they appear: use yourselves to such encouraging thoughts of God as those I have this day set forth; and the Lord in his time will comfort you.

4. Lastly. Those who are rejoicing, and esta

blished in this Divine goodness, will of all others need the least to be said to them. Take two words, however: Study to be humbly thankful all your days, and imitate your Father in your whole conduct toward your fellow-creatures.

SERMON VIII.

HAPPINESS NOT TO BE MEASURED BY
POSSESSIONS.

LUKE xii. 15.

A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

HAPPINESS is the great object of all men. Whatever our character and station be, in this we all agree, to long passionately for happiness, and that with the same sincerity with which we love ourselves. In this the saint and the sinner unite; and that which the one expects in the exercise of the means of grace, the other seeks in the indulgence of proud, worldly, or sensual affections. The world we live in is full of vigour, business, and employment: we are all seeking happiness, though we differ in our ideas of its nature, and of the means which tend to promote it. Is not happiness a great word? Is such a thing to be found? Are we not all of us more or less unhappy at present? Is there a certain way, and only one certain way, which leads to happiness; to some real degree of it here, to the fulness of it hereafter? Are the thousand other ways

which seem to lead to happiness, pregnant only with ruin and desolation, though they deceive and ensnare the hearts and lives of thousands and tens of thousands? What important questions are these! They deserve serious attention from every one of us. As you wish to be happy, brethren, let me beseech you to attend to some directions on this point. Would you wish to feel, to enjoy, to ensure for ever, that jewel of happiness which all seek for, all passionately desire, but which we find ourselves continually frustrated in? The Scriptures of truth, which reveal the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, do thereby recite to us the way of true happiness. The most important subject in the world is before us; the Lord deliver us from a slumbering spirit, and awaken us to lively attention!

Our Lord is guarding men against covetousness "for a man's life," says he, "consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." It is a very good reason that men should not be urgent after wealth, because their life consists not in it. The satisfaction, comfort, and enjoyment of life, that which makes life valuable, depends not on money.

In doing justice to our subject, it will be proper, then, first, to state what happiness does not consist in; and, secondly, in what it does consist.

1. It does not consist in the abundance of the things which a man possesses.-I doubt not but you are all beforehand with me in