Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

SERM. II. and the Penfive direct their Thoughts to,

and caft their Cares upon God; there will be little Difference between Them and the Gay and Unthinking, befides this; that the Latter will have more of the Vanity of Life; but They themselves more of the Vexations of it. If there were not another Life, our Business would be, not to alarm the Thinking Faculty, but to lay our too active and unquiet Thoughts to Rest. The Mind would be like a froward Child, ever fretful when fully awake; and therefore to be played and lulled afleep as faft as we Our main Happiness would be to forget our Mifery and ourselves; to forget, that we are a Set of Beings, who, after we have toiled out the live-long Day of human Life, in Variety of Hardships; are, instead of receiving our Wages at the Clofe of it, to fleep out one long eternal Night in an utter Extinction of Being.

can.

If Man had an ample Fund of Happiness in himself, without any Deficiency; whence is it, that he is continually looking out abroad for foreign Amusements; Amusements, which are of no other Ufe, but to keep off troublefom and ungrateful Impreffions, and to make us infenfible of

the Tediousness of Living; Amusements, SERM. IF. which rather fufpend a Senfe of Uneafiness, than give us any fubftantial Satisfaction; and keep the Soul in an equal Poise between Pleasure and Pain? And is this the great End which we have in View ? Suppofing we could compass it; yet if it be better not to be at all, than to be miferable ; then certainly just not to be miferable, without any pofitivè Happiness, is much at one, as not to be at all. Whence is it, that that restless Thing the Soul, too enterprizing to trace every Thing else, yea the deep Things of God; is yet too cowardly to enquire into itself, and to view the Workings of that ever-loved, yet everavoided Object? Whence is it, that the Mind, whose active Energy prompts her to give a free and unconfined Range to her Thoughts on other Subjects, nay, to make, if it were poffible, the Tour of the whole Universe; yet, when fhe comes to dwell at Home, and to furvey the little World within, flags in her Vivacity, feels herfelf in a forlorn Condition, and finds a Drowfinefs and melancholy Gloom hanging upon her? Whence is it, but that the Soul, whenever it turns it's Thoughts inD 4 ward,

SERM. II. ward, finds within a frightful Void of fo

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

lid Happiness, without any Poffibility in itself of filling it up? Indeed, in a Circle

of gay Follies, or in a Multiplicity of Purfuits, when a Succeffion of different Objects is continually striking 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 step afide from the Noife and beaten Tracks of Life, into Solitude and Retirement; we foon perceive, that we are, without fome Business to engage, or fome Recreation to divert our Attention, an infupportable Burthen to our felves. You fancy the Man, whofe daily Labour ferves for little elfe but to get his daily Bread, and whofe daily Bread just refreshes and ftrengthens him to undergo his daily Labour, to be a very miferable Object; and perhaps he is fo. Would you make him more miferable? Give him a . Fortune, which fhall fet him at Reft from his Labours, and leave him nothing at all to do: And then the Wearifomness, which refulted from a continual Drudgery, will be nothing comparable to another Kind of

Wearifomness, far more irkfom-the be- SERM. II. ing weary of himself. Obferve great Numbers of the Opulent and the Great: What can be oftner from Home than their Perfons? Their Thoughts, which are continually from Home, ever wandring abroad, and returning unfatisfied. None is more miserable, than a Man distracted with Variety of Bufinefs; except he who has no Bufinefs, no Amusement at all. Diverfions and Paftimes, properly fo called, (for they answer no other End, but to pass away our Time) may have the Effect of Opiates, to beget a fhort Oblivion of our Cares and ourselves But the only Cordial to invigorate our Spirits, and to give us an exquifite Relish and Enjoyment of this Life, is the well-grounded Hope of a better, through the Merits of Jefus Chrift.

If then any one should ask, Who will Shew us any Good? Who will point out the Way to Felicity to us? We must answer, in the Pfalmift's Words, Lord, lift Thou up the Light of thy Countenance upon us. For Thou art our Happiness, who alone canft give a Stability to our moral Pleasures, and fecure us from natural Evil, or fupport us under it. God has stiled himself Light:

SERM. II. And as the whole material Creation would

be involved in one horrid and uncomfortable Gloom, if Light did not enliven it with it's Smiles, and beautify it with a rich Variety of Colours; fo would the spiritual Creation live in an eternal Blackness of Darkness, did not God lift up the Light of his Countenance upon it, brightening it with the Beams of his Truth, and chearing it with the Influences of his Favour. Earthly Objects may indeed fwell and puff up the Mind with unfubftantial Bliss: But nothing can fill up every Void in the Soul, and fatisfy the whole Compafs of our Defires with the Fulness of folid and unmingled Happiness, but that fupreme Good, that infinite Being, who is above All, and through All, and in us All.

Such Truths as these we are too apt to overlook in the Day of Profperity; and therefore,

IIdly, Adversity has it's peculiar Advantages, to bring us to a juft Sense of God, and our Duty to Him.

For, ft, Adversity will make us, however unwilling, reflect and defcend into ourselves.

When

« EdellinenJatka »