fight! And how much reafon has he not to pray to God in the words of the Pfalmift, "Let my foul live, and it fhall praise thee!" that it may enjoy thy bounty, and praife thee for it with a joyful heart!

But that which gives the greatest weight to these arguments for highly prizing human life, what renders it most defirable, is, that during the course of it we may fit and capacitate ourselves for better and greater objects in the world to come. Without this profpect, our knowledge and fpiritual perfection would have but little value, our virtue but little incitement and comfort, our joy but little fatisfaction, and ftill lefs continuance. Chiefly by the connection of the present with the future, by the influence this has upon that, all we now are and do and enjoy, is of real importance, and brings unending confequences after it. At prefent we can do nothing for becoming wifer, better, and more pious, which does not prepare and smooth the way for us to a higher degree of perfection and happiness in the future world. We can now perform no good deed that does not draw after it everlasting fatisfaction, We now enjoy no innocent, generous delight, which does not render us capable of ftill greater delights, and fecure them to us. We are now working and labouring for eternity. Now even exertion and toil may become pleasure, forrows become joys, and loffes become gains. Here we are to learn; there put what we have learnt to the beft ufe: here ftrengthen our abilities by exercife; there apply them to more im

portant

portant matters: here fow good feed; the e reap of it happiness and glory: here make ourselves fit for converse with superior spirits; there actually enjoy their converfe: here refemble Jefus, our chieftain and lord, in virtuous and pious fentiments; there in glory and bliss; here approach nearer to the deity; there find the completion of all our afpirations in more intimate communion with him. The longer then we live here, the more good we imagine and perform and promote and enjoy; the greater perfec tion and felicity await us hereafter. The purer and richer our fowing here, the richer and more glorious will be our harveft hereafter. Thus may every day and every hour of this life lay for us the foundation of unfading honours, of eyer blooming joys. And fhall fuch a life, a life attended by confequen ces fo great and continuing in eternity, fhall fuch a life be of no great value in our eyes? shall it not inspire us with the wish of the Pfalmift: "Let my foul live, o God, and it fhall praise thee!", that it may here be expert in thy praife, and be able more worthily to praise thee hereafter !

Yes, my pious hearers, human life is incontestably of great and real value: the defire of its prefervation and continuance is not unworthy either of the philofopher or the chriftian. It is the fchool of wifdom, the school of virtue, the firft ftep to our perfection, a fource of numberlefs pleasures and joys, the prepa ratory station to a more exalted, to an everlafting life. Rejoice then in it, rejoice in your life; thank

God

God daily for this gift of his bounty; acknowledge and feel its value and its destination; fupport, preferve it carefully; ufe it worthily; pursue its affairs with pleasure and fidelity; enjoy its fatisfactions and delights with a grateful and chearful heart; bear its hardships and afflictions without murmuring; exercife your gifts and powers; ftrive constantly to learn more useful knowledge, conftantly to do more good, to enjoy more pure and more generous fatisfactions, constantly to become wifer and better and more generally useful; be never weary in well-doing, and in promoting the happiness of your fellow-creatures, fince you may expect to reap in due time without ceafing; work, like our great leader and precurfor Jefus, while it is day, that the night may not come upon you before your task be finished; carefully redeem the time, and mark as much as possible every day of your lives with fome good action; regard and treat all things according to their reference to the future, and let the fublime, the joyful fentiment of a better and an everlasting life be constantly present to your mind.

SERMON V.

The Value of Health.

O GOD! who, among the innumerable multi

tudes of creatures which thy almighty goodness called to be, haft also given us existence, praised be thy fovereign bounty for all the gifts and powers thou hast bestowed upon us, for all the pleasures and joys of which thou haft made us capable, for all the connections in which thou haft placed us towards visible and invisible objects, towards the material and the spiritual world! Though we have much in common with the beasts of the field, yet are we also related to the angels; we are thine offspring. Yes; our body as well as our foul plainly teftify of thine infinite intelligence, and the more than fatherly kindnefs with which thou doft embrace and blefs thy creatures. And the place that thou haft affigned us in thy dominion, how adequate to our nature and deftination!

deftination! how adapted to unfold and to exercise our capacities and powers, to form us into intelligent, wife, and virtuous men, and thereby to prepare us for a fuperior life! Lord, we humbly adore thee, as our creator and father, rejoicing that we are, and that we are what thy wife goodness commanded us to be. Let us then, o gracious God, continually rejoice in our existence and our nature, and grant that we may constantly seek our perfection and happiness in the way wherein creatures as we are should feek and attain them. Teach us to use our body and our mind, which are both thy property, according to thy will; to treat them both as a poffeffion committed to our truft by thee, and fo to nurture both, as becomes men, whom thou haft indeed placed far above the irrational animals, yet not elevated to the rank of pure fpirits independent on terreftrial wants. To the furtherance of thefe views, blefs our reflec tions on the doctrines about to be delivered. Let us clearly perceive the value of the benefits which thou vouchfafeft to us by the prefervation of our health and our abilities, and thus be incited to the best employment of them. We implore it of thee as the votaries of thy fon Jefus, and address thee farther in his holy name: Our father, &c.

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