his bleffings upon us, he will doubtless look on our esteem of his favours as the strongest teftimony of our gratitude, and receive our enjoyment of them as the fincereft acknowledgment.

There is one happiness which the social and benevolent mind will always partake of, and that is, rejoicing in the profperity of others. Rejoice, fays the apostle with them that do rejoice. It is a certain mark of a poor and abject fpirit, to be difgufted and uneafy at the good for tune of those who fucceed better than ourselves: the bad man covets, the good man enjoys his neighbour's poffeffions; the benevolent and humane is lefs fenfible of his own calamities, from the part he bears in anothers happiness: he will not feel the weight of poverty or distress, whilst he has a worthy friend that profpers; fuch a man laughs at the malice of fortune, defpifes the cenfure of the croud, and rifes fuperior to adverfity. But there is still one more exalted virtue which would naturally flow from the obfervance of this precept, and which is probably the most difficult to attain, to rejoice evermore under the hardest perfecutions, when we are thereto called by God, in defence of his laws, and the religion of his Son Jefus Chrift our Saviour.

The apostles, we know, took joyfully the fpoiling of their goods, they did account it all joy when they fell into diverse tribulations; they piously and justly thought that the fufferings of the prefent time were not worthy to be compared to that glory which should be revealed to

them.

them. Are not we also the fervants of the fame mafter? Are not we bound as Chriftians to act in the fame manner, if it should at any time be required of us? And have we not reason to rejoice that we are not put to fo hazardous a trial; that the faith we profess hath defeated the malice of its enemies, and is firmly eftablished by the civil power, fo that all our easy task is to comply with its laws, and obey its divine ordinances; to do juftice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God?

Let us then, my brethren, rejoice evermore: let us rejoice with our fellow-creatures that we are men; that God hath given us reason and understanding above the brutes that perifh; that he hath, as the son of Sirach says, created man immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity; that he hath put all things in fubjection under us; that his divine Providence doth continually interpofe to preferve and support the work of his hands; and that he can never leave nor forfake us; but as he hath made us capable of happiness here, fo hath he bleft us with fouls framed for eternal, never-fading happinefs hereafter.

Again, as we should rejoice with our fellowcreatures as men, so should we all rejoice with our fellow-citizens that we are freemen; a land of liberty is a land flowing with milk and honey. Let us fend up our thanksgiving to the Almighty, that we are not in the mean and fordid condition of flavery, groaning under chains and perfecution, or galled by the hard yoke of arbitrary power; not in a barren and dry land

where

where no water is, but in a kind of luxuriant foil, where the hills are covered with plenty, and the valleys ftand fo thick with corn, that they laugh and fing; where those bleffings which are procured by induftry, are preferved by law, protected by the nobleft conftitutions and fubjected to the moft perfect form of government which human wisdom could frame; where right is maintained, and property fecured; and where every man may enjoy the fruits of his labour, and fit with ease and fafety under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree.

Lastly, and above all, let us rejoice with our Fellow-chriftians, that we have the illustrious privilege, the glorious pre-eminence of the gofpel which has brought life and immortality to light; let us rejoice and give thanks unto God, that we are not born in an age of ignorance and Paganism, or nurfed in folly and fuperfti tion; not the flaves of Heathen idolatry; or of that church which treads in its steps, which is entirely, as it hath been evidently proved, conformable to it, and which hath always, and doth ftill continue to embrace its errors, rites, and ceremonies. Let us rejoice that God hath fo opened our hearts, and enlightened our understandings, as to make us thoroughly fenfible of his goodness in fending down his beloved Son for our redemption, to take our nature upon him, to guide all our steps, to direct all our actions. As we are thankful for our creation, prefervation, and all the bleffings of this life, fo, beyond all, let ús acknowledge his ineftimable love in faving us through Jefus

Christ our Lord, thefe means of grace, and that hope of glory; that hope which alone can fupport us here, and that glory which we have reafon to expect hereafter. In the mean time, let us rejoice evermore, let us blefs the almighty Being for all his mercies paft, and implore the continuance of them; let the fenfe of his goodnefs lead us to a fincere repentance of our fins, and teach us to know that the only means of rejoicing ftill in the favour and protection of God, is, by our gratitude, piety, and goodnefs, henceforth to ftudy to deferve them. Thus, in fpite of all evils and calamities incident to mortality, may we be able to rejoice in this life; and thus (which is infinitely more defirable) may we expect and live in fure and certain hope to rejoice evermore in that which

is to come.

ON THE UNSEARCHABLE WAYS OF GOD.

SERMON XIV.

ROMANS XI. 33.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unfearchable are his judgments, and his ways paft finding out.

HEN we confider the infinite diftance between a felf-exiftent, all-powerful, and all-knowing Creator, and his finite, dependant

and

and ignorant creatures; when we reflect on the narrow limits of human reafon, and the confined powers of human understanding, we cannot but wonder at the pride and prefumption of man, in attempting to pry into the ways, and explore the judgments of God. That great repofitory of truth, the Holy Scripture, is in nothing more full and explicit than in reprefenting to us the tranfcendency of God's ways and actions, above all created intellectual beings. There is a cloud fpread around the great and noble works of the Almighty, which furpaffeth our utmost reach, and quickly determineth our fhort horizon; and yet fuch is the pride and perverfenefs of man, that whilft he neglects the only bufinefs which is of real confequence and importance to him, and which it is always in his power to attain, he is at the fame time perpetually employed in the vain pursuit of that knowledge which is abfolutely unattainable by his narrow and limited capacity.

When the celebrated heathen Philofopher was afked by the Tyrant, what God was? he defired a day's time to confider the question; that day expired, he requested two; and then, inftead of anfwering, required more time for the folution of it. The more he contemplated the nature of the divine Being, the more was he at a lofs to account for it. Whoever indeed has a proper fenfe of his own weakness, and the unlimited and unmeasurable perfections of his almighty Creator, cannot but fee the amazing disparity between the fupreme Author of all things and his own infignificance; between the wisdom

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