the conftitution will not admit of diforders, fancy, in weak minds, is ever ready to fupply them where fortune hath provided againft natural wants, humour and caprice will find out artificial ones; infomuch that the whim. fical and abfurd fuffer perhaps more from the abfence of what they do not stand in need of, than of what they do.

One would not imagine that the pleasures of human life were fo numerous, that the branches of joy were fo luxuriant, as to require the toil of man to prune and lop them; and yet certain it is, that half of them are not enjoyed. The feeds of happiness are fown by nature with a liberal and a bounteous hand; but they de mand fome care in the cultivation; and it is to our industry alone we must be indebted for the abundance of the harvest.

For, firft, Hopes too fanguine, and defires too eager, for the moft part begin with doubt and uneafinefs, and end in difappointment and defpair. We build a fabric in the air, with out any materials but thofe which our own imagination affords us, and then wonder at the diffolution of it. Men are too apt to fix their hearts and affections on fome particular object, and then the whole world without it will not please or fatisfy them. Nothing is enough for the difcontented man, nothing will please the fretful and repining one. We fhut our eyes against the beauties of the creation, and then find fault with the dreariness of the profpect.

We

We tafte but very few of the dainties which are fet before us, and then moft bitterly and moft ungratefully complain against the Mafter of the banquet. When the blood is vitiated, the juices foured and corrupted, no food, tho' ever fo wholesome, will nourish or fuftain the body; and in the fame manner, when the mind hath contracted a peevish and fretful dispofition, nothing can adminifter joy or fatif faction to it. The ambitious man, instead of returning thanks to God for the riches which he has bestowed on him, is continually foliciting him for power; for that very power, which the mifer, on the other hand, would moft gladly exchange for the affluence of his difcontented neighbour.

But not from our ill-placed or immoderate defires alone proceeds our continual discontent and difquietude; our fears, as well as our hopes, do often moft cruelly deceive and betray us. The apprehenfions of evil are for the moft part worse than the evil itself. Our fruitful imagination is ever teeming with monsters, and we terrify ourselves with phantoms of our own raifing; magnify every horrid and frightful object by a falfe glafs, and then are surprised and aftonished at the bigness of it. How many are there in the world, who enjoy no happiness in being what they are, from the foolish and ill-grounded apprehenfions of what they may be; who feel the pangs of poverty and affliction even in the bofom of plenty and profperity? It is no wonder therefore that they are unhappy who refolve to be fo: it would be ftrange indeed if thofe

thofe whofe eyes are fixed on diftant objects, fhould behold the treafures which lie at their feet.

But befides that difquietude which arifes either from the fanguine and exalted hopes of real good, or the ill-grounded fears of imaginary evil, there is alfo another fpecies of enmity which arifes from the worst of human paffions, and is the child of envy. When our uneafinefs flows, not from what we ourselves want, but from the abundance of that which another is in poffeffion of.

The envious man is never rich whilft there is a richer, never great while there is a greater, never happy whilft there is, or whilft he thinks there is a happier than himself.

Haman we know was miferable in the midft' of all his honours, whilft he faw Mordecai the Jew fitting at the gate and the Prodigal's brother did not reap any joy or fatisfaction from the love and tendernefs of his father, when he faw the fatted calf killed for one whom he thought far lefs deferving of it than himself. The beft-grounded and most reafonable difquietude, which can arise in the mind of man, is doubtlefs that which fprings from the commiffion of fin. Mifery is the natural offspring of fin, and difquietude the conftant companion of guilt.

Now though a proper fenfe of, and forrow for our own unworthinefs, are certainly very acceptable to God; though a broken and contrite heart is a facrifice which he will not despise: yet even this difquictude is capable (like every other good thing) of becoming evil by excefs,

excefs, and of producing very fatal and deftructive confequences. There have been too many inftances of men whom this kind of dif quietude hath driven to a fixed religious melancholy, and even fometimes to the utmost horrors of defpair: and this no doubt must be the fharpeft and moft piercing affliction that can poffibly deprefs the human foul: the eternal wrath of the living God who may abide, a wounded spirit who can bear?

Would one think there were beings (and yet there are fuch) whofe conftant employment it is to reduce their fellow-creatures to this miferable condition, who are perpetually affrighting them with threats of divine vengeance, breathing forth the flames of hell, and anticipating the torments of it, denouncing everlasting punishment, and excluding the unhappy finner from all hopes of falvation.

But who is it that fhall dare to confine the goodness of God, or prefcribe bounds to the mercy of the Almighty? Who fhall dare to fay unto his brother that the Creator will never have pity on the creature, or that he who made will not redeem us alfo? But can we go down fo deep into the pit of destruction that his arm cannot extend to reach us out of it?

We have feen then what are the moft general and natural caufes of that universal difcontent and difquietude which deftroys the peace and happiness of mankind let us now turn our eyes towards the melancholy and deftructive confequences perpetually arifing from it; let us confider that it renders us abfolute

ly

ly unfit for every religious, every moral, and every focial duty.

Acts of public or of private devotion can never be performed as they ought, unless the mind is free from care and difquietude, cleanfed from all the pollution of worldly objects, and fitted for the seriousness and folemnity of the occafion. When we wait as it were at the throne of God, and addrefs ourselves to the Supreme Being, we fhould not fuffer any of the violent and tumultuous paffions to disturb us in that facred employment. When the foul is vexed, it knows not how to form itself to prayer; and when it is difquieted, it is ftill lefs inclined to thanksgiving.

And as difquietude and uneafinefs incapacitate us for a cummunication with the Deity, fo does it render us hateful and difagreeable to one another: as it hinders us from performing our duty towards God, fo does it alfo from doing our duty towards man. Those who carry with them a reftlefs, fretful, and peevish difpofition, are for the moft part ufelefs, always gloomy and unpleafing members of fociety. Chearfulness and complacency are indifpenfibly neceffary to form the amiable companion, or the kind and generous friend. When the turbulent and unruly paffions are foftened into peace, and the mind harmonifed by felicity, it is then, and then only, it can diffufe itfelf in acts of love, charity, and beneficence: and whilft a man is not agreeable to himfelf, he can never be fo to any body else.

Secondly,