checked by confcience, and we cry out with the wife man, furely this is vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

But furely, fay fome, there are perfections, there are fome real and folid pre-eminences in human nature, which cannot but be the reafonable object of our wifhes, the commendable and proper fubject of our prayers; children, health, long life, reputation, and knowledge, bid fair for this character. But even thefe, I fear, without proper reftrictions, will upon a clofer infpection, and ftript of the gaudy drefs our fancies are pleased to beftow on them, appear by no means fo defirable as we were at firft inclined to think them.

Children and the fruit of the womb are a bleffing; they are like the arrows in the hand of the giant, fays the Pfalmift; happy is he that hath his quiver full of them; but alas! what bitter waters have flowed even from this fountain of delight! What if duty and affection change to perverfenefs and difcbedience; what if thefe arrows turn against our own breafts? Then where is the father's envied happiness; where are all his dreams of promifed pleafure, when thofe who fhould fupport his age, and bring honour to his name, difgrace his family, wound his fair reputation, and bring his grey hairs in forrow to the grave?

But are not health and long life to be defired? are these alfo among the things we should not afk? are they not the fource of every pleafure, and productive of every happiness? Health, though the offspring of exercife and

fobriety,

Ex

fobriety, may become the mother of floth and intemperance; it may indeed aid and strengthen virtue, but it may likewife heighten and enflame our paffions, and lead us into the paths. of vice. And on the other hand, if it fhall please God in his mercy to chastise us, to lend his gracious hand to ftop us in our career of folly and wickedness, fickness may be the greatest bleffing he can beftow upon us. perience convines us, that men are much more likely to mend by feeling what they are, than by being told what they ought to be. When the king of terrors, therefore, is approaching towards us, fickness is fent to prepare the way before him, to fubdue our paffions, to wean our affections from the world, to give us time for reflection and repentance, that we may not drop into eternity with all our imperfections on our heads, but flide into the grave with a more eafy and infenfible motion, and calmly refign our life into the hands of him that gave it.

The love of life itself is indeed fo ftrictly united to our nature, fo interwoven as it were with our very frame and conftitution, that the defire of prolonging it is, we must own, by no means to be wondered at; and yet the folly of mankind is not perhaps in any thing more confpicuous than in their extreme tenacioufnefs of it. Length of days may be far from a bleffing to the best of us the beauty of the circle doth not confift so much in the fize, as in the completenefs of it; and the finalleft parts of nature

fhew

fhew as much harmony in themfelves, and as much perfection in the maker, as the largest and moft confiderable: but in this, as in all our actions, we fhew our own weakness and inconfiftency. We pray for age, and when it comes, complain of its attendants, its melancholy train of woes and mifery; years bring forrow and heavinefs, the weight of them is grievous the burthen of them is intolerable.

But one thing then remains to be confi. dered, which the wife and witty of the world will be loth to give up as an improper object of our prayers, and that is, knowledge. To excel the reft of mankind in that which diftin. guifhes us from brutes, is furely of all things the most defirable; and if our gratitude fhould rife in proportion to the benefit received, what infinite praise and thanksgiving is due to God from thofe whofe parts and understanding have placed them above the common level! But it is a melancholy truth, that God is not more careful to make our greateft misfortunes conducive to our happinefs, than we are to change his bleffings into curfes,

Such is the lot of our nature, that we are forced to be upon our guard even against the perfections of it. Thofe whom we falfely term the wifeft, are not always the best of men; the little knowledge we have to boast of, makes us vain and infolent; the fair fruits of learning and fcience are eat up and deftroyed by the cankers of pride and arrogance.Men too frequently make ufe of their reafon to vilify and degrade the Author of it, and brandifh

brandifh the weapons of truth, religion, and virtue, in the caufe of vice, falfehood, and infidelity.

What has been faid may, I think, convince any impartial man, that in our prayers for particular bleffings, which for the reasons above enumerated are perhaps better laid afide, we cannot be too cautious in ufing proper reftrictions, left we offend God and prejudice ourfelves.

If then we pray for knowledge, let it be for the only true and valuable one, the knowledge of our own little felves, our weakneffes, our vices, and our ignorance, that we may know how little can be known, and that God will teach us to know him, and our duty to him.

power

If we pray unto him for riches, let us at the fame time make it our earnest request that those riches may render us humane, charitable, and beneficent to our fellow-creatures ; that if he gives us power, it may be the of doing good; if he fhowers down upon us fame, health, and long life, that that fame may be an honest fame, and may raife the emulation of all good men to follow and to enjoy it; that that health may infpire us with vigour and activity in the execution of his command. ments; and, laftly, that as our days, our virtues may increase, our paffions fubfide, our follies wear away, and our fouls become day by day fitter for that bleft habitation, to the enjoyment of which they were at first created, and towards which they are fo nearly approaching,

Befides

Befides the errors, and almost every thing which has been urged on this fubject, may ferve to recommend to us the great ufefulness, beauty, and neceffity, of an established form of prayer, to keep the folly and extravagance of men's defires within due bounds, and put a ftop to all abfurd, frivolous, and wicked prayers; in our private devotions, therefore, if we do not make ufe of the words of our own excellent liturgy, let us at least endeavour to retain the subject matter of it: and here I must obferve, that in reality, after all our acts of public and private devotion, God will look upon a good life as the most effectual prayer that we can make to him: it is not every one, fays our Saviour, that faith unto me, Lord, Lord, Shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of my Father.

With the great Searcher of Hearts there is more true, more perfuafive eloquence in one noble and difinterested act of goodness and beneficence, than all the pomp of words which Rome and Athens could ever produce.

The Lord, who feeth in fecret, will reward us openly; he is our fhepherd, therefore fhall we lack nothing; we have in heaven a kind Mafter, and an indulgent Father, the great Creator and Preferver of us all; to whom our interefts are much dearer, as well as infinitely better known than to ourselves.

This thought muft adminifter the greatest and moft folid fatisfaction to a right mind in every station and circumftance of life; it is this alone which can fupport us under forrow,

want,