Worldly enjoyments are, for the most part, imperfect and unfatisfactory, only urging us on to fresh pursuits and difquietudes. There are, notwithstanding, a few, and but a few, that are worthy of our search, and reward our pain and anxiety: thefe at once quiet and fatisfy the mind; like a full and copious draught, they quench its thirst, and leave it entirely at reft. Life is not then folicitoufly defired, forit hath nothing more defirable to bestow; but it on the other hand, rather to be feared, becaufe, though it cannot give, it can take away. The good Patriarch, therefore, confidered death only as fetting a feal upon his happiness, and putting it out of the power of fate to deprive him of it: Now let me die, fays he, fince I have feen thy face. This natural and pathetic exclamation calls to mind that parallel inftance, no less affecting, in the New Testament, Now letteft thou thy fervant depart in peace, for mine eyes have feen thy falvation.

In the fhort remainder of this history we find that Jofeph put his father and his brethren into quiet poffeffion of the land of Gofhen, where Jacob fpent the evening of his life in pleafure and profperity. After living in the land of Egypt feventeen years, the good old Patriarch fummoned his fons together, and, in a prophetic fpeech, explained to them all their future fortunes, which were afterwards moft exactly fulfil. led; and having given them all his bleffing,

died at the age of a hundred-and-forty-feven

years.

Jofeph, whofe gratitude to his royal mafter attached him strongly to his service, by the judicious management of his revenues, threw great power into the hands of his fovereign, and made it a law over the land of Egypt, that Pharaoh fhould have the fifth part of the produce of the whole kingdom.

Nothing more is recorded of Jofeph, than that, after the death of his father Jacob, he removed all the fufpicions of refentment which his brethren entertained, treated them to the last with the utmost tenderness and affection, and after many years of affluence and happiness, died in Egypt, being a hun dred-and-ten years old.

Thus endeth this excellent, interesting and pathetic hiftory. Various are the inftructions, and most useful the reflections which may be drawn from it; but, as I have already made feveral remarks in the course of my illuftrations of it, I fhall conclude the whole with the following short deductions.

And First then, from this history, as a people, we may learn, that private virtue is the beft fupport of public happiness; that chastity, temperance, frugality, and the moral focial affections, contribute, in a great measure, to establish the character of an able statesman, and an upright minister; that he who best knows how to fubdue his own paffions, will beft lead and direct those of others; that God will always affift the faithful fer

vant in the discharge of his truft; that the Lord will be with him, and make all that he doth to profper in his hand.

Secondly, As individuals, we may learn, that the eye of Divine Providence is over all things, always active and vigilant for the prefervation of the righteous; fo influencing and directing the actions of men, as, by fecret and unfeen ways, to fulfil its own unerring purposes, to reward the good, and to punifh the evil doer.

Thirdly, From this let the wicked and malicious, who, like Jofeph's brethren, take pleasure in afflicting and perfecuting their fellow-creatures, be taught, that they must not always expect to pafs undifcovered and unpunished; that there is a fupreme power who can turn all their evil into good, which can make them to repent of their iniquity, to feel those misfortunes which they had themselves inflicted, and to bend beneath that power which they had defpised, and that innocence which they had oppreffed.

Laftly, and above all, To this inftructive page of facred hiftory, let the good and virtuous apply for comfort and relief under all their calamities. Whilft the example of Jofeph is before us, never let virtue and piety defpair. God will always defend his faithful fervants, extricate them from all difficulties, arm them against all temptations, free them from every danger, and, in opposition to all the fruitless attempts of envy, malice, hatred, and ingratitude, deliver them from pain, forrow,

forrow, and adverfity, and reward them with peace and ferenity here, with everlasting joy and happiness hereafter.

ON HUMAN NATURE.

SERMON V.

GENESIS I. 27.

God created man in his own image.

S

As the hiftory of the Creation, delivered

Α

down to us in the infpired writings, is on all accounts fitted to raise our wonder and aftonishment, our praife and admiration of the great Author of it; fo nothing, perhaps, could more forcibly ftrike the attentive mind, or fill it with greater fatisfaction, than to mark the gradual scale of beings, as they rofe into existence; to trace the spirit of God mov ing over the face of nature, diffufing itself by flow degrees through the whole mafs of things, and rifing from the animate and inanimate creation, to the formation of its laft and greatest work, a creature framed after the image of its Maker. What but ineffable goodness could prompt a Being incapable of all additional happiness, and blest in the

enjoyment

enjoyment of his own perfections, to call us from a ftate of annihilation to light and life?-But to ftamp his own image also, to imprint his own divine nature on this work of his hands, was an inftance of tranfcendent love and benevolence which we could not deferve, and which we can never repay.

Let us look back, then, with eyes of admiration, and hearts full of gratitude and obedience, on the happy ftate of man, as he came out of the hands of his Creator, with the character of the Deity ftrongly impreffed upon him, a body spotlefs and unpolluted, an understanding capable of the fublimeft truths, and a knowledge of every thing but fin. From the virtue, the happiness, the perfection of our first parents, to the vice, the weakness, and the decay of their pofterity, is, we must own, a melancholy tranfition; we are no longer the image, but the poor unfubftantial fhadow of our Maker; yet from this maimed and imperfect ftate, a reflecting mind may still trace out the art of the fculptor: though the beauties of the picture may be fullied, or the colours effaced by the injuries of time, yet the features are too dif tinctly marked, the whole adorned with too much harmony and proportion, not to strike the eye with an admiration of the hand that drew it.

There are fome prejudices inherent in our frame, and interwoven with our conftitution, which the good would not, and the bad can not part with: amongst these, a fondness, a

regard,