SERM.only make two reflections, and conclude. IX. First, we may fee the true cause of so much unhappiness as there is in the world. The present state of mankind is generally apprehended to be bad. Misfortunes are loudly complained of; fickness, poverty, disappointments, injuries, public calamities, all concluded to be, (because they are seen and felt,) infelicities to which our condition is liable, and attributed to different causes according to men's different ways of thinking, either to the immediate external occafions of them, without looking any farther, or to the appointment of providence, not without secret murmuring and discontent. But if we inquire wifely concerning this matter, we shall find that the most universal cause of natural evil is moral evil; and the true reafon why there is so much misery in the earth, is because there is so much wickedness. The ordinary afflictions of human life are often the natural confequences of men's vices. Whence proceed fickness, poverty, and disgrace? For the most part, and visibly, from debauchery injuftice and floth. Whence wars and defolations? As plainly, from pride and ambition; or as St. James speaks, from the lufts of men that war in their members. Not that we should imagine there is always a strict and immediate connexion in particular instances SERM. between irreligion and distress by the inter- IX. pofition of divine providence, as if they were to be reputed void of the fear of God, and finners above all others, on whom the heaviest calamities fall, as in the example our Saviour mentions * of those on whom the tower of Siloam fell, and those whose blood Pilate mingled with their facrifices. To judge after that manner, is to judge foolishly and uncharitably. For least of all are the extraordinary fufferings wherein God seems most apparently to interpose to be interpreted as a strict retribution, bearing exact proportion to the demerit of men's personal crimes; but as the natural tendency of fin is to unhappiness, it has actually introduced a great deal of unhappiness into the world, which the wife God dispenses among the individuals of mankind as he fees fit, accommodating it to the purposes of his government in our state of probation; and in this his judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out. Secondly, We may observe with pleasure, that the declarations of scripture on this head are perfectly agreeable to the reason and truth of things, and to experience. They inculcate not only in general this doctrine, that the * Luke xiii. fear SER M.fear of the Lord is wisdom, (the beginning and IX. the perfection of it) that to fear God and keep his commandments is the whole duty, and whole happiness of man; but particularly, that it is the fureft way to present tranquillity, to long life, health, honour, and riches; (fo far as they are truly useful,) and that godliness is profitable to all things, having promife of the life that now is, and that which is to come. And to the public good of focieties nothing can contribute so much as religion. When it prevails, nation shall not rife up against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; men shall not hurt or destroy one another, when the knowledge of the Lord Shall fill the earth, as the waters cover the fea. Upon the whole then, the lovers of mankind, who are most defirous of their happiness, have nothing fo much to wish and to endeavour, as that piety may flourish among them. And for every one of ourselves in particular, the best way to be as happy as we can be, even here, (befides our hopes in a future state,) is to amend the faults of our tempers and our lives by the rules of religion; for it will be found, bad as the world is, that the ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. SER SERMON X. The Love of God explained and recommended. Matthew xxii. 37. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart, and with all thy Soul, and with all thy mind. I Χ. F we have clear and fatisfying evidenceSERM. of the being of God, of his perfections natural and moral, of his having created the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all things which are in them, and of his providence preferving them all, difpofing the whole series of events in them with the most perfect wisdom, and for the greatest good, we can scarcely avoid this important inquiry, What regards are due to him from us his reasonable creatures? By looking into our minds we will perceive that they are differently affected with the objects that are presented to them; fome excite defire, some joy, and SERM.and others horror and aversion, and these X. different affections to different objects are subdivided into various kinds. Though they come under the same common denomination of defire and averfion, yet the inward perceptions of them have very little affinity with each other; for example, the defire of meat and the defire of virtue, the averfion to bodily pain, and the averfion to moral turpitude. But whatever variety there is in them, they all originally belong to our nature, and refult from our constitution, we cannot make and we cannot destroy them. It may be in our power, by an habitual attention to some objects, to strengthen the affections of the mind to them, and by diverting their attention from other objects, to weaken its affection to them, whereby the one obtains a prevalence over the other, forming our temper and engaging our pursuit: But the original affections themselves are constituted by nature the fame and invariable, no more in the power of the mind, and dependent on its choice, as to their being or not being, than fimple ideas are. Here we shall fird ourselves obliged to rest. As the materials of our knowledge are limited, the imagination and the understanding may variously compound, affociate, and diftinguish them, but can cre ate |