;

Thought and Confideration. And thefe SER. XII. are the happy Men among them, if Happinefs confifts in want of Thought: Men, whofe Mouths fpeak against Christianity, from the Abundance of a wicked Heart for it cannot be faid, they speak against it from the Abundance or Fulnefs of the Head: Standing Monuments of the Infufficiency of that Reason, which they fo highly extol, and of the Neceffity of that Revelation, which giveth Wisdom to the Simple: Men, who espouse the Cause of Infidelity for the fame Reason, or rather no Reason, for which they wear a particular Mode of Drefs, merely because it is the prevailing Fashion among their Acquaintance: gleaning Objections, that are dropped in Conversation from much shrewder Men; humbly content to gather up the Crumbs, that fall from their Mafter's Table, without ever thinking for themselves, or laying in a Stock of Knowledge. But thofe few Infidels, who love to be at a great Expence of Reading and Thinking, have their Minds generally overcaft with black and melancholy Ideas; out of Humour with themselves (fo far perhaps they have Reason), and with every Thing else; the Y 2 great

SER. XII. great Disturbers of the Repose of Mankind and their own, who are for fubverting Revelation, without giving, or, indeed, being able to give us any Equivalent in lieu of it: The Rewards and Punishments difcoverable by natural Reason, being not clear nor determinate enough to afford fufficient Encouragement to the Good, and Discouragement to the Bad.

To be a thoughtless Deift, is confeffedly to be a Fool; To be a thinking Deift, is to be a Wretch: But to be a fober ferious Christian, is the best Way to make us tolerably eafy through all the changing Scenes of Life; to heighten the Pleasures, and leffen the Miseries of it: The Precepts of Morality in Scripture are our best Counfellors in Life, and Health; and the Doctrine of the Redemption our only fure Support at the Hour of Death. To be a thinking Infidel, is to confider, how vain, unfatisfactory and precarious, all our present Pleasures are; how foon we may be fnatched from them, or they from us: It is to look upon this Life, as a Dream; and on the next, as one undistinguished Void, one univerfal Blank, of which he can know little or nothing, without the Help of that Revelation, which he rejects.

It

It is Christianity, which teaches us to SER. XII. defpife the Follies, abhor the Vices, and combat the Miseries of this World; which, instead of affording fuch dry and jejune Confolations as Philofophy afforded it's Votaries, informs us, that Afflictions are fent to wean us from this World, and fix our Hopes on a better; that they are the Chastisements of that Being, who pitieth us as a Father pitieth his own Children:

that we ought patiently to fubmit to natural Evil, which he inflicts upon us, by Way of Atonement for moral Evil, to expiate the fecret Sins of the virtuous, and to bend the ftubborn Minds of prefumptuousSinners. That what we must feel as Men, we may bear as more than Men, through the Grace of God, who, if he does not always proportion our Trials to our natural Strength, will adjust the Affiftances of his bleffed Spirit to our Exigencies, giving us the Security of divine Protection, at the fame Time that we are fubject to the Frailties of human Nature:-that, whereas we are apt to look upon the prefent State, as an intire unconnected independent Scene, which has no Relation to a future State; God views both Worlds at once, and con

SER. XII. fiders what will be for our Advantage, with Regard to the whole Extent of our Being; -that, if we make a due ufe of Calamities, our Patience under them will endear us to Him, that the Time will come, and must shortly be, when we shall confider all Troubles in that Light, in which Mofes taught the Ifraelites to regard the Egyptians juft upon the Brink of the Red-Sea: Thefe Egyptians whom ye have feen to-day, ye shall fee them again no more for ever: These Troubles, which ye have hitherto undergone, ye shall no more undergo; Pain and Sorrow shall be no more, but one undetermined View of Blifs for ever and ever be before you,

SER

SERMON XIII.

On the Duty of Refignation.

JOB II, 10.

Shall we receive Good at the Hand of God, and fhall we not receive Evil?

AVING, in a former Difcourfe, SER.XIII.
fhewn, It, How far we are al-
lowed to grieve for our Calami-

H

ties, or how far Grief is confiftent with a State of Refignation ;

And, IIdly, Upon what Principles our Refignation is to be founded:

I proceed to my IIId general Head, viz. To lay down fome Rules for the Practice of this Duty.

In the first Place, do not expect perfect Happiness: It depends not upon ourselves alone; but upon a Coincidence of several Things, which feldom hit all right. Several Ingredients are neceffary to make up

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the