which none but the merciful and compassionate have a title to wear! Take notice with what sanctity he goes to the end of his days, in the same selfish track in which he at first set out-turning neither to the right hand nor to the left-but plods on-pores all his life long upon the ground as if afraid to look up, lest peradventure he should see ought which might turn him one moment out of that straight line where interest is carrying him; or if, by chance, he stumbles upon a hapless object of distress, which threatens such a disaster to himdevoutly passing by on the other side, as if unwilling to trust himself to the impressions of nature, or hazard the inconveniences which pity might lead him into upon the occasion.

SERMON III.

MOURNING.

LET us go into the house of mourning, made so by such afflictions as have been brought on, merely by the common cross accidents and disasters to which our condition is exposed,-where, perhaps the aged parents sit broken-hearted, pierced to their souls with the folly and indiscretion of a thankless child

-the child of their prayers, in whom all their hopes and expectations centered :—perhaps a more affecting scene a virtuous family lying pinched with want, where the unfortunate support of it, having long struggled with a train of misfortunes, and bravely fought up against them,—is now piteously borne down at the last-overwhelmed with a cruel blow which no forecast or frugality.

could have prevented.—O God! look upon his afflictions-Behold him distracted with many sorrows, surrounded with the tender pledges of his love, and the partner of his cares-without bread to give them, unable, from the remembrance of better days, to dig;—to beg, ashamed.

When we enter into the house of mourning such as this it is impossible to insult the unfortunate even with an improper look-Under whatever levity and dissipation of heart, such objects catch our eyes, they catch likewise our attentions, collect and call home our scattered thoughts, and exercise them with wisdom. A transient scene of distress, such as is here sketched, how soon does it furnish materials to set the mind at work! how necessarily does it engage it to the consideration of the miseries and misfortunes, the dangers and calamities to which the life of man is subject! By holding up such a glass before it, it forces the mind to see and reflect upon the vanity-the perishing condition, and uncertain tenure of every thing in this world. From reflections of this serious cast, how insensibly do the thoughts carry us further! and from considering what we are—what kind of world we live in, and what evils befal us in it, how naturally do they set us to look forwards at what possibly we shall be, for what kind of world we are intended- -what evils may befal us there —and what provisions we should make against them here, whilst we have time and opportunity! If these lessons are so inseparable from the house of mourning here supposed-we shall find it a still more instructive school of wisdom when we take a view of the place in that more affecting light in

which the wise man seems to confine it in the text, in which, by the house of mourning, I believe he means that particular scene of sorrow, where there is lamentation and mourning for the dead. Turn hither, I beseech you, for a moment. Behold a dead man ready to be carried out, the only son of his mother, and she a widow! Perhaps a more affecting spectacle, a kind and indulgent father of a numerous family, lies breathless-snatched away in the strength of his age-torn in an evil hour from his children and the bosom of a disconsolate wife! Behold much people of the city gathered together to mix their tears, with settled sorrow in their looks, going heavily along to the house of mourning, to perform the last melancholy office, which, when the debt of nature is paid, we are called upon to pay each other! If this sad occasion which leads him there has not done it already, take no tice to what à serious and devout frame of mind every man is reduced, the moment he enters this gate of affliction. The busy and fluttering spirits which in the house of mirth were wont to transport him from one diverting object to another-see how they are fallen! how peaceably they are laid ! In this gloomy mansion, full of shades and uncomfortable damps to seize the soul,-see, the light and easy heart, which never knew what it was to think before, how pensive it is now, how soft, how susceptible, how full of religious impressions, how deeply it is smitten with a sense and with a love of virtue! Could we, in this crisis, whilst the empire of reason and religion lasts, and the heart is thus exercised with wisdom, and busied with heavenly contemplations-could we see it naked as it

is-stripped of its passions, unspotted by the world, and regardless of its pleasures-we might then safely rest our cause upon this single evidence, and appeal to the most sensual, whether Solomon has not made a just determination here in favour of the house of mourning? not for its own sake, but as it is fruitful in virtue, and becomes the occasion of so much good. Without this end, sorrow, I own, has no use but to shorten a man's days— nor can gravity, with all its studied solemnity of look and carriage, serve any end but to make one half of the world merry, and impose upon the other.

SERMON II.

MISFORTUNE AND CONSOLATION.

THERE is not an object in this world which Gov can be supposed to look down upon with greater pleasure, than that of a good man involved in misfortunes, surrounded on all sides with difficultiesyet cheerfully bearing up his head, and struggling against them with firmness and constancy of mind. -Certainly, to our conceptions, such objects must be truly engaging :—and the reason of so exalted an encomium from this hand, is easily to be guessed: no doubt the wisest of the heathen philosophers had found, from observation upon the life of man, that the many troubles and infirmities of his nature, the sicknesses, disappointments, sorrows for the loss of children or property, with the numberless other calamities and cross accidents to which the life of man is subject, where in themselves so

great, -and so little solid comfort to be administered from the mere refinements of philosophy in such emergencies, that there was no virtue which required greater efforts, or which was found so difficult to be achieved upon moral principles

which had no foundation to sustain this great weight, which the infirmities of our nature laid upon it. And for this reason, 'tis observable, that there is no subject, upon which the moral writers of antiquity have exhausted so much of their eloquence, or where they have spent so much time and pains, as in this of endeavouring to reconcile men to these evils. Insomuch, that from thence, in most modern languages, the patient enduring of affliction, has by degrees obtained the name of philosophy, and almost monopolized the word to itself, as if it were the chief end or compendium of all the wisdom which philosophy had to offer. And, indeed, considering what lights they had, some of them wrote extremely well; yet, as what they said proceeded more from the head than the heart, 'twas generally more calculated to silence a man in his troubles, than to convince and teach him how to bear them. And therefore, however subtile and ingenious their arguments might appear in the reading, 'tis to be feared they lost much of their efficacy, when tried in the application. If a man were thrust back in the world by disappointments, or-as was Job's case-had suffered a sudden change in his fortunes, from an affluent condition were brought down by a train of cruel accidents, and pinched with poverty-philosophy would come in, and exhort him to stand his ground;-it would tell him, that the same greatness and strength