Finally, my brethren, attend to the promise that is here made to thofe who obey this exhortation. Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find reft to your fouls. What is there in this world that is fo defirable, as a quiet, a contented, and a refigned fpirit? Tell me who is the happy man ; he who arrives at the top of his ambition, and tramples upon his foes, but is domineered over by his lufts? He who wallows in luxury by means of his ill-acquired riches, but has no government over himself; or he who, in this tranfient state, feels that internal fatisfaction which the world cannot give, nor take away? Ye foft gales of peace, which proceed from the Holy Ghoft, and are kept up only by an unremitting virtue, be you my choice, and do you still refresh my foul. But where is that ferenity and felicity to be found, except by fubmitting to the yoke of Chrift? At the creation of man, religion was his companion, his perpetual attendant; and no care ruffled his brow, nor forrow disquieted his breast; his eye beheld the lovely form, and his heart never ftrayed from her laws. But when he fell, his understanding was darkened, he loft fight of his true good, and

purfued

pursued an imaginary happiness in a thousand delufive shapes. The experience, however, of every age, has fufficiently proved, that even the imperfect fhare of happiness which we are now capable of attaining, is no where to be found disjoined from religion. Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantnefs, and all her paths are peace; and, befides that natural peace which a pious conduct is immediately calculated to produce, the Christian has, moreover, that fupernatural quiet and confolation to depend upon, which is promised by his Master, for composing and folacing his spirit. Peace I leave with you: my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be

afraid.

* John xiv. 27.

SERMON

SERMON XIV.

PSALM iv. 4. laft part of the verse.

Commune with your own heart upon you bed, and be fill.

THAT the royal prophet, by these words, enjoins retirement from the hurry and the tumults of human life, in order to give ourfelves time deliberately to confider the wifdom, the justice, and the goodness of the divine administration, and seriously to reflect upon our own actions, and the motives of them, will, I imagine, be readily admitted by every hearer. Commune with Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be fill. At leisure, uninfluenced by the fpecious opinions, unbiaffed by the corrupt practices of others, deaf to the enfnaring voice of pleasure, and only open to the fober dictates of reason, and the awful commands of confcience, frequently meditate upon the perfections of God, and

learn

learn to reverence the ways of his Providence. Often before-hand confider the courfe of conduct which it becomes you to follow; and often review what you have thought and acted. You will all acknowledge that the nature and condition of man discover religious retirement and recollection to be highly proper and ufeful. When we confider our wants, our weaknefs, our dependence, the dangers to which we are expofed, the hopes and the fears, as well as the immediate happiness and mifery which our conduct occafions; they all confpire to force this acknowledgment. But how feldom our practice is influenced by it, let our confcience and our actions bear witnefs. For if the man who is of opinion that a frequent and serious confideration of one's own behaviour, his dispositions, and the awful account he must render, might, by the bleffing of God, prove a remedy for many vices, would but vifit the market-places, the taverns, and crowded, or private companies; or inquire into the case of the oppreffed, or lend an ear to the wailing of the poor; or obferve the cheats in bufiness, the chichanery of law, the haughtinefs of men in high stations, or the T

envy of

thofe

thofe below them, the unreasonable violence which occafions quarrels and divifions, the immoderate keennefs in the pursuit of things temporal, and the remiffness in seeking after things eternal; he could not fail to be perfuaded, that the direction in our text, though heard with fome kind of reverence, is far from being devoutly, or commonly obeyed.

In my difcourfe to you, therefore, at this time, I propofe to explain the nature and defign of religious retirement and recollection, and to endeavour to perfuade you to the practice of those duties.

I addrefs myself to every one in this houfe; but I confider the fubject as more especially fuited to those who have fo immediate a profpect of commemorating the death of Chrift in the facrament; for, furely, it is particularly fit that our hearts fhould be purified by meditation and prayer, when we are in fo folemn and public a manner to profess ourfelves the difciples of Jefus. I propofe, then, in the first place, to explain the nature and defign of religious retirement and recollection. When the illuftrious writer of this Pfalm, who had fuch a deep infight into the difeafes of the human heart, and could fo

1

ably