not enough, but we must fally forth in queft of them,-belye our own hearts, and fay as your text would have us, that they are better than thofe of joy? did the Bett of Beings fend us into the world for this end-to go weeping through it,-to vex and fhorten a life fort and vexatious enough already? do you think, my good preacher, that he who is infinitely happy, can envy us our ensomments? or that 1 Being fo infiniteIy and would grudge a mournful travelber the fort rest and refreshments neceffary to fupport his fpirits through the fages of a weary pilgrimage or that he would call him to a fevere reckoning, because in his way he had haftily fnatched at some little fugacious pleasures, merely do tweeten this uneafy journey of ke, and reconcile him to the ruggedness of the road, and the many hard juftlings he is fire to meet with? Confider, I betòect you, what provision and accommodation the Author of our being has prepared for us, that we might not go On our way Derowing-bow many cara

vanferas of reft-what powers and faculties he has given us for taking itwhat apt objects he has placed in our way to entertain us ;-fome of which he has made so fair, fo exquifitely fitted for this end, that they have power over us for a time to charm away the fenfe of pain, to cheer up the dejected heart under poverty and fickness, and make it go and remember its miferies no

more.

I will not contend at prefent against this rhetoric; I would chufe rather for a moment to go on with the allegory, and fay we are travellers, and, in the most affecting fenfe of that idea, that like travellers, though upon business of the last and nearest concern to us, we may furely be allowed to amufe ourselves with the natural or artificial beauties of the country we are paffing through, without reproach of forgetting the main errand we are fent upon; and if we can fo order it, as not to be led out of the way, by the variety of profpects, edifices, and ruins which folicit us, it would be a non

fenfi al piece of faint-errantry, to fhut

Bot let us not lofe fight of the argument in purfuit of the fimile.

Let us remember, various as our exCorfions are-that we have ftill fet our fares towards Jerufalem-that we have a place of reft and happiness, towards which we haften, and that the way to get there is not fo much to pleafe our hearts, as to improve them in virtue ;-that marth and feafting are ufually no friends to achievements of this kind—but that a feafon of affliction is in fome fort a feafon of piety-not only because our fufferings are apt to put us in mind of our fins, but that by the check and interruption which they give to our pursuits, they allow us what the hurry and bustle of the world too often deny us,-and that is, a little time for reflection, which is all that most of us want to make us wifer and better men ;-that at certain times it is fo neceffary a man's mind fhould be turned towards itfelf, that rather than want occafions, he had better

purchase them at the expence of his prefent happiness. He had better, as the text expreffes it, go to the house of mourning, where he will meet with fomething to fubdue his paffions, than to the houfe of feafting, where the joy and gaiety of the place is likely to excite them: That whereas the entertainments and careffes of the one place expofe his heart and lay it open to temptations-the forrows of the other defend it, and as natu-. rally shut them from it. So ftrange and unaccountable a creature is man! he is fo framed, that he cannot but pursue happiness-and yet unless he is made. fometimes miferable, how apt is he to mistake the way which can only lead him to the accomplishment of his own wishes !

This is the full force of the wife man's declaration.-But to do farther juftice to his words, I will endeavour to bring the fubject ftill nearer.-For which purpofe, it will be neceffary to stop here, and take a tranfient view of the two places here referred to,-the house of

mourning, and the house of feafting, Give me leave therefore, I befeech you, to recal both of them for a moment, to your imaginations, that from thence I may appeal to your hearts, how faithfully, and upon what good grounds, the effects and natural operations of each upon our minds are intimated in the

text,

And first, let us look into the house of feafting.

And here, to be as fair and candid as poffible in the defcription of this, we will not take it from the worft originals, fuch as are opened merely for the fale of virtue, and fo calculated for the end, that the difguife each is under, not only gives power fafely to drive on the bargain, but fafely to carry it into execu

tion too.

This we will not fuppofe to be the cafe-nor let us even imagine the house of feafting to be fuch a fcene of intemperance and excefs, as the house of feafling does often exhibit-but let us take it from one, as little exceptionable