gold: sweeter also than honey, and the choice droppings of the honey-comb."(5) We We wish to be happy ourselves, and we wish you to be partakers of the same felicity. Many of you are endowed with talents of no mean account. lament the misapplication of them. Are your spirits perfectly at rest in your present state of mind? And do you feel satisfied with your future prospects? Give me leave to answer for you, and be not offended if I say, "No!-Far from it!-My lusts and passions lead me captive! I am a slave to evil desires!-Of the proper fear of God, which effectually restraineth from sin, I know but little!-To the genuine love of God I am an utter stranger; I scarcely know what it means! The favour of God I have no reason to expect, in my present state of moral attainments, be the Bible true, or be it false!-With all my pretensions to virtue, in my coolest moments, I feel condemned in my own conscience!-That which I do, I allow not; but what I would, that do I not; for what I hate, that do I."(6) (5) Other great kings have been of the same mind. Robert of Sicily, declares of himself, "the holy books are dearer to me than my kingdom, and were I under any necessity of quitting one, it should be my diadem " And even the haughty Lewis the XIV. "sometimes read his Bible, and was of opinion it is the finest of all books." It is recorded too of our Edward VI. that upon a certain occa sion, a paper which was called for in the council chamber, happened to lie out of reach; the person concerned to produce it, took a Bible that lay by, and, standing upon it, reached down the paper. The king observing what was done, ran himself to the place, and taking the Bible in his hands, kissed it, and laid it up again. This circumstance implied in his majesty great reverence for and much affection to that best of books. William III. not only believed the truth of the Christian religion very firmly, but was most exemplary, decent and devout, in the public exercises of the worship of God. He was an attentive hearer of sermons, and was constant in his private prayers, and in reading the Scriptures. (6) Doddridge, in his life of Gardiner, informs us, "That his fine constitution, than which perhaps there hardly ever was a bet My reason this, my passion that persuades: I see the right, and I approve it too, Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue." "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the unhappiness I frequently feel, and the misery I have too much reason to fear?-I would gladly be a thorough-paced unbeliever; but for the life of me, I cannot get clear of the terror of death, the apprehension of a future reckoning, and an unaccountable foreboding of something terrible to come!" No, nor will you ever find either solid consolation in life, or just confidence in the hour of death, till you shake off the chains of those sins, which have well nigh led you into the gulph of perdition, and obtain redemption in the blood of that Saviour, of whom in your present state of mind, you make so little ac count. Solomon has the honour of being reputed the wisest of men. But, notwithstanding his extraordinary wisdom, he was, for many years, at least, guilty of extreme folly. He sought for happiness in the gratification of the body, its appetites and passions, ter, gave him great opportunities of indulging himself in excesses; and his good spirits enabled him to pursue his pleasures of every kind, in so alert and sprightly a manner, that multitudes envied him, and called him by a dreadful kind of compliment, the happy rake. Yet still the checks of conscience, and some remaining principles of so good an education as he had received, would break in upon his most licentious hours: and I particularly remember he told me, that when some of his dissolute companions were once congratulating him on his distinguished felicity, a dog happening at that time to come into the room, he could not forbear groaning inwardly, and saying to himself, Oh, that I were that dog'-Such was then his happiness, and such perhaps is that of hundreds more, who bear themselves highest in the contempt of religion, and glory in that infamous servitude which they call liberty."-How is it with you in this respect? Trust a prophet and a priest for once- -The wicked are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, sait my God, to the wicked. Y to the neglect of God, and religion, and the care of his immortal part; but substantial happiness could no where be found. He ran through the whole circle of worldly and sensual pleasures; happiness however, and ease of mind still fled before him, and eluded his pursuit. And after having made a large number of experiments for a long season, and to no manner of purpose, he stops and looks back upon what he had been doing; and the book of Ecclesiastes contains his experience. Wishing to warn his fellow creatures against the mistakes which he himself had committed in life, he turns preacher, and gives us a sermon upon the insufficiency of worldly things to make us happy. The text to the discourse is: "vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." He begins his sermon by shewing, that all human courses and pursuits are vain, and do not yield full satisfaction to the mind. "All things are full of labour: man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing; nor the ear filled with hearing." From this general assertion the royal preacher proceeds to shew, that wisdom, and knowledge, and learning could not make him happy. "I the preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem; and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. I communed with my own heart, saying, lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and know madness and folly: I perceived, that this also is vexation of spirit." Not finding rest for his soul in the pursuits of knowledge and learning, the wise man deserts them to try if the pleasures of drinking, planting, building, music, and dancing, could make him happy, and afford him that satisfaction which he had hitherto sought for in vain." I said in mine heart, go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it? I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting my heart with wisdom, and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle, above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I got me men-singers, and women-singers; and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour; and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.' After making many other observations upon human life, and human pursuits, and shewing how utterly insufficient they all are to constitute any of us truly easy, content, and happy, the royal preacher finishes his excellent sermon, by pointing out, in a few words, what is the state, the duty, and the true interest of man: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” This is the sum of Solomon's experience and knowledge of men and things; and this is the experience of all the world. Religion is always our last resource. We must come to it one time or other, or we are undone for ever, and had better never to have been born. Nothing can supply its place. The fear, the love, the service of God, can alone make us happy. All other things; all other pursuits; all other pleasures; all other enjoyments, leave us restless, uneasy, discontented, unhappy. "The soul uneasy and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a world to come." If, to this scriptural sketch, we should add other instances of religious wisdom, amidst all the honours, luxury, and hurry of public station, we might observe that lord chancellor Parker, and the earl of Bath, deyoted many of their leisure hours to prayer, reading, and studying the Bible, and afterwards died with a hope full of immortality. I might call your attention here likewise to a character much more splendid in life, but much less honourable in death. You recollect the extorted and affecting declaration of the degraded, and almost expiring Wolsey: "Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal Take warning by these examples, and if by any means you have been led astray from the paths of vir |