I believe there are thoufands fo extravagant in their ideas of contentment, as to imagine that it must confist in having every thing in this world turn out the way they wish that they are to fit down in happiness, and feel themfelves fo at cafe at all points, as to defire nothing better, and nothing more. I own there are inftances of fome, who feem to pass through the world, as if all their paths had been ftrewed with rofebuds of delight;-----but a little experience will convince us, 'tis a fatal expectation to go upon. We are born to trouble, and we may depend upon it whilst we live in this world we fhall have it, though with intermiffions-that is, in whatever ftate we are, we fhall find -a mixture of good and evil; and therefore the true way to contentment, is to know to receive these certain viciffitudes of life, the returns of good and evil, so as neither to be exalted by the one, or overthrown by the other, but to bear ourfelves towards every thing which happens, with fuch ease and indifference of mind, as to hazard as little as may be! be. This is the true temperate climate fitted for us by nature, and in which every wife man would wish to live. God knows, we are perpetually straying out of it, and by giving wings to our imaginations in the tranfports we dream of, from fuch or fuch a fituation in life, we are carried alway alternately into all the extremes of hot and cold, for which as we are neither fitted by nature, or prepared by expectation, we feel them with all their violence, and with all their danger too. God, for wife reafons, has made our affairs in this world, almost as fickle and capricious as ourselves.Pain and pleafure, like light and darkness, fucceed each other; and he that knows how to accommodate himself to their periodical returns, can wifely extract the good from the evil,knows only how to live : this is true contentment, at least all that is to be had of it in this world, and for this every man mutt be indebted not to his fortune but to himself. And indeed it would have been ftrange, if a duty fo becoming us as dependent crea tures, tures- -and fo neceffary befides to all our well beings, had been placed out of the reach of any in fome measure to put in practice---and for this reason, there is fcarce any lot fo low, but there is something in it to fatisfy the man whom it has befallen; providence having fo ordered things, that in every man's cup, how bitter foever, there are fome cordial drops----fome good circumstances, which if wifely extracted, are fufficient for the purpose he wants them,-that is, to make him contented, and if not happy, at leastrefigned. May God bless us all with this Spirit, for the fake of Jefus Christ. Amen. THE END. |