fumming up the account, all, all is found to be feated merely in the imagination-The fafter he has purfued, the fafter the phantom fled before him; and, to ufe the Satyrift's comparison of the chariot wheels, hafte as they will, they must for ever keep the fame distance.

But what? though I have been thus far disappointed in my expectations of happiness from the poffeffion of riches" Let me try, "whether I fhall not meet with it, in the spending and fashionable enjoyment of "them."

I

Behold! I will get me down, and make me great works, and build me houses, and plant me vineyards, and make me gardens and pools of water. And I will get me fervants and maidens, and whatsoever my eyes defire, I will not keep from them.

In prosecution of this-he drops all gainful pursuits withdraws himself from the busy part of the world-realizes-pulls down builds up again.-Buys ftatues, pictures plants and plucks up by the roots-levels mountains

mountains-and fills up vallies-turns rivers into dry ground, and dry ground into rivers.

Says unto this man, Go, and he goeth; and unto another, Do this, and he doeth it ;— and whatsoever his foul lufteth after of this kind, he with-holds not from it. When every thing is thus planned by himself, and executed according to his wifh and direction, furely he is arrived to the accomplishment of his wishes, and has got to the fummit of all human happinefs?-Let the most fortunate adventurers in this way answer the question for him, and fay-how often it rifes higher than a bare and fimple amusement and well, if you can compound for that-fince 'tis often purchased at fo high a price, and fo foured by a mixture of other incidental vexations, as to become too often a work of repentance, which in the end will extort the fame forrowful confeffion from him, which it did from Solomon in the like cafe-Lo! 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 fpirit-and there was no profit to me under the fun.

To inflame this account the more-'twill VOL. I.

B

be

be no miracle if, upon cafting it up, he has gone farther lengths than he first intended run into expences which have entangled his fortune, and brought himself into fuch difficul ties as to make way for the laft expériment he can try and that is to turn mifer, with no happiness in view but what is to rife out of the little defigns of a fordid mind, fet upon faving and fcraping up, all he has injudiciously spent.

In this laft ftage-behold him a poor trembling wretch, fhut up from all mankindfinking into utter contempt; spending careful days and fleepless nights, in pursuit of what a narrow and contracted heart can never enjoy; -And let us here leave him to the conviction he will one day find-That there is no end of his labour-That his eyes will never be fatisfied with riches, or will fay For whom do I labour and bereave myself of reft?This is alfo a fore travel.

I believe this is no uncommon picture of the difappointments of human life and the manner our pleasures and enjoyments der us in every stage of our life. I would not be thought by it,

flip from un

And though as if I was de

nying the reality of pleasures, or difputing the being of them, any more than one would the reality of pain-yer I muft obferve on this head, that there is a plain diftinction to be made betwixt pleafure and happiness. For tho' there can be no happiness without pleafure yet the converfe of the propofition will not hold true. We are fo made, that from the common gratifications of our appetites, and the impreffions of a thousand objects, we fnatch the one, like a tranfient gleam, without being fuffered to tafte the other, and enjoy that perpetual fun-fhine and fair weather which constantly attend it. This, I contend, is only to be found in religion-in the consciousness of virtue-and the fure and certain hopes of a better life, which brightens all our profpects, and leaves no room to dread difappointments-because the expectation of it is built upon a rock, whofe foundations are as deep as those of heaven and hell.

And tho' in our pilgrimage through this world-fome of us may be fo fortunate as to meet with fome clear fountains by the way, that may cool, for a few moments, the heat of this great thirst of happiness-yetour SAVI

our, who knew the world, tho' he enjoyed but little of it, tells us, that whosoever drinketh of this water will thirst again:—and we all find by experience it is fo, and by reason that it always must be so.

I conclude with a fhort obfervation upon Solomon's evidence in this case.

Never did the busy brain of a lean and hectic chymist search for the philosopher's stone with more pains and ardour than this great man did after happiness.-He was one of the wifeft enquirers into nature-had tried all her powers and capacities, and after a thousand vain fpeculations and vile experiments, he affirmed, at length, it lay hid in no one thing he had tried-like the chymic's projections, all had ended in fmoak, or what was worse, in vanity and vexation of fpirit:-the conclufion of the whole matter was this-that he advifes every man who would be happy, to fear GoD and keep his commandments.

SERMON