have got as high as their warmeft wishes could carry them in this ascent,—do you observe they live the better, the longer, the merrier, -or that they fleep the founder in their beds, for having twice as much as they wanted, or well know how to dispose of ?Of all rules for calculating happiness, this is the most deceitful, and which few but weak minds, and those unpractised in the world too, ever think of applying as the measure in fuch an estimation. Great and inexpreffible may be the happiness, which a moderate fortune and moderate defires, with a consciousness of virtue, will fecure. Many are the filent pleasures of the honeft peasant, who rifes chearful to his labour;-why fhould they not?-Look into his house, the feat of each man's happinefs; has he not the fame domeftic endearments, the fame joy and comfort in his children, and as flattering hopes of their doing well, to enliven his hours and glad his heart, as you could conceive in the highest station? -And I make no doubt, in general, but if the true state of his joy and sufferings could be fairly balanced with those of his betters, whether any thing would appear at the foot of the account, but what would recommend the the moral of this difcourfe.-This, I own, is not to be attained to, by the cynical stale trick of haranguing against the goods of fortune, they were never intended to be talked out of the world-But as virtue and true wisdom ly in the middle of extremes,– -on one hand, not to neglect and defpife riches, fo as to forget ourselves; and on the other, not to purfue and love them fo as to forget GOD;— to have them sometimes in our heads,but alway fomething more important in our hearts. M 5 SERMON |