vide a ftore of comfort to themfelves and their families, and obtain respect in the fociety, to which they contribute their stock of ufeful and beneficial fervice. By the mildnefs of their manners they conciliate the love of men, fo as to prevent every difpofition to do them harm or wrong, and to encourage every difpofition to do them good. Thus they pafs through the vale of life with little or no moleftation; and fo quiet a poffeffion of a moderate portion is better than a contested title to the inheritance of kingdoms. By their patience under trials and refignation to the will of God they acquire his favour, who by fecret means of providence makes all their affairs to profper; or if he occafionally vifits them with affliction, who yet fupports them with his grace, and makes even affliction subfervient to their genuine and their final good. Beyond other bleffings they have, what the world can neither give nor take away, the peace of confcience shed abroad into their hearts by the Spirit of God, which puts a value upon all they have. Without it the poffeffion of the whole world would be no better than vanity, and vexation of spirit; and with it the whole world is to every genuine ufe their own.

But the most valuable recompence of

the

the Meek is not in temporal things, but in fpiritual, is not in this, but in the future world. And this we may conclude is implied in the promise that they shall inherit the Earth, when we confider the usage of the holy Scripture, by the fhadows of the natural to delineate the truths of the fpiritual world, and by the images of the present life to defcribe the realities of the life to come. This interpretation in the present inftance is countenanced by the Apostle in the general strain of his Epistle to the Hebrews. The inheritance of an earthly Canaan, as promised to the Ifraelites by natural defcent, is a type or earneft of the inheritance of a heavenly Canaan, as promised to all who are Ifraelites indeed by adoption and grace. This is in a peculiar fense the recompence of the Meek, inasmuch as they are conformed in difpofition and character to the instruction and image of their bleffed Lord. Having learnt of him to be meek and lowly in heart, they fhall find a temporary rest unto their fouls in the favour and approbation both of God and Man: And when this earth, and all the present scene of things is diffolved, they fhall find an eternal reft in that new heaven and that new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness'.

Matt. xi. 29. 2 Pet. iii. 13.

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SERMON XI.

MATTHEW V. 4.

Bleffed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

It is a prevailing sentiment

T

the

among Children of this world to place their happinefs in revelries and pageants and licentious mirth. And according as they have the means of diffipation, they intemperately enjoy them. Whatever their eyes desire, they keep not from them; they withhold not their hearts from every joy. But short is the gratification and unfatisfactory the end of turbulent and immoderate mirth. In the midst of laughter they are often ill at ease; and by too free an indulgence their pleasures are converted into pain. A cheerless, if not a miferable void enfues. They have no comfort now to gild their adverfity; and as they lived without any thought of futurity, they

have no hope to cheer them from another life.

Our Lord has taught a different difpofition, and has given the promise of an oppofite confequence: Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

As the final purpose of our Saviour's miffion was to promote the happiness of men, it may feem extraordinary to a flight obfervation, that he should enjoin and encourage mourning as the means of attaining so very different an end. But when we explore the nature and aim of this Beatitude, we shall equally fee the wisdom and the benevolence of our holy Teacher, in propofing this as a neceffary branch of the Chriftian discipline.

By the mourning thus propofed for the object of beatitude we are by no means to understand a gloomy fretfulness of temper for trivial or imaginary evils, or even an indulgence of immoderate and unavailing forrow for the real afflictions and calamities of life: For these are totally repugnant to that fpirit of patience and content and refignation fo much commended and approved by the doctrines of our religion. The perfons, whom our Lord pronounces blessed, are they that mourn in a religious fenfe and to a religious ufe. They mourn for the miseries of humanity,