truth. Resolve rather to bear the disappointment of some flattering hopes, than to wander for ever in the paradise of fools. While others meditate in secret on the means of attaining worldly success, let it be your employment to scrutinize that success itself. Calculate fairly to what it amounts; and whether you are not losers, on the whole, by your apparent gain. Look back for this purpose on your past life. Trace it from your earliest youth; and put the question to yourselves, What have been its happiest periods? Were they those of quiet and innocence, or those of ambition and intrigue? Has your real enjoyment uniformly kept pace with what the world calls prosperity? As you are advanced in wealth or station, did you proportionably advance in happiness? Has success, almost in any one instance, fulfilled your expectation? Where you reckoned upon most enjoyment, have you not often found least? Wherever guilt entered into your pleasures, did not its sting long remain, after the gratification was past? Such questions as these, candidly answered, would, in a great measure, unmask the world. They would expose the vanity of its pretensions; and convince you, that there are other springs than those which the world affords, to which you must apply for happiness.

While you commune with your heart concerning what the world now is, consider also what it will one day appear to be. Anticipate the awful moment of your bidding it an eternal farewell. Think, what reflections shall most probably arise when you are quitting the field, and looking back on the scene of action. In what light will your closing eyes contemplate those vanities which now shine so bright, and

those interests which now swell into such high importance? What part will you then wish to have acted? What shall then appear momentous, what trifling, in human conduct? Let the sober sentiments which such anticipations suggest, temper now your misplaced ardour. Let the last conclusions which you shall form, enter into the present estimate which you make of the world, and of life.

Moreover, in communing with yourselves concerning the world, contemplate it as subject to the Divine dominion. The greater part of men behold nothing more than the rotation of human affairs. They see a great crowd ever in motion; the fortunes of men alternately rising and falling; virtue often distressed, and prosperity appearing to be the purchase of worldly wisdom. But this is only the outside of things. Behind the curtain there is a far greater scene, which is beheld by none but the retired religious spectator. Lift up that curtain, when you are alone with God. View the world with the eye of a Christian; and you shall see, that while man's heart deviseth his way, it is the Lord who directeth his steps. You shall see, that however men appear to move and act after the their own pleasure, they are, nevertheless, retained in secret bonds by the Almighty, and all their operations rendered subservient to the ends of his moral government. You shall behold him obliging the wrath of man to praise him; punishing the sinner by means of his own iniquities; from the trials of the righteous, bringing forth their reward; and to a state of seeming universal confusion, preparing the wisest and most equitable issue. While the fashion of this world is passing fast away, you shall discern the glory of another rising to succeed it. You shall

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behold all human events, our griefs and our joys, our love and our hatred, our character and our memory, absorbed in the ocean of eternity; and no trace of our present existence left, except its being for ever well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked. Such a view of the world, frequently presented to our minds, could not fail to enforce those solemn conclusions; There is no wisdom, nor counsel against the Lord. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole of man. What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

III. COMMUNE with your heart concerning yourselves, and your real character. To acquire a thorough knowledge of ourselves is an attainment no less difficult than important. For men are generally unwilling to see their own imperfections; and when they are willing to inquire into them, their self-love imposes on their judgment. Their intercourse with one another assists the delusion to which, of themselves, they are prone. For the ordinary commerce of the world is a commerce of flattery and falsehood; where reciprocally they deceive and are deceived, where every one appears under an assumed form, professes esteem which he does not feel, and bestows praise in order to receive it. It is only in retreat where those false semblances disappear, and those flattering voices are silent, that a man can learn to think soberly of himself, and as he ought to think.

It has been said, that there are three characters which every man sustains; and these often extremely different from one another: One, which he possesses in his own opinion; another, which he carries in the

estimation of the world; and a third, which he bears in the judgment of God. It is only the last which ascertains what he really is. Whether the character which the world forms of you be above or below the truth, it imports you not much to know. But it is of eternal consequence, that the character, which you possess in your own eyes, be formed upon that which you bear in the sight of God. In order to try it by this great standard, you must lay aside, as much as possible, all partiality to yourselves; and in the season of retirement, explore your heart with such accurate scrutiny, as may bring your hidden defects to light.

Inquire, for this purpose, whether you be not conscious, that the fair opinion which the world entertains of you, is founded on their partial knowledge both of your abilities and your virtues ? Would you be willing that all your actions should be publicly canvassed? Could you bear to have your thoughts laid open? Are there no parts of your life which you would be uneasy if an enemy could discover? In what light, then, must these appear to God? When you have kept free of vice, has your innocence proceeded from purity of principle, or from worldly motives? Rise there no envy or malignity within you, when you compare your own condition with that of others? Have you been as solicitous to regulate your heart, as to preserve your manners from reproach? Professing yourselves to be Christians, has the spirit of Christ appeared in your conduct? Declaring that you hope for immortality, has that hope surmounted undue attachments to the present life?

Such investigation as this, seriously pursued, might

produce to every man many discoveries of himself; discoveries not pleasing perhaps to vanity, but salutary and useful. For he can be only a flatterer, but no true friend to himself, who aims not at knowing his own defects as well as virtues. By imposing on the world, he may carry on some plan of fancied profit; but by imposing on his heart, what can he propose to gain? He feedeth on ashes: A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand. *

THUS, I have set before you some of those great objects which ought to employ your meditation in religious retirement. I have endeavoured to introduce you into a proper intercourse with your heart, concerning God, the world, and your own character. Let this intercourse terminate in fixing the principles of

your future conduct. Let it serve to introduce consistency into your life. Nothing can be more wavering and disjointed, than the behaviour of those who are wholly men of the world, and have never been inured to commune with themselves. Dissipation is a more frequent cause of their ruin, than determined impiety. It is not so much because they have adopted bad principles, as because they have never attended to principles of any kind, that their lives are so full of incoherence and disorder. You hover on the borders of sin and duty. One day you read the Scriptures, you hear religious discourses, and form good resolutions. Next day you plunge into the world, and forget the serious impression, as if it had never been made. The impression is again

Isaiah, xliv. 20.