the coolness of our conceptions of it, on one hand, or the immoderate heat of them, on the other; but that we may at all times fee it, as it is, and as it was defigned by its bleffed Founder, as the moft rational, fober, and confiftent inftitution that could have been given to the fons of men.

Now to GOD, &c,

SERMON XXXIX.

Eternal Advantages of Religion.

ECCLESIASTES XII. 13.

Let us hear the conclufion of the whole matter,- Fear GOD, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

T

HE wife man, in the beginning of this book, had propofed it as a grand query to be difcuffed,-To find out what was good for the fons of men, which they should do under the heavens, all the days of their lives :-That is, what was the fittest employment, and the chief and proper bufinefs, which they should apply themselves to in this world. -And here, in the text, after a fair difcuffion of the question, he afferts it to be the business of religion,-the fearing GOD, and keeping his commandments. -This was the conclufion of the whole

matter, and the natural result of all his debates and inquiries. And I am perfuaded, the more obfervations we make upon the fhort life of man,-the more we experience, and the longer trials we have of the world,-and the feveral pretenfions it offers to our happiness, the more we fhall be engaged to think, like him,-that we can never find what we look for in any other thing which we do under the heavens, except in that of duty and obedience to GOD. In the course of the wife man's examination of this point,-we find a great many beautiful reflections upon human affairs, all tending to illustrate the conclufion he draws; and as they are fuch as are apt to offer themselves to the thoughts of every ferious and confiderate man,-I cannot do better than renew the impreffions, by retouching the principal arguments of his dif courfe,-before I proceed to the general ufe and application of the whole.

In the former part of his book he had taken into his confideration those several

ftates of life to which men ufually apply themselves for happiness ;-first, learning,—wisdom ;—next,—mirth, jollity, and pleasure;-then power and greatnefs,-riches and poffeffions.-All of which are so far from answering the end for which they were at first pursued,— that, by a great variety of arguments,-he proves them severally to be so many fore travels which God had given to the fons of men to be exercised therewith:-and inftead of being any, or all of them, our proper end and employment, or fufficient to our happiness, he makes it plain, by a series of obfervations upon the life of man,-that they are ever likely to end with others where they had done with him, that is, in vanity and vexation of spirit.

Then he takes notice of the feveral accidents of life, which perpetually rob us of what little fweets the fruition of these objects might feem to promise us, -both with regard to our endeavours and our perfons in this world.

ift, With regard to our endeavours, he fhews that the most likely ways

and means are not always effectual for the attaining of their end :-that, in general, the utmost that human councils and prudence can provide for, is to take care, when they contend in a race, that they be fwifter than thofe who run against them;-or when they are to fight a battle, that they be ftronger than those whom they are to en counter. And yet afterwards, in the ninth chapter, he obferves, that the race is not to the fwift, nor the battle to the ftrong ;-neither yet bread to the wife, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor favour to men of skill; -but time and chance happens to them all. That there are fecret workings in human affairs, which over-rule all human contrivance, and counterplot the wifeft of our councils, in fo ftrange and unexpected a manner, as to caft a damp upon our best schemes and warmeft endeavours.

And then, for those accidents to which our perfons are as liable as our labours, he obferves thefe three things;