infpired as well as they, and confequently is infallible. -After which, I cannot see how they can posfibly refrain going to mafs, confiftent with their own principles.

Thus much for thefe two oppofite errors ;the examination of which has taken up fo much time, that I have little left to add, but to beg of God, by the affiftance of his Holy Spirit, to preferve us equally from both extremes, and enable us to form fuch right and worthy apprehenfions of our holy religion,that it may never suffer, through 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 most rational, fober, and confiftent inftitution that could have been given to the fons of men..

Now, to Gon, &c..

SERMON XXXIX.

Eternal Advantages of Religion,

ECCLESIASTES XII. 13.

Let us hear the conleufion of the whole matter,- -Fear God," and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man:

THE wife man, in the beginning of this book, had proposed 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 refult of all his debates and inquiries.And I am per fuaded, 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 several pretenfions it offers to our happiness ;-

the more we shall 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 illuftrate the conclufion he draws; and as they are fuch as are apt to offer themfelves to the thoughts of every ferious and confiderate man, I cannot do better than renew the impref. fions by retouching the principal arguments of his difcourfe 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 states of life to which men ufually apply themfelves for happinefs;-first, -learning-wifdom;-next,-mirth-jollity and pleafure-then-power and greatnefs,riches and poffeffions.-All of which are fo far from an-. fwering the end for which they were at first pursued,that, by a great variety of arguments—he proves them severally to be fo many fore travels which God hath given to the fans of men to be exercifed therewith-and instead of being any, or all of them, our proper end and employment, or fufficient to our happiness he makes it plain, hy a feries 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 thefe objects might feem to promife.

us- -both with regard to our endeavours and our perfons in this world.

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ift, With regard to our endeavours, he fhows that the most likely ways and means are not always. effectual for the attaining of their end:that, in general,—the utmost that human counfels 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 thofe whom they are to encounter.--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 overrule all human contrivance, and counterplot the wifest of our counfels, in fo ftrange and unexpected. a manner, as to caft a damp upon our beft fchemes, and warmest endeavour.

And then, for thofe accidents to which our perfons are as liable as our labours, he obferves these three things:- -firft, the natural infirmities of our bodies, which alternately lays us open to the fad changes of pain and fickness; which, in the fifth chapter, he ftyles wrath and forrow; under which, when a man lies languishing, none of his worldly enjoyments will fignify much.-Like one that fingeth fongs with a heavy heart,neither mirth,--nor power, nor riches, fhall afford him cafe ;-nor will all their force be able so to stay the ftroke of

nature,—but that he shall be cut off in the midst of his days, and then all his thoughts perish.—Or else, what is no uncommon spectacle,-in the midst of all his luxury, he may wafte away the greatest part of his life with much weariness and anguish; and with the long torture of an unrelenting disease, he may wish himself to go down into the grave, and to be set at liberty from all his poffeffions, and all his mifery, at the fame time.

and

2dly, If it be supposed, that by the ftrength of fpirits, and the natural cheerfulness of a man's temper, he should efscape these, and live many years rejoice in them all,-which is not the lot of many;yet he must remember the days of darkness ;—that is, they who devote themselves to a perpetual round of mirth and pleasure,-cannot so manage matters as to avoid the thoughts of their future flate; and the anxiety about what shall become of them hereafter, when they are to depart out of this world;—that they cannot fo crowd their heads, and fill up their time with other matters, but that the remembrance of this will fometimes be uppermoft,—and thrust-itself upon their minds whenever they are retired and ferious. And as this will naturally present to them a dark prospect of their future happiness, it must, at the fame time, prove no fmall damp and alloy to what they would enjoy at present.

But, in the third place,-Suppofé a man should be able to avoid fickness,-and to put the trouble of thefe thoughts likewife far from him, yet there is fomethig else which he cannot poffibly decline; old age will unavoidably fteal upon him,with all the