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determinations of your Maker.

You yourselves are naturally corrupted, and therefore the judgments of your understandings, the tendency of your affections, and the choice of your wills, you must allow, may be wrong. And we request you to acquiesce in the will and the decisions of Jehovah, who is entitled, as your sovereign proprietor, to command and to dispose of you; and whose infinite wisdom, rectitude, and goodness, render him altogether fit for the important office.

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2. The ingredients of your happiness depend not on yourselves, but on God. "Who will shew us any good?" is an inquiry as old as the creation. The ingredients of happiness have been sought for in every clime. Earth, sea, and air have been ransacked to find them; and even the fields of imagination have been explored, in hopes of making the important discovery. Vain search! and worse than vain, which terminates in disappointment, weariness, and disgust. If it be true that God made us, it must be equally true that the happiness which is fit for us, is that which he hath ordained. To him, therefore, from whom we have derived our existence and preservation, it behoves us to look for our happiness also. In the creature it cannot be found, else it were reasonable, with respect to at least one most important particular, to worship and serve the creature, as much as the Creator. The condition of our nature shews, that true satisfaction is not to be derived from our possessions, our friends, ourselves, but from him who is the author of them all. Therefore, quit all, and ye shall find all; deny yourselves, and ye shall rejoice in perfect peace.

To a being who can anticipate the future, as well

as enjoy the present, that only is happiness, which is sure and lasting. But can any enjoyment to which certainty and durability belong, be found either in yourselves, or in the objects which surround you? No:*such happiness is only to be found in him, whose fulness, and whose purpose, never change. It is to be found in the contemplation and worship, the love and imitation of him; in subjection and obedience to him; in constant dependence and reliance on him; in a word, in denying ourselves, and making God our" all in all.” For on what does our future and everlasting happiness depend? Surely on the will of him, whose is the gift of everlasting life. And if eternal bliss depend wholly on the will of God, the ingredients of it must be such as are agreeable to his will, and can in nothing be opposed to it. They must be derived from, and consist in a thorough compliance with that will, or in the sacrifice of ourselves to whatever it declares, whatever it prescribes, and whatever it imposes.

To a being who can recall the past, as well as enjoy the present, that only can afford genuine happiness, which, on recollection, excites no painful feeling. But can this be said of ourselves? To the minds of the most prudent and most harmless, does memory recall nothing thought, said, done, or ne glected, that begets regret, or covers with shame, and makes them dissatisfied with themselves? Are. then, the ingredients of the happiness of a being, who cannot rely upon himself for the future, and who cannot without regret contemplate the past, to be found in that being himself?

The result of the whole is, that the ingredients

of our happiness are those only which God wills as such; and therefore it is reasonable, it is necessary, that in our pursuit of it, we renounce and desire, avoid and adhere to whatever he may require, in order to our obtaining it :-Farther, that these ingredients are not to be found in the creature, but in the Creator; and therefore, that the one must be given up, the other chosen and sought, as "all our salvation, and all our desire."

3. Our capacity of happiness, or the adaptation of our nature to it, depends not on us, but on God. And of this adaptation, a great part will be found to consist in the denial of self, and in subjection to the divine will.

Objects of enjoyment may be presented to us; but without a capacity suited to them, they can yield us no pleasure. Musical sounds charm not him that is deaf, and beauty has no attractions to the blind. In like manner, trué happiness cannot be relished by the wicked. The joys of heaven, a proud, a sensual, or a worldly spirit is not capable. of tasting. To dwell with a God whom we do not love, and to whom we cannot in every thing submit, to associate with angels and spirits, to whose temper and manners we are not conformed, and to engage in services which we dislike, would prove a wearisome servitude, and an unceasing source of misery. There are few, who, when they hear, that in God's " presence is fulness of joy," and that at his " right hand are pleasures for evermore,"* do not feel a desire for heaven. But if its pleasures consist in the enjoyment of God, and its business in his service and praise, all whose own hearts are

* Psalm xvi. II.

their masters, would find the very view of God terrible, and his service a galling slavery.

But by whom is the capacity for spiritual enjoy. ment conferred? By the same God, who created objects of sight, and formed the eye to behold them; who ordained sound, and made the ear for hearing. Without him it is as impossible to obtain the spiritual capacity, as to possess the outward sense;-for, says Jesus, "except a man be born "again," born of the Spirit, born from above," he "cannot see," he cannot enjoy "the kingdom of 66 God,"* either here or hereafter.

From the nature of spiritual and celestial bliss, it is also evident, that the capacity of enjoying it, which is thus to be derived from God alone, must consist in the conformity and subjection of our will to his; that is, in obedience to his commandments, in an entire approbation of all the measures of his government, and an unreserved acquiescence in all its appointments: Nay, this obediential spirit, this free and full compliance with the Creator's will, must constitute the great qualification for happiness, not in men only, but in angels themselves. In their solemn adorations, they most emphatically express it. When the redeemed of the Lord cry with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God, "who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb;" all the angels stand round about and fall on their faces before the throne, and worship God, saying, "Amen! Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and › "thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, "be unto our God, for ever and ever. Amen!"f They glorify and rejoice in the perfections of their

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• John lif. 3, 5

+ Rev. x, 10, 11, 12.

Maker, as manifested in his dispensations, they devote themselves to his service and honour, they thank and praise his holy name.

If then, true happiness cannot be enjoyed, without a capacity, of which God alone must be the author, how reasonable is it that we deny the sufficiency of our own strength and wisdom; that we make humble unremitting application to him alone, for that which he alone can give, and without which our souls must be miserable? Especially does self-denial, in its widest sense, appear fit and necessary, when we consider it as itself the great qualification for spiritual and endless bliss.

4. The condition of our obtaining this felicity, or the price by which it is purchased, depends not on us, but on God.

Eternal life, through the gift of God to every individual chosen, is the purchase of Christ to all the redeemed; and God is not more merciful than

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just," while he is "the justifier of him that be"lieveth in Jesus."* The blessedness of the terrestrial paradise depended on man's continued obedience: The blessedness of the heavenly was pur chased and secured, by Christ's abedience unto death. But the adoption of this plan, the acceptance of this obedience, the communication of that faith whereby righteousness is imputed, and the beneficial effects of it enjoyed, are no work of ours. It was when "none eye pitied," that God said unto us, "Live ;" and "so loved the world, as to give "his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth "in him should not perish, but have everlasting "life." It was "when we were yet without ↑ Ezek. xvi. 5, 6. #John iii, 16.

* Rom. iii. 26.

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