make for peace. When they are removed from us, may we remember all that was good in their example, think of all that was valuable in their counsels, and feel all their affectionate wishes for our welfare pleading within us in powerful union with every other motive to a faithful performance of our duties.

Hear us as disciples of Him whom Thou didst fill with Thy pure and benevolent spirit, that He might be a teacher and example to Thy other children of all kind and gentle affections, as well as of all virtuous and pious obedience to Thee. Through Him be glory and dominion, in the hearts and lives of all Thy children, unto Thee, His Father and our Father, His God and our God. Amen.

SERMON VIII.

ON CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

1 Timothy vi. 6, 7.

BUT GODLINESS WITH CONTENTMENT IS GREAT GAIN; FOR WE BROUGHT NOTHING INTO THIS WORLD, AND IT IS CERTAIN WE CAN CARRY NOTHING OUT.'

THERE is probably no settled state of mind attainable in the present life, which is more truly desirable and happy, than that expressed by the word contentment. We are capable of more intense enjoyment, our feelings may be sometimes excited to much higher degrees of pleasure, than contentment properly implies. But this fulness and excess of joy is not often afforded in the journey of life; and if we have not learnt to be satisfied with something short of these rare and splendid scenes of existence, we may chance to close our pilgrimage with the mournful exclamation, "This whole land is a desolate heritage; the mountains are become barren, and the hills are unfruitful." Rational and pious contentment alone, can diffuse a calm and equable feeling of satisfaction over the whole of life. It gives to every circumstance and blessing its due value, in con

tributing to the general sum of earthly happiness; and, though it may not raise us to the heights of rapture and exultation, never allows us to sink into the gloomy regions of despair. Contentment renders the humble possessor of sufficiency richer than the lord of an overflowing abundance. This happy disposition of mind often serves to outweigh the greatest and most solid advantages that prosperity can bestow upon one man beyond another, and to level the very proudest distinctions that separate the members of human society. It may give the prince cause to envy the peasant. It may make the master of wide domains and collected millions, sigh to exchange feelings with the lowliest dependant that bows in his presence. Contentment is the simplest and soundest philosophy of life; as easily to be practised by the humblest of mankind, as by the most learned and cultivated; better suited to mitigate the evils of existence, and to increase its pleasures, than any of those speculative systems, whether of a gay or rigid cast, which either the studious or the profligate have put forth to the world.

The disposition of which I am speaking is not only every where enforced throughout the Christian Scriptures, but is properly the fruit of those enlightened principles of faith, those just views of our present condition, and of the character and government of God, which we derive especially from the Gospel. "Godliness," says the Apostle in the text, "with contentment is great gain." In his epistle to the Philippians, he assures us that, as became an Apostle of Christ, he had brought his own mind to this Christian temper. "Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned, in

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whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. know both how to be brought low, and how to abound; every where, and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need."

Before I proceed to urge the several considerations that should induce us to cultivate this virtuous and pious disposition, it may be useful to offer a few remarks on the true nature of Christian contentment. This may, perhaps, be best shown, by pointing out wherein it differs from certain other habits of mind, with which it is sometimes confounded.

I. Let it be observed, then, that contentment is to be distinguished from a gloomy affectation of indifference to the ordinary pains and pleasures of life. No doctrine can afford a more striking 'display of the imbecility of human reason, than the absurd notion which has been attributed (probably from some misapprehension of their doctrine) to a celebrated sect of ancient philosophers, who are said to have taught that there is neither good nor evil to a wise man in external events; that all our sources of happiness or misery are seated in the mind itself; and that, therefore, all outward objects and circumstances should be looked upon with entire indifference by the man of perfect virtue. Vanity and affectation must have given rise to such an opinion, if it was ever seriously entertained. Pain and pleasure, good and evil, are stubborn and immutable realities, totally independent of any names or doctrines which men may be pleased to invent. Great and various as are the faculties which God has graciously bestowed upon us, he has not made us equal to him

self, entirely above the influence of external things, and able at all times to draw fulness of bliss from within ourselves. In this world, at least, we must not presume to despise altogether the power of temporal things, and common events, to contribute to our happiness or to enhance our misery. The poor must desire to be relieved from extreme want and suffering; the injured must wish to have their grievances redressed; the slave must hope that his chains will one day be broken; the sick, languishing on the bed of pain, must send up their sighs to heaven for relief; and the afflicted must earnestly cry out to God, that light may arise upon the darkness of their souls. These are nature's innocent inevitable desires, and true Christian contentment does not demand that we should abhor the feelings which are twice hallowed, by having God for their author, and happiness for their object. It allows us to regard pain and pleasure in their proper light, and always to desire more of the one and less of the other. At the same time it forbids us, for reasons to be stated presently, to murmur and repine, when only a moderate portion of earthly good is allotted us by the wise Disposer of all things.

II. Contentment ought also to be distinguished from resignation; otherwise we shall sometimes be led to regard it as a much harder duty than it is, when properly understood. It is often an obligation of piety to be patient, and resigned to the inscrutable will of God, when to require that we should feel contented with our condition, might be to exact an unreasonable and impossible task. Contentment rather implies satisfaction with the measure of good that we enjoy, than