SERMON XXVII.

UPON MAN'S INSENSIBILITY TO HIS FUTURE HAPPINESS.

1st. EP. JOHN, CHAP. ii. VER. 25. This is the promise which He hath promised us, even eternal life.

FROM the great insensibility to their future happiness, which the generality of mankind seem to express, one would be apt to imagine they were not thoroughly convinced of the blessings foretold to the righteous, or the punishments denounced against the ungodly; both of which affect them with the same degree of indifference,

as if they had no prospect of satisfaction or pleasure from the one, and no expectation of misery or pain from the other.— Nor is this want of feeling to be otherwise accounted for, than from that indolence of disposition which influences mankind with respect to distant and future events, and that eagerness with which they are hurried on to the attainment of present enjoyments;-to remove at once this impediment to our happiness would be a task too difficult for the weakness of man to attempt; but to lessen the force of it in some measure, will be attended with great satisfaction, and well deserves our utmost endeavours.

The general design of all, in matters relative to their interest, is, to get experience from the errors of other people, and to profit by the example of those who have gone before them; but in this point, which should be the grand object of every

man's attention, in preference to all the enjoyments which this life can afford, we seem to act upon a principle directly repugnant to nature and reason; for, instead of avoiding those rocks upon which thousands have already been wrecked, we rather seek encouragement from their dangers, to pursue the same course which has led them to destruction; instead of becoming wise from their imprudence, we aim at raising a more lofty structure of folly upon the foundation of their bad example. If this was not the case, the misfortunes of the people of Israel would have taught us consideration; who, beloved as they were of God, and chosen by him to execute his covenant, appeared to set so little value upon the expected blessing, as to forfeit by their wilful disobedience all claim to the reward proposed; as if they had forgot, in the midst of their troubles, the very end for which they endured so many afflictions. We meet with this

account in the royal Psalmist, who reproaches them for their great insensibility, "That after God had conducted them safe "through every danger and distress-after ❝he had opened a passage through the Red "Sea, and by numberless other miracles had " entirely subdued their enemies who dis"puted their possession-they thought "scorn of that pleasant land." We may look upon this promised land with all the advantages they were taught to expect from it, as an emblem of eternal life with respect to us, and the joys which await us hereafter; at the same time, the little esteem in which the children of Israel held their future prospect, and their ingratitude to him who had conducted them to it, is an image of the coldness and indifference with which too many Christians look up to Heaven, our land of promise, purchased for us by the Son of God, at the price of his own blood.

Such is our inattention to this point, that, neither the greatness of the blessing in view, nor that inclination to happiness, which is so natural to mankind, nor even the miseries which every where abound in this life, are capable of rousing us from that state of idleness, and encouraging us to aspire to that seat of peace and repose, where nothing will disturb our joy for evermore; and it is the more surprising, as in other respects, men are led on by a necessary and natural instinct, in search after happiness; to the attainment of which, nothing can be a greater impediment than this insensibility itself; as may be easily. seen by enquiring into the causes of it, which may be confined to these twoeither we do not believe the promises of the gospel, or think the rewards insufficient to recompense the trouble of acquiring them. It is almost impossible to conceive, that those who call themselves Christians, can doubt the promises of the