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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMONS SERMON I INQUIRY AFTER HAPPINESS There be many that say, Who will show us any good? — Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Psalm iv. 6. THE great pursuit of man is after happiness : it is the first and strongest desire of his nature; — in every stage of his life, he searches for it as for hid treasure ; courts it under a thousand different shapes, — and though perpetually disappointed, — still persists — runs after and inquires for it afresh — asks every passenger who comes in his way, JVTio mil show him any good ? — who will assist him in the attainment of it, or direct him to the discovery of this great end of all his wishes ? He is told by one to search for it among the more gay and useful pleasures of life, in scenes of mirth and sprightliness where Happiness ever presides, and is ever to be known by thejoy and laughter which he will at once see painted in her looks. A second, with a graver aspect, points out to the costly dwellings which pride and extravagance have erected : tells the inquirer that the object he is in search of inhabits there; — that Happiness lives only in company with the great, in the midst of much pomp and outward state — that he will easily find her out by the coat of many colours she has on, and the great luxury and expense of equipage and furniture with which she always sits surrounded. The miser blesses God! — wonders how any one would mislead, and wilfully put him upon so wrong a scent — convinces him that happiness and extravagance never inhabited under the same roof; — that if he would not be disappointed in his search, he must look into the plain and thrifty dwelling of the prudent man, who knows and understands the worth of money, and cautiously lays it up against an evil hour: that it ...
