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SERMON XXXI.

The Value of Commerce.

GOD, who art the governor and ruler of all, the

parts as well as the whole, the small as well as the great, what connection, what order and harmony prevail throughout the whole of thy immenfe domain; and how much more should we be lost in profound astonishment and joyful transport, could we furvey and comprehend in our minds a larger portion of it! But even on our terrestrial globe, even in the government which thou exercifeft over us men, what traces of the wifeft, moft benevolent direction and providence are discoverable! How exactly adapted is all to the greatest poffible welfare of animated nature! How intimately all is connected and interwoven together! What an indiffoluble chain of caufes and effects encircle all, the ultimate tendency and refult whereof is life and happiness! To each of us haft thou allotted his proper place, on each bestowed his appointed meafure of capacities and powers, to each of us affigned

his fphere of operation, to each of us committed his particular affairs; and if every individual do that which thou calleft him to do, then each perfon provides and works for all, and all provide and work for everyone, and thus the whole innumerable family of thy offspring on earth, are brought constantly nearer to their perfection. How honourable likewise in this respect is the vocation to which thou haft called us! How greatly it behoves us to fulfill the feveral duties of it with cheerful minds, with unabated zeal, with unimpeachable fidelity! Oh teach us then likewife herein to acknowledge and revere thy purposes as thofe of the wifeft and kindest parent; let us by conftantly esteeming the bufiness of our station and calling on earth as highly important, be strongly incited to profecute it with ever increasing care and dignity. Blefs to this end our meditations on the leffons of truth that are now to

be delivered to us. Let our perceptions be increafed and our sentiments elevated and ennobled by them. In this behalf we offer up unto thee our fup. plications in the name of Jefus Chrift our lord, and address thee further, trufting in his promifes, as, Our father, &c.

ISAIAH, Xxiii. 8.

Whofe merchants are princes, whofe traffickers are the hos nourable of the earth.

ries on.

IT is a great matter, my devout audience, for a man to know how to magnify his vocation, the profeffion he is engaged in, or the business he car This alleviates to him all the troubles and difagreeableness attending it; this repays him for the painful industry and the unremitted cares he beftows upon it; this stimulates him to do all that relates to it with alacrity and exactitude, and to neglect no part of it as unworthy of his attention; though never fo infignificant or trifling in itself. And how is this to be done? How does a man magnify his calling? How does he add dignity to it? On one hand, by viewing it as a consequence of the regulations and conftitutions established in the world by God; faying to himself: It is the will of God that mankind fhould be fo connected together, fo labour for each other, and thus mutually contribute to the public intereft; and that I in particular fhould act in the station, the department I fill, in fuch a manner as my vocation demands. But alfo on the other hand by difcerning the value of his calling, or what it is that renders it really important and estimable, by reprefenting to himself its

connection

connection with the welfare of fociety at large, and its beneficial influence upon it. By this means every man may confer a dignity on the calling he purfues, fo that it be but lawful. And this is indifputably the best means and the ftrongest incitement to walk, as the apostle exhorts us, worthy of our vocation. What may be advanced of every profeffion holds good in a particular manner when applied to commerce. And, as the generality of you are one way or other concerned in this vocation, it will not be thought unfuitable if I deliver a few confiderations which will enable you to think adequately of it. Having then, in the foregoing discourse, investigated the value of a bufy life in general, I shall now proceed particularly to examine into the value of commerce, as a particular fpecies of it. In this defign we should firft fhew, what gives to commerce, in the abstract, a confiderably great value; and then, how and by what means this its value is enhanced in regard to thofe by whom commerce is carried on.

When we afcribe a distinguished value to commerce, my pious hearers, we confider it not barely as a means of providing for our own fupport. This property it has in common with every profeffion, even the meaneft calling of life, that it procures us food and raiment, and fupplies the wants of nature. Neither do we confider it barely as the means of acquiring wealth, and of living more commodiously and elegantly than others, or of performing a more distinguished

VOL. II.

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distinguished part in fociety. For thefe likewife are advantages that belong not exclufively to this state of life. They may fall to the lot of the artift, the mechanic, the hufbandman, the man in public office, and even to perfons of the learned profeffions. No, if we would rightly confider and appretiate the eminent value of commerce, and thence acquire for it the respect it deferves, we must take into the account its beneficial influence on the general profperity, what it contributes towards the stock of human perfection and happiness. And now what are its pretenfions in this respect?

First, it fets mankind upon a far greater, a far more diverfified, and thereby a more useful activity; and whatever promotes useful activity among mankind, promotes their intereft. For only thus are the capacities and powers flumbering as it were within, rouzed, developed, exercised, and gradually brought to that degree of ftrength and perfection which they are defigned to attain. And how greatly does commerce contribute to this effect! What numbers of hands, what numbers of heads, it employs! To what various kinds of trade and industry does it give life! To what various others does it communicate a weight and value, which but for it they could never acquire, and which without it would be carried on in a more carelefs and fuperficial manner! What various kinds of industry, of dexterity, of art, does it quicken and fupport, encourage and reward! How alert and bufy it ren

ders

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