They say unto God, depart from us.What an impious voice! Could we have believed it possible, that worldly pleasures should so far intoxicate any human heart? Wretched and infatuated men! Have you ever examined on what your confidence rests?-You have said in your hearts, You shall never be moved; you fancy yourselves placed on a mountain which standeth strong. Awake from those flattering dreams, and behold how every thing totters around you! You stand on the edge of a precipice; and the ground is sliding away below your feet. In your health, life, possessions, connections, pleasures, principles of destruction work. The mine advances in secret, which saps the foundations, while you revel on the surface. No mighty effort, no long preparation of events, is needed to overturn your prosperity. By slow degrees it rose. Long time, much labour, and the concurrence of many assisting causes, were necessary to rear it up; but one slight incident can entirely overthrow it. Suspicions are infused into the patron or the prince on whom you depend; and your disgrace ensues. Exercise, or amusement, kindles a fever III. a fever in the veins of those whom you SERMON loved; and you are robbed of your comforts and hopes. A few grains of sand lodge themselves within you; and the rest of your life is disease and misery. Ten thousand contingencies ever float on the current of life, the smallest of which, if it meet your frail bark in the passing, is sufficient to dash it in pieces.—Is this a place, is this a time, to swell with fancied security, to riot in unlawful pleasure, and, by your disregard of moral and religious duties, to brave the government of the Almighty? He hath stamped every possession of man with this inscription, Rejoice with trembling. Throughout every age, he hath pointed his peculiar displeasure against the confidence of presumption, and the arrogance of prosperity. He hath pronounced, that whosoever exalteíh himself shall be abased. And shall neither the admonitions which you receive from the visible inconstancy of the world, nor the declarations of the Divine displeasure, be sufficient to check your thoughtless career? Know that, by your impiety, you multiply the dangers which already threaten you SERMON you on every side; you accelerate the speed with which the changes of the world advance to your destruction. The Almighty touches with his rod that edifice of dust, on which you stand, and boast of your strength; and, at that instant, it crumbles to nothing. As men, then, bethink yourselves of human instability. As Christians, reverence the awful government of God. Insure your prosperity, by consecrating it to religion and virtue. Be humble in Be humble in your elevation; be moderate in your views; be submissive to Him who hath raised and distinguished you. Forget not, that on his providence you are as dependent, and to the obedience of his laws as much bound, as the meanest of your fellow-creatures. Disgrace not your station, by that grossness of sensuality, that levity of dissipation, or that insolence of rank, which bespeak a little mind. Let the affability of your behaviour show that you remember the natural equality of men. Let your moderation in pleasure, your command of passion, and your steady regard to the great duties of life, show that you possess a mind worthy of your fortune. Establish Establish your character on the basis of SERMON esteem; not on the flattery of dependents, or the praise of sycophants, but on the respect of the wise and the good. Let innocence preside over your enjoyments. Let usefulness and beneficence, not ostentation and vanity, direct the train of your pursuits. Let your alms, together with your prayers, come up in memorial before God. So shall your prosperity, under the blessing of Heaven, be as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. So shall it resemble those celestial fires which glow above, with beneficent, with regular, and permanent lustre; and not prove that mirth of fools, which by Solomon 'is compared to the crackling of thorns under a pot, a glittering and fervent blaze, but speedily extinct. On the whole, let this be our conclusion, that, both in prosperity and in adversity, religion is the safest guide of human life, Conducted by its light, we reap the pleasures, and at the same time escape the dangers, of a prosperous state. Sheltered under its protection, we stand the shock of adversity with most intrepidity, and suffer least from SERMON from the violence of the storm. III. He that tongue from Let him de Let him seek Then, in him in his desireth life, and loveth many days that he away. shall flourish |