extensive usefulness to the end of time. Paul was the great apostle to the Gentiles, who did more perhaps than any other man ever did, to spread and establish pure christianity through the world. The godly have always been the excellent of the earth, and the best men that have ever lived on it. They have done more than any other men to draw down public blessings, and to avert and remove public calamities. If usefulness be the proper standard by which to measure the worth and importance of men, then men of piety are the best men in the world, whether they are rich or poor, whether they have greater or smaller talents, and whether they fill higher or lower stations in life. Hence,

6. We learn the goodness of God in prolonging the lives of his pious and faithful servants. He is good to his cordial friends in carrying them in his arms, and guiding and guarding their lives, even to old age. He has promised this as a mark of his favor to the godly man. He says, "With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation." Life is both sweet and precious, and good men deprecate an early death. David and Hezekiah deprecated being cut off in the midst of their days of doing and getting good. God heard their cry, and satisfied their pious and benevolent desire. God is good not only to the godly themselves, but to the world, in prolonging their lives, and lengthening out their days of activity and usefulness. It was a great favor to the world that God preserved the lives, of Abraham, Moses, Daniel, and John, to a very great age. God is good to pious parents, when he preserves their lives, and gives them time and opportunity to bring up their children for him, and qualify them to promote the general good. God is good to a church, and a town, when he protracts the lives and usefulness of those who are pious and capable of watching over, guiding and directing their civil and religious concerns. Such men, like the centurion, who seek the good of the church and of the state, are worthy of the love, the esteem, and the gratitude, of every society, whether civil or religious, to which they belong: and the goodness of God, in protracting their lives and usefulness, ought to be acknowledged and remembered after they are laid in the dust. These remarks, and indeed the whole tenor of this discourse, naturally lead us to reflect upon the goodness of God to this church and people, in so long protracting the life and usefulness of the late Deacon JOSEPH WHITING.

For more than fifty years he professed to believe, to love, and to obey the gospel; and he carried evidence to all around him that he was sincere in his godly professions, by living a godly and exemplary life. He constantly and punctually main

tained family religion and family government, and as constantly and punctually attended public worship and divine ordinances, as long as his bodily and mental infirmities permitted. He loved the church; he loved the town; and I may safely say, he loved his neighborhood, and was loved and esteemed by them. He was a pillar in the church and in the state. He loved his country, and was always forward, by his voice, his influence, and his property, to promote its liberty, prosperity, and happiness. He was hospitable, liberal, and charitable. He was very free from ambition, avarice, oppression, and contention. He was truly a peace-maker. In the several civil and religious offices which he sustained, he was so frank, open, undisguised, and impartial, that every one placed unreserved confidence in him. He was a Nazarite indeed. Very few men in his rank in life have done more good, have been more esteemed, and have more deserved to be had in long and grateful remembrance, not only by those who have personally and largely shared in his beneficence, but by all this people.

We have no reason to regret that death has come at last, and relieved him from the peculiar pains and infirmities of old age, and conveyed him, as we hope, to that everlasting rest prepared for the people of God. But we have reason to mourn that another righteous man is taken away, who once stood in the gap, to ward off deserved and impending evils. We have much occasion to cry, "Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, and the faithful fail from among the children of men." We know, "The Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear." He may repair the numerous breaches in this church, and here give Christ a seed to serve him, from generation to generation.

SERMON XXXIII.

DUTY OF A PROSPEROUS NATION.

NOVEMBER 30, 1826.

THUS saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches; But let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight saith the Lord. -JER. ix. 23, 24.

THE prophet, in the beginning of this chapter, laments in tears the extreme sinfulness of his nation. He cries, "O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people." He paints their abounding iniquities in the blackest colors; and God confirms the truth of his description: "Shall I not visit them for these things saith the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" This was a prediction of the heavy calamities which God was just ready to bring upon them in their long captivity in Babylon. But they despised these predicted marks of the divine displeasure, and gloried in their own prosperity, security and self-sufficiency. They felt sufficient to maintain their present prosperity and independence. But God tells them that all their glorying in themselves is vain and presumptuous. "Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth: for in these

things I delight saith the Lord." To glory is to rejoice, and therefore the term is sometimes used in a good sense, and sometimes in a bad sense. It is used in both senses in the text. God both forbids and requires his people to glory or rejoice. He forbids them to glory or rejoice in themselves, but requires them to glory or rejoice in him. The spirit of the text may be expressed in this general observation:

It is the duty of a nation in prosperity to rejoice in God and not in themselves. I shall,

I. Explain what it is for a prosperous nation to rejoice in themselves.

II. Explain what it is for them to rejoice in God. And,
III. Show that this is their duty.

I. I am to explain what it is for a prosperous nation to rejoice in themselves.

1. It is to rejoice in their own national prosperity because it is their own, and superior to that of other nations. The Jews were God's chosen people, to whom he promised to give great national prosperity, so long as they obeyed the commands he had given them for their good. Moses told them, "The Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail: and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath." While God continued to pour such rich blessings into their bosoms, they rejoiced in their own national prosperity because it was their own, and because it was superior to the prosperity of the nations round about them, or to that of any other nation in the world. They rejoiced in their own prosperity, and in their own superior prosperity, which was glorying in themselves, and expressive of both their selfishness and vanity. And whenever any people thus rejoice in their own prosperity because it is their own, and because it is superior to that of other nations, they rejoice in themselves, and boast of their selfishness and vanity.

2. A people rejoice in themselves, when they ascribe their national prosperity to their own self-sufficiency. This is what the prophet warns the people of God against in the text. They rejoiced that they had gained their national prosperity by their own exertions, and were still able to maintain it by their own exertions. Individuals, by expressing their own feelings, expressed the general feelings of the nation. The wise man glo58

VOL. II.

ried and rejoiced in his wisdom; the mighty man gloried and rejoiced in his might; and the rich man gloried and rejoiced in his riches. It was the general feeling of the nation, that they had gained their superior prosperity, by their superior political wisdom, by their superior martial skill and courage, and by their su perior wealth and independent resources. And they rejoiced, that by these means, they were able to maintain their superior prosperity against all the attempts of the Babylonians, or any other hostile nation, to destroy it. This was emphatically rejoicing in themselves, and boasting of their own superiority to all other nations in wisdom, wealth and martial prowess. And when any nation in the day of prosperity, cherish and express such feelings, they rejoice in themselves, and discover their unreasonable selfishness and vanity. I proceed,

II. To explain what it is for a nation in prosperity, to rejoice in God. Here I may observe,

1. It is to understand and know that God is the governor of the world. This God himself says is to glory and rejoice in him. "But let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord." God is the creator, and of course the preserver and governor of the world. As creator, he has an original independent right to exercise a supreme and universal superintendency over it. It belongs to him who made and upholds the world, to act as an absolute sovereign in governing it. He has a right to govern not only the material but the moral part of the world. He has a right to fix the bounds and number the months of all the children of men. He has a right to raise up one nation and destroy another. He has a right to give prosperity to one nation and not to another. He has a right to dispense private and public, civil and religious favors as he pleases. He has a right to govern every person, and every thing respecting every person, in the best manner to answer his own wise and holy purposes. This right to govern the world, he universally exercises, and actually governs the world as much as it is possible for him to govern it; and this every nation and every person must understand and know, in order to rejoice in him, as the governor of the world, and the giver of every good and perfect gift.

2. For a nation in prosperity, to rejoice in God, implies rejoicing not only that he governs the world, but that he displays his great and amiable perfections in governing it. This is that rejoicing which he requires and will approve. "Let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord, which exercise loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." The only reason we have to rejoice that God