SERMON you are such pleasures of virtuous prospeXVI. rity but even previous to prepared pu

nishment, be assured, that remorse is approaching to wring your hearts. Of the world, which you now abuse, in a short time nothing shall remain, but the horror arising from remembered crimes. The wages you have detained, the wealth you have squeezed from the needy, shall lie heavy on your souls. The stately buildings which your pride has erected, by means of violence and oppression, shall seem haunted by injured ghosts. The stone shall cry out of the wall; and the beam out of the timber shall answer it *. When you lie on the bed of death, the poor, whom you have oppressed, shall appear to you as gathered together; stretching forth their hands, and lifting up their voices against you, at the tribunal of Heaven. I have seen the wicked great in power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree. But he passed away, and was not. I sought him, but he could not be found. They are brought down to desolation in a moment, and utterly consumed with ter

Habak. ii. 11.

rors.

XVI.

rors. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O SERMON Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image *

THUS I have shown what it is to use and what to abuse the world. When, according to our different stations, we enjoy the advantages of the world with propriety and decency; temperate in our pleasures; moderate in our pursuits of interest; mindful of our duty to God, and at the same time, just, humane, and generous to our brethren; then, and then only, we use the world, as becomes men, and Christians. Within these limits, we may safely enjoy all the comforts which the world affords, and our station allows. But if we pass beyond these boundaries, into the regions of disorderly and vicious pleasure, of debasing covetousness or of oppressive insolence, the world will then serve only to corrupt our minds, and to accelerate our ruin. licentious, the avaricious, and the insolent, form the three great classes of abusers of the world.

The

SERMON
XVI.

Let not those who are in wealthy and flourishing circumstances, complain of the restraints which religious doctrine attempts to impose on their enjoyments. For, to what do these restraints amount? To no more than this, that, by their pleasures, they would neither injure themselves, nor injure others. We call not on the young, to relinquish their gaiety; nor on the rich to forego their opulence; nor on the great, to lay aside their state. We only call on them, not to convert gaiety into licentiousness; nor to employ opulence in mere extravagance; nor to abuse greatness for the oppression of their inferiors: While they enjoy the world, not to forget that they are the subjects of God, and are soon to pass into another state. Let the motive by which the Apostle enforces the exhortation in the text, present itself to their thought; Use this world as not abusing it; for the fashion of the world passeth away. Its pomp and its pleasures, its riches, magnificence, and glory, are no more than a transient show. Every thing that we here enjoy, changes, decays, and comes to an end. All floats on the surface of a river, which, with

XVI.

swift current, is running towards a bound- SERMON less ocean. Beyond this present scene of things, above those sublunary regions, we are to look for what is permanent and stable. The world passes away; but God, and heaven, and virtue, continue unchangeably the same. We are soon to enter into eternal habitations; and into these, our works shall follow us. The consequences shall for ever remain of the part which we have acted as good or bad men; as faithful subjects of God, or as servants of a vain world.

Y 3

SERMON XVII.

On EXTREMES in RELIGIOUS and MORAL

CONDUCT.

SERMON

XVII.

PROVERBS, iv. 27.

Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left.

I wil

Will behave myself wisely, said the Psalmist Wisdom David, in a perfect way*. is no less necessary in religious, and moral, than in civil conduct. Unless there be a proper degree of light in the understand; ing, it will not be enough that there are good dispositions in the heart. Without regular guidance, they will often err from the right scope. They will be always wavering and unsteady; nay, on some occasions, they may beti ay us into evil. This

Pfalm ci. 2