in endless rotation! What wife man would be for fixing up his tabernacle in fuch a world of instability and change? What folly to think of leaving a name and making a family? - True wisdom lieth in fixing happiness in fomething more certain and durable; in virtue, which is strictly our own property; independent of fortune; which will accompany us in all changes and revolutions, will sweeten the gifts of a propitious Providence, and comfort and illumine the cottage of adverfity. BUT though wealth fhould be firm, yet the faculties of man are in perpetual decay. I am, this day, (faid the old and aged Barzillai,) fourfcore years old, and can I any more taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear the voice of finging men or finging women? ii. Sam. Life, if it is fhort, is foon xix. 35. cut off from all its comforts; if it continues awhile, it exhausts and wears itself U 4 out out by use and, where the powers decay, all enjoyment is at an end. BUT though life and wealth were firm and permanent,-yet the time is coming, when they must have their period. The time is coming, when we muft diewhen our pomp fhall not follow us be yond the grave. Then a new scene will open upon us; where nothing, but a good confcience, can ftand us in any ftead where riches will not profit, whither wealth can only follow us in good works; where the virtuous Lazarus will be advanced above the profperous finner, and the faithful fervant above his unrighteous Lord. WOULD you have a proof of the certainty of such a state?—I appeal to the world; I appeal to your own feelings and experience. GOD would not have given us the infinite defires after happinefs, which you fee fo wretchedly and ufeleffly mifemployed by man in worldly pursuits, were they not defigned to lead lead us to an infinite good. Nothing less is suited to our boundless capacities. Wide as the world is, it is finite: were it wider, it is not as durable as the foul; and this fhows that happiness must be sought beyond a sphere, the fashion of which passeth away. SEEK it there, where it is only to be found; in the favour and approbation of him, who cannot disappoint our hopes, who has promised a felicity adequate to our utmost capacities; too faithful to deceive us, and too powerful to want the means of fulfilling his promises. SER |