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how far it may go, or what mischiefs it may do, in these kingdoms. Already it has taught us as much blasphemous language, and, if it goes on, by the samples given us in their journals, will fill us with as many legendary accounts of visions and revelations as we have formerly had from the Church of Rome. And for any security we have against it, when time shall serve, it may as effectually convert the professors of it even into Popery itself, consistent with their own principles; for they have nothing more to do than to say that the Spirit which inspired them has signified that the Pope is inspired as well as they, and consequently is infallible. After which, I cannot see how they can possibly refrain going to mass, consistent with their own principles.

Thus much for these two opposite errors: the examination of which has taken up so much time, that I have little left to add but to beg of God, by the assistance of his Holy Spirit, to preserve us equally from both extremes, and enable us to form such right and worthy apprehensions of our holy religion, that it may never suffer, through the coolness of our conceptions of it, on one hand, nor the immoderate heat of them, on the other; but that we may at all times see it as it is, and as it was designed by its blessed Founder, as the most rational, sober, and consistent institution that could have been given to the sons of men. Now to God, etc.

XXXIX.-ETERNAL ADVANTAGES OF

RELIGION.

'Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.'-ECCLES, XII. 13.

find a great many beautiful reflections upon human affairs, all tending to illustrate the conclusion he draws; and as they are such as are apt to offer themselves to the thoughts of every serious and considerate man, I cannot do better than renew the impressions, by retouching the principal arguments of his discourse, before I proceed to the general use and application of the whole.

In the former part of his book he had taken into his consideration those several states of life to which men usually apply themselves for happiness: first, learning, wisdom; next, mirth, jollity, and pleasure; then power and greatness, riches and possessions. All of which are so far from answering the end for which they were at first pursued, that by a great variety of arguments he proves them severally to be so many sore travails which God had given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith;' and instead of being any, or all of them, our proper end and employment, or sufficient to our happiness, he makes it plain, by a series of observations upon the life of man, that they are ever likely to end with others where they had done with him, that is, in vanity and vexation of spirit.

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Then he takes notice of the several accidents of life, which perpetually rob us of what little sweets the fruition of these objects might seem to promise us, both with regard to our endeavours and our persons in this world.

1st, With regard to our endeavours, he shows that the most likely ways and means are not always effectual for the attaining of their end: that in general the utmost that human counsels and prudence can provide for, is to take care, when they contend in a race, that they be swifter than those who run against them; or when they are to fight a battle, that they be stronger than those whom they are to encounter. And yet afterwards, in the ninth chapter, he

the battle to the strong; neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor favour to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all: That there are secret workings in human affairs, which overrule all human contrivance, and counterplot the wisest of our counsels, in so strange and unexpected a manner, as to cast a damp upon our best schemes and warmest endeavours.

THE wise man, in the beginning of this book, had promised it as a grand query to be dis-observes, that the race is not to the swift, nor cussed, To find out what was good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heavens, all the days of their lives;' that is, what was the fittest employment, and the chief and proper business, which they should apply themselves to in this world. And here, in the text, after a fair discussion of the question, he asserts it to be the business of religion,-the fearing God, and keeping his commandments. This was the conclusion of the whole matter, and the natural result of all his debates and inquiries. And I am persuaded, the more observations we make upon the short life of man, the more we experience, and the longer trials we have of the world, and the several pretensions it offers to our happiness, the more we shall be engaged to think, like him, that we can never find what we look for in any other thing which we do under the heavens, except in that of duty and obedience to God. In the course of the wise man's examination of this point, we

And then, for those accidents to which our persons are as liable as our labours, he observes these three things: First, the natural infirmities of our bodies, which alternately lay us open to the sad changes of pain and sickness; which, in the fifth chapter, he styles wrath and sorrow, under which, when a man lies languishing, none of his worldly enjoyments will signify much. Like one that singeth songs with a heavy heart, neither mirth, nor power, nor riches shali afford him ease; nor will all their force be able so to stay the stroke of nature-' but that he shall be

cut off in the midst of his days, and then all his thoughts perish.' Or else, what is no uncommon spectacle, in the midst of all his luxury, he may waste away the greatest part of his life, with much weariness and anguish; and with the long torture of an unrelenting disease, he may wish himself to go down into the grave, and to be set at liberty from all his possessions, and all his misery, at the same time.

2dly, If it be supposed, that by the strength of spirits, and the natural cheerfulness of a man's temper, he should escape these, 'and live many years, and rejoice in them all,'-which is not the lot of many; yet, 'he must remember the days of darkness;'-that is, they who devote themselves to a perpetual round of mirth and pleasure cannot so manage matters as to avoid the thoughts of their future states, and the anxiety about what shall become of them hereafter, when they are to depart out of this world; that they cannot so crowd their heads, and fill up their time with other matters, but that the remembrance of this will sometimes be uppermost, and thrust itself upon their minds whenever they are retired and serious. And as this will naturally present to them a dark prospect of their future happiness, it must, at the same time, prove no small damp and alloy to what they would enjoy at present.

But, in the third place, suppose a man should be able to avoid sickness, and to put the trouble of these thoughts likewise far from him, yet there is something else which he cannot possibly decline. Old age will unavoidably steal upon him, with all the infirmities of it, when (as he expresses it) the grinders shall be few, and appetite ceases; when those who look out at the windows shall be darkened, and the keepers of the house shall tremble; when a man shall become a burden to himself, and to his friends; when, perhaps, those of his nearest relations, whom he hath most obliged by kindness, shall think it time for him to depart, to creep off the stage, and make room for the succeeding generations.

And then, after a little funeral pomp of 'mourners going about the streets,' a man shall be buried out of the way, and in a year or two be as much forgotten as if he had never existed. For there is no remembrance (says he) of the wise more than the fool; seeing that which now is, in the days to come, shall be forgotten; every day producing something which seems new and strange, to take up men's talk and wonder, and to drown the memory of former persons and actions.

And I appeal to any rational man, whether these are not some of the most material reflections about human affairs, which occur to every one who gives himself the least leisure to think about them. Now, from all these premises put together, Solomon infers this short conclusion in the text, That to fear God and keep his

commandments is the whole duty of man: that, to be serious in the matter of religion, and careful about our future state, is that which, after all our other experiments, will be found to be our chief happiness, our greatest interest, our greatest wisdom, and that which most of all deserves our care and application. This must ever be the last result, and the upshot of every wise man's observations upon all these transitory things, and upon the vanity of their several pretences to our well-being; and we may depend upon it, as an everlasting truth, that we can never find what we seek for in any other course, or any other object, but this one; and the more we know and think, and the more experience we have of the world and of ourselves, the more we are convinced of this truth, and led back by it to rest our souls upon that God whence we came. Every consideration upon the life of man tends to engage us to this point,-to be in earnest in the concernment of religion, to love and fear God, to provide for our true interest, and do ourselves the most effectual service, by devoting ourselves to him, and always thinking of him, as he is the true and final happiness of a reasonable and an immortal spirit.

And indeed one would think it next to impossible, did not the commonness of the thing take off from the wonder, that a man who thinks at all should let his whole life be a contradiction to such obvious reflections.

The vanity and emptiness of worldly goods and enjoyments, the shortness and uncertainty of life, the unalterable event hanging over our heads, that in a few days we must all of us go to that place whence we shall not return;'-the certainty of this, the uncertainty of the time when, the immortality of the soul, the doubtful and momentous issues of eternity, the terrors of damnation, and the glorious things which are spoken of the city of God, are meditations so obvious, and so naturally check and block up a man's way,-are so very interesting, and, above all, so unavoidable, that it is astonishing how it was possible at any time for mortal man to have his head full of anything else! And yet, was the same person to take a view of the state of the world, how slight an observation would convince him that the wonder lay, in fact, on the other side; and that, wisely as we all discourse and philosophize de contemptu mundi et fugá sæculi, yet for one who really acts in the world consistent with his own reflections upon it, there are multitudes who seem to take aim at nothing higher, and, as empty a thing as it is, are so dazzled with it, as to think it meet to build tabernacles of rest upon it, and say, 'It is good to be here.' Whether, as an able inquirer into this paradox guesses,-whether it is that men do not heartily believe such a thing as a future state of happiness and misery, or, if they do, that they do not actually and seriously con

sider it, but suffer it to lie dormant and inactive within them, and so are as little affected with it as if in truth they believed it not; or whether they look upon it through that end of the perspective which represents it as afar off, and so are more forcibly drawn by the nearer though the lesser load-stone ;-whether these, or whatever other cause may be assigned for it, the observation is incontestable, that the bulk of mankind, in passing through this vale of misery, use it 'not as a well' to refresh and allay, but fully to quench and satisfy their thirst; minding or (as the Apostle says) relishing earthly things, making them the end and sum-total of their desires and wishes, and, in one word, loving this world just as they are commanded to love God,-that is, 'with all their heart, with all their soul,'-with all their mind and strength. But this is not the strangest part of this paradox. A man shall not only lean and rest upon the world with his whole stress, but in many instances shall live notoriously bad and vicious: when he is reproved, he shall seem convinced; when he is observed, he shall be ashamed; when he pursues his sin, he will do it in the dark; and when he has done it, shall even be dissatisfied with himself; yet still this shall produce no alteration in his conduct. Tell him he shall one day die; or bring the event still nearer, and show that according to the course of nature he cannot possibly live many years; he will sigh perhaps, and tell you he is convinced of that as much as reason and experience can make him. Proceed, and urge to him that after death comes judgment, and that he will certainly there be dealt with by a just God according to his actions; he will thank God he is no deist, and tell you, with the same grave face, he is thoroughly convinced of that too; and as he believes, no doubt he trembles too: and yet, after all, with all this conviction upon his mind, you will see him still persevere in the same course, and commit his sin with as certain an event and resolution as if he knew no argument against it. These notices of things, however terrible and truc, pass through his understanding as an eagle through the air, that leaves no path behind.

So that, upon the whole, instead of abounding with occasions to set us seriously on thinking, the world might dispense with many more calls of this kind; and were they seven times as many as they are, considering what insufficient use we make of those we have, all, I fear, would be little enough to bring these things to our remembrance as often, and engage us to lay them to our hearts with that affectionate concern which the weight and interest of them requires at our hands. Sooner or later the most inconsiderate of us all shall find, with Solomon, that to do this effectually is the whole duty of

man.

And I cannot conclude this discourse upon

his words better than with a short and earnest exhortation that the solemnity of this season, and the meditations to which it is devoted, may lead you up to the true knowledge and practice of the same point of fearing God and keeping his commandments; and convince you, as it did him, of the indispensable necessity of making that the business of a man's life which is the chief end of his being, -the eternal happiness and salvation of his soul.

Which may God grant, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

XL.-ASA: A THANKSGIVING SERMON.

And they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets. And all the men of Judah rejoiced at the oath.'2 CHRON. XV. 14.

Ir will be necessary to give a particular account of what was the occasion, as well as the nature, of the oath which the men of Judah sware unto the Lord; which will explain not only the reasons why it became a matter of so much joy to them, but likewise admit of an application suitable to the purposes of this solemn assembly.

Abijah, and Asa his son, were successive kings of Judah. The first came to the crown at the close of a long, and, in the end, a very unsuccessful war, which had gradually wasted the strength and riches of his kingdom.

He was a prince endowed with the talents which the emergencies of his country required, and seemed born to make Judah a victorious as well as a happy people. The conduct and great success of his arms against Jeroboam had well established the first; but his kingdom, which had been so many years the seat of a war, had been so wasted and bewildered, that his reign, good as it was, was too short to accomplish the latter. He died, and left the work unfinished for his son. Asa succeeded in the room of his father, with the truest notions of religion and government that could be fetched either from reason or experience. His reason told him that" God should be worshipped in simplicity and singleness of heart; therefore he took away the altars of the strange gods, and broke down their images. His experience told him that the most successful wars, instead of invigorating, more generally drained away the vitals of government, and at the best ended but in a brighter and more ostentatious kind of poverty and desolation: therefore he laid aside his sword, and studied the arts of ruling Judah with peace. Conscience would not suffer Asa to sacrifice his subjects to private views of ambition, and wisdom forbade he should suffer them to offer up themselves to the pretence of public ones; since enlargement of empire, by the destruction of its

people (the natural and only valuable source of strength and riches), was a dishonest and miserable exchange. And however well the glory of a conquest might appear in the eyes of a common beholder, yet, when bought at that costly rate, a father to his country would behold the triumph which attended it, and weep as it passed by him. Amidst all the glare and jollity of the day, the parent's eyes would fix attentively upon his child: he would discern him drooping under the weight of his attire, without strength or vigour, his former beauty and comeliness gone off: he would behold the coat of many colours stained with blood, and cry,-Alas! they have decked thee with a parent's pride, but not with a parent's care and foresight.

With such affectionate sentiments of government and just principles of religion Asa began his reign, a reign marked out with new eras, and a succession of happier occurrences than what had distinguished former days.

The just and gentle spirit of the prince insensibly stole into the breasts of the people. The men of Judah turned their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks. By industry and virtuous labour they acquired what by spoil and rapine they might have sought after long in vain. The traces of their late troubles soon began to wear out. The cities, which had become ruinous and desolate (the prey of famine and the sword), were now rebuilt, fortified, and made populous. Peace, security, wealth, and prosperity seemed to compose the whole history of Asa's reign. O Judah! what could then have been done more than what was done to make thy people happy? What one blessing was withheld, that thou shouldst ever withhold thy thankfulness?—

That thou didst not continually turn thy eyes towards heaven with an habitual sense of God's mercies, and devoutly praise him for setting Asa over you?

Were not the public blessings, and the private enjoyments which every man of Judah derived from them, such as to make the continuance of them desirable? And what other way was there to effect it, than to swear unto the Lord, with all your hearts and souls, to perform the covenant made with your fathers?-to secure that favour and interest with the Almighty Being, without which the wisdom of this world is foolishness, and the best connected systems of human policy are speculative and airy projects, without foundation or substance. The history of their own exploits and establishment, since they had become a nation, was strong confirmation of this doctrine.

But too free and uninterrupted a possession of God Almighty's blessings sometimes (though it seems strange to suppose it) even tempts men to forget him, either from a certain depravity and ingratitude of nature, not to be wrought

upon by goodness, or that they are made by it too passionately fond of the present hour, and too thoughtless of its great Author, whose kind providence brought it about. This seemed to have been the case with the men of Judah; for, notwithstanding all that God had done for them, in placing Abijah and Asa his son over them, and inspiring them with hearts and talents proper to retrieve the errors of the foregoing reign, and bring back peace and plenty to the dwellings of Judah; yet there appears no record of any solemn and religious acknowledgment to God for such signal favours. The people sat down in a thankless security, each man under his vine, to eat and drink, and rose up to play; more solicitous to enjoy their blessings than to deserve them.

But this scene of tranquillity was not to subsist without some change; and it seemed as if Providence at length had suffered the stream to be interrupted, to make them consider whence it flowed, and how necessary it had been all along to their support. The Ethiopians, ever since the beginning of Abijah's reign, until the tenth year of Asa's, had been at peace, or, at least, whatever secret enmity they bore, had made no open attacks upon the kingdom of Judah. And, indeed, the bad measures which Rehoboam had taken in the latter part of the reign which immediately preceded theirs, seemed to have saved the Ethiopians the trouble. For Rehoboam, though in the former part of his reign he dealt wisely, yet when he had established his kingdom, and strengthened himself, he forsook the laws of the Lord; he forsook the counsel which the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men, which were brought up with him, and stood before him. Such illadvised measures, in all probability, had given the enemies of Judah such decisive advantages over her, that they had sat down contented, and for many years enjoyed the fruits of their acquisitions. But the friendship of princes is seldom made up of better materials than those which are every day to be seen in private life, in which sincerity and affection are not at all considered as ingredients. Change of time and circumstances produces a change of counsels and behaviour. Judah, in length of time, had become a fresh temptation, and was worth fighting for. Her riches and plenty might first make her enemies covet, and then the remembrance of how cheap and easy a prey she had formerly been, might make them not doubt of obtaining.

By these apparent motives (or whether God, who sometimes overrules the heart of man, was pleased to turn them by secret ones to the purposes of his wisdom) the ambition of the Ethiopians revived. With a host of men, numerous as the sand upon the sea-shore in multitude, they had left their country, and were coming forwards to invade them. What can

Judah propose to do in so terrifying a crisis? where can she betake herself for refuge? On one hand, her religion and laws are too precious to be given up, or trusted to the hands of a stranger; and, on the other hand, how can so small a kingdom, just recovering strength, surrounded by an army of a thousand thousand men, besides chariots and horses, be able to withstand so powerful a shock? But here it appeared that those who in their prosperity can forget God, do yet remember him in the day of danger and distress, and can begin with comfort to depend upon his providence when with comfort they can depend upon nothing else. For when Zerah, the Ethiopian, was come into the valley of Zephatha at Maretha, Asa, and all the men of Judah and Benjamin, went out against him; and as they went, they cried mightily unto God. And Asa prayed for his people, and he said, 'O Lord! it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God! for we rest in thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.' Success almost seemed a debt due to the piety of the prince, and the contrition of his people. So God smote the Ethiopians, and they could not recover themselves; for they were scattered and utterly destroyed, before the Lord and before his host. And as they returned to Jerusalem from pursuing, behold the Spirit of God came upon Asariah, the son of Oded. And he went out to meet Asa, and he said unto him, -Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you, whilst you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found of you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. Nothing could more powerfully call home the conscience than so timely an expostulation. The men of Judah and Benjamin, struck with a sense of their late deliverance, and the many other felicities they had enjoyed since Asa was king over them, then gathered themselves together at Jerusalem, in the third month, in the fifteenth year of Asa's reign; and they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers, with all their heart, and with all their soul and they sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets; and all Judah rejoiced at the octh.

One may observe a kind of luxuriety in the description which the holy historian gives of the transport of the men of Judah upon this occasion. And sure, if ever matter of joy was so reasonably founded as to excuse any excesses in the expressions of it, this was one; for without it, the condition of Judah, though otherwise the happiest, would have been of all nations under heaven the most miserable.

Let us suppose a moment, instead of being repulsed, that the enterprise of the Ethiopians

had prospered against them: like other grievous distempers, where the vitals are first attacked, Asa, their king, would have been sought after and have been made the first sacrifice. He must either have fallen by the sword of battle, or execution; or, what is worse, he must have survived the ruin of his country by flight, and worn out the remainder of his days in sorrow for the afflictions which were come upon him. In some remote corner of the world, the good king would have heard the particulars of Judah's destruction. He would have been told how the country, which had become dear to him by his paternal care, was now utterly laid waste, and all his labour lost; how the fences which protected it were torn up, and the tender plant within, which he had so long sheltered, was cruelly trodden under foot and devoured. He would hear how Zerah, the Ethiopian, when he had overthrown the kingdom, thought himself bound in conscience to overthrow the religion of it too, and establish his own idolatrous one in its stead:-That, in pursuance of this, the holy religion, which Asa had reformed, had begun everywhere to be evil spoken of, and evilentreated :

That it was first banished from the courts of the king's house, and the midst of Jerusalem, and then fled for safety out of the way into the wilderness, and found no city to dwell in :That Zerah had rebuilt the altars of the strange gods, which Asa's piety had broken down, and set up their images :

That his commandment was urgent that all should fall down and worship the idol he had made :-That, to complete the tale of their miseries, there was no prospect of deliverance for any but the worst of his subjects;-those who in his reign had either leaned in their hearts towards these idolatries, or whose principles and morals were such that all religions were alike ;-but that the honest and conscientious man of Judah, unable to behold such abominations, hung down his head like a bulrush, and put sackcloth and ashes under him.

This picture of Judah's desolation might be some resemblance of what every one of Asa's subjects would probably form to himself, the day he solemnized an exemption from it. And the transport was natural-To swear unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets: to rejoice at the oath which secured their future peace, and celebrate it with all external marks of gladness. I have at length gone through the story which gave the occasion to this religious act which is recorded of the men of Judah in the text.

I believe there is not one in sacred Scripture that bids fairer for a parallel to our own times, or that would admit of an application more suitable to the solemnity of this day.

But men are apt to be struck with likenesses

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