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Silent the impious tongue that, profaned religion, and that jefted with eternity. Gone to her account that fpirit that, in life, may have forgotten her eternal deflination, and fought only a vain and momentary happinels among the deceitful and fugitive joys of fenfe. O my foul! is this the end of all the gilded profpects of vice and folly! If temptation is ever too ftrong for thee, turn to the house of mourning, and the views that are there prefented will correct it.

III. Scenes of pleafure and indulgence tend, in the next place, to impair the sentiments of piety.

The folemnity of the ideas, and the purity of the fentiments which form the fpirit of true devotion, illy accord with the light fantafic joys of the house of feafling, or with the diffipations of a fenfual heart. Not only do these scenes tend to impair or to fet afide the holy offices of religion, but frequently we fee them diflurb the whole order and economy of life? The regularity of families is deranged-The rational and useful diftribution of time is neglected

Every moment is left to be employed as accident, or caprice may prompt-Hardly any portion remains for the purposes of improvement, or for fulfilling the grave and important duties that belong to us as reasonable men, and as chriftians-See thefe giddy children of folly haftening continually from pleasure to pleasure. Hardly are they recovered from the fatigues of one till they are again engrolled in preparations for the next fcene as if thefe were the great concerns of life. As frivolous and idle as their employments is the whole frain of their converfation-Ah! in the midtt of fo many vanities, where are the thoughts of God our Maker?

A continual fucceffion of pleafures is apt to efface from the mind that fentiment of dependence upon the Creator fo becoming our flate. The proud, ungrateful heart of man receives the bleffings of divine providence without recognizing their author. He greedily devours them, and then forgets, or fpurns the hand that bellows them. Affliction is the fchool of thankfulness as well as of wifdom. The mind, humbled by suffering, enjoys the finalleft mercy with

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of his finger in water and cool water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. Abraham faid, Son! remember that thou, in thy life time, receivedft thy good things, and likewife, Lazarus cvil things-but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And befides all this, between us and you there is a great gulph fixed, so that they who would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pafs to us who would come from thence."

This parable contains the moral history of a foft and effeminate voluptuary. His attire, his table, and his equipage difplayed the magnificence, and luxury of a prince. He was clothed in purple, and fine linnen, and fared fumptuously every day. But, in the midft of that fplendor, and felf-enjoyment he feems to have forgotten the great end of living. Rendered unmindful of his Creator and of the fufferings of his fellow creatures, by an abuse of mercies derived only from

*Purple was the colour appropriated, in that age, to princely rank. And, as the manufacture of linnen was then only in its infancy, it was not introduced as an article of ordinary drefs. The wearing of fine linnen therefore was confidered as a proof of the greatest wealth, or the greatest luxury.

the goodness of God, and which ought to have been employed to the purposes of piety and charity; he appears to have been intoxicated with his good fortune, and to have ceafed to reflect on the uncertainty of human things, and the great interests of his immortal exiflence. Thus occupied and diffipated, in the moment when he leaft expected, and was leaft prepared for the dreadful reverfe that followed, he was furprized by death, and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torment. The profperity of his first fortune, and the mifery of his prefent condition are the more ftrongly marked by being opposed to the wretchednefs, and the triumphs of Lazarus. It is of little importance to inquire whether this is the hiflory of men who actually lived at Jerufalem; or, whether our Lord hath borrowed only general and probable characters, and worked them into a parable for our inftruction. The moral is the fame-That we are not to judge of the happiness and misery of men by any external circumstances in which they may be placed in the prefent lifeThat piety, though it may seem to be overwhelmed by poverty, by contempt, and fuffering here, is found, at laft, to be infi

gratitude; while the richest, by proud unthinking profperity, is first abused, and then forgotten. If misfortune has not yet touched you, go and contemplate it in the lot of others. There comtemplate the frailty of human na ure, and the imperfection of all human enjoyments feparated from religion. Realize the neceffity of making God your friend when the world forfakes you. Men nurfed in pleasure feel not the fame motives which the weary and afflicted feel to seek a refuge in the bosom of the Father of mercies from the forms that vex the world. In the house of mourning we naturally lift our hearts to God as the friend of the wretched. We fee how bleffed his portion is whose chief good remains unimpaired amidst the wreck of all his other comfortsand who is able to fay, "I will go to God my exceeding joy. In the time of trouble he will hide me in his pavilion. When my father and my mother forfake me, then the Lord will take me up."* Such pious emotions are not the natural growth of the house of feasting. The heart, fatisfied with the low and feverish enjoyments of sense,

Pfalms xliii. 4-27. 5, 10.

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