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having long struggled with a train of misfortunes, and bravely fought up against them,is now piteously borne down at the laft-overwhelmed with a cruel blow which no forecast or frugality could have prevented.—O God! look upon his afflictions-behold him diftracted with many forrows, furrounded with the tender pledges of his love, and the partner of this cares without bread to give them, unable,

-

from the remembrance of better days, to dig -to beg, afhamed.

When we enter into the house of mourning fuch as this-it is impoffible to infult the unfortunate even with an improper look-under whatever levity and diffipation of heart, fuch objects catch our eyes, they catch likewife our attentions, collect and call home our fcattered thoughts, and exercife them with wisdom. A tranfient scene of diftrefs, fuch as is here fketched, how foon does it furnish materials tơn fet the mind at work? how neceffarily does it engage it to the confideration of the miferies: and misfortunes, the dangers and calamities to which the life of man is fubject? By holding up fuch a glass before it, it forces the mind to fee and reflect upon the vanity,the perishing condition

condition and uncertain tenure of every thing in this world. From reflections of this ferious caft, how infenfibly do the thoughts carry us farther and from confidering what we are -what kind of world we live in, and what evils befal us in it, how naturally do they set us to look forwards at what poffibly we shall be?

-for what kind of world we are intendedwhat evils may befal us there-and what provifion we should make against them here, whilft we have time and opportunity. If thefe leffons are fo infeparable from the house of mourning here fuppofed-we shall find it a ftill more inftructive school of wisdom when we take a view of the place in that more affecting light in which the wife man feems to confine it in the text, in which, by the house of mourning, I believe, he means that particular fcene of forrow, where there is lamentation and mourning for the dead. Turn in hither, I beseech you, for a moment. › Behold a dead man ready to be carried out, the only fon of his mother, and fhe a widow. Perhaps a more affecting fpectacle a kind and indulgent father of a numerous family, lies breathlefsfnatched away in the ftrength of his age-torn in an evil hour from his children and the bofom of a difconfolate

wife. Behold much people of the city gathered together to mix their tears, with fettled forrow in their looks, going heavily along to the house of mourning, to perform that last melancholy office, which, when the debt of nature is paid, we are called upon to pay to each other. If this fad occafion which leads him there, has not done it already, take notice, to what a serious and devout frame of mind every man is reduced, the moment he enters this gate of afflietion. The bufy and fluttering fpirits, which in the house of mirth were wont to transport him from one diverting object to another-see how they are fallen! how peaceably they are laid! In this gloomy manfion full of fhades and uncomfortable damps to fieze the foul-fee, the light and eafy heart, which never knew what it was to think before, how penfive it is now, how foft, how fufceptible, how full of religious impreffions, how deeply it is fmitten with fenfe and with a love of virtue. Could we, in this erifis, whilft this empire of reafon and religion lafts, and the heart is thus exercised with wifdom and bufied with heavenly contemplations -could we fee it naked as it is-ftripped of its paffions, unfpotted by the world, and regardlefs of its pleafures-we might then fafely reft

our

our cause upon this fingle evidence, and appeal to the most fenfual whether Solomon has not made a just determination here, in favour of the houfe of mourning? not for its own fake, but as it is fruitful in virtue, and becomes the occafion of fo much good. Without this end, forrow I own has no ufe but to fhorten a man's days nor can gravity, with all its ftudied folemnity of look and carriage, ferve any end but to make one half of the world merry, and impofe upon the other.

SERM. II. P. 33.

THE

FRAILTY.

"HE beft of men appear fometimes to be ftrange compounds of contradictory qualities and, were the accidental overfights and folly of the wifeft man,-the failings and imperfections of a religious man,-the hafty acts and paffionate words of a meek man ;—were they to rife up in judgment against them,—and an ill-natured judge be fuffered to mark in this manner what has been done amifs-what character fo unexceptionable as to be able to ftand before him?

SERM. XXXI. P. 33.
INSENSIBILITY.

INSENSIBILIT Y.

IT is the fate of mankind, too often, to feem infenfible of what they may enjoy at the

easiest rate.

SERM. XLVI. P. 226.

THE

UNCERTAINTY.

"HERE is no condition in life fo fixed and permanent as to be out of danger, or the reach of change: and we all may depend upon it, that we shall take our turns of wanting and defiring. By how many unforeseen caufes may riches take wing!-The crowns of princes may be fhaken, and the greatest that ever awed the world have experienced what the turn of the wheel can do.

-That which hath happened to one man, may befal another; and, therefore, that excellent rule of our Saviour's ought to govern us in all our actions,-Whatsoever ye would that men fhould do to you, do you also to them likewife.-Time

and

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