LECTURE VI.

THE CHRISTIAN, IN PROSPERITY.

"I spake unto thee in thy Prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear."-Jer. xxii. 21.

THE providence of God was presented in vision to Ezekiel, under the image of a vast wheel. The design was to show, that its dispensations were constantly changing. For as in the motion of a wheel, one spoke is always ascending, and another is descending; and one part of the ring is grating on the ground, and another is aloft in the air; so it is with the affairs of empires, families, and individuals they never continue in one stay. And not only is there a diversity in human conditions, so that while some are rich, others are poor; and while some are in honour, others are in obscurity and disgrace; but frequently the same person is destined successively to exemplify, in his own experience, the opposite estates of prosperity and adversity. Such characters strike us in the Scripture; they abound in history; they are to be met with in our daily walk; they are to be addressed in every congregation.

But these vicissitudes are great trials of religious principle; and happy is he who can press forward undismayed by the rough, and unseduced by the pleasant he meets with, in his course; who can preserve the balance of the mind in all the unequal pressures of human life; and who, prepared for each variety of circumstances in which he can be placed, is authorized to say, "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; every where, and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Such is the Christian-or must I say, such he ought to be! This exercise brings him before us in the possession of

PROSPERITY.

I need not detain you in specifying the ingredients of this envied state. It must include health. This is the salt that seasons, and the honey that sweetens every temporal comfort. Yet how little of it do some enjoy. How affecting is the complaint they are constrained to utter-“I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed unto me: when I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone; I am full of tossings to and fro, until the dawning of the day."-"He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain, so that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat." While others scarcely know from their own feelings what disease, or indisposition, or infirmity, means.

-It must take in agreeable relations. What are the caresses of the world, if a man be chilled with neglect or repulsed with frowns at home? What are the productions of the field and the garden, if, as the Prophet says, "thorns are in our tabernacle?" "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." What a difference is there, between a 66 brawling woman in a wide house," and "a wife that is as a loving hind and a pleasant roe!" Job, looking, back to the days of his prosperity, says, "" when my children were about me." They were united and affectionate and dutiful. What must be the wretchedness of a parent whose offspring are the reverse of all this!— Friendship must not be absent. Who can dispense with this balm of life? Who does not feel his need of another's bosom, if not of another's hand? What is general and indiscriminate society! I must have one whose sympathies lead him to rejoice when I rejoice, and to weep when I weep: or my grief is too heavy for me to bear; or my pleasure loses half its relish. "Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart; so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel."Who can be so low and grovelling as to have no regard for the opinion and approbation of his fellow-creatures? "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches; and loving favour rather than silver and gold." "The light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart: and a good report maketh the bones fat."-But the use of the term more directly reminds us of the fruit of our wishes, and the success of our en

deavours, in our calling or profession; and the securing and commanding a degree of wealth above competency. For 66 money is a defence," and screens us from the evils of dependance and embarrassment. "Money answereth all things:" it procures a thousand advantages; and affords not only the necessaries, but the conveniences, and indulgences, and embellishments of life.

Now the portion only of a very few favoured individuals includes all these ingredients; but the greater the confluence of them in number and degree, the better we consider the cup of prosperity replenished.

But can such a cup be seen in the hand of a Christian? Why not? In general, indeed, the language of the Scripture befriends the needy and distressed; and what generous mind does not rejoice in this aspect of benevolent preference? Who does not read with pleasure, "I will leave in the midst of thee a poor and an afflicted people, and they shall trust in the Lord their God." "The poor have the Gospel preached unto them." "God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him.' But this is not true of them, universally and exclusively. We are told that not many of the higher ranks in life are called: but the very assertion implies that there are some. Our Saviour said to his followers, "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily." "In the world ye shall have tribulation." Yet he also said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. ." The Apostle who taught, that "through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom," made no scruple to say, "Godliness has the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come." Peter, also, who charged Christians not to think it strange concerning the fiery trial as if some strange thing had happened unto them," confidently asserts, "He that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" And religion, by its natural influence as well as by the blessing

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of an overruling Providence, tends in various ways to advance the temporal welfare of men.

We have not time to exemplify these remarks, but we mention them the more readily, because some Pietists seem to look upon all the distinctions and endowments of life, as nearly sealing their owners unto the day of perdition; and to conclude that their good things here are only pledges of their evil ones hereafter. It is true, this was the result, in the case of the rich man in the parable. But it was not so with Abraham, mentioned in the same story-yet Abraham had been very wealthy. We allow that there is enough to alarm the prosperous; but they have no ground for despair. The proprietors of no condition here, are under any sentence of reprobation. They that have riches shall hardly enter into the kingdom of God; but with God all things are possible. There is a way to heaven from all the diversities of human life; and there is a passage from the mansion as well as from the cottage, though it is more narrow and perplexing and difficult. In a word: a Christian is never to be known by his condition; but he must be always known in it; for he belongs to a "peculiar people zealous of good

works."

In confirmation of which, let us proceed to hear what God the Lord has to say concerning us in the estate we are now surveying-I spake unto thee in thy prosperity-He is always alive to our welfare, and of this he never leaves himself without witness: and if ever we err in conduct, or fail in character, it is owing to our disbelief of his word, or inattention to it. For the Scripture is not only able to make us wise unto salvation; but "is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Now in your prosperity he requires of you three things:

I. That you
II. That you
III. That you

should be AWARE OF ITS PERILS.
should EMPLOY ITS SAFEGUARDS.
should IMPROVE ITS ADVANTAGES.

O let Him not complain-But thou saidst, I will not hear.

I. You are required to be AWARE OF THE PERILS OF PROS

PERITY.

Here it must be acknowledged we are furnished with a very mortifying view of human nature. The produce of creation, and the bounties of Providence are good in themselves; and they are the gifts of God; and they ought to induce us to love and serve the Giver. And they would have this effect, were we not in a state of moral perversion and depravity. The goodness of God leadeth to repentancethis is the design of it; this is the tendency of it. But what is the effect? Answer this, ye who suppose that man is so innocent, so amiable, so dignified a creature! You deny that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. You deny that man as he now comes into the world is otherwise than he was originally created.-But can you deny that we are evil, because God is good? That we are unable to bear gratification uninjured? That what should draw us to God, with the cords of a man and the bands of love, leads us away from him? That the very blessings we receive from him we convert into weapons of rebellion against our Benefactor? Or will you affirm that we thus came from our Maker's hand? Lo! this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions."

There is one case in which prosperity is peculiarly perilous when it is not hereditary, but acquired; and when it is acquired, not by degrees, but suddenly. He is most likely to be giddy, who has not been accustomed to elevation. He is most likely to have his health injured who passes all at once from one climate to another; while, by use, nature may be attempered to almost any extremity. But though prosperity is peculiarly dangerous when it is neither natural nor gradual, it will be easy to prove that it is never free from numberless moral hazards.

Let us turn first to the faithful word. What says David? "Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God." What says Job? "Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.