SERMON XXVII. ON THE VANITY OF CONFIDING IN TEMPORAL PROSPERITY. JOB XXIX. 18. Then I said, I shall die in my nest. THE darkness in which the wisdom of a gracious Deity has invested futurity; a darkness which it seems so much the effort of mankind to dissipate, is nevertheless one of the truest blessings annexed to the tenure of an earthly heritage. To possess the spirit of ancient prophecy without its power; to hold the faculty of foreseeing every impending calamity without the ability to avert it, cannot surely, in the estimation of any reasonable person, be supposed to add much to the stock of human happiness. On the contrary, how much of our present serenity and peace is owing to the very incapacity of which we so petulantly complain. How many an eye that now looks delightedly on a prosperous ex istence, would be blasted by the appalling vision of its future wretchedness! How many a heart that thrills with innocent gladness upon the beloved bosom of its companion of to-day, would be sunk and chilled and withered in the certain foreboding of that fatal destiny which may leave it companionless to-morrow! No, My Friends, however laudable may be the ambition of ac`quiring all reasonable knowledge, there are bounds beyond which it is equally futile and criminal to expatiate. It is the mercy and not the poverty of God that has erected these landmarks to human wisdom. It would be no mitigation of inevitable misfortune to be continually aware of its approaches, and without questioning the stern necessity of those evils which an almighty Providence has admitted into his system, we may religiously and reasonably affirm that there would be little pleasure in anticipating them, and in what concerns the time and manner of their advent, we may concur with the poet, that "Where ignorance is bliss, "Be careful for nothing," says the Apostle to the Philippians; "be careful for nothing, but in all things, in prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." But this maxim, as it regards the conduct of men in their several avocations must be received with moderation, and its meaning be, as the sacred writer intended it, restrained. To be literally careful for nothing, would be to smother the feelings of affection, to stifle the voice of reason, and to derange and destroy that system, in which, by the charter of our very existence, we are bound to take a rational and active part. The apostolic rescript imposes on us no such frantic, no such impious, carelessness. It should controul, and not annihilate that energy of mind, which, depend on it, was not incorporated into our nature for nothing. "Fine spirits are not touched but to fine issues." It should be applied principally to those events of futurity, which God has concealed from our knowledge, and over which he has invested us with no power. In other affairs, it is evident that he has allowed us a discretion, a prudence, and, in some, almost a prescience of the future. These are talents committed to us for our guidance; and not to cultivate and use them, would be to reject his gifts and to despise his beneficence. It was the want of this prudence or prescience in the Patriarch of Uz, that prompted the rash conclusion which he in the text confesses to have made. His error lay in assigning perpetuity to possessions which are essentially ephemeral. The wealth, the honours, and the authority of Job, are as proverbial as is his patience under subsequent adversity. The simple enumeration of the sources of his opulence in the sacred history, may convey to you an adequate idea of the splendour and, humanly speaking, of the happiness of his situation. We read in the catalogue of his rural plenty, of "seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels, of five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred asses," and, in a word, that "he was the greatest man in all the East." Moreover he had a wife, and sons, and daughters, he had friends, he had influence, he had power. But more than all, he had a proud consciousness of high-souled integrity and of habitual good-conduct. His wealth was under the direction of a generous heart operating charity to thousands. Rich and poor, old age and youth, combined to reverence him, and the blessing of them who were ready to perish was at his door. What wonder then that such a man should be elated with his unexampled prosperity? what wonder that even his goodness of heart should be intoxicated with a draught too powerful for humanity? what wonder that he should deem the permanence of his felicity commensurate with its opulence, and should be induced to exclaim, " Now" indeed, " I shall die in my nest?" Alas! poor Job! knowest thou not that, in this transitory state, no man can properly be called happy till he dies. Wretched heir of a degraded nature, even now the curse of thy fallen fathers is upon thee! Thy possessions, all promising as they seem, are not exempted from the uncertainty and brevity of duration which attach to all sublunary treasure. In vain are they insured by all security which human power can offer; feeble policy, frail security is it at the best! Thy gold lies hoarded in thine iron chest; thy shelves are groaning with thy loaded coffers; behold they make to themselves wings and flee away! thy friends are smiling round thy festive board; lo! they upbraid thee with thy trusting confidence. Thy children are playing at thy knee, and promising thee ten thousand blessings in futurity; the lightning of heaven is preparing to scathe them, and the worm of earth is greedily awaiting their perishable remnant! The wife of thy bosom sits beside thee, her eyes beaming beauty and affection on her lord; she at least may lessen the pains and assuage the afflictions of thy lot. Hark! she speaketh as one of the foolish women," she bids thee "curse thy God and die." This, O man! is thy impending destiny, and though, in reward for thine exemplary patience, God will pity thee, and "make thy latter end more blessed than thy beginning," yet shall it not be till, convinced of the folly of thy former confidence, thou exchangest the fond hope of dying in thy nest, for the faith that thy Redeemer liveth to bestow on thee, not a perpetuity of earthly " |