fanctions of his laws already take place; their effects appear; and with such infinite wisdom are they contrived, as to require no other executioners of justice against the finner, than his own guilty paffions. God needs not come forth from his fecret place, in order to bring him to punishment. He need not call thunder down from the heavens, nor raise any minister of wrath from the abyss below. He needs only fay, Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone: And, at that inftant, the finner becomes his own tormentor. The infernal fire begins, of itself, to kindle within him. The worm that never dies, feizes on his heart. Let us remark also, from this example, how imperfectly we can judge from external appearances, concerning real happiness or mifery. All Perfia, it is probable, envied Haman as the happiest perfon in the empire, while yet, at the moment of which we now treat, there was not within its bounds, one more thoroughly wretched. We are feduced, and SERM. VII. SERM. and deceived by that false glare which VII. profperity fometimes throws around bad men. We are tempted to imitate their crimes, in order to partake of their imagined felicity. But remember Haman, and beware of the fnare. Think not, when you behold a pageant of grandeur displayed to public view, that you dif cern the enfign of certain happinefs. In order to form any juft conclufion, you must follow the great man into the retired apartment, where he lays aside his disguise. You must not only be able to penetrate into the interior of families, but you must have a faculty by which you can look into the infide of hearts. Were you endowed with fuch a power, you would moft commonly behold good men, in proportion to their goodness, fatisfied and easy; you would behold atrocious finners, always reftless and unhappy. Unjuft are our complaints, of the promifcuous diftribution made by Providence, of its favours among men. From fuperficial VII. fuperficial views fuch complaints arife. SERM. The diftribution of the goods of fortune, indeed, may often be promifcuous; that is, difproportioned to the moral characters of men; but the allotment of real happiness is never fo. For to the wicked there is no peace. They are like the troubled Sea when it cannot reft. They travel with pain all their days. prevail against them. afraid on every fide. Trouble and anguish in their ears; and they are in great fear II. How unavailing worldly profperity is, fince, in the midst of it, a single difappointment is fufficient to embitter all its pleasures. We might at first imagine, that the natural effect of profperity would be, SERM. be, to diffufe over the mind a prevailing VII. fatisfaction, which the leffer evils of life could not ruffle or difturb. We might expect, that as one in the full glow of health, defpifes the inclemency of weather; fo one in poffeffion of all the advantages of high power and ftation, should difregard flight injuries; and, at perfect cafe with himself, fhould view, in the most favourable light, the behaviour of others around him. Such effects would indeed follow, if worldly prosperity contained in itself the true principles of human felicity. But as it poffeffes them not, the very reverse of those confequences generally obtains. Profperity debilitates, instead of strengthening the mind. Its most common effect is, to create an extreme fenfibility to the flightest wound. It foments impatient defires; and raises expectations which no fuccefs can fatisfy. It fofters a falfe delicacy, which fickens in the midst of indulgence. By repeated gratification, it blunts the feelings of men to what is pleafing; and leaves them unhappily VII. unhappily acute to whatever is uneafy. SERM Hence, the gale which another would fcarcely feel, is, to the profperous, a rude tempeft. Hence, the rofe-leaf doubled below them on the couch, as is told of the effeminate Sybarite, breaks their rest. Hence, the disrespect shown by Mordecai, preyed with fuch violence on the heart of Haman. Upon no principle of reason can we affign a fufficient cause for all the diftrefs which this incident occafioned to him. The cause lay not in the external incident. It lay within himself; it arose from a mind diftempered by profperity. Let this example correct that blind eagerness, with which we rush to the chace of worldly greatnefs and honours. I fay not, that it should altogether divert us from pursuing them; fince, when enjoyed with temperance and wifdom, they may doubtless both enlarge our utility, and contribute to our comfort. But let it teach us not to over-rate them. Let it convince us, that unless we add to them the neceffary correctives of piety and vir tue, |