: IX. we feldom behold them brought into SER M. competition with worldly profit. The foft names, and plaufible colours, under which deceit, fenfuality and revenge, are prefented to us in common discourse, weaken, by degrees, our natural sense of the distinction between good and evil. We often meet with crimes authorised by high examples, and rewarded with the careffes and fmiles of the world. We discover, perhaps, at last, that those whom we are taught to reverence, and to regard as our patterns of conduct, act upon principles no purer than those of others. Thus breathing habitually a contagious air, how certain is our ruin, unless we fometimes retreat from this peftilential region, and feek for proper correctives of the disorders which are contracted there? Religious retirement both abates the disease, and furnishes the remedy. It leffens the corrupting influence of the world; and it gives opportunity for better principles to exert their power. He who is accuftomed to turn afide, R 2 SERM. afide, and commune with himself, will IX. fometimes at leaft, hear of truths which the multitude do not tell him. A more found inftructor will lift his voice, and awaken within the heart thofe latent fuggeftions, which the world had overpowered and fuppreffed. The acts of prayer and devotion, the exercises of faith and repentance, all the great and peculiar duties of the religion of Chrift, neceffarily fuppofe retirement from the world. This was one chief end of their inftitution, that they might be the means of occafionally fequeftering us from that great scene of vice and folly, the continued prefence of which is fo hurtful. Solitude is the hallowed ground which religion hath, in every age, chofen for her own. There her inspiration is felt, and her fecret myfteries elevate the foul. There, falls the tear of contrition; there, rifes towards heaven the fight of the heart; there, melts the foul with all the tenderness of devotion, and pours itself forth, before him who made, and him whe IX. who redeemed it. How can any one, who SERM. is unacquainted with fuch employments of mind, be fit for heaven? If heaven be the habitation of pure affections, and of intellectual joy, can such a state be relished by him who is always immerfed among fenfible objects, and has never acquired any taste for the pleasures of the understanding, and the heart? The great and the worthy, the pious and the virtuous, have ever been addicted to ferious retirement. It is the characteristic of little and frivolous minds, to be wholly occupied with the vulgar objects of life. These fill up their defires, and supply all the entertainment which their coarse apprehenfions can relish. But a more refined and enlarged mind leaves the world behind it, feels a call for higher pleasures, and feeks them in retreat. The man of public fpirit has recourse to it in order to form plans for general good; the man of genius, in order to dwell on his favourite themes; the philofopher, to pursue his discoveries; the IX. SERM. the faint, to improve himself in grace, Ifaac went out to meditate in the fields at the evening tide. David, amidst all the fplendor of royalty, often bears witness both to the pleasure which he received, and to the benefit which he reaped, from devout meditation. I communed with my own heart, and my spirit made diligent search. I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto God's teftimonies. In the multitude of thoughts within me, his comforts delight my foul. Our bleffed Saviour himself, though of all who ever lived on earth he needed leaft the affiftance of religious retreat, yet, by his frequent practice, has done it fignal honour. Often were the garden, the mountain, and the filence of the night, fought by him, for intercourfe with heaven. When be bad fent the multitude away, he went up into a mountain, apart, to pray. The advantages of religious retirement will still more clearly appear, by considering, as was propofed, in the next place, fome of those great objects which fhould there there employ our thoughts. I fhall mention only three, which are of the most plain and acknowledged importance; God, the world, and our own character. I. WHEN you retire from the world, commune with your hearts concerning God. Impreffions of Deity, befides their being the principle of what is strictly termed religion, are the great fupport of all moral fentiment, and virtuous conduct, among men. But with what difficulty are they preferved in any due degree of force, amidst the affairs and avocations of the world? While the crowd of furrounding objects is ever rufhing on the imagination, and occupying the fenfes and the heart, what is not only absent from view, but, by its nature, invifible, is apt to vanish like a fhadow. Hence it is given as the character of wicked men, in fcripture, that they are without God in the world. They deny not, perhaps, that he does exift; but it is the fame to them as though he did not: For having loft him from SERM. IX. |