XI

SERM. frail and moral creatures, preparing for that eternal habitation into which we know not how foon we are to pass.

IF, with fuch fentiments and impreffions, we join in the worship of God, and the ordinances of religion, we may justly hope that they fhall be accompanied to us with the divine bleffing. It is the express precept of God, not to forfake the affembling of ourselves together." Gather together the people, men, women, and children, that they may bear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and obferve to do all the words of this law. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name.— Thus hath God commanded, and he never commanded his people to feek his name in vain. For, where two or three are gathered together in his name, our Lord hath told us that he is in the midst of them. God hath faid that he loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwel

*Heb. 10. 25. + Deut. xxxi. 12. Matth. xviii. 20.

lings of Jacob.

XI.

The prayer of the up- SER M. right is his delight. Both in their temporal and fpiritual concerns, they, may be most expected to profper, who can fay with the Pfalmift in the text, Lord I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth.

*Pfalm lxxxvii. 2.

SERMON

SERMON XII.

On the FASHION of the WORLD pasfing away.

SERM.

XII.

I COR. vii. 31:

-The fashion of this world paffeth away.

T

O ufe this world fo as not to abuse it, is one of the most important, and at the fame time one of the most difficult leffons which religion teaches. By fo many defires and paffions we are connected with the objects around us, that our attachment to them is always in hazard of becoming exceffive and finful. hence religion is often employed in moderating this attachment, by rectifying

our

XII.

our erroneous opinions, and instructing S ER M. us in the proper value we ought to fet on worldly things. Such was particularly the scope of the Apoftle in this context. He is putting the Corinthians in mind that their time is fhort; that every thing here is tranfitory: and therefore, that in all the different occupations of human life, in weeping and rejoicing, and buying and poffeffing, they were ever to keep in view this confideration, that the fashion of this world paffeth away. The original expreffion imports, the figure or form under which the world prefents itself to us. The meaning is, All that belongs to this visible state is continually changing. Nothing in human affairs is fixed or ftable. All is in motion and fluctuation; altering its appearance every moment and paffing into fome new form. Let us meditate for a little on the serious view which is here given us of the world, in order that we may attend to the improvements which it suggests.

I. The fashion of the world paffeth away, as the opinions, ideas, and man

ners

XIL

2

SERM, ners of men are always changing. We look in vain for a standard to ascertain and fix any of thefe; in vain expect that what has been approved and established for a while, is always to endure. Principles which were of high authority among our ancestors are now exploded. Systems of philofophy which were once univerfally received, and taught as infallible truths, are now obliterated and forgotten. Modes of living, behaving, and employing time, the pursuits of the bufy, and the entertainments of the gay, have been entirely changed. They were the offspring of fashion, the children of a day. When they had run their course, they expired; and were fucceeded by other modes of living, and thinking, and acting, which the glofs of novelty recommended for a while to the public tafte.

When we read an account of the manners and occupations, of the ftudies and opinions even of our own countrymen, in fome remote age, we seem to be reading the hiftory of a different world

from