SERM. changed from what it once was. Com XII. paring our present fituation with our former condition of life; looking back to our father's house, and to the scenes of youth; remembering the friends by whom we were trained, and the family in which we grew up; who, but with inward emotion, recollects those days of former years, and is difpofed to drop the filent tear, when he views the faShion of the world thus always paffing away! III. NOT only our connections with all things around us change, but our own life, through all its stages and conditions, is ever paffing away. How just, and how affecting is that image, employed in the facred writings to describe the state of man, we spend our years as a tale that is told* ! It is not to any thing great or lafting that human life is compared ; not to a monument that is built, or to an infcription that is engraved; not even * Pfal. XC. 9. XII, even to a book that is written, or to a SER M. history that is recorded; but to a tale, which is liftened to for a little; where the words are fugitive and paffing, and where one incident fucceeds and hangs on another, till, by infenfible tranfitions, we are brought to the close; a tale, which in some paffages may be amusing, in others, tedious; but whether it amufes or fatigues, is foon told, and foon forgotten. Thus, year fteals upon us after year. Life is never standing still for a moment; but continually, though infenfibly, fliding into a new form. Infancy rises up faft to childhood; childhood to youth; youth paffes quickly into manhood; and the grey hair and the faded look are not long of admonishing us, that old age is at hand. In this courfe all generations run. The world is made up of unceasing rounds of tranfitory existence. Some generations are coming forward into being, and others haftening to leave it. The ftream which carries us all along, is ever flowing with R 2 a quick SERM, a quick current, though with a still and XII. noifelefs courfe. The dwelling place of man is continually emptying, and by a fresh fucceffion of inhabitants, continually filling anew. The memory of man paffeth away, like the remembrance of a guest who hath tarried but one night. As the life of man, confidered in its duration, thus fleets and paffes away, fo during the time it lafts, its condition is perpetually changing. It affords us nothing on which we can fet up our reft; no enjoyment or poffeffion which we can properly call our own. When we have begun to be placed in fuch circumstances as we defired, and wish our lives to proceed in the fame agreeable tenor, how often comes fome unexpected event across, to difconcert all our schemes of happiness? Our health declines; our friends die; our families are fcattered; fomething or other is not long of occurring, to fhew us that the wheel must turn round; the fashion of the world must pass away. Is there any man who dares to look to futurity with an XII. an eye of confident hope; and to fay, SERM, that against a year hence, he can promife being in the fame condition of health or fortune, as he is at present ? The feeds of change are every where fown in our state; and the very caufes that seemed to promife us fecurity, are often fecretly undermining it. Great fame provokes the attacks of envy and reproach. High health gives occafion to intemperance and disease. The elevation of the mighty never fails to render their condition tottering; and that obfcurity which shelters the mean, expofes them, at the fame time, to become the prey of oppreffion. So completely is the fashion of this world made by Providence for change, and prepared for paffing away. In the midst of this inftability, it were fome comfort, did human profperity decay as flowly as it rifes. By flow degrees, and by many intervening steps, it rifes. But one day is fufficient to scatter, and bring it to nought. I might add, IV. THAT SERM. IV. THAT the world itself in which we dwell, the bafis of all our prefent enjoyments, is itself contrived for change, and defigned to pafs away. While the generations of men come forth in their turns, like troops of fucceeding pilgrims, to act their part on this globe, the globe on which they act is tottering under their feet. It was once overflowed by a deluge. It is fhaken by earthquakes ; it is undermined by fubterraneous fires; it carries many a mark of having suffered violent convulfions, and of tending to diffolution. Revelation informs us, that there is a day approaching, in which the heavens fhall pass away with a great noife; the elements fhall melt with fervent heat; and the earth and the works therein shall be burnt up. When this destined hour arrives, the fashion of the world fhall have finally paft away. Immortal fpirits fhall then look back upon this world, as we do at present on cities and empires, which were once mighty and flourishing, but now are swept |