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per. I fix mine eye on some lofty eminence in the scale of preferment. I spurn at the condition which I now occupy, and I look around me and above me. The perpetual tendency is not to enjoy his actual position, but to get away from it-and not an individual amongst us who does not every day of his life join in the aspiration of the Psalmist "O that I had the wings of a dove, that Í may fly to yonder mountain, and be at rest."

tainty of experience. I see it before mine | actual observation. What is present fills me eyes with a vision so near and intimate, as with disgust. What is distant allures me to admit of no colouring, and to preclude the to enterprise. I sigh for an office, the busiexercise of fancy. It is only in those situa-ness of which is more congenial to my temtions which are without me, where the principle of deception operates, and where the vacancies of an imperfect experience are filled up by the power of imagination, ever ready to summon the fairest forms of pure and unmingled enjoyment. It is all resolvable, as before, into the principle of distance. I am too far removed to see the smaller features of the object which I contemplate. I overlook the operation of those minuter causes, which expose every situation of human life to the inroads of misery and disappointment. Mine eye can only take in the broader outlines of the object before me, and it consigns to fancy the task of filling them up with its finest colouring.

But the truth is, that we never rest. The most regular and stationary being on the face of the earth, has something to look forward to, and something to aspire after. He must realize that sum to which he annexes the Am I unlearned? I feel the disgrace of idea of a competency. He must add that ignorance, and sigh for the name and the piece of ground which he thinks necessary distinctions of philosophy. Do I stand upon to complete the domain of which he is the a literary eminence? I feel the vexations of proprietor. He must secure that office which rivalship, and could almost renounce the confers so much honour and emolument splendours of my dear-bought reputation upon the holder. Even after every effort for the peace and shelter which insigni- of personal ambition is exhausted, he has ficance bestows. Am I poor? I riot in friends and children to provide for. The fancy upon the gratifications of luxury, and care of those who are to come after him, think how great I would be, if invested with lands him in a never-ending train of hopes, all the consequence of wealth and of pa- and wishes, and anxieties. O that I could tronage. Am I rich? I sicken at the de-gain the vote and the patronage of this hoceitful splendour which surrounds me, and | nourable acquaintance-or, that I could seam at times tempted to think, that I would cure the political influence of that great man have been happier far, if, born to a humbler who honours me with an occasional call, station, I had been trained to the peace and and addressed me the other day with a corinnocence of poverty. Am I immersed in diality which was quite bewitching or that business? I repine at the fatigues of em- my young friend could succeed in his comployment, and envy the lot of those who petition for the lucrative vacancy to which have every hour at their disposal, and can I have been looking forward, for years, with spend all their time in the sweet relaxations all the eagerness which distance and uncerof amusement and society. Am I exempted tainty could inspire-or that we could fix from the necessity of exertion? I feel the the purposes of that capricious and unac corroding anxieties of indolence, and at-countable wanderer, who, of late indeed has tempt in vain to escape that weariness and disgust which useful and regular occupation can alone save me from. Am I single? I feel the dreariness of solitude, and my fancy warms at the conception of a dear and domestic circle. Am I embroiled in the cares of a family? I am tormented with the perverseness or ingratitude of those around me; and sigh in all the bitterness of repentance, over the rash and irrecoverable step by which I have renounced for ever the charms of independence.

been very particular in his attentions, and whose connection we acknowledge, in secret, would be an honour and an advantage to our family-or, at all events, let me heap wealth and aggrandizement on that son, who is to be the representative of my name, and is to perpetuate that dynasty which I have had the glory of establishing.

This restless ambition is not peculiar to any one class of society. A court only offers to one's notice a more exalted theatre for the play of rivalship and political enThis, in fact, is the grand principle of hu- terprise. In the bosom of a cottage, you man ambition, and it serves to explain both may witness the operation of the very same its restlessness and its vanity. What is pre-principle, only directed to objects of greater sent is seen in all its minuteness, and we insignificance and though a place for my overlook not a single article in the train of girl, or an apprenticeship for my boy, be all little drawbacks, and difficulties and disap- that I aspire after, yet an enlightened obpointments. What is distant is seen under server of the human character will pera broad and general aspect, and the illu-ceive in it the same cagerness of competi sions of fancy are substituted in those places tion, the same jealousy, the same malicious which we cannot fill up with the details of attempts to undermine the success of a more

likely pretender, the same busy train of pas- | pressing forward to some eminence which sions and anxieties which animate the ex- perpetually recedes away from him; see ertions of him who struggles for precedency the inexplicable being, as he runs in full in the cabinet, and lifts his ambitious eye to pursuit of some glittering bauble, and on the management of an empire. the moment he reaches it, throws it behind him, and it is forgotten; see him unmindful of his past experience, and hurrying his footsteps to some new object with the same eagerness and rapidity as ever; compare the ecstacy of hope with the lifelessness of possession, and observe the whole history of his day to be made up of one fatiguing race of vanity, and restlessness, and disappointment;

This is the universal property of our nature. In the whole circle of your experience, did you ever see a man sit down to the full enjoyment of the present, without a hope or a wish unsatisfied? Did he carry in his mind no reference to futurity-no longing of the soul after some remote or inaccessible object-no day-dream which played its enchantments around him, and which, even when accomplished, left him nothing more than the delirium of a momentary triumph? Did you never see him, after the bright illu- To complete the unaccountable history, sions of novelty were over-when the pre- let us look to its termination. Man is irresent object had lost its charm, and the dis-gular in his movements, but this does not tant begun to practise its allurements-when hinder the regularity of Nature. Time will some gay vision of futurity had hurried him not stand still to look at us. It moves at its on to a new enterprise, and in the fatigues of a restless ambition, he felt a bosom as oppressed with care, and a heart as anxious and dissatisfied as ever?

"And, like the glittering of an idiot's toy,
Doth Fancy mock his vows."

own invariable pace. The winged moments fly in swift succession over us. The great luminaries which are suspended on high, perform their cycles in the heaven. The sun describes his circuit in the firmament, and the space of a few revolutions will bring every man among us to his destiny. The decree passes abroad against the poor child of infatuation. It meets him in the full career of hope and of enterprise. He sees the dark curtain of mortality falling upon the world, and upon all its interests. That busy, restless heart, so crowded with its plans, and feelings, and anticipations, forgets to play, and all its fluttering anxieties are hushed for ever.

This is the true, though the curious, and I had almost said, the farcical picture of human life. Look into the heart which is the seat of feeling, and you there perceive a perpetual tendency to enjoyment, but not enjoyment itself-the cheerfulness of hope, but not the happiness of actual possession. The present is but an instant of time. The moment you call it your own, it abandons you. It is not the actual sensation which occupies the mind. It is what is to come next. Man lives in futurity. The pleasurable feeling of the moment forms al- Where, then, is that resting-place which most no part of his happiness. It is not the the Psalmist aspired after? What are we reality of to-day which interests his heart. to mean by that mountain, that wilderness, It is the vision of to-morrow. It is the dis- to which he prayed that the wings of a dove tant object on which fancy has thrown its de- may convey him, afar from the noise and ceitful splendour. When to-morrow comes, distractions of the world, and hasten his the animating hope is transformed into the escape from the windy storm, and the temdull and insipid reality. As the distant ob- pest? Is there no object, in the whole round ject draws near, it becomes cold and taste-of human enjoyment, which can give rest less, and uninteresting. The only way in to the agitated spirit of man? Will he not which the mind can support itself, is by re-sit down in the fulness of contentment, after curring to some new anticipation. This he has reached it, and bid a final adieu to may give buoyancy for a time-but it will share the fate of all its predecessors, and be the addition of another folly to the wretched train of disappointments that have gone before it.

the cares and fatigues of ambition? Is this longing of the mind a principle of his nature, which no gratification can extinguish? Must it condemn him to perpetual agitation, and to the wild impulses of an ambition which is never satisfied?

What a curious object of contemplation to a superior being, who casts an eye over We allow that exercise is the health of this lower world, and surveys the busy, the mind. It is better to engage in a trifling restless, and unceasing operations of the pursuit, if innocent, than to watch the mepeople who swarm upon its surface. Let lancholy progress of time, and drag out a him select any one individual amongst us, weary existence in all the languor of a conand confine his attention to him as a speci-suming indolence. But nobody will deny men of the whole. Let him pursue him that it is better still, if the pursuit in which through the intricate variety of his move-we are engaged be not a trifling one-if it ments, for he is never stationary; see him conducts to some lasting gratification—if it with his eye fixed upon some distant ob- leads to some object, the possession of ject, and struggling to arrive at it; see him which confers more happiness than the

mere prospect-if the mere pleasure of the chase is not the only recompense-but where, in addition to this, we secure some reward proportioned to the fatigue of the exercise, and that justifies the eagerness with which we embarked in it. So long as the exercise is innocent, better do something than be idle: but better still, when the something we do, leads to a valuable and important termination. Any thing rather than the ignoble condition of that mind which feels the burden of itself—and which knows not how to dispose of the weary hours that hang so oppressively upon it. But there is certainly a ground of preference in the objects which invite us to exertion and better far to fix upon that object which leaves happiness and satisfaction behind it, than dissipate your vigour in a pursuit which terminates in nothing-and where the mere pleasure of occupation is the only circumstance to recommend it. When we talk of the vanity of ambition, we do not propose to extinguish the principles of our nature, but to give them a more useful and exalted direction. A state of hope and of activity is the element of man--and all that we propose, is to withdraw his hopes from the deceitful objects of fancy, and to engage his activity in the pursuit of real and permanent enjoyments.

Now, to find fault with man for the pleasure which he derives from the mere excitement of a distant object, would be to find fault with the constitution of his nature. It is not the general principle of his activity which I condemn. It is the direction of that activity to a useless and unprofitable object. The mere happiness of the pursuit does not supersede the choice of the object. Even though you were to keep religion out of sight altogether, and bring the conduct of man to the test of worldly principles, you still presuppose a ground of preference in the object. Why is the part of the sober and industrious tradesman preferred to that of the dissipated gambler? Both feel the delights of a mind fully occupied with something to excite and to animate. But the exertions of the one lead to the safe enjoyment of a competency. The exertions of the other lead to an object which, at best, is precarious, and often land you in the horrors of poverty and disgrace. The mere pleasure of exertion is not enough to justify every kind of it: you must look forward to the object and the termination-and it is the judicious choice of the object which, even in the estimation of worldly wisdom, forms the great point of distinction betwixt prudence and folly. Now, all that I ask of you, is to extend the application of the same Man must have an object to look forward principle to a life of religion. Compare the to. Without this incitement the mind lan- wisdom of the children of light, with the guishes. It is thrown out of its element, wisdom of a blind and worldly generation; and, in this unnatural suspension of its the prudence of the Christian who labours powers, it feels a dreariness, and a discom- for immortality, with the prudence of him fort, far more unsufferable than it ever ex- who labours for the objects of a vain and perienced from the visitations of a real or perishable ambition. Contrast the littleness positive calamity. If such an object does of time, with the greatness of eternity-the not offer, he will create one for himself. restless and unsatisfying pleasures of the The mere possession of wealth, and of all world, with the enjoyments of heaven, so its enjoyments, will not satisfy him. Pos- pure, so substantial, so unfading-and tell session carries along with it the dulness of me which plays the higher game-he, all certainty, and to escape from this dulness, whose anxiety is frittered away on the purhe will transform it into an uncertainty-he suits of a scene that is ever shifting, and will embark it in a hazardous speculation, ever transitory; or he, who contemplates or he will stake it at the gaming-table; and the life of man in all its magnitude; who from no other principle than that he may acts upon the wide and comprehensive surexchange the lifelessness of possession, for vey of its interests, and takes into his estithe animating sensations of hope and of en-mate the mighty roll of innumerable ages. terprise. It is a paradox in the moral con- There is no resting-place to be found on stitution of man; but the experience of this side of time. It is the doctrine of the every day confirms it-that man follows Bible, and all experience loudly proclaims what he knows to be a delusion, with as it. I do not ask you to listen to the commuch eagerness, as if he were assured of its plaints of the poor, or the murmurs of the reality. Put the question to him, and he disappointed. Take your lesson from the will tell you, that if you were to lay before veriest favourite of fortune. See him placed him all the profits which his fancy antici- in a prouder eminence than he ever aspired pates, he would long as much as ever for after. See him arrayed in brighter colours some new speculation; or, in other words, than ever dazzled his early imagination. be as much dissatisfied as ever with the po- See him surrounded with all the homage sition which he actually occupies-and yet, that fame and flattery can bestow-and afwith his eye perfectly open to this circum-ter you have suffered this parading exterior stance, will he embark every power of his mind in the chase of what he knows to be mockery and a phantom.

to practise its deceitfulness upon you, enter into his solitude-mark his busy, restless, dissatisfied eye, as it wanders uncertain on

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for every object-enter into his mind, and tell | piness-that time is too small for him, and me if repose or enjoyment be there; see he is born for something beyond it-that him the poor victim of chagrin and disquie- the scene of his earthly existence is too tude-mark his heart as it nauseates the limited, and he is formed to expatiate in a splendour which encompasses him-and wider and a grander theatre-that a nobler tell me, if you have not learned, in the destiny is reserved for him--and that to truest and most affecting characters, that accomplish the purpose of his being, he deven in the full tide of a triumphant ambi- must soar above the littleness of the world, tion, "man labours for the meat which and aim at a loftier prize. perisheth, and for the food which satisfieth not."

What meaneth this restlessness of our nature? What meaneth this unceasing activity which longs for exercise and employment, even after every object is gained, which first roused it to enterprise? What mean those unmeasurable longings, which no gratification can extinguish, and which still continue to agitate the heart of man, even in the fulness of plenty and of enjoyment. If they mean any thing at all, they mean, that all which this world can offer, is not enough to fill up his capacity for hap

It forms the peculiar honour and excellence of religion, that it accommodates to this property of our nature---that it holds out a prize suited to our high calling-that there is a grandeur in its objects, which can fill and surpass the imagination--that it dignifies the present scene by connecting it with eternity--that it reveals to the eye of faith the glories of an unperishable world--and how, from the high eminences of heaven, a cloud of witnesses are looking down upon earth, not as a scene for the petty anxieties of time, but as a splendid theatre for the ambition of immortal spirits.

SERMON V.

The transitory Nature of visible Things.
"The things that are seen are temporal."-2 Corinthians iv. 18.

THE assertion that the things which are | Father before the world was. The mind seen are temporal, holds true in the abso- cannot sustain itself under the burden of lute and universal sense of it. They had a these lofty contemplations. It cannot lift beginning, and they will have an end. the curtain which shrouds the past eternity Should we go upwards through the stream of God. But it is good for the soul to be of ages that are past, we come to a time humbled under a sense of its incapacity. It when they were not. Should we go on- is good to realize the impression which too ward through the stream of ages that are often abandons us, that he made us, and not before us, we come to a time when they we ourselves. It is good to feel how all will be no more. It is indeed a most mys- that is temporal lies in passive and prosterious flight which the imagination ven-trate subordination before the will of the untures upon, when it goes back to the eter- created God. It is good to know how little nity that is behind us-when it mounts its a portion it is that we see of him and of ascending way through the millions and his mysterious ways. It is good to lie at the millions of years that are already gone the feet of his awful and unknown majesty through, and stop where it may, it finds the--and while secret things belong to him, it line of its march always lengthening beyond it, and losing itself in the obscurity of as far removed a distance as ever. It soon reaches the commencement of visible things, or that point of its progress when God made the heavens and the earth. They had a beginning, but God had none; and what a wonderful field for the fancy to expatiate on, when we get above the era of created worlds, and think of that period when, in respect of all that is visible, the immensity around us was one vast and unpeopled solitude. But God was there in his dwellingplace, for it is said of him that he inhabits eternity; and the Son of God was there, for we read of the glory which he had with the

is good to bring with us all the helplessness and docility of children to those revealed lessons which belong to us and to our children.

But this is not the sense in which the temporal nature of visible things is taken up by the Apostle. It is not that there is a time past in which they did not exist--but there is a time to come in which they will exist no more. He calls them temporal, because the time and the duration of their existence will have an end. His eye is full upon futurity. It is the passing away of visible things in the time that is to come, and the ever during nature of invisible things through the eternity that is to come,

mere prospect-if the mere pleasure of the chase is not the only recompense-but where, in addition to this, we secure some reward proportioned to the fatigue of the exercise, and that justifies the eagerness with which we embarked in it. So long as the exercise is innocent, better do something than be idle: but better still, when the something we do, leads to a valuable and important termination. Any thing rather than the ignoble condition of that mind which feels the burden of itself—and which knows not how to dispose of the weary hours that hang so oppressively upon it. But there is certainly a ground of preference in the objects which invite us to exertion and better far to fix upon that object which leaves happiness and satisfaction behind it, than dissipate your vigour in a pursuit which terminates in nothing-and where the mere pleasure of occupation is the only circumstance to recommend it. When we talk of the vanity of ambition, we do not propose to extinguish the principles of our nature, but to give them a more useful and exalted direction. A state of hope and of activity is the element of man--and all that we propose, is to withdraw his hopes from the deceitful objects of fancy, and to engage his activity in the pursuit of real and permanent enjoyments.

Now, to find fault with man for the pleasure which he derives from the mere excitement of a distant object, would be to find fault with the constitution of his nature. It is not the general principle of his activity which I condemn. It is the direction of that activity to a useless and unprofitable object. The mere happiness of the pursuit does not supersede the choice of the object. Even though you were to keep religion out of sight altogether, and bring the conduct of man to the test of worldly principles, you still presuppose a ground of preference in the object. Why is the part of the sober and industrious tradesman preferred to that of the dissipated gambler? Both feel the delights of a mind fully occupied with something to excite and to animate. But the exertions of the one lead to the safe enjoyment of a competency. The exertions of the other lead to an object which, at best, is precarious, and often land you in the horrors of poverty and disgrace. The mere pleasure of exertion is not enough to justify every kind of it: you must look forward to the object and the termination-and it is the judicious choice of the object which, even in the estimation of worldly wisdom, forms the great point of distinction betwixt prudence and folly. Now, all that I ask of you, is to extend the application of the same Man must have an object to look forward principle to a life of religion. Compare the to. Without this incitement the mind lan- wisdom of the children of light, with the guishes. It is thrown out of its element, wisdom of a blind and worldly generation; and, in this unnatural suspension of its the prudence of the Christian who labours powers, it feels a dreariness, and a discom- for immortality, with the prudence of him fort, far more unsufferable than it ever ex- who labours for the objects of a vain and perienced from the visitations of a real or perishable ambition. Contrast the littleness positive calamity. If such an object does of time, with the greatness of eternity-the not offer, he will create one for himself. restless and unsatisfying pleasures of the The mere possession of wealth, and of all world, with the enjoyments of heaven, so its enjoyments, will not satisfy him. Pos- pure, so substantial, so unfading—and tell session carries along with it the dulness of me which plays the higher game-he, all certainty, and to escape from this dulness, whose anxiety is frittered away on the purhe will transform it into an uncertainty-he suits of a scene that is ever shifting, and will embark it in a hazardous speculation, ever transitory; or he, who contemplates or he will stake it at the gaming-table; and the life of man in all its magnitude; who from no other principle than that he may acts upon the wide and comprehensive surexchange the lifelessness of possession, for vey of its interests, and takes into his estithe animating sensations of hope and of en-mate the mighty roll of innumerable ages. terprise. It is a paradox in the moral con- There is no resting-place to be found on stitution of man; but the experience of this side of time. It is the doctrine of the every day confirms it-that man follows Bible, and all experience loudly proclaims what he knows to be a delusion, with as it. I do not ask you to listen to the commuch eagerness, as if he were assured of its plaints of the poor, or the murmurs of the reality. Put the question to him, and he disappointed. Take your lesson from the will tell you, that if you were to lay before veriest favourite of fortune. See him placed him all the profits which his fancy antici- in a prouder eminence than he ever aspired pates, he would long as much as ever for after. See him arrayed in brighter colours some new speculation; or, in other words, than ever dazzled his early imagination. be as much dissatisfied as ever with the po- See him surrounded with all the homage sition which he actually occupies-and yet, that fame and flattery can bestow-and af with his eye perfectly open to this circum-ter you have suffered this parading exterior stance, will he embark every power of his mind in the chase of what he knows to be a mockery and a phantom.

to practise its deceitfulness upon you, enter into his solitude-mark his busy, restless, dissatisfied eye, as it wanders uncertain on

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