SERMON business of life. Human life cannot pro

· 1.

At

ceed to advantage without some measure of
relaxation and entertainment. We require
relief from care. We are not formed for a
perpetual stretch of serious thought. By
too intense and continued application, our
feeble powers would soon be worn out.
the same time, from our propensity to ease
and pleasure, amusement proves, among all
ranks of men, the most dangerous foe to
order. For it tends incessantly to usurp and
encroach, to widen its territories, to thrust
itself into the place of more important
concerns, and thereby to disturb and coun-
teract the natural course of things. One
frivolous amusement indulged out of season,
will often carry perplexity and confusion
through a long succession of affairs.

Amusements, therefore, though they be of an innocent kind, require steady go. vernment, to keep them within a due and limited province. But such as are of an irregular and vicious nature, are not to be governed, but to be banished from every orderly society. As soon as a man seeks his happiness from the gaming-table, the midnight revel, and the other haunts of licentious

licentiousness, confusion seizes upon him as SERMON There will no longer be order in his family, nor order in his affairs, nor or

its own.

der in his time. The most cerns of life are abandoned.

important con

Even the order

of nature is by such persons inverted; night
is changed into day, and day into night.
Character, honour, and interest itself, are
trampled under foot. You may
with cer-
tainty prognosticate the ruin of these men
to be just at hand. Disorder, arisen to its
height, has nearly accomplished its work.
The spots of death are upon them. Let
every one who would escape the pestilen-
tial contagion, fly with haste from their

company.

V. PRESERVE order in the arrangement of your society; that is, entangle not yourselves in a perpetual and promiscuous crowd; select with prudence and propriety those with whom you choose to associate; let company and retreat succeed each other at measured intervals. There can be no order in his life, who allots not a due share of his time to retirement and reflection. He can neither prudently arrange his temporal VOL. II. affairs,

C

SERMON affairs, nor properly attend to his spiritual I. interests. He lives not to himself, but to the world. By continual dissipation, he is rendered giddy and thoughtless. He unavoidably contracts from the world, that spirit of disorder and confusion which is so prevalent in it.

It is not a sufficient preservative against this evil, that the circles of society in which you are engaged are not of a libertine and vicious kind. If they withdraw you from that attention to yourselves, and your domestic concerns, which becomes a good man, they are subversive of order, and inconsistent with duty. What is innocent in itself, degenerates into guilt from being carried to excess; an idle, trifling society is near akin to such as is corrupting: One of the first principles of order is, to learn to be happy at home. It is in domestic retreat that every wise and virtuous man finds his chief satisfaction. It is there he forms the plans which regulate his public conduct. He who knows not how to enjoy himself when alone, can never be long happy abroad, To his vacant mind, company may afford a temporary relief; but when forced to return

I.

turn to himself, he will be so much more SERMON oppressed and languid. Whereas, by a due mixture of public and private life, we keep free from the snares of both, and enjoy each to greater advantage.

WHEN We review those different parts of behaviour to which I have shewn that order is essential, it must necessarily occur to you, that they are all mutually connected, and hang upon each other. Throughout your affairs, your time, your expence, your amusements, your society, the principle of order must be equally carried, if you expect to reap any of its happy fruits. For if into any one of those great departments of life you suffer disorder to enter, it will spread through all the rest. In vain, for instance, you purpose to be orderly in the conduct of your affairs, if you be irregular in the distribution of your time. In vain you attempt to regulate your expence, if into your amusements, or your society, disorder has crept. You have admitted a principle of confusion which will defeat all your plans; and perplex and entangle what you sought to arrange. Uniformity is above

SERMON all things necessary to order. If you desire

I.

that any thing should proceed according to method and rule, let all things, as the text exhorts, be done in order.

I must also admonish you, that in small as well as in great affairs, a due regard to order is requisite. I mean not that you ought to look on those minute attentions which are apt to occupy frivolous minds, as connected either with virtue or wisdom. But I exhort you to remember, that disorder, like other immoralities, frequently takes rise from inconsiderable beginnings. They who, in the lesser transactions of life, are totally negligent of rule, will be in hazard of extending that negligence, by degrees, to such affairs and duties as will render them criminal. Remissness grows on all who study not to guard against it; and it is only by frequent exercise, that the habits of order and punctuality can be thoroughly confirmed.

FROM what has been said, the great importance of this principle to moral and religious conduct must already be evident. Let us, however, conclude with taking a

summary