and to make you feel the extravagance of all those, who have the audacity to attempt to oppose Almighty God. The Wise Man calls us to this meditation in the words of the text. "There is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord.'

Perhaps you will accuse us (and we will enter on the subject by examining this objection), perhaps you will accuse us of creating phantoms to combat. Perhaps you will defy us to find among the different classes of idiots, whom society cherishes in its bosom, any one, who has carried his extravagance so far as to presume to oppose God, or to pretend to constrain him by superior knowledge or power.

My brethren, one of the most difficult subjects in the study of the human heart is, when a man leads a certain course of life, to determine whether he has adopted the extravagant principles on which his conduct is founded, and without which his conduct is the most palpable folly. Take which side we will, whether that he acts on principles, or without them, the case will appear extremely difficult. On the one hand, we can hardly persuade ourselves that an intelligent creature, who is capable of governing a state, regulating a large and extensive commerce, and of arranging a variety of systems, should entertain notions seemingly incompatible with the very least degree of intelligence. On the other hand, we know not how to comprehend, that a course of action, which is the natural effect of such notions, can subsist without them.

Follow us a moment, my brethren, into these labyrinths of the human heart, or rather let us endeavour to know ourselves, and to reconcile ourselves to ourselves, and let each of us put a few questions to himself.

come to the last moment of life, felt the most violent remorse; I, who would have then given the whole world, had the whole world been at my disposal, to have been delivered from sin, can I persuade myself that I shall live here always? Can I even persuade myself that I shall live much longer? Or if I could, that when death shall present itself to me, I shall be exempt from remorse, and that the crimes, which now make the pleasure of my life, will not be the poison of my dying bed? But, if I be incapable of adopting opinions so opposite to what I know by feeling and experience, what am I doing? How is it possible for me to live as if I thought myself immortal, as if I had made a covenant with death and were at agreement with the grave, as if I had stifled for ever the feelings of my conscience, as if I were sure of dictating myself the decree of divine justice concerning my own eternal state?

And, not to multiply examples, of which the extravagance of the human mind would furnish a great number, I, whose views are so short, whose knowledge is so confined, whose faculties are so frail, and whose power is so limited, can I promise myself success in opposing the designs of that God, who says in his word, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" Isa. xlvi. 10. Can I promise myself to subdue a God 'great in counsel, and mighty in work,' Jer. xxxii. 19, and to constrain him by superior power? But, if I have not adopted such extravagant thoughts, what mean the obstaèles which I oppose against his will? What signify my plans of felicity, which are diametrically opposite to those which he has traced for me in his word? Why do I not direct all my intentions and actions to incorporate in my I, who have some idea of the perfections of interest him, whose will is productive and effiGod, and who cannot doubt whether he knows cient? Why do I not found my system of lithe most secret thoughts of my heart, can I ving on this principle of the Wise Man, promise myself to impose on him in his templeThere is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor by a painted outside, by a grave deportment, and by a mournful countenance, while my understanding and my affections take no part in religious exercises, while my ideas are confused, and while my passions promise me an immediate indemnity for the violence I have offered them during the few moments of this seeming devotion? But, if I have not this thought, how is it then that I think to obtain the favour of God by exercises of this kind?

I, who was educated in the Christian church, can I imagine that God has less dominion over me when the air is calm, the heavens serene, and the earth firm under my feet, than when the clouds are thick and black, the thunder rolls in the air, the lightning flashes, and the earth seems to open under my feet? But, if I have not adopted this opinion, how comes it to pass that I commit the greatest crimes without remorse in the first period, and in the second reproach myself for the most pardonable of all my frailties?

I, who am surrounded with the dying and the dead; I, who feel myself dying every day: I, who carry death in my face, who feel it in my veins, who, when I lay on a sick bed a few months ago, and thought myself

counsel against the Lord.'

My brethren, explain to us these enigmas, discover yourselves to yourselves, and reconcile yourselves with yourselves. O miserable man! What kind of madness animates thee? Is it that of having conceived these extravagant thoughts, which are alone capable of varnishing over thy conduct? Or is it that of acting without thought, which is a sort of raving madness, for even erroneous opinions might seem to thee to apologize for thine actions? O'heart of man, deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know thee!' Jer. xvii. 9.

However, the knowledge of this heart so dif ficult to be known, is not entirely unattainable, it is even essential to our happiness. How should we correct ourselves without knowing ourselves? How should we acquire real wisdom without knowing precisely what our folly is, and by what means to get rid of it?

It should seem we ought to search for a solution of these difficulties in the artifices of our own passions. The passions not only disguise exterior objects, but they disguise even our own thoughts, they persuade us that we do not think what we do think, and in this manner they confirm us in the most extravagant no

and waves, to fortune, and sickness, and death, | I command you to stop, and to respect your king.

O think of the glorious attributes, the sublime ideas, the deep counsels, and the abundant power of that God whom thou opposest. 'He stretched out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof. He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud. He meteth out heaven with a span, and comprehendeth the dust of the earth in a measure. He weigheth the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. He sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers. Behold all nations are as the drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. All things before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. He bringeth princes to nothing, he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity,' Job xxvi. 7, 8. 11, 12; and Isa. xl. 12. 22. 15. 17. 23.

Think of thy soul, thou wilt find nothing there but infirmity and ignorance. Thou art confined as a man, and more confined still as a great man, for grandeur usually contracts the limits of knowledge and improvement.

Think of the author of those advantages which swell thee with pride. Thou art indebted for them to that very Being whom thou pretendest to resist. It is his breath that animates thee, his arm upholds thee, his earth supports thee, his food nourishes thee, and it is his air which thou borrowest to breathe.

Imagine thyself dying, cold, pale, groaning, and vainly calling to thine assistance thy courtiers, thy sceptre, and thy crown. Is this the immortal man? This the arm that ruled the fate of whole nations? Is this the potentate, whose looks made the world tremble? Oh! how eloquent is humility, my brethren, to him who is willing to hear it! Oh! how sufficient in motives is the school of humility to him who is willing to be taught there! How, how can a creature so mean, so vile, so limited, so frail, so momentary as man, how can he possibly oppose Almighty God? How can he resist his power? Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? But thou shalt be a man and no god in the hand of him that slayeth thee,' Ezek. xxviii. 9.

II. Worldly policy is a second obstacle, which some men set against the laws of heaven, and by which they discover a disposition to resist God, and to compel him by superior force. Had the man, of whom I speak, other ideas, he would lay down as first principles and grounds of action-that the wisest maxims of state are those of religion-that the best we can do for society is to render God propitiousand that the happiest people are they whose God is the Lord." When councils were held to deliberate on peace or war, such a man would do from religious principle what was anciently done at Rome from the mere dictates of natural justice. It would be examined not only whether it would be advantageous to make war in the present conjuncture, but whether it were just; whether it proceeded from an insatiable desire of dominion and wealth, or from the right, which all mankind have to guard and defend themselves. When the question was, Whether any one should be invested with magisterial authority, such a man would examine with as much care the religious principles as the political virtues of the candidate for power; he would not consider whether he were able to practise crimes of state, which have been long successful, but whether he inviolably respected the laws of religion, the exercise of which sooner or later must necessarily crown its adherents with prosperity and victory. Never would he assist in placing at the head of a political body a blasphemer or an atheist.

Think what mortal blows of just vengeance God has given to some insolent creatures, who presumptuously oppose his majesty. So perished Antiochus, who, in the language of the book of Maccabees, a little afore thought he might command the waves of the sea, and weigh the high mountains in a balance, was now cast on the ground, so that the worms rose up out of his body, his flesh fell away, and the filthiness of his smell was noisome to all his army,' 2 Mac. ix. 8-10. So perished Herod: His bowels were consumed with an inward fire. His entrails were full of ulcers. The stench of his breath infected his room, and But when we see men pursue a conduct didrove away all his family.' So perished Max-rectly opposite to this, when we see men aliminus, of whom Lactantius gives this frightful account; The wound gained his vitals, there vermin engendered, the palace and the city were infected, his body putrefied, the more his sores were cleansed, the more innumerable were the swarms of vermin that proceeded from them, of which his entrails were an inexhaustible source.' **

Think of thine end. Look through the deceitful splendour that covers thee. See the weakness of thine organs, behold thy hands already shaking, thy knees already trembling, thy head, all crowned and glittering as it is, bending towards that earth from which it was taken, and to which it will presently return.

Lactant. libro de mortib. persecutor. C. xxxiii.

H

ways forget that they are Christians, when they deliberate on the public good, and lay aside, if I may be allowed to speak so, faith, conscience, and the gospel, at the door of the council room; when we see a certain disdainful air, a look of affected pity put on at the proposals of such as wish to direct the public good by the principles of religion; whes we see people of this character pretend by their prudence to avert public calamities; have we not a right to say of such men, that they resist God, and pretend to compel him with superior power?

But what are such men? Idiots. With your pernicious maxims you banish religion and piety, and by so doing deprive yourselves of all the advantages which you might have

O' pillar of a cloud!' Owisdom that is from above!' Animate, for ever animate, the conductors of this people, preside in their councils, march at the head of their armies, sancti-observes, that the wicked flee when no man fy their reflections, and engrave for ever on their souls this maxim of my text, that there is no wisdom nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord,' James iii. 17.

with the characters. Perhaps the writing is an encomium on thee. Perhaps it is an oracle, foretelling thee some new acquisition of splendour and glory. Why, of two senses, of which the writing is capable, dost thou imagine the worst? My brethren, behold the solution of this difficulty. These fingers of a man's hand are not alone; the finger of God accompanies them. The subject is not only written on the wall of the royal palace; but it is also inscribed on the heart of the king. His eyes could not read the characters, but his conscience knew how to explain them. Ah! miserable hypocrite! cease calling for astrologers; leave off consulting magicians and Chaldeans. Listen to your own heart. The expositor is within thee, and thy conscience will tell thee more than all the wise men in thy kingdom.

What a system is that of a voluptuary considered in the decline of life! A voluptuous man, when his organs are become feeble, and his faculties worn out, finds he has outlived his felicity, yet he looks after the gods, of which time has despoiled him, and in vain expects that voluptuousness can rid him of the painful reflections which torment and excruciate him.

What a system is that of a voluptuary considered in regard to death and future punishment! These certainly, ought to alarm all that expect them: but they ought above all to terrify a voluptuous man. What will be the sensibility of such a man? What will be his despair, when he shall pass from a bed of down to all-pervading pain, from pleasure to eternal fire, from excessive lasciviousness to chains of darkness, from the company of those who ministered to his voluptuousness, to that of the executioners of divine vengeance.

that he is perfectly happy during the short space of this life. In this he is as much greater than Jupiter, as it is more glorious to compress all happiness into a narrow space than to diffuse it through one more considerable, and to possess as much felicity in one single instant, as the greatest of the gods enjoys in eternity.'

Who would believe, my brethren, that men, who were formerly the admiration of the world, had been able to oppose such crude and fanciful ideas against all the evidences of their depravity and dependance? Who could conceive, that they seriously set these against sickness, poverty, pain, conscience, death, the grave, the punishment of hell, and the majesty of God?

Are there any of this extraordinary sect yet subsisting? Hath Zeno any disciples now? Are there any who yet follow and revere the doctrine of the portico? Yes, my brethren, there are yet people, who, under another name, maintain the same sentiments. I know not whence the evil comes, whether from the air we breathe in these provinces, or from our diet, or from any other cause. I cannot tell whether dulness of fancy produce in us what excessive vivacity produces in other countries, but it should seem, we have as many of this sort among us as there are in other places. We have people who affect an unshaken firmness, who glory in preserving their tranquillity under all extremes of fortune; people who behold the king of terrors with intrepidity, and who laugh at the horrors of death, alike immoveable in the hearing of the most alarming truths, the most terrible descriptions of futurity, censures the most sharp, and threatenings the most dreadful. And whence do they derive this calm intrepidity? From vows addressed to heaven? No. Is it from the progress they have made in religion? Not at all. Is it from the clearness of a close, connected, and evident system? Nothing of all this. Whence then do they derive these sentiments? From I know not what secret pride, from I know not what absurd gravity, from I know not what infernal inflexibility, from a sort of stoical, or shall I rather call it brutal philosophy, which they have revived. We ingenuously acknowledge that the sight of people of this character always excites emulation in us, at least it leads us to deplore the inefficacy of religion in some people's minds. Truth with all its brightness, virtue with its graces, religion with its evidences, eternity with its demonstrations, celestial felicity with its pomp, all these things can hardly hold some trem

IV. In fine, a stoical obstinacy is the fourth obstacle, which some place against the purposes of God. Would you see this hardiness represented in the most insolent language? Would you see how far men have been able to carry their extravagance on this article? Hear one of the most admired of the ancient philosophers, but the least worthy of admiration. Hear what an idea he gives of his wise man: There are neither walls nor towers, which battering rams cannot subvert; but there are no machines that can shake the soul of a wise man. Do not compare him to the walls of Babylon, which Alexander knew how to destroy; nor to those of Carthage and Numantia, which human power subverted. Do not compare him either to the citadel or the capital, where the marks of enemies attempt-bling Christians steady to their profession, who ing to render themselves masters of them are yet to be seen. Arrows shot at the sun never reach him. Sacrileges committed in the temples of the Deity, by breaking in pieces the symbols, and by subverting the edifices, never affect him. What am I saying? the gods themselves may be buried in the ruins of their own temples; but the wise man never can; or, could he be overwhelmed, he could suffer no damage. Jupiter has nothing more than the wise man except his immortality. But the wise man, in his turn, hath this superiority,

yet seem to adhere to Jesus Christ: while these men without light, without proofs, without demonstration, without certainty, yea without hope discover a tranquillity, which we should congratulate ourselves for producing, even after we have spent twenty or thirty years in the ministry.

But how fair soever this exterior may seem, how insurmountable soever this difficulty may appear, how strong soever it may seem to prevent the judgments of God, and to dispose of the terrors which they naturally excite in the