XV. SERM. education, or want of feeling, or want of honor and honesty, in a condition to make a mock at sin. Sin is of most serious and weighty importance. In the end it will inevitably make a mock of those who are weak enough here to foster and indulge it. Its avenger stands ready to meet us at the utmost confines of this short and transitory life, armed with its scourges, more bitter and dreadful than it is in our power to describe. To the righteous, that is, to the devout and repentant Christian, death has no sting, nor over them can the grave obtain a victory: not so with "the mockers;" their "bands shall be made strong." The Lord of the whole earth seeth their vanity, and if they will not learn in time to turn from the evil of their ways, "be that dwell“eth in heaven, will laugh them to scorn; the 66 Lord, the Almighty God, will have them "in derision." To conclude-The wise King who gave us this general character of fools, that they are disposed to make a mock at sin, has accompanied his remark, in the chapter whence whence my text is taken, with many other SERM. proverbial precepts, which admirably tend XV. to shew, how truly it may be called folly to mock at sin; how justly it may be denominated wisdom, to follow after righteousness. The propriety of the passages need not be discussed. They are obvious to all. Fools," says he, "make a mock at “sin; but with the righteous there is favour.” "The house of the wicked shall be overthrown, “but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. There is a way which seemeth 86 66 66 66 66 66 right unto a man, but the end thereof are "the ways of death. Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness. A wise man feareth and departeth from evil, but the fool rageth and is confident. The evil [shall] bow before the good, and the wicked at the gates of the righteous. Do they not err that devise "evil, but mercy and truth shall be to them "that devise good. In the fear of the Lord "is (true) confidence, and his children shall "have a place of refuge. The wicked will "be driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous bath hope in his death!” 46 SERMON And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed be ye poor, for your's is the kingdom of God. IN the same strain, and in the verses im- SERM. mediately following my text, our Saviour XVI. announces blessings to various other descriptions of persons; Blessed are ye that "hunger, for ye shall be filled; blessed are that weep now, for ye shall laugh," and so on. There is nothing that has more constantly and generally engaged the attention of men of reflection, than to find out what they call man's chief good; I speak of those speculative reasoners who ye SERM. have thought that the human nature might manent happiness established, by some 66 66 |