or authority, for the general benefit of society. Whether men belong to a lower or higher rank in life, and whether they belong to smaller or larger societies, it becomes them to show themselves men, by acting up to the dignity of their nature, and the great end of their noble and rational existence.

4. Since it becomes all men to promote the general good of society, it is unbecoming men to pursue any courses which are either directly or indirectly injurious to the public good. I do not mean such practices as are universally infamous; but such as many esteem innocent and harmless, if not reputable. No poor man, who has health and strength and activity, has a right to spend his precious time in idleness, and clothe himself or family in rags. He disobeys an express command of God, and becomes a nuisance to society. How many such poor, wretched, guilty creatures, are strolling about the country, degrading themselves and injuring others! And their numbers are continually increasing. Such idlers as these often meet with deserved contempt.

But there are others, who are no less indolent and no less criminal, who claim to be, and are, respected. They are rich and able to live without labor, and without pursuing any reputable or useful profession. They imagine their wealth gives them a license to indulge themselves in sloth, and in vain and unmanly amusements, which are destructive to health and all intellectual improvements and enjoyments, and unfit them for every duty they owe to God and to society. Idleness was one of the sins of Sodom, which destroyed it; and it tends to corrupt and destroy any nation or society in which it prevails. It is unbecoming any member of any society to be guilty of it.

Not only idlers, but all profane swearers, Sabbath-breakers, neglecters and despisers of all religion, act a part highly detrimental to human society. Though their conduct has become fashionable and even reputable, yet it ought to be universally reprobated by every one who is a friend to God and man. How many at this day seem to think they do no injury to any body but themselves, if they take the name of God in vain, if they labor or travel on the Sabbath, if they neglect family government, family religion, public worship, and despise and ridicule the Bible! But however fashionable and reputable such conduct may be, it indirectly tends to subvert all religion, morality, government and public good. If it be not the greatest, it is certainly the most universal form of sin in the world. It is a procuring cause of the civil and religious, the private and public calamities, which overspread the earth. This must be true; for if all men were heartily united in promoting the general good of society, it would introduce order, peace and hap

piness, among the whole human race.

There would be none

to hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain.

They are the only men
The rest of the world

5. It appears from what has been said, that those who are truly pious are the best men in the world. who have true love to God and man. are entirely destitute of the least spark of vital piety. They have not the love of God in them. They are lovers of their own selves and seekers of their own interests. Though they may be instrumental of promoting the good of the public, yet they primarily and ultimately seek their own separate, private good. Those who built the ark were instrumental of saving the whole world from utter ruin; but we have no reason to think that any one of them had the least regard to the glory of God, and the good of mankind. They were all hirelings, and acted from mere mercenary motives. This is now true of all men, who are destitute of the grace of God. Though they often think they desire to promote the public good, and make others think they desire to do it, yet they deceive both themselves and others. But those who possess true piety act from higher and nobler motives, whether they act in a private or public capacity. If they choose to labor with their hands and cultivate the earth, and support themselves by the sweat of their brow, they labor for God and their fellow men in promoting the general good of society. They mean to employ the fruits of the field, not only for their own benefit, but for the benefit of their friends and country. It seems that Barzillai, like one of the kings of Israel, loved husbandry, cultivated the earth, and accumulated a large property, which he liberally employed to relieve David and his men in the day of adversity and deep distress. The same noble spirit reigns, more or less, in the hearts of all the truly pious and benevolent, while they are guiding the plough and breaking up their fallow ground. If other men of piety choose to employ their time and talents in pursuing a more public course of life, they choose to pursue it upon a benevolent principle and for a benevolent purpose. Whatever public profession they choose, whether law, physic, or divinity, they mean to serve God and their generation. Pious lawyers, pious physicians, and pious ministers, have never failed of attaining, to a greater or less degree, their ultimate and supreme object. They have been the light of the world, the salt of the earth, and the great benefactors of mankind. Enoch was a preacher of righteousness, and had a salutary restraining influence upon a wicked generation. Moses, Samuel, and Jehoiada were eminently useful while they lived. Luke was a pious and well informed physician, and his gospel will be an everlasting monument of his love to Christ and to his cause, and of his

extensive usefulness to the end of time. Paul was the great apostle to the Gentiles, who did more perhaps than any other man ever did, to spread and establish pure christianity through the world. The godly have always been the excellent of the earth, and the best men that have ever lived on it. They have done more than any other men to draw down public blessings, and to avert and remove public calamities. If usefulness be the proper standard by which to measure the worth and importance of men, then men of piety are the best men in the world, whether they are rich or poor, whether they have greater or smaller talents, and whether they fill higher or lower stations in life. Hence,

6. We learn the goodness of God in prolonging the lives of his pious and faithful servants. He is good to his cordial friends in carrying them in his arms, and guiding and guarding their lives, even to old age. He has promised this as a mark of his favor to the godly man. He says, "With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation." Life is both sweet and precious, and good men deprecate an early death. David and Hezekiah deprecated being cut off in the midst of their days of doing and getting good. God heard their cry, and satisfied their pious and benevolent desire. God is good not only to the godly themselves, but to the world, in prolonging their lives, and lengthening out their days of activity and usefulness. It was a great favor to the world that God preserved the lives, of Abraham, Moses, Daniel, and John, to a very great age. God is good to pious parents, when he preserves their lives, and gives them time and opportunity to bring up their children for him, and qualify them to promote the general good. God is good to a church, and a town, when he protracts the lives and usefulness of those who are pious and capable of watching over, guiding and directing their civil and religious concerns. Such men, like the centurion, who seek the good of the church and of the state, are worthy of the love, the esteem, and the gratitude, of every society, whether civil or religious, to which they belong: and the goodness of God, in protracting their lives and usefulness, ought to be acknowledged and remembered after they are laid in the dust. These remarks, and indeed the whole tenor of this discourse, naturally lead us to reflect upon the goodness of God to this church and people, in so long protracting the life and usefulness of the late Deacon JOSEPH WHITING.

For more than fifty years he professed to believe, to love, and to obey the gospel; and he carried evidence to all around him that he was sincere in his godly professions, by living a godly and exemplary life. He constantly and punctually main

tained family religion and family government, and as constantly and punctually attended public worship and divine ordinances, as long as his bodily and mental infirmities permitted. He loved the church; he loved the town; and I may safely say, he loved his neighborhood, and was loved and esteemed by them. He was a pillar in the church and in the state. He loved his country, and was always forward, by his voice, his influence, and his property, to promote its liberty, prosperity, and happiness. He was hospitable, liberal, and charitable. He was very free from ambition, avarice, oppression, and contention. He was truly a peace-maker. In the several civil and religious offices which he sustained, he was so frank, open, undisguised, and impartial, that every one placed unreserved confidence in him. He was a Nazarite indeed. Very few men in his rank in life have done more good, have been more esteemed, and have more deserved to be had in long and grateful remembrance, not only by those who have personally and largely shared in his beneficence, but by all this people.

We have no reason to regret that death has come at last, and relieved him from the peculiar pains and infirmities of old age, and conveyed him, as we hope, to that everlasting rest prepared for the people of God. But we have reason to mourn that another righteous man is taken away, who once stood in the gap, to ward off deserved and impending evils. We have much occasion to cry, "Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, and the faithful fail from among the children of men." We know, "The Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear." He may repair the numerous breaches in this church, and here give Christ a seed to serve him, from generation to generation.

SERMON XXXIII.

DUTY OF A PROSPEROUS NATION.

NOVEMBER 30, 1826.

Taus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches; But let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight saith the Lord. -JER. ix. 23, 24.

THE prophet, in the beginning of this chapter, laments in tears the extreme sinfulness of his nation. He cries, "O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people." He paints their abounding iniquities in the blackest colors; and God confirms the truth of his description: "Shall I not visit them for these things saith the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" This was a prediction of the heavy calamities which God was just ready to bring upon them in their long captivity in Babylon. But they despised these predicted marks of the divine displeasure, and gloried in their own prosperity, security and self-sufficiency. They felt sufficient to maintain their present prosperity and independence. But God tells them that all their glorying in themselves is vain and presumptuous. "Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth: for in these