SERMON XXI.

CHRISTIAN HOPE.

PSALM xxxix. 8.

And now, Lord, what is my hope? Truly my hope is even in Thee.

SUCH was the wise and happy conclusion, to which David was led by his reflection on the shortness, the uncertainty, and the vanity of human life. Would to God that we may all make similar reflections, with a no less pious feeling, and thus be guided by the Holy Spirit, to adopt the same just and only safe conclusion.

I verily believe there are but few among us, except the very young and inexperienced, who have not occasionally uttered doleful complaints concerning the insecurity and misery of life, and the insignificance and worthlessness of all its

possessions and enjoyments; for there can be but very few, even of those who are not far advanced in years, who have not either suffered, or witnessed among their acquaintance, such sorrows and afflictions as would teach them, if they have hearts to receive instruction, the folly of dépendance upon any earthly stay. The unhappy condition of humanity, I do not doubt, has been an universal theme, ever since the time that death and unhappiness were introduced by sin. Among the ancient heathen writers, we find it continually expressed as a proverbial sentiment; and none can declare this opinion more strongly than the holy men of old, whose conviction on this subject is recorded in the Scriptures. (says the patriarch Jacob,) of the years of my life been."

"Few and evil" "have the days

"Man that

is born of a woman (says Job,) "is of few days and full of trouble, he cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." And again, “man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward." And how deep were the lamentations, and how bitter the complaints of this suffering saint, (who is, notwithstanding, held forth to us as an example of patience,) when, overwhelmed with the weight of his distresses, he seems for a moment to have forgotten his trust in the love and mercy

of God, and to have sinfully repined at the severity of his dispensation! "Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said there is a man child conceived? Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it! Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from my eyes. Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost? For now I should have lien still and been quiet; I should have slept; then I had been at rest; as an untimely birth, I had not been, as infants which never saw light there the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Hear how the wise Preacher expresses the very same miserable thoughts: "I praised the dead, which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive. Yea better is he than both they, which doth not hear, which hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun." And what says the pious and humble and resigned David on the same theme, so fruitful of "lamentation and mourning and woe?" "Behold, Thou hast made my days, as it were, a span long, and mine age is even as nothing in respect of Thee, and verily, every man living is altogether vanity. For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain, he

heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them."

You must bear in mind, that I have been thus far speaking of life simply as it is in itself, without reference to another; and it is in this light that both Job and Solomon must have viewed it, when they so bitterly declared that it would have been better never to have been born. As Christians we do not so feel, or so express ourselves; we bless God for our existence, even in this unhappy world, because it is the only way of approach to heaven; we are thankful for the temporary troubles, which are appointed to lead us to an eternity of joy; we complain not of the rough journeying through the wilderness, because the prospect of the heavenly Canaan, "the lot of our inheritance," cheers us in all our difficulties. But look upon this world as unconnected with another beyond, take the value of human life by itself, without the addition of any thing better in reversion, without the expectation of that joyful "rest, which remaineth for the people of God," and we must be constrained to say with Solomon, "vanity of vanities! all is vanity!"

In fact, as I have already said, I believe this is a sentiment which all mankind have agreed in, ever since the fall in paradise, ever since sin, and death, and misery, took possession of this