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thorough conviction, that all of us pass too slightly over our omissions, even in the most serious review which we take of our conduct. We are, alas! too fruitful in excuses, and too ready to gloss over our most culpable neglects, with the specious color of ignorance or incapacity. But God, to whom the night shineth as the day, knows the conviction of mind against which we sin; and our most dexterous arts of concealment cannot screen us from his penetrating eye. A just impression of this would prevent many fatal mistakes in our conduct.

I have now, for example, an opportunity of doing good; and my conscience tells me, that I ought to improve it. On the other hand, I have many strong temptations to neglect it. It would put me to too much cost or trouble; it would involve me in a train of action against which my indolence revolts; or it would divert me from other employments more agreeable to my inclination. On which side shall I resolve? May I not so manage it that the neglect shall escape the observation of my neighbor? Or if he should perceive it, may I not put a good face upon it, and find out some excuse to save me from his censure? Ah! but here is the check. The Searcher of hearts knows my present conviction. In vain shall I attempt to prevaricate with him. I may elude the censure of man; but I never can escape the just judgment of that God who is greater than my heart, and knoweth all things. Such reasoning as this, if it were once become habitual to us, would be a constant and powerful incitement to all holy obedience; and would prevent the deep guilt of neglecting to do good, even when we know the extent and obligation of the law of God, and are convinced that it is our duty to comply with it.

Having thus endeavored to illustrate and confirm the two propositions contained in my text, I proceed now to the practical improvement of the subject. And,

1st. THIS subject administers a sharp reproof to those who, in any case, attempt to evade their convictions of duty. "To him that knoweth to do good," saith the apostle, "and doth it not, to him it is sin." For, consider what kind of disposition this conduct betrays. Is it not

evidently the disposition of a slavish and mercenary mind? You do no more in the service of God than you suppose to be necessary, in order to escape eternal misery; and this is the only consideration which deters you from open transgressions of his law. You have therefore no regard for him, but only a concern for your own safety. Your plan of conduct is to offend God as far as you can, without incurring his vengeance: So that any appearance of goodness about you is nothing more than the effect of a natural timidity. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Doth his goodness challenge no better return from you, than merely to refrain from acts of open rebellion against him? Consider, I beseech you, the baseness and ingratitude of this conduct; and if your hearts retain any spark of ingenuity, you will surely be persuaded to yield him a more faithful and generous service in time to come. But,

2dly. This subject administers reproof also to the slothful and inactive servant, who rests contented with low attainments in religion. You perhaps flatter yourself, that although you are remiss in seeking out opportunities of doing good, yet you are not unfaithful to any known obligation. But in this case you greatly deceive yourself. For is it not a known obligation, that we should aim at as much perfection as we are capable of attaining? But you have renounced this desire altogether. In other words, you have deliberately left off that work to which our Saviour hath expressly commanded us to devote ourselves. For, are not these his words? "Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." Once more,

What hath been said on this subject ought to quicken the zeal and activity even of those who have made the greatest progress in the good ways of God.

The declining state of religion calls loudly on all who are its real friends, to exert themselves to the utmost, in order to revive its influence in the world. Nothing, be assured, will be so effectual for accomplishing this desirable object, as the bright and exemplary lives of professing Christians. Are you then zealous for the glory of God? be "zealous of

SERMON XLI.

THE ANT AN INSTRUCTOR.

PROVERBS VI. 6, 7, 8.—"Go to the Ant, thou Sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."

good works." Let it appear that your religion gives authority to your conscience, by your being more just, and humane, and generous than other men. "Ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the light of the world." Your divine Master hath intrusted you with the honor of that religion which he taught on earth, and expects that you should display it in an amiable light. But surely a mere nega- MAN was created with more understandtive degree of virtue will never convince ing than the beasts of the earth: But our men that your principles have any ex-minds are so debased by our apostasy from cellence superior to their own; and that God, that the meanest creatures may beprofessing Christians satisfy themselves come our teachers. And accordingly, the with a virtue of this sort, is, I am afraid, Spirit of God, in the Scriptures, doth in no small degree, the cause to which the frequently send us to learn our duty rapid growth of infidelity in these times from the example of the beasts of the must be ascribed. field, and of the fowls of heaven. Thus, If this is at all the fact, doth it not ingratitude is reproved by the example afford us a subject of the most serious of those animals which are accounted lamentation? "It is impossible but that the most stupid and intractable, (Isaiah offences will come, but woe unto him i. 3.) "The ox knoweth ox knoweth his owner, through whom they come. It were better and the ass his master's crib; but for him that a millstone were hanged Israel doth not know, my people doth not about his neck, and he cast into the sea. "consider." An inattention to the conduct O then, study to adorn the doctrine_of of divine Providence, and a neglect of the God your Saviour in all things. "Let proper seasons of activity, are in like manyour light so shine before men, that they ner condemned by the example of the "The stork knoweth may see your good works, and glorify your fowls of heaven. Father which is in heaven." "Whatso- her appointed times, and the turtle, and ever things are true, whatsoever things the crane, and the swallow, observe the are honest, whatsoever things are just, times of their coming; but my people whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever (saith God) know not the judgment of the things are lovely, whatsoever things are of Lord." Jerem. viii. 7. To cure us of exgood report, if there be any virtue, and cessive carefulness and anxiety, our Savif there be any praise, think on these iour sends us to "consider the ravens ; things," and do them. This will admin- they neither sow nor reap; they have neiister to you true pleasure in life, and solid ther storehouse nor barn; yet God feedeth. hope in death; and hereafter the sound them: How much more," saith he, are of the last trumpet, the terror of the neg-ye better than the fowls?" Luke xii. 24. ligent and unfaithful servant, will be the And in my text, to cure us of neglitriumphant signal of your release from gence and sloth, Solomon sends us to a the grave, and the summons of your Lord creature of the smallest size, but of most to enter into his joy. Amen. wonderful activity. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."

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In discoursing of these words, I will, 1st. Consider the character of the person whom the wise man here addresses. And,

2dly. The counsel or advice which he gives him; and will then conclude with. a practical improvement of the subject..

I BEGIN with the character of the person to whom this advice is addressed. "Go to the ant," saith Solomon, "thou sluggard: " and the character of the sluggard is so minutely described in this book, and in the book of Ecclesiastes, that any of us may soon be acquainted with it.

Solomon observes in general, that sloth casteth into a deep sleep; and he represents the sluggard in this state in the verses immediately following my text. When it is said to him, "How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?" Instead of being affected with the just reproach, he begs earnestly for farther indulgence, "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." "As the door turneth upon its hinges, so doth the slothful man upon his bed." At length, when sleep itself hath become wearisome, and he hath risen from his bed, he hath changed his situation only to give a new indulgence to his sloth. "He hideth his hand in his bosom," and will not so much as "bring it to his mouth again." He spends his time in fruitless wishes The soul of the sluggard "desireth and hath not." To-morrow is always a day of labor, to-day is always spent in idleness: And thus "the desire of the slothful killeth him, because his hands refuse to labor." He is discouraged by the least opposition; "The way of the slothfull man is as a hedge of thorns." Every difficulty furnisheth him with an excuse for his idleness: "The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold." Nay, rather than want an excuse, he creates imaginary dangers to himself: he saith "There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets." At length, "By much slothfulness the building decays, and through the idleness of the hands the house droppeth through."—" His field and his vineyard are grown over with thorns: nettles cover the face thereof; and the stonewall is broken down." Thus, "Poverty cometh upon him like one that travaileth, and his want as an armed man, till drowsiness at last clothes him with rags.”

Such is the picture which Solomon draws of the sluggard; and the features are so strongly marked. that there is no

room to doubt that it was drawn from the life.

Whether there are persons in the present state of society to whom all the parts of this character character agree, is a question which every man will answer to himself, either from his knowledge or experience. The charge is indeed so complex, that it might be difficult perhaps to prove it in its full extent against any one individual.

We know well who they are whose hands refuse to labor, who are clothed with rags, and make poverty not only their complaint, but their argument. But though the idle vagrant is plainly described and condemned by these articles, there are other parts of the charge against which he might offer a plausible defence.

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He might answer to the charge of excessive sleep, that he riseth as early, or at least is as soon abroad, as any from whom he can expect an alms and that he is so far from hiding his hand in his bosom, that he stretcheth it forth from morning to night, to levy contributions from every passenger he sees. Nay, to strengthen his defence, might he not argue, that as the Preacher was a king, persons of a higher rank were far more likely to be the objects of his attention, many of whom eat the bread of idleness, and labor as little as the beggar? And as he speaks of fields and vineyards, that this shows him to have had sluggards of a superior order in his eye, who originally possessed some property, and a station above the lower tribes of the people. By this defence, he will certainly elude some articles of the charge. Enough, however, will still remain to evince his right to the character in the text. And what he throws off from himself doth not fall to the ground, but will bear hard on the idle and voluptuous in the higher ranks of life. At the same time, there are some articles in the charge, to which those of a better station would no doubt object in their turn. They might attempt to evade the charge of sluggishness, by alleging, that though indeed they apply themselves to no active business or employment, yet the fatigues of dress, of ceremony, and equipage; the anxieties of gaming, and the attendance on fashionable amusements, ren

der the pursuit of pleasure in the present | vain and fugitive pleasures of this world. age as toilsome and laborious as any me- I will add, that even those who have chosen chanical employment whatsoever. And the better part, and who seek the kingdom that so far from being clothed in rags, which Solomon makes the badge of a slug gard, the fact is, that Solomon himself, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of them.

Were this a controversy of any importance, it would be an easy matter to detect the fallacy of these reasonings, and to show, that the defences on both sides are weak and frivolous. But this would be an idle waste of time; for as neither of the parties can deny that some parts of the description apply to them, it is of little consequence to which of them the larger share of it belongs.

But sloth is not confined to the common affairs of life, nor the character of a sluggard to men in any particular station. There is sloth in religion as well as in common life; and the description in my text applies to all, without exception, who, however active and industrious in their secular employments, neglect the one thing needful, the care of their precious and immortal souls.

The laborious mechanic, the busy merchant, the painful student, and the bustling statesman, are all sluggards in a spiritual sense, unless they are active in the love and service of the God that made them; and unless the advancement of his glory, and the final enjoyment of his favor, are the ends to which all their pursuits are directed.

Here we are only to sojourn for a short time. Our great Creator hath made us for higher occupations and better joys than the present world affords us. He hath formed us for the knowledge and enjoyment of himself in an eternal and unchangeable state, and hath instructed us how we may attain this glorious object of our being. And therefore, however busy a man may be for himself, however industrious for his family, however active for the public; yet if all his views terminate in this present life, he is still a sluggard in the eye of God. For he who labors only for the meat that perisheth, doth as fatally counteract the end of his creation, as he that sleeps on the bed of sloth, or as he that fatigues himself in pursuing the

of God and his righteousness in the first place, do often incur the imputation of sluggishness, by the omission or careless performance of what God hath required of them. For, alas! where is the man who doth "whatsoever his hand findeth to do” in the business of religion, "with all his might?" Where is the man who "strives," as in an agony (for so the original word imports) "to enter in at the strait gate? or who "gives all diligence to make his calling and election sure?" We see much activity in the pursuits of the world; but a very small portion of it, indeed, in that pursuit which most requires and deserves it.

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I may therefore venture to affirm, that there is not one in this assembly to whom my text is not addressed in one view or another. And, therefore, without questioning the propriety of the description, let us go on, as was proposed,

Secondly. To consider the counsel or advice which the wise man hath given us: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise; which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."

He directs us to a creature, indeed, of the most diminutive size and appearance, but whose sagacity and unremitting activity strike the eye of every beholder. The ant instructeth us, not by speech, but by actions; and therefore we are called

upon "to consider her ways; " how she is employed, and for what end she is active: not merely that we may gratify our curiosity, or even extend our knowledge of the natural world; but that we may become wiser and better. The wisdom we learn from the ant is the wisdom of living well: the wisdom of acting suitably to our superior nature, and our glorious hopes.

There are three very important lessons which we learn from the conduct of the ant. The

1st is, A foresight and sagacity in making provision for the time to come. The ant gathereth more than she hath present occasion for; and in the summer

usefully employed, till he hath lost it for ever; and who spends on trifles the day of his merciful visitation, till the things which belong to his peace are for ever hid from his eyes.

and harvest lays up a store for the ap-knows that it will be effectual. Unlike to proaching winter. Thus she arms herself man, whose folly prompts him to neglect against the rigors of the inclement season; the season in which his talents might be and whilst the grasshoppers, that sung and sported in the summer and harvest: nay, whilst many creatures of larger size and greater strength, perish for want of food, she lives on the fruits of her industry, and reaps the reward of her care and providence. O that this wisdom were more common among men! and that we could be persuaded, while the season of action lasts, to "lay up in store for ourselves a good foundation against the time to come, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when we shall say we have no pleasure in them." How dreary must the winter of life be, when the previous seasons have been passed in sloth, in idleness, or in folly; when the body languishes under poverty and wretchedness; or when the mind, unfurnished with knowledge, and virtue, and faith, and devotion, sojourns in a crazy tabernacle, tottering to the dust? A

2d lesson to be learned from the conduct of the ant is activity and diligence. The ant never intermits her labors as long as the season lasts. In summer, when the weather is hottest, at sultry noon, as well as in the cool of the morning and of the evening, this busy creature is continually in motion, either seeking her food abroad, or disposing it in her cells at home. Nay, her labors end not with the day, but, as naturalists have observed, she often takes the benefit of the moon, and plies her work with a surprising alacrity. Happy were it for man, that he as faithfully employed that precious time which is given him, either to render himself useful in this world, or to prepare for eternity. Then would he not be seen encroaching on the day by sloth, nor turning it into night by intemperance and riot. The

3d lesson which we learn from the conduct of the ant is sagacity in making use of the proper season for activity. Opportunity is the flower of time; or it is the most precious part of it, which if once lost may never return. This the ant knoweth how to seize with admirable skill. She goeth forth in quest of food when it can be had with ease and certainty: She employs her labor at the time when she

All this foresight, diligence, and sagacity, the ant employs by an instinct of nature, untutored and unawed. She hath neither guide, overseer, nor judge: There is none to go before and mark out her task; none to superintend and prompt her to her labor; none to require an account of her industry, or to punish her either for her neglect or miscarriages. This circumstance the wise man mentions with a peculiar emphasis, on purpose to draw the sluggard's attention to it. For surely nothing can be suggested of greater force and efficacy to rouse him from his lethargy, and to convince him that his sloth is not only criminal, but without excuse.

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The ant hath no guide; but we, my brethren, have many guides. "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.' Our Maker hath endued us with reasonable souls, capable of discerning betwixt good and evil. He hath favored us with a complete revelation of his will, and hath showed us "what is good, and what the Lord our God requireth of us."-“ The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." He hath sent his Son into the world to show us the path of life, not only by his doctrine, but by his example too. And he offers us his Spirit, to lead us into all truth, to open our eyes, and to turn us from darkness to light, by taking of the things of Christ, and showing them unto us. He hath assured us of his willingness to assist and to guide us. "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." If men therefore are sluggards, and loiter in their work, they can neither pretend ignorance of their duty, nor the want of a guide to direct them in it.

Again, the ant "hath no overseer; but man acts under the immediate inspec

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