Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation | Page 9

listen to the heart-rending tale
of wo. Fain would he fly from himself, and enjoy one hour's repose; but
alas! That God, who rules in the kingdom of men, has written a law in
his heart, where he reads and feels his condemnation, and where
conscience sits on the judgment seat, constantly holds him arraigned at

her tribunal, and fans up in his bosom the burning flames of hell! He
may lie down on his pillow, but spectres haunt his brain; and awake,
asleep, at home, abroad, he finds that he has rendered his own existence
a curse. He lives in misery, and in darkness expires.
Let us next notice the thief, who plunders our property. His crime is of
less magnitude than the above, but his guilt is in proportion. No one by
such means has ever enriched himself. He, who obtains property by
dishonorable means, is ignorant of its value, and will dishonorably
spend it. He has forgotten that God governs the world. Our
state-prisons and penitentiaries not only (so far as human laws are
concerned) reveal his fate, but speak his woes. But suppose he escape
detection, and is only exposed to the naked and fearful grandeur of that
law which God has written in the heart. He hears its thunders, and he
feels its fires. He his taken from some fellow being his hard earnings;
and sees him and perhaps his children mourning their misfortune and
suffering the miseries of adversity. Guilt takes possession of his soul,
and misery, which the hand of time cannot extinguish, rolls its dark
waves of damnation upon him, and drowns his dearest joys, while
poverty marks him for her own.
God has so constituted his plans in the government of the world that the
plunderer cannot prosper. Inward horrors and fears of detection abstract
his mind from the proper duties of life, so that misfortune and defeat
find their way into his plans, which might otherwise by calm
deliberation have succeeded, and disappointment and misery, satiety
and disgust, and all the evils that are the offspring of his iniquity,
commingling in a thousand ways, render his existence wretched.
Relying upon dishonesty for support, he becomes but a midnight
beggar. His slumbers are haunted by frightful dreams; and fear of
detection, prisons and dungeons are torturing his imagination and
incessantly sporting with his broken peace. He is a stranger to those
solid joys arising from the practice of virtue, is doomed to encounter all
the miseries that attend his ill-chosen career, and to drink every drug of
wormwood and gall that heaven has mingled in the cup of dishonor. He
lives a nuisance and pest to society, and dies covered with infamy.

In all this we shall see the truth of our text exemplified, that God rules
in the kingdom of men, and brings punishment, not only upon a
haughty monarch seated on the throne of nations, but upon every
transgressor however obscure may be his condition in the walks of
private life. The sovereign decree of his empire is--"THOUGH HAND
JOIN IN HAND, YET SHALL THE WICKED NOT GO
UNPUNISHED."
But we take our leave of flagitious crimes and proceed to notice men in
the common walks of life. Every man who makes riches, or public
honors the chief end of all his pursuits, and gives all his attention to the
attainment of his object, and over-reaches in bargains whenever an
opportunity offers, or sets various prices on his merchandise, according
to the person with whom he deals--such a man will never feel himself
filled with riches, nor satisfied with honors. The reasons are obvious.
He commences his career under the impression that happiness,
contentment and all the rational enjoyments of life consist in wealth,
and in human greatness. He soon finds himself in possession of as large
a fortune as he first supposed would make him happy. But his desires
for more, having imperceptibly expanded, he finds within an increased
restlessness, and even greater desires for more than when he first set
out. He still believes, according to his original impression, that
happiness lies in gold; and that the only reason why he has not obtained
those solid joys in possession which he first anticipated, is because he
still needs more. But though wealth may flow upon him in oceans, his
cravings for more will ever swell beyond what earth can give, and leave
him a more wretched being than he was at the commencement of his
course. Here is his loss--here is his punishment. God has not placed
happiness in wealth. _"A competence is all we can enjoy, O, be content
where heaven can give no more."_
Or let him rise to that station of honor, which he now believes will
satisfy him, and his ambition would aspire to one