SERMON I.

On the CAUSES of MEN's being weary

of Life.

JOB, X. I.

My foul is weary of my life.

I.

OB, in the firft part of his days, SER M. JA was the greateft of all the men of the Eaft. His poffeffions were large; his family was numerous and flourishing; his own character was fair and blamelefs. Yet this man it pleased God to vifit with extraordinary reverses of fortune. He was robbed of his whole fubftance. His fons and daughters all perished; and he himself, fallen from his high eftate, childlefs, and reduced to poverty, was smitten VOL. IV. with

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SERM. with fore difeafe. His friends came about

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him, feemingly with the purpose of adminiftering comfort. But from a harsh and ill-founded conftruction of the intention of Providence in his disasters, they only added to his forrows by unjuft upbraiding. Hence those many pathetic lamentations with which this book abounds, poured forth in the, most beautiful and touching ftrain of Oriental poetry. In one of thofe hours of lamentation, the fentiment in the text was uttered; My foul is weary of my life; a fentiment, which furely, if any fituation can justify it, was allowable in the cafe of Job.

In fituations very different from that of Job, under calamities far lefs fevere, it is not uncommon to find fuch a fentiment working in the heart, and sometimes breaking forth from the lips of men. Many, very many there are, who, on one occafion or other, have experienced this wearinefs of life, and been tempted to with that it would come to a close. Let us now examine in what circumftances this feeling may be deemed excufe

able; in what it is to be held finful; and under what reftrictions we may, on any occafion, be permitted to fay, My foul is weary of my life.

I SHALL confider the words of the text in three lights: as expreffing, First, The sentiment of a difcontented man; Secondly, The fentiment of an afflicted man; Thirdly, The fentiment of a devout man.

I. Let us confider the text as expreffing the sentiment of a difcontented man; with whom it is the effufion of spleen, vexation, and diffatisfaction with life, arifing from caufes neither laudable nor juftifiable. There are chiefly three claffes of men who are liable to this disease of the mind: the idle; the luxurious; the criminal.

First, THIS weariness of life is often found among the idle; perfons commonly in eafy circumftances of fortune, who are not engaged in any of the laborious occupations of the world, and who are, at the fame time, without energy of mind to call them forth into any other line of active

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SERM. active exertion. In this languid, or ra

I.

ther torpid ftate, they have fo many vacant hours, and are fo much at a lofs how to fill up their time, that their fpirits utterly fink; they become burdenfome to themfelves, and to every one around them; and drag with pain the load of existence. What a convincing proof is hereby afforded, that man was defigned by his Creator to be an active being, whofe happiness is to be found not merely in reft, but in occupation and purfuit! The idle are doomed to fuffer the natural punishment of their inactivity and folly; and for their complaints of the tiresomeness of life there is no remedy but to awake from the. dream of floth, and to fill up with proper employment the miferable vacancies of their days. Let them ftudy to become useful to the world, and they fhall foon become lefs burdenfome to themfelves. They fhall begin to enjoy exiftence; they fhall reap the rewards which Providence has annexed to virtuous activity; and have no more caufe to fay, My foul is weary of my life.

Next, THE luxurious and the diffipated form another clafs of men, among whom fuch complaints are ftill more frequent. With them they are not the fruit of idlenefs. These are men who have been bufied enough; they have run the whole race of pleasure; but they have run it with such inconfiderate fpeed, that it terminates in weariness and vexation of fpirit. By the perpetual course of diffipation in which they are engaged; by the exceffes which they indulge; by the riotous revel, and the midnight, or rather morning, hours to which they prolong their festivity; they have debilitated their bodies, and worn out their fpirits. Satiated with the repetition of their accuftomed pleasures, and yet unable to find any new ones in their place; wandering round and round their former haunts of joy, and ever returning difappointed; weary of themfelves, and of all things about them, their fpirits are oppreffed with a deadly gloom, and the complaint burfts forth of odious life and a miferable world. Never are thefe complaints more frequent than at the clofe