BELSHAZZAR’S DOOM; OR, SINNERS, WHETHER PRINCELY,
PATRICIAN, OR PLEBEIAN, WEIGHED IN THE
BALANCE, AND FOUND WANTING.

“TEKEL, Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.” Dan. v. 27.

The history, to which the words of the text refer, is extremely memorable. During the captivity of the Jews, a variety of singular events concurred to prove that the sins, which brought desolation upon their country, and subjected them, for a period of seventy years, to the Babylonish yoke, had not, nevertheless, wholly alienated the affections of Jehovah from them, or dissolved that covenant relation which he had originally adopted towards them, as the “God of Abraham,” and that any act of indignity perpetrated against an afflicted people, or any insult cast upon the service of their temple, would be recognized as the highest affront to the Majesty of Heaven, and not be suffered to pass with impunity, though the perpetrators were the princes and potentates of the earth.

Of this, Belshazzar is a remarkable instance. He was grandson to Nebuchadnezzar, and had an opportunity of seeing, in the divine dispensations towards his royal ancestor, how hateful pride is, even in royalty itself; how instantly God can blast the most blooming dignity of the brightest crown, and reduce him that wears it to a condition level with the beasts that perish; how quickly, when the divine decree goeth forth, a haughty rational can be converted into a brute, and a Nebuchadnezzar, in all the pomp of majesty upon his throne, be driven from human converse, and become a fit associate only for oxen that graze the field, and are wet with the dew of heaven; and how much, therefore, the prosperity of kings, and the stability of their thrones, depend upon acknowledging, that “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will—that all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; that he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?—that his works are truth, and his ways judgment; and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.” Dan. iv. 25, 35, 37.

But this instruction, though conveyed through a dispensation, calculated to write it upon his heart as indelibly as with a pen of iron, or the point of a diamond, seems to have been all lost on Belshazzar. In a depraved and debauched mind, the most striking memorials of divine interposition are soon buried in oblivion; and all the impressions, which the most tremendous judgments of God generally make in such a case, only resemble characters made in the sand, which the first flux of the tide totally obliterates. Belshazzar had undoubtedly often heard the memorable history of his royal grandfather, and could not avoid seeing in it the great outlines of that divine system of truth, which inculcates the evil of sin, and recommends the fear of the Lord as the supreme wisdom. The very sight of those fields, where Nebuchadnezzar once roamed, or of the animals with which he herded, when deposed from his throne, and deprived of his understanding, must have brought to his recollection the singular event, that so strongly marked God’s displeasure at all sin; especially that kind of it, which lifts up the heart with atheistic pride, and prompts arrogant worms of the earth to affect independence of Him, “in whom they live, and move, and have their being.” But Belshazzar, like libertines in all ages, buried the remembrance of these things in his cups, and company; or sought relief from any disquieting apprehensions, in the fulsome flattery of the civil and ecclesiastical sycophants, that herded round his throne, and constituted his levee. Thus soothed into a false security by court adulation or pulpit-daubing, he became a beast in sensuality, and indulged in every sordid gratification, that could make him hateful to God, and contemptible to man; in which we may suppose him to have been immersed the more deeply, for want of some faithful monitor near his person, to tell him the truth, like honest Micaiah, without dread of royal resentment. There was one man in Belshazzar’s kingdom, who was especially qualified for this important office; but he had not the opportunity, being a Jew, and a captive, till a singular event brought him out of his obscurity, and displayed the superiority of his wisdom above all the pretenders to it in Belshazzar’s court.

Upon a particular day, Belshazzar made a feast, to which were invited “a thousand of his lords.” Dan. v. 1. Being a lewd polygamist, like all the heathen princes of the East, “his wives and his concubines” formed a part of his guests; for, to an abandoned prince a palace hath no beauty unless it be a receptacle for prostitutes; the whole apparatus of a court appears incomplete without a seraglio; and in the esteem of the drunken king of Babylon, or the grand Turk with Mahomed’s Koran in his hand, there are no blessings comparable with the blessings of polygamy.—Belshazzar, thus environed with his concubines and his lords, pushes about his intoxicating goblet, and poured out libations, or toasted the memory of their “gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.” Verse 4. Proper deities, it must be acknowledged, to preside in such assemblies, in which the songs of the drunkard, and the conversation of the lascivious, render the scene perfectly worthy of all that indecency and excess, which idolatry ever promoted among its votaries. The king of Babylon, not content with blending idolatry and voluptuousness together, at his luxurious feast, where lords and whores unite to strengthen him in his wickedness, adds sacrilege to his other sins. “He commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein.” Verse 2. Thus this impious prince insulted the God of heaven by sacrilegiously profaning those vessels that had been consecrated to the service of his temple; as if his wine would be doubly sweet, when drank out of God’s sacred chalice, or the vessels of his holy sanctuary were only fit to be prostituted to the purposes of riot and excess. In the desecration of these vessels, the temple-worship was profaned, a captive people insulted, and an atrocious act of indignity committed against the Holy One of Israel.

While Belshazzar was thus employed in filling the vessels of the temple with intoxicating liquor, God was filling for him the phials of his indignation. He bent his bow and made it ready; and the moment was approaching in which the barbed arrow of swift destruction was to be directed by an unerring hand against Belshazzar and his kingdom. A most awful presage of this event is given, when least expected. In the midst of the entertainment, while the king and his guests are absorbed in pleasure; behold! a strange phenomenon arrests the solemn attention of the gay circle, and suddenly damps all their mirth. Every face turns pale, and every heart is filled with a horrible dread. Their festivity and carousings are changed into confusion and despair. The sumptuous entertainment entertains no longer; and the wine, sparkling in the glass, or mantling in the goblet, can yield no antidote against the chilling fears that seize the hearts of the disturbed guests. The mirth and gaiety of this festive assembly are changed into silence, solemnity, and distraction. But what occasioned so instantaneous a perturbation? Was it the appearance of some angry cherub, like him whom God appointed as the flaming guardian of the tree of life? or, was it the discovery of some instrument of death suspended from the ceiling over the king’s head, like that sword, which hanging by a hair over Damocles, the base flatterer of a Sicilian tyrant, disturbed his peace in the midst of a banquet? No; it was nothing more than “the fingers of a man’s hand, writing over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace,” verse 5, “and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.” He saw, and trembled. But what ailed thee, O Belshazzar! that thy peace should be broken at the sight of an object, that carried nothing hostile in its outward appearance? Ah! it is not the first time that a sinner has been made to tremble at hand-writing, when the hand of God appears to hold the pen. Belshazzar’s conscience instantly commented upon the mysterious characters. The hand of God wrote his doom, and his own guilty fears anticipated it. “His countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.” Verse 6. To what an abject and pusillanimous condition, a consciousness of guilt, and a dread of punishment, reduce often the most stout hearted! Nay, “the wicked fleeth, when no man pursueth, while the righteous is bold as a lion.” Prov. xxiii. 1.

Belshazzar, distracted and amazed, cries aloud to bring in the astrologers and soothsayers. A considerable reward is offered to those, who should read and interpret the writing. They try, but in vain. The queen advises to consult Daniel. He is brought before the king. The honest Hebrew tells him of his pride, idolatry, and sacrilege. He reads the writing, and gives the interpretation; which was, that “God had numbered his kingdom and finished it; that he was weighed in the balances and found wanting; and that his kingdom was divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” Verse 26–28. The interval between the writing of this awful prediction, and the accomplishment of it, was very short. For “in that night” was Belshazzar surprised by an army headed by Cyrus, “and slain,” and the kingdom of the Chaldeans transferred by conquest to that of the Medes and Persians. Thus judgments tread close upon the heels of guilt, and are sometimes as swift in their progress, as they are sure in their arrival; the commission of sin, and the infliction of punishment, happening, not seldom, at the same instant.

Let us now, first, make some practical observations on the history referred to in the text; and, secondly, accommodate the images in it to the purpose of forming a scrutiny into the hearts and lives, the principles and pretensions, of sinners.

I. 1. The profanation of things sacred is highly affrontive to the Divine Majesty; incurs great guilt, and exposes to danger in proportion; because God himself is virtually dishonored in the abuse or contempt of what relates to his service. The men of Bethshemesh only look into the ark, and Uzzah only touches it, and God instantly punishes the presumption of the one, and the profane curiosity of the other, with judicial chastisement. And it is not so much the act as the intention of the agent, that God regards in such a case. Under circumstances of peculiar necessity, David “eats the shewbread, which it was not lawful for any to eat but the priests.” And yet this infringement of a positive ceremony passes with impunity, because God considered the nature of the case, and saw the purity of David’s intention. But when the king of Babylon sent for the vessels of the temple, it was evident, that he meant studiously to affront the God of the Jews, and to make the people and their religion objects of malicious triumph, and “cruet mockery.” By thus blending the cup of the Lord with the cup of devils, Belshazzar filled up the measure of his iniquity, and provoked Jehovah to make his punishment as conspicuous as his impiety was public. As sacrilege is a sin of very comprehensive application, let us beware how we rob the Most High of the honor due to his truths, his ordinances, his name, and his own day. And particularly, let us see to it, that we profane not that sacred institution, which is commemorative of the death and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ; when we reflect, what judgments this species of profanation brought upon the Corinthian Church. And, as public feasts are too often scenes of voluptuousness and intoxication, where the sons of riot sometimes amuse themselves with ridiculing religion and its advocates; and instead of partaking of such mirth, which is perhaps made up of the obscene jest, or the horrid oaths and imprecations, of the indecent and profane; let us fly from the place, as from the very confines of hell. And, be assured, that “only fools make a mock at sin;” and that, though God in general is patient, though provoked every day, yet he sometimes strikes offenders dead upon the spot, and calls them to his bar, just as the lie or the blasphemy was issuing from their mouth. [311]

2. Sensuality and security in sin, are the certain presages of impending ruin. When the wicked say in their hearts, “Tush, God careth not;” or the worldling counting his riches, and wrapping himself in false tranquillity, breaks out into that sordid soliloquy, “Soul take thine ease, thou hast much goods laid up in store; eat, drink, and be merry;” then the storm is at the blackest, and the angry cloud ready to burst. Transgressors take occasion to sin, because “vengeance against an evil act is not speedily executed;” and the people of the world often draw flattering inferences respecting one another from outward prosperity or inward gaiety; measuring their interest in the divine favor by the extent of their rent-roll; or, the degree of their happiness, by the height of their levity. But, alas! they consider not that the ox is fattened to the slaughter, and that “the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.” The world, like a true Delilah, makes a soft lap for her votaries to sleep on; but it is only to render them a more easy prey to the enemies that lie in wait, and consign them over to drudgery more servile than that of Sampson deprived of his sight, shorn of his locks, and grinding in a mill at Gaza. Besides, it is not considered, that God’s judgments, though long protracted, are sure; and are the more tremendous, for being delayed. They are often conducted, and operate, like the mine, which is sprung in the dark, and which never discovers its subterranean progress, until it involves all around it in darkness, uproar, and ruin. A sensualist is never nearer the verge of destruction than when he speaks peace to himself; and a “foolish virgin,” assuming the appearance of happiness, while a life of perpetual thoughtlessness and dissipation destroys time, and unfits for death and judgment, is only like the moth that is at last consumed in the flame that attracted it.

3. See how easily the carnal repose of the wicked may be disturbed, in the height of their voluptuousness and festivity! This may be effected at any time by a variety of incidents or instruments. God need only drop a slight sensation of wrath upon the conscience; suffer that faithful vicegerent to assume the office of severe remonstrance; or let loose Satan with his train of accusations upon the sinner, and immediately all is tumult and disquietude within. For, “when he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hideth his face, who then can behold him? whether it be done against a nation, or against a man only?” Job, xxxiv. 29. Let God but give a reverse of fortune, and touch that mountain of prosperity on which the proud and opulent elevate their hopes so high; and down fall all their imaginary peace and bliss in a moment. How low they build, who build beneath the skies! when the fabric and the builders of it may be crushed together before the moth.

O ye dissipated and profane, consider, before it be too late, that he, who surprised the king of Babylon at his feast, and called him, unprepared, from his cups to a tribunal; will one day come suddenly as the thief in the night, and put an end to your mirth, by the summons of the archangel’s voice, and the trump of God.

I might here call your attention to the singular contrivances of divine wisdom displayed, in the case of Daniel, with a view to exalt debased and injured excellence; or, consider, how incumbent it is upon Christ’s ministers, when called upon, to do it, in imitation of the illustrious Hebrew, with faithfulness and impartiality, even before kings. But waving any enlargement upon these points, I shall proceed to state, as the last practical observation upon the history before us,

4. How unsafe and fallacious it is, to infer any man’s happiness or infelicity, merely from outward appearances, be they ever so specious, or afflicted.

Behold Belshazzar upon his throne! Contemplate the magnificence of his palace, and the extent of his empire. He looks around upon Babylon, the superb residence of his court, and calling “the glory of the Chaldees excellency” his own, thinks himself the happiest and most august monarch of the East. Thousands do him homage, and tens of thousands bow at his footstool. The earth and seas are ransacked to supply his table with delicacies; and he needs only ask, to have every luxury that the most unbounded appetite could desire. Multitudes live upon his smile, and princes triumph in the honor of being in the train of his dependants. His word is a law, and confers dignities or death at pleasure. And the grand emulation among courtiers, domestics, and subjects, is, who shall be first in obedience to the tyrant’s edicts.—Such is Belshazzar on his throne. But could we only have followed him to his secret retirements, or looked into his breast, we should have seen all this semblance of splendor and felicity tarnished by some corroding care, that banished repose even from his bed of down; or some vicious passion, that preyed continually upon his heart. A dreadful rival in power, a sullen contemner of his false dignity, like another Mordecai, refusing to bow to impious Haman, or a single disappointment in the pursuit of dominion and conquest, were sufficient to make his diadem tremble on his brow, and to plant such sharp thorns in the crown that adorned it, that a man upon the rack could not be more miserable than the haughty monarch of Babylon seated on his imperial throne. Who, therefore, would not have preferred the situation of a peasant in his cottage, or that of the poorest captive Jew within the walls of Babylon, before the grandeur of a palace, in which wretchedness and sin took up their abode?

But, follow Belshazzar to his banquet. See him seated at the head of his convivial assembly. The sumptuous feast is prepared; and his lords sit down to share in the entertainment. The charms of beauty, and the harmony of music, are called in, to heighten the repast. Every face shines with mirth, and every heart overflows with joy. The richest juice of the vine contributes, in abundance, to the festivity of the scene. And, to the heart of an epicure, or in the eye of a bacchanalian, there never was a more pleasing object than Belshazzar, at the head of his lords and concubines, laughing at religion, toasting his favorite gods, drinking destruction (as it is probable he did) to the poor captive Jews, and getting drunk out of the hallowed cups that once adorned their temple. But, should any really think this jovial assembly a happy one, let them remember the text, and the hand that wrote it. Look from the festive board to the lettered wall. What is written there? Then turn to Belshazzar. See, he looks aghast, and trembles! Whither is his mirth fled? Why are his lords astonished? What will his riches and the glory of his kingdom do for him now? See him falling under the sword of a victorious adversary; and, after death, falling into the hands of the living God; and then say, who would have been in his case, for his crown and empire? or, for a thousand worlds?

From hence it is manifest, that, in order to judge aright of happiness, we must look deeper than the surface, and farther than the passing moment. The completest misery is, often, permitted to assume a smiling countenance; and it is only the event of things that is to throw light on the mysteries that veil present dispensations. A fallacious outside deceives and deludes the world in general. And were our judgment to be guided by the opinions, or our practice modelled by the lives of many, we should conclude, that the rich man “clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day,” had the best pretensions to happiness, and Lazarus at his gate, full of sores, was misery itself; till we heard, that the one was translated to Abraham’s bosom, and that the other was lifting up his eyes in the torments of hell. With a view, therefore, to detect the fallacy and danger of such conclusions, and to brush the vermilion from the cheek of painted misery or gilded error, I go on, as proposed, to

II. Accommodate the images in our text to the purpose of forming a scrutiny into the hearts and lives, the principles and pretensions, of sinners of various complexions.

The principal image in the text is taken from a custom, which hath prevailed amongst all nations, of regulating commercial intercourse, by the test of the balance, or of determining the value or deficiency of any commodity, by certain standard weights. In allusion to this mode, the adjustment of which formed a part of that sacred code of juridical ceremonies, which God gave to the Jewish legislator; the king of Babylon is represented as put into the balance. His kingdom, and the glory thereof, his crown and sceptre, his wealth, dominion, and titles, are put in with him. These would be thought objects of prodigious appreciation in the eyes of the world, and would weigh immensely heavy in the false balance of human estimation; as they probably did, in the opinion of Belshazzar and his abandoned court. But it is not a human hand that holds the balance, or the eye of a superficial mortal that is to watch its preponderation. No; the beam is suspended from God’s hand, and the balance is to be regulated by One, in whose sight “a false balance is an abomination.” Prov. xi. 1. Belshazzar is weighed by Him, who can neither err nor be deceived. And the result of the scrutiny is, that he is found wanting. His moral character is defective, weighs nothing. The glory of an empire cannot make up for what is wanting in the man. In God’s account, an act of truth or mercy outweighs a kingdom; and, without holiness, earthly dignities are as the small dust of the balance, and all sublunary excellence lighter than vanity itself. Belshazzar’s whole empire is no counter-balance against Belshazzar’s iniquities. And, while a court or pulpit-flatterer pronounces bliss and glory in the king, God makes no other account of his royalty, than to damn it in the sinner with the greater emphasis.

Let us borrow the striking imagery in the text, and apply it to ourselves. Let each individual fancy himself represented, as a mortal and a sinner, in the person of the king of Babylon, before his doom was fixed, and his life hung in suspense. Let him suppose himself,—his principles and pretensions,—his heart and life,—put into the balance. The scriptures of the Old and New Testament, in perfect coincidence with each other, are the two sacred even-balanced scales, by which his whole self is to be weighed. As the decalogue is the great standard of moral rectitude, and the gospel is the test of evangelical principles; I hope it will not be any straining of the metaphor, to consider the two tables of the law, and the requisitions of the gospel, as the just weights, by which the pretensions of the pharisee and the soaring professor are to be examined; since we are commanded to bring every thing to the test of “the law and the testimony.” This is the more requisite, because the essential truth of God is the beam, from whence the two scales of scripture are suspended, and by which they are made to connect in perfect harmony. Let us consider the hand of infinite justice as holding the balance, weighing its contents, and determining the value. And let every sinner under heaven fancy himself thus subjected to the examination of the Most High God, and his state to be determined by his just and unalterable judgment; while the fate of his never-dying soul is to be fixed for ever by the issue. It is in vain to attempt either to supersede or elude this scrutiny. For, it is carrying on, every moment, though by an invisible process; death is now hovering round the head of every one of us, and only waits for the divine commission to take out of the scale what God hath weighed in it, and to turn over the sinner to that tribunal, which retributive justice shall one day erect.

In detecting the fallacious hopes and specious principles by which mankind are deceived and destroyed, it is necessary that we weigh in the balance of the sanctuary, all human righteousness, all the possessions of earth, and all the pleasures of sense. These are the three principal sources, from whence men, in general, are labouring to derive happiness. And if I can only convince them that every one of these springs is dry, and that happiness floweth in a pure and perennial stream from a different fountain; much may be done towards bringing them to the enjoyment of what they have hitherto pursued, with fruitless search, in objects calculated rather to ensure misery, than procure happiness.

1. When it is proposed to put to the test all human righteousness, I mean by that term, every kind and degree of moral obedience, which a sinner in his natural state can perform, and upon which he builds his hopes of heaven. As the scriptures positively declare, that “there is none righteous, no, not one;” it is plain, at first view, that the terms human righteousness are intended to describe only what is so called, not what really exists. For, since that degree of moral rectitude, which implies perfection of obedience to the law of God, is no longer the claim of fallen sinners; the word righteousness is used, as the language of the self-justiciary, not as the concession of truth. So that, when I adopt these terms, I do it, in order to prove, that the language of many, on theological subjects, is as improper as their pretensions are ill-founded.

Now, that you may be convinced that all human righteousness, as a ground of acceptance before God, is absolutely ideal, and forms no part whatever of that moving cause, which prompted Jehovah to confer upon us the blessings of his kingdom, please to recollect that it is written, “Not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to his mercy he saved us.” Tit. iii. 5. Mercy presupposes guilt and wretchedness. And to say that sinners, who possess no previous works of righteousness, but require to be dealt with as objects of divine compassion, are notwithstanding righteous, and must be saved by the merit of their works, is one of the grossest solecisms in divinity, that the church of Rome itself could ever have established in her erroneous creed. Besides, when revelation points us to the Mediator of the new covenant, as to one who sustains the office of a Saviour, how can any man, that pays the least deference to divine authority, suppose, without violating the dictates of even common sense, that he can save himself, and at the same time give the glory of salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ? Upon the plan of the erroneous hypothesis I am combating, the truth of man’s depravity must be denied, and the glorious redemption of the Son of God altogether vacated. So that, before a sinner can arrogantly plead his own righteousness, as the meritorious cause of his salvation, he must first reason himself out of common sense, and, in the face of allowed truths and indisputable facts, endeavour to demonstrate that he is not a sinner, nor Christ a Saviour.But, let us examine the bold pretensions of human righteousness by the moral law. This is the standard of equity and the touchstone of truth. Before it gives the denomination of righteous to any act, or of righteousness to any agent, the law requires perfect, pure, universal, and uninterrupted obedience. A single failure even in thought, makes a man virtually a transgressor of the whole law, and brings him instantly under its curse. For, “if a man keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James, ii. 10. The law requires too, that not merely some, but all its precepts should be observed not only in the letter, but also in the spirit of them; and not only for a certain space of the life of man, but also from the commencement to the close, with every moment inclusive. For, it is written again, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.” Gal. iii. 10. The Apostle Paul contemplating the sanctions of the moral law, and its requirement of universal and incessant conformity, when compared with the corruption of human nature, and the utmost efforts of all human works, draws this inference from the humiliating comparison, “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; for, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Gal. ii. 16, 21.

Let every person, now, who fondly supposes his soul is safe, because he is outwardly moral, or that his works will merit heaven, put all the very best performances he can glean up in the balance of truth. Put your works of charity, of benevolence, of devotion, your sincerity, your prayers, and your alms, in one scale. In order to render it as heavy as possible, you are welcome to throw in every thought, word, and action, by which you suppose you have honored God, benefited your neighbour, or profited yourself. Now, only lay in the opposite scale, the two tables of God’s righteous law, inscribed with its holy sanctions, rigorous precepts, and extensive requirements. While we are watching the turn of the beam, give me leave to ask, Have you kept the whole law? Did you ever violate it in a single point? Has there been any interruption in your obedience? Has your heart been always pure from every sinful thought, and your life from every immoral act? The law requires this, without admitting the smallest abatement in its demands. Now view the balance. See how it preponderates on the side of the law. Your scale, containing all your works, flies up, and kicks the beam. Your righteousness, compared with that of the law, is only as a bubble to the globe. God writes Tekel, where you have written Merit. Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting. You may perhaps urge, “All these things have I kept from my youth up.” So the young formalist in the gospel thought, to whom Christ said, “One thing thou lackest.” But as you cannot produce perfection of obedience, all your charity, formality, morality, will avail nothing. You want a justifying righteousness, but you have it not in yourself, nor can you get it from the law. As a “ministration of death,” 2 Cor. iii. 7, it condemns you and denounceth a curse; while justice, like the angel armed with a flaming sword, stands ready to inflict the merited blow, should you pertinaciously dare to touch the tree of life with the hand of merit.

But, should you ask, what is to be done, while the balance is suspended in the hand of impartial justice? I answer, Cry for mercy, as an offender, and look to Jesus as a complete Saviour. But take care of blending his merit with your own, or of making a convenience of his righteousness to supply the defects of yours. This would be to aggrandize yourself at the expense of his honor. You must not presume to put Christ’s excellency in the balance with your works, in order to give them the required weight. No. You must, with a self-renouncing hand, first take out all your own works, leaving not one behind in the scale, and then with the hand of faith put in Christ’s work. This will weigh heavy. His atoning blood and perfect obedience will counterbalance the requisitions of law and justice; will give your conscience peace; save you from hell; and introduce you without spot into the presence of the Holy One of Israel. Thus the apostle of the Gentiles was enabled to act, after he saw the ruin of his nature, and the spirituality of the moral law. His own words are a perfect comment on the truth I have just now endeavoured to establish. “Yea doubtless,” says he, “and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung (s??a?a offal) that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” Phil. iii. 8, 9.

2. Let us examine the weight of earthly possessions, comprehending under that head the greatest accumulation of wealth, and the most unlimited extent of empire, accompanied with the most distinguished titles of dignity and honor. Now, the very height of these saith, “Happiness is not in me.” Having a tendency to deprave the appetite, and sensualize the affections, the things of earth, in ten thousand instances, have so much of the alloy of misery mixed with them, that it is with great reason God in his word saith, “This is not thy rest, for it is polluted.” Terrestrial good is of too gross a nature to satisfy the vast desires of an immortal spirit; and every portion of it is held by a most precarious tenure. Vexation in the pursuit, and disappointment in the fruition, attend those, who seek for a heaven in earth. All the acquisitions of the world cannot fill the vacuity in a mind, destitute of the “true riches.” Put, therefore, the whole globe in one scale, with all the pomp and opulence of which it boasts; and only lay in the other, the interests of a never-dying soul, and the vast concerns of an awful eternity; then say, what is the world, but a dream; and its enjoyments, but vanity?

Ye that dote on earth, and are building tabernacles in this wilderness, consider ye not, that the place of your residence will ere long know you no more for ever; and that this terrestrial ball, were you possessors of all the riches that are buried in it, could not make you truly rich or happy, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ. You have had experience of its insufficiency in these respects; and yet continue the fruitless chase in the very same track, where disappointment and vexation have often strewed briers and thorns before. Your mind is still upon the wing; your hopes, still big with expectation. The world has teased you with solicitations, flattered you with promises, and deceived you in the moment of anticipation. Yet you trust the flatterer, and live still upon her smiles. Though you have smarted under her rod, yet you continue still a drudge to her maxims; sometimes determined to throw off her yoke, and yet anon enamored with her service, in hope of better days. She has given you riches, perhaps, or worldly prosperity, but has denied you peace. All this time, death is hastening on apace. Sickness visits as his forerunner. “Grey hairs are here and there upon you, and you know it not.” You and the world are weighed together in the balance, and are found wanting. The world cannot make you happy; and you want discernment to see it. You want, perhaps, neither assiduity nor wisdom in the management of temporal things; but in those which are spiritual and invisible, all your ingenuity deserts you. You are deficient in great matters; in little and unimportant ones, you are sedulous, to excess. You want to know, what you are least of all anxious to learn; and that is, that to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified, is the very centre of happiness and the summit of wisdom. Without this knowledge, all human science is imperfect; and all earthly opulence abject penury. You have few wants, or none, perhaps, for your body; but, while opulence pours her favors around you with a luxurious hand, you may be an utter stranger to the more substantial blessings of the grace of God. O sirs, consider this seriously before it be too late. Though your lives should glide along with ever so smooth and placid a stream, yet remember, the boundless ocean of eternity is just before you; and you may find that, a more turbid sea than you expect. And I am certain you will, if the love of the world be not previously expelled your hearts, to make room for the love of Jesus. After you have passed the limits of time and the confines of death, it will be too late to say, the world is a cheat, I thought so once, but now I know it. Experience then will be hell.

3. But may not the votary of pleasure put in his claim to happiness, without having his principles examined, or his dissipation interrupted by rigid inquiries? No. “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” It is an act of charity to arrest levity in a career that deprives of all seriousness, and unfits for another world; and though a solemn admonition may be unwelcome at first, it may be admitted as a salutary visitant in the end.

I will suppose you then possessed of every advantage, which youth, health, and fortune, can give; while, perhaps, your education and natural temper render you an object of envy to all around you. Your time flies imperceptibly along in the gay world; and diversified scenes of amusement, in concurrence with constitutional vivacity, give you the appearance of felicity in the very abstract. Happiness is the object of your pursuit, and pleasure the way, which you think must lead to it. But are you what you seem? Or have you attained what you have been seeking? Is there not an emptiness in your enjoyments, which you are made sometimes deeply to feel? Nay, do they not often leave a sting in the heart, which the constant succession of them, so far from extracting, only makes more impoisoned? Is there no solemn moment, wherein conscience doth loudly cry, “You are not happy?” And can all your dissipation keep you from low spirits, when death stares you in the face, and secret misgivings make you dread his approach? You want something still, and that cruel something unpossessed, mars all your gaiety. You want Christ. You lack the knowledge and love of that divine personage; and in wanting him, you want every thing—wisdom, righteousness, holiness, heaven. You must be born from above by the spirit of God. Your heart must be renewed, and the corruptions of pride and discontent, of formality and self-righteousness, which are lodged in it, must be conquered by the grace of God. And, until that great change takes place, you must and would be miserable upon a throne, and discontented even in an Eden.

And now, men and brethren, suffer the word of exhortation.—Yet a little while, and this present scene of things shall come to an awful close; when rolling years shall cease to move, and the great Angel shall lift his hand to heaven, and swear by him that liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no more. Then the veil that hath parted the visible and invisible world shall be thrown back; and all the mysteries of eternity shall burst upon our astonished view. Methinks I see the Judge enthroned, the judgment set, and the books opened. Imagination anticipates the circumstances of that decisive period, while faith almost realizes the appearance of Messiah. The trumpet sounds, and he is coming. Go ye forth to meet him. Are you ready? Are your lamps burning? See eternal justice once more lifts her balance, and weighs in her impartial scale, the world and its inhabitants. Methinks I hear the Judge pronounce the awful words, “Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting;” and reiterate them, as often as souls, unwashed in the blood of the Lamb, and unrenewed by his spirit, pass from his tribunal. O sirs, take care how you slight the way of salvation, lest your ears should be forced to hear that tremendous sentence. Mercy’s door is now open. Enter by it, and live for ever. Neglect it, and you will find the judgment-day will shut it to eternity. Beware how you trifle with the gospel, that directs you to Jesus. It is God’s message of mercy and peace to a lost world. It requires credit and demands obedience. It is our message, because the Head of the church hath committed to our trust this word of reconciliation. I have this day endeavoured to be faithful in the delivery of it. See that you contemn it not. If you do, remember, you must answer for it at the judgment-seat of Christ. O fly, fly to the throne of his grace, before you are summoned to his bar! To-day, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts. To-morrow you may be in eternity!