that when forming a scheme for the future, he totally overlooked the most indispensable of all the elements in its realization and success; and reckoned upon that with the least hesitation and fear of disappointment, about which he ought to have felt the greatest misgiving and distrust.

The essence of folly, indeed, considered as the practical moral quality opposed to true wisdom, implies much more than this; of which too the rich man in the parable might be equally guilty: an ignorance of the nature of ends in general, as the objects of pursuit or aversion-what ought to be desired, and what ought to be avoided, as good or evil in itself, as better or worse in comparison of other things—and an ignorance of means, as instrumental to the attainment of the objects of pursuit-what should be done, or what should not be done, to make even the best and most desirable object our own. The end which the rich man proposed to himself by living longer, in the continued enjoyment of health and wealth, was such as shewed him not to be exempt from this practical folly, so opposed to true wisdom-in its most general sense; for it proved him to be ignorant of the true use and purpose for which the gift both of life and of wealth was bestowed, and to which it ought to be directed. But the specific instance of folly of which he was guilty, and with which we must suppose him charged in being designated by the Deity as a fool, is that which appears on the face of his recent deliberation, from the mode in which it was conducted; the folly of reckoning on the future with the same confidence as on the present. Even the general folly of the end which he proposed to himself by living longer, bad

as it was, might have been somewhat palliated, had his resolution to eat and to drink, and to make merry for the time to come, been formed subject to the express reserve of his continuing to live all the while. But in a question of practice which concerns the future; and especially such a question as relates to the mode of life proposed to be observed for the future-to overlook so essential a contingency as the possible insecurity of life itself; is an absurdity in deliberation, and in planning of schemes to be realized hereafter, of which downright infatuation only can be guilty.

Thus much, however, we may infer even from the folly of the deliberation itself; that if the person who is deliberating, entirely overlooks so important a requisite to the success of his future plans, there could have been nothing in his situation at the time, to bring it home to his recollection in spite of himself; to remind him of the uncertainty of life; and to raise a suspicion that possibly even his own end might be nearer than he thought or expected. We

b"Let us eat and drink," according to St. Paul, may be the profession of libertinism, and of those who have no hope except in this life; but with the qualification, "for to morrow we "die."

Ecclesiasticus v. 1: "Set not thy heart upon thy goods; and I say not, I have enough for my life."

-xi. 19: "Whereas he saith, I have found rest, and now "will eat continually of my goods; and yet he knoweth not "what time shall come upon him, and that he must leave those I things to others, and die." Cf. xxxi. 1-10.

Jeremiah xvii. 11: "As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not: so he that getteth riches, and not by right, "shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall "be a fool."

may presume then, that he was in the present enjoyment of perfect health and strength; and if, looking at the state of his circumstances abroad, he saw nothing but the comfortable prospect of ease and abundance and pleasure, for years to come; so if he turned his eyes upon himself, he could discover nothing in his own situation to alarm him for the continuance of life; no sensations of bodily pain; no traces of infirmity; no symptoms of disease or decay, to menace the stability of health and vigour, much less the forerunners of approaching death. The termination of his existence, under such circumstances, would be as extraordinary in itself, as unexpected by him; and like every other case of sudden death, properly so called, could be resolved solely into the interposition or visitation of God.

It appears moreover, that as the soul of the man was to be exacted from him, the moment his deliberations were over, and that too that very night; the time of his deliberations must have been the night. There is an historical beauty in this circumstance, if we look no further than the matter of fact itself; the night being proverbially the season of meditation and reflection, when subjects which particularly interest and occupy the mind, are most likely to occur to the thoughts, and may be most carefully pondered and considered, and most effectually decided and determined. But it serves c Suidas, Ἐν νυκτὶ ἡ βουλή· διὰ τὸ τὴν νύκτα κατὰ σχολὴν διδόναι λογισμοὺς, τοῖς περὶ τῶν ἀναγκαίων βουλευομένοις.

Euripides, in his Hippolytus, supposes Phædra to say,

ἤδη ποτ', ἄλλως νυκτὸς ἐν μακρῷ χρόνῳ

θνητῶν ἐφρόντισ ̓ ᾗ διέφθαρται βίος.

375.

as if a train of moral reflections, like that which follows, could never have occurred to her so fitly, as by night.

other purposes, and more important than this. There is a moral fitness in it, as tending to illustrate the character of the deliberator himself, and to place in their true light the motives which actuated his deliberations. The disposal of his worldly goods, we may presume, must have been the engrossing subject of his waking thoughts, if it forms the sole business of his meditations by night: and such a mode of applying and enjoying them, as that which he resolves upon at last, must always have appeared the best in his estimation at any other time, if it is that which presents itself to his mind, and that which recommends itself to his choice, as preferable to all others, at such a season as this. This preliminary deliberation, too, in the first part of the night, evinces the grounds of that penal, retributive dispensation by which it is followed in the next; regard being had to the rules and process of the divine justice, in the estimation of guilt and the punishment of offenders, as contradistinguished to those of human. The faculty of human discernment is limited to the external conduct. It judges of principles by their effects, and not of effects by their principles. The justice of man, therefore, can take cognizance only of actions, and must wait for the overt act of guilt, before it can punish the criminal himself. But the discernment of God penetrating even to the thoughts, and discovering the overt act in the secret motive and first impulse to it, the design in his estimation is equivalent to the execution; and the same guilt

Epicharmus too, apud Phornutum Teрì μovσŵv, has the general

maxim:

εἴ τέ τι ζητεῖς σοφόν, τῆς νυκτὸς ἐνθυμητέον·
πάντα τὰ σπουδαῖα νυκτὶ μᾶλλον ἐξευρίσκεται.

is considered to be contracted, and the same punishment to be justly deserved, by the wilful conception, as by the wilful commission of a crime. Scarcely, then, had the rich man formed the resolution in question, and perhaps made an end of his meditations at that time, by composing himself to sleep; that is, scarcely was the crimen delicti, such as it would appear to divine justice, complete; when his soul is exacted from him, and he incurs the full penalty of his proposed abuse of the goodness and blessings of God, before he had yet taken a single step, to carry it actually into effect.

Lastly, that the dispensation in question is strictly penal and retributive, consisting in resuming, depriving, or taking away the very thing in whose abuse, or intended abuse-the crime which required to be punished, resided; and that as the means of preventing, as well as of punishing the crime itself-has both been already shewn, and may be further collected from the following reasons. When the soul of the rich man is spoken of as ready to be exacted, this ironical question also is supposed to be asked; in which there is an obvious reference to the occasion, design, and effect of his meditations just before; "The things which thou hast prepared, for what "shall they be?" With respect to the meaning of which question, it is indifferent whether the things which he had prepared, are understood of what he had already prepared, or what he expected shortly to prepare; provided that in either case the final end of the preparation was his own exclusive benefit and enjoyment in the application thereof. It is implied therefore, that as he had just before presumptuously calculated on riches and plenty for