DISCOURSE VI.

On the Dissipation of large Cities.

"Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience."-Ephesians v. 6.

Here, then, is a point, in which the general morality of the world is at utter and irreconcilable variance with the law of God. Here is a case, in which the voice that cometh forth from the tribunal of public opinion pronounces one thing, and the voice that cometh forth from the sanctuary of God pronounces another. When there is an agreement between these two voices, the principle on which obedience is rendered to their joint and concurring authority, may be altogether equivocal; and, with religious and irreligious men, you may ob

THERE is one obvious respect in which the standard of morality amongst men, differs from that pure and universal standard which God hath set up for the obedience of his subjects. Men will not demand very urgently of each other, that, which does not very nearly, or very immediately, affect their own personal and particular interest. To the violations of justice, or truth, or humanity, they will be abundantly sensitive, because these offer a most visible and quickly felt encroachment on this interest. And thus it is, that the social virtues, even without any direct sanction serve an equal exhibition of all the equifrom God at all, will ever draw a certain ties, and all the civilities of life. But when portion of respect and reverence around there is a discrepancy between these two them; and that a loud testimony of abhor-voices-or when the one attaches a crimirence may often be heard from the mouths nality to certain habits of conduct, and is of ungodly men, against all such vices as not at all seconded by the testimony of may be classed under the general designa- the other-then do we escape the confution of vices of dishonesty. sion of mingled motives, and mingled authorities. The character of the two parties emerges out of the ambiguity which involved it. The law of God points, it must be allowed, as forcible an anathema against the man of dishonesty, as against the man of dissipation. But the chief burden of the world's anathema is laid on the head of the former; and therefore it is, that, on the latter ground, we meet with more discriminative tests of principle, and gather more satisfying materials for the question of— who is on the side of the Lord of hosts, and who is against him?

Now, the same thing does not hold true of another class of vices, which may be termed the vices of dissipation. These do not touch, in so visible or direct a manner, on the security of what man possesses, and of what man has the greatest value for. But man is a selfish being, and therefore it is, that the ingredient of selfishness gives a keenness to his estimation of the evil and of the enormity of the former vices, which is scarcely felt at all in any estimation he may form of the latter vices. It is very true, at the same time, that if one were to compute the whole amount of the mischief The passage we have now submitted to they bring upon society, it would be found you, looks hard on the votaries of dissithat the profligacies of mere dissipation go pation. It is like eternal truth, lifting up very far to break up the peace, and enjoy- its own proclamation, and causing it to be ment, and even the relative virtues of the heard amid the errors and the delusions world: and that, if these profligacies were of a thoughtless world. It is like the Deity reformed, it would work a mighty aug- himself, looking forth, as he did, from a mentation on the temporal good both of cloud, on the Egyptians of old, and trouindividuals and families. But the con-bling the souls of those who are lovers of nexion between sobriety of character, and pleasure, more than lovers of God. It is the happiness of the community, is not so like the voice of heaven, crying down the apparent, because it is more remote than voice of human society, and sending forth the connexion which obtains between in- a note of alarm amongst its giddy genera tegrity of character, and the happiness of tions. It is like the unrolling of a portion the community; and man being not only of that book of higher jurisprudence, out a selfish, but a shortsighted being, it fol- of which we shall be judged on the day of lows, that while the voice of execration may our coming account, and setting before our be distinctly heard against every instance of eyes an enactment, which, if we disregard it, fraud or of injustice, instances of licentious- will turn that day into the day of our comness may occur on every side of us, and being condemnation. The words of man are reported on the one hand with the utmost adverted to in this solemn proclamation of levity, and be listened to, on the other, with God, against all unlawful and all unhalthe most entire and complacent toleration. lowed enjoyments, and they are called

words of vanity. He sets aside the au- | his keeping all the rest. It may be the only thority of human opinion altogether; and, point on which the character of his loyalty on an irrevocable record, has he stamped is really brought to the trial. All his consuch an assertion of the authority that be-formities to the law of God might have been Jongeth to himself only, as serves to the rendered, because they thwarted not his end of time for an enduring memorial of own inclination; and, therefore, would have his will; and as commits the truth of the been rendered though there had been no Lawgiver to the execution of a sentence law at all. The single infraction may have of wrath against all whose souls are taken place in the only case where there hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. There was a real competition between the will of is, in fact, a peculiar deceitfulness in the the creature, and the will of the Creator; matter before us; and, in this verse, are and the event proves to which of the two we warned against it-"Let no man de- the right of superiority is awarded. Alleceive you with vain words; for, because giance to God in truth is but one principle, of these things, the wrath of God cometh and may be described by one short and on the children of disobedience." summary expression: and one act of disobedience may involve in it such a total surrender of the principle, as goes to dethrone God altogether from the supremacy which belongs to him. So that the account between a creature and the Creator is not like an account made up of many items, where the expunging of one item would only make one small and fractional deduction from the whole sum of obedience. If you reserve but a single item from this account, and another makes a principle of completing and rendering up the whole of it, then your character varies from his not by a slight shade of difference, but stands contrasted with it in direct and diametric opposition. We perceive, that, while with him the will of God has the mastery over all his inclinations, with you there is, at least, one inclination which has the mastery over God; that while in his bosom there exists a single and subordinating principle of allegiance to the law, in yours there exists another principle, which, on the coming round of a fit opportunity, developes itself in an act of transgression; that, while with him God may be said to walk and to dwell in him, with you there is an evil visitant, who has taken up his abode in your heart, and lodges there either in a state of dormancy or of action, according to circumstances; that, while with him the purpose is honestly proceeded on, of doing nothing which God disapproves, with you there is a purpose not only different, but opposite, of doing something which he disapproves. On this single difference is suspended not a question of degree, but a question of kind. There are presented to us not two hues of the same colour, but two colours, just as broadly contrasted with each other as light and darkness. And such is the state of the al

In the preceding verse, there is such an enumeration as serves to explain what the things are which are alluded to in the text; and it is such an enumeration, you should remark, as goes to fasten the whole terror, and the whole threat, of the coming vengeance-not on the man who combines in his own person all the characters of iniquity which are specified, but on the man who realizes any one of these characters. It is not, you will observe, the conjunction and, but the conjunction or, which is interposed between them. It is not as if we said, that the man who is dishonest, and licentious, and covetous, and unfeeling, shall not inherit the kingdom of God-but the man who is either dishonest, or licentious, or covetous, or unfeeling. On the single and exclusive possession of any one of these attributes, will God deal with you as with an enemy. The plea, that we are a little thoughtless, but we have a good heart, is conclusively cut asunder by this portion of the law and of the testimony. And in a corresponding passage, in the ninth verse of the sixth chapter of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, the same peculiarity is observed in the enumeration of those who shall be excluded from God's favour, and have the burden of God's wrath laid on them through eternity. It is not the man who combines all the deformities of character which are there specified, but the man who realizes any one of the separate deformities. Some of them are the vices of dishonesty, others of them are the vices of dissipation; and, as if aware of a deceitfulness from this cause, he, after telling us that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, bids us not be deceived-for that neither the licentious, nor the abominable, nor thieves, nor covet-ternative between a partial and an unreous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor ex- served obedience, that while God imperatortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of tively claims the one as his due, he looks God. on the other as an expression of defiance against him, and against his sovereignty.

It is the very same in civil government. A man renders himself an outcast by one act of disobedience. He does not need to accumulate upon himself the guilt of all the

He who keepeth the whole law, but offendeth in one point, says the Apostle James, is guilty of all. The truth is, that his disobedience on this one point may be more decisive of the state of his loyalty to God, than

life to the injured laws of his country. By the perpetration of any of them is the whole vengeance of the state brought to bear upon his person, and sentence of death is pronounced on a single murder, or forgery, or act of violent depredation.

And let us ask you just to reflect on the tone and spirit of that man towards his God, who would palliate, for example, the vices of dissipation to which he is addicted, by alleging his utter exemption from the vices of dishonesty, to which he is not addicted. Just think of the real disposition and character of his soul, who can say, "I will please God, but only when, in so doing, I also please myself; or I will do homage to his law, but just in those instances by which I honour the rights, and fulfil the expectations, of society; or I will be decided by his opinion of the right and the wrong, but just when the opinion of my neighbourhood lends its powerful and effective confirmation. But in other cases, when the matter is reduced to a bare question between man and God, when he is the single party I have to do with, when his will and his wrath are the only elements which enter into the deliberation, when judgment, and eternity, and the voice of him who speaketh from heaven are the only considerations at issuethen do I feel myself at greater liberty, and I shall take my own way, and walk in the counsel of mine own heart, and after the sight of my own eyes." O! be assured, that when all this is laid bare on the day of reckoning, and the discerner of the heart pronounces upon it, and such a sentence is to be given, as will make it manifest to the consciences of all assembled, that true and righteous are the judgments of God-there is many a creditable man who has passed through the world with the plaudits and

higher atrocities in crime, ere he forfeits his ration, but would destroy it altogether. The man who has entered on a course of Christian discipleship, carries on an unsparing and universal war with all iniquity. He has chosen Christ for his alone master, and he struggles against the ascendency of every other. It is his sustained and habitual exertion in following after him to forsake all; so that if his performances were as complete as his endeavour, you would not merely see a conformity to some of the precepts, but a conformity to the whole law of God. At all events, the endeavour is an honest one, and so far successful, that sin has not the dominion; and sure we are, that, in such a state of things, the vices of dissipation can have no existence. These vices can be more effectually shunned, and more effectually surmounted, for example, than the infirmities of an unhappy temper. So that, if dissipation still attaches to the character, and appears in the conduct of any individual, we know not a more decisive evidence of the state of that individual as being one of the many who crowd the broad way that leadeth to destruction. We look no further to make out our estimate of his present condition as being that of a rebel, and of his future prospect as being that of spending an eternity in hell. There is no halting between two opinions in this matter. The man who enters a career of dissipation throws down the gauntlet of defiance to his God. The man who persists in this career keeps on the ground of hostility against him.

Let us now endeavour to trace the origin, the progress, and the effects of a life of dissipation.

First, then, it may be said of a very great number of young men, on their entrance into the business of the world, that they have not been enough fortified against its se

And this argument is not at all affected by the actual state of sinfulness and infirmity into which we have fallen. It is true, even of saints on earth, that they commit sin. But to be overtaken in a fault is one thing; to commit that fault with the deliberate consent of the mind is another. There is in the bosom of every true Christian a strenuous principle of resistance to sin, and it belongs to the very essence of the principle that it is resistance to all sin. It admits of no voluntary indulgence to one sin more than to another. Such an indulgence would not only change the character of what may be called the elementary principle of regene

the testimonies of all his fellows, and with-ducing influences by their previous educaout one other flaw upon his reputation but tion at home. Generally speaking, they the very slender one of certain harmless come out from the habitation of their pafoibles, and certain good-humoured pecu- rents unarmed and unprepared for the conliarities, who when brought to the bar of test which awaits them. If the spirit of account, will stand convicted there of having this world's morality reign in their own famade a divinity of his own will, and spent mily, then it cannot be, that their introduchis days in practical and habitual atheism. tion into a more public scene of life will be very strictly guarded against those vices on which the world placidly smiles, or at least regards with silent toleration. They may have been told, in early boyhood, of the infamy of a lie. They may have had the vir tues of punctuality, and of economy, and of regular attention to business, pressed upon their observation. They may have heard a uniform testimony on the side of good be haviour, up to the standard of such current moralities as obtain in their neighbourhood; and this, we are ready to admit, may include in it a testimony against all such excesses of dissipation as would unfit them for the prosecution of this world's interests

must bid adieu to his native home, with all the peace, and all the simplicity which abound in it—and as he eyes in fancy the distant town whither he is going, does he shrink as from the thought of an unknown wilderness-and it is his firm purpose to keep aloof from the dangers and the profligacies which deform it—and, should sinners offer to entice him, not to consent, and never, never to forget the lessons of a father's vigilance, the tenderness of a mother's

to the departure of their eldest boy-and he | the spirit of this world's morality, are not sensibly arrested in this career, either by the opposition of their own friends, or by the voice of their own conscience. Those who have imbibed an opposite spirit, and have brought it into competition with an evil world, and have at length yielded, have done so, we may well suppose, with many a sigh, and many a struggle, and many a look of remembrance on those former years when they were taught to lisp the prayer of infancy, and were trained in a mansion of piety to a reverence for God, and for all his ways; and, even still, will a parent's parting advice haunt his memory, and a letter from the good old man revive the sensibilities which at one time guarded and adorned him; and, at times, will the transient gleam of remorse lighten up its agony within him; and when he contrasts the profaneness and depravity of his present companions, with the sacredness of all he ever heard or saw in his father's dwelling, it will almost feel as if conscience were again to resume her power, and the revisiting spirit of God to

prayers.

Let us now, in the next place, pass from that state of things which obtains among the young at their outset into the world, and take a look of that state of things which obtains after they have got fairly introduced into it-when the children of the ungodly, and the children of the religious, meet on one common arena-when business associates them together in one chamber, and the omnipotence of custom lays it upon them all to meet together at periodic intervals, and join in the same parties, and the same entertainments-when the yearly im-call him back again from the paths of wickportation of youths from the country falls edness; and on his restless bed will the in with that assimilating mass of corrup-images of guilt conspire to disturb him, and tion which has got so firm and so rooted the terrors of punishment offer to scare him an establishment in the town-when the away; and many will be the dreary and frail and unsheltered delicacies of the timid dissatisfied intervals when he shall be forced boy have to stand a rude and a boisterous to acknowledge that in bartering his soul contest with the hardier depravity of those for the pleasures of sin, he has bartered the who have gone before him-when ridicule, peace and enjoyment of the world along and example, and the vain words of a de- with it. But, alas! the entanglements of lusive sophistry, which palliates in his hear- companionship have got hold of him; and ing the enormity of vice, are all brought to the inveteracy of habit tyrannizes over all bear upon his scruples, and to stifle the re- his purposes; and the stated opportunity morse he might feel when he casts his prin- again comes round; and the loud laugh of ciple and his purity away from him--when, his partners in guilt chases, for another seaplaced as he is in a land of strangers, he son, all his despondency away from him; finds, that the tenure of acquaintanceship, and the infatuation gathers upon him every with nearly all around him, is, that he ren- month; and a hardening process goes on der himself up in a conformity to their within his heart; and the deceitfulness of doings-when a voice, like the voice of sin grows apace; and he at length becomes protecting friendship, bids him to the feast; one of the sturdiest and most unrelenting and a welcome, like the welcome of honest of her votaries; and he, in his turn, strengthkindness, hails his accession to the society; ens the conspiracy that is formed against and a spirit, like the spirit of exhilarating the morals of a new generation; and all the joy, animates the whole scene of hospitality ingenuous delicacies of other days are obbefore him; and hours of rapture roll suc- literated; and he contracts a temperament cessively away on the wings of merriment, of knowing, hackneyed, unfeeling deprajocularity, and song; and after the homage vity; and thus the mischief is transmitof many libations has been rendered to ted from one year to another, and keeps up honour, and fellowship, and patriotism, im- the guilty history of every place of crowdpurity is at length proclaimed in full and ed population. open cry, as one presiding divinity, at the board of their social entertainment.

And let us here speak one word to those seniors in depravity-those men who give to the corruption of acquaintances, who are younger than themselves, their countenance, their agency; and who can initiate them without a sigh in the mysteries of guilt, and care not though a parent's hope should wither and expire under the conta gion of their ruffian example. It is only upon their own conversion that we can

And now it remains to compute the general result of a process, which we assert of the vast majority of our young, on their way to manhood, that they have to undergo. The result is, that the vast majority are initiated into all the practices, and describe the full career of dissipation. Those who have imbibed from their fathers