2 lines
1.6 KiB
HTML
2 lines
1.6 KiB
HTML
|
<p>Observe, 1. Religion lengthens men’s lives and crowns their hopes. <i>What man is he that loves life</i>? Let him <i>fear God</i>, and that will secure him from many things that would prejudice his life, and secure to him life enough in this world and eternal life in the other; <i>the fear of the Lord</i> will add days more than was expected, will add them endlessly, will prolong them to the days of eternity. <i>What man is he that would see good days</i>? Let him be religious, and then his days shall not only be many, but happy, very happy as well as very many, for <i>the hope of the righteous shall be gladness</i>; they shall have what they hope for, to their unspeakable satisfaction. It is something future and unseen that they place their happiness in (<a class="bibleref" title="Rom.8.24,Rom.8.25" href="/passage/?search=Rom.8.24,Rom.8.25"><span class="bibleref" title="Rom.8.24">Rom. 8:24</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Rom.8.25">25</span></a>), not what they have in hand, but what they have in hope, and their hope will shortly be swallowed up in fruition, and it will be their everlasting <i>gladness. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord</i>. 2. Wickedness shortens men’s lives, and frustrates their hopes: <i>The years of the wicked</i>, that are spent in the pleasures of sin and the drudgery of the world, <i>shall be shortened</i>. Cut down the trees that cumber the ground. And whatever comfort or happiness a wicked man promises himself, in this world or the other, he will be frustrated; for <i>the expectation of the wicked shall perish</i>; his hope shall be turned into endless despair.</p>
|