+I. Prosperity ought to lead to praise.+ We should have expected that when a man was able to spread a feast, and God had caused his "cup to run over" with bounties, his heart would have overflowed with gratitude to the Giver of all good. II. As a matter of fact, +prosperity is hostile to the spiritual life.+ Experience teaches that in proportion as men prosper, they seek luxury, invent pleasures, and give up allegiance to God;[1] and as soon as men yield to the passions of the flesh, and pursue the fashions of the world, all adequate sense or knowledge of the operations of a Supreme Being is gone; all serious views of life are set aside; and the end of such a career is banished from view.[2] +III. To permit the pleasures of life to absorb our attention is degrading to the nature entrusted to us by God. IV. It is destructive of the happiness which thus is mistakenly sought.+ In the hearts of the guests at a feast there is often anything but festivity. Many vacant minds and languid hearts are there; some who are in reality fleeing from themselves, and drowning rising reflections in fresh engagements of pleasure.[3] Could you see those hearts as God sees them, if you are a Christian, you would be thankful that you are excluded from the festivity. APPLICATION.--1. _To the rich and prosperous._ Be on your guard. In your prosperity there is a deadly peril. Remember that while innocent enjoyment is lawful, there are other duties of more importance--duties of mind and soul, of influence and responsibility; duties toward the men of our generation, and towards God to whom we are accountable. 2. _To the poor._ Murmur not that prosperity has been denied you. Wealth might have been your eternal ruin. Envy not the momentary flash of worldly pomp: soon the deluded soul must be summoned into the solitude of the chamber of death; nothing to console the vacant mind; nothing to cheer the throbbing heart; the rolling eye looks in vain for rest, but the life of vanity closes, and conscience pierces the departing soul with this declaration, "Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting."--_B. Thompson, Church Sermons by Eminent Clergymen,_ i. 395-400. FOOTNOTES: