[1] Nothing shall more effectually betray the heart into a love of sin and a loathing of holiness, than an ill-managed prosperity. It is like some meats, the more luscious, so much the more dangerous. Prosperity and ease upon an unsanctified, impure heart, is like the sunbeams upon a dunghill; it raises many filthy, noisome exhalations. The same soldiers who, in hard service, are in perfect subjection to their leaders, in peace and luxury are apt to rebel; (and the passions, which in adversity are easily controlled, in prosperity are apt to break loose). That corrupt affection which has lain, as it were, dead and frozen in the midst of distracting business, or under adversity, when the sun of prosperity has shined upon it, then, like a snake, it presently recovers its former strength and venom. Vice must be caressed and smiled upon that it may thrive and sting. It is starved by poverty, it droops under the frowns of fortune, and pines away upon bread and water; but when the channels of plenty run high, and every appetite is plied with abundance and variety, so that _satisfaction_ is but a mean word to express its enjoyment, then the inbred corruption of the heart shows itself pampered and insolent, too unruly for discipline, and too big for correction.--_South,_ 1633-1716. [2] It is a hard thing for princes to remember death. They have no leisure to think of it, but chip into the earth before they beware, like a man who walks over a field covered with snow, and sees not his way, but when he thinks to run on, suddenly falls into a pit: even so they who have all things at will, and swim in pleasure, which as a snow covers their way and dazzles their sight, while they think to live on, and rejoice still, suddenly rush upon death, and make shipwreck in a calm sea.--_Henry Smith,_ 1593. [3] Colonel Gardiner relates that when he was considered by his gay military companions to be one of the most handsome and highly favoured officers of his day, he has seen a dog enter the mess-room, prowling for food, and looked at the creature with envy, inwardly groaning and exclaiming, "Oh, that I were that dog!" Since his time thousands have felt the same iron enter their souls, although looked upon by their comrades as men enjoying life in rich abundance.--_Holderness._ THE EVILS OF IGNORANCE. (_Sunday School or Bible Society Sermon._) v. 13-15. _Therefore my people are gone away into captivity, because they have no knowledge, &c._