First, Trust not in them for help. Thou art miserably mistaken, if thou lookest for this in gold or silver. These are no more able to set thee _above the world_, than to set thee above the devil. Know that both the world and the prince of this world laugh at all such preparations against them. These will little avail in the day of trouble: even if they remain in the trying hour. But it is not certain, that they will: for how oft do they _make themselves wings and fly away_? But if not, what support will they afford, even in the ordinary troubles of life? The desire of thy eyes, the wife of thy youth, thy son, thine only son, or the friend which was as thy own soul, is taken away at a stroke. Will thy riches re-animate the breathless clay, or call back its late inhabitant?――Will they secure thee from sickness, diseases, pain? Do these visit the poor only? Nay; he that feeds thy flocks or tills thy ground, has less sickness and pain than thou. He is more rarely visited by these unwelcome guests: and if they come there at all, they are more easily driven away from the little cot, than from the cloud-topt palaces. And during the time that thy body is chastened with pain, or consumes away with pining sickness, how do thy treasures help thee? Let the poor Heathen answer.
_Ut lippum pictæ tabulæ, fomenta podagrum, Auriculas citharæ collecta forde dolentes._
19. *But there is at hand a greater trouble than all these. _Thou_ art to die. _Thou_ art to sink into dust; to return to the ground from which thou wast taken, to mix with common clay. _Thy_ body is to go to the earth as it was, while thy spirit returns to God that gave it. And the time draws on: the years slide away with a swift tho’ silent pace. Perhaps your day is far spent: the noon of life is past, and the evening shadows begin to rest upon you. You feel in yourself sure-approaching decay. The springs of life wear away apace. Now what help is there in your riches? Do they sweeten death? Do they endear that solemn hour? Quite the reverse. _O death how bitter art thou, to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions?_ How unacceptable to him is that awful sentence, _This night shall thy soul be required of thee_!――Or will they prevent the unwelcome stroke, or protract the dreadful hour? Can they deliver your soul that it should not see death? Can they restore the years that are past? Can they add to your appointed time, a month, a day, an hour, a moment?――Or will the good things you have chosen for your portion here, follow you over the great gulf? Not so: naked came you into this world; naked must you return.
_Linquenda tellus, & domus & placens Uxor: nec harum quas seris arborum Te præter invisam cupressum, Ulla brevem dominum sequetur!_
Surely were not these truths too plain to be _observed_, because they are too plain to be _denied_, no man that is to die could possibly _trust_, for help, _in uncertain riches_!
20. *And trust not in them for happiness. For here also they will be found _deceitful upon the weights_. Indeed this every reasonable man may infer, from what has been observed already. For if neither thousands of gold and silver, nor any of the advantages or pleasures purchased thereby, can prevent our being miserable, it evidently follows, they cannot make us happy. What happiness can they afford to him, who in the midst of all is constrained to cry out,
“To my new courts sad thought does still repair, And round my gilded roofs hangs hovering care.”
Indeed experience is here so full, strong, and undeniable, that it makes all other arguments needless. Appeal we therefore to fact. Are the rich and great, the only happy men? And is each of them more or less happy, in proportion to his measure of riches? Are they happy at all? I had well nigh said, they are of all men most miserable! Rich man, for once, speak the truth from thy heart. Speak, both for thyself, and for thy brethren,
“Amidst our plenty something still―― To me, to thee, to him is wanting! That cruel something unpossest Corrodes and leavens all the rest.”
Yea, and so it will, ’till thy wearisome days of vanity are shut up in the night of death.
Surely then, to trust in riches for happiness, is the greatest folly of all that are under the sun! Are you not convinced of this? Is it possible, you should still expect to find happiness in money, or all it can procure? What! *Can silver and gold, and eating and drinking, and horses and servants, and glittering apparel, and diversions and pleasures (as they are called) make thee happy? They can as soon make thee immortal.