belshazzar's impiety and ours compared.
Dan. v. 23. The God in tvhose hand thy breath is, and ivhose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.
WHEN we look around us, and see what iniquity prevails in the earth, we are ready to imagine that
God does not notice the affairs of men, or take any interest in their conduct. But, when we open the inspired volume, we find that, on many occasions, the sins of men have been so strongly marked in their punishment, as to bear ample testimony to a super- intending Providence, and to constrain us to say, " Verily, there is a God that judgeth in the earth a." The judgment inflicted on Nebuchadnezzar so exactly accorded with the prediction which had been uttered respecting it, that no doubt can be entertained of the hand from whence it came. Nor was the hand of God less visible in the punishment of the impious Belshazzar. In the midst of his drunken revels, " there came forth, as it were, the fingers of a man's hand, and wrote on the plaister of the wall where the king was sitting." The words he could not under- stand : nor could any of his astrologers or sooth- sayers interpret them. But, on his application to Daniel, the import of them was declared unto him. The prophet first set before him, and reproved, his impiety : and then denounced the impending destruc- tion of himself and his whole empire ; which accord- ingly took place that very night.
The charge which is here exhibited against Bel- shazzar is more or less applicable to all the children of men, even to ourselves, as well as others ; and will give me occasion to shew,
I. How far our conduct has resembled his —
Belshazzar was as dependent upon God as any of his subjects could be —
[He received his breath from God ; by whom also " his soul was upheld in lifeb." His times were altogether in God's hands0," who could prolong or cut them short, as he saw fit. Nor was Belshazzar ignorant of this. He could not but feel his dependence on a Superior Being : and he had an evidence, in the dispensations with which his father (his grandfather) had been visited, that this Being was God.]
Yet had he not glorified God, in any part of his conduct —
a Ps. lviii. 11. b Ps. lxvi. 9. c Ps. xxxi. 15.
1128.1 BELSHAZZAIt's IMPIETY AND OURS COMPARED. 503
[He had not acknowledged his supremacy, or regarded his authority, or rendered thanks to him for his mercies, or dreaded his displeasure. On the contrary, he had, with daring impiety, profaned the vessels of God's sanctuary, " drinking out of them, together with his wives and concubines ; and praising his gods of gold and silver, of brass and iron, of wood and stone d ; " and thus provoking the Most High to jealousy, and setting him at defiance. In this, he not only " had not glorified God," but had greatly and impiously dishonoured him.]
And we, too, like Belshazzar, are dependent on God—
[" In him we live and move and have our being e." " In his hand," says Job, " is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind f: " and, "if he take away our breath, we die, and return again to our dustg. So jealous of his own honour is God, in this respect, that he characterizes himself as much by the preservation of all things, as by their first crea- tion : " Thus saith the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out ; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein11." " He sees our ways, and counts all our steps1." Nor does he leave man to walk at large without controul : " I know, O Lord," saith the prophet, " that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps V In a word, it is as true of us, as it was of Belshazzar, that " our breath is in God's hands;" and "his, even under his governance, are all our ways."]