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Select Sermons , translated from the Original French of Lonis Bourdalone . 8 vo . 7 s . 6 d . boards . Conder . 1806 . [ Concluded from p . 483 . ] The Sermon cc On Providence / ' preached before Lewis XIV . is replete with energetic eloquence , and displays such an instance of fidelity as must astonish Court-preachers in
every country under heaven , not excepting even our own . Speaking of the man who rejects the government of Gody our author observes" The man of the world , Christians , who throws offhis dependence on the providence of the Almighty , is resolved either to follow blindly
the course of fortune , whose current bears away the feeble mind , or to govern himself according to the views of human prudence , by which the votaries of the world are actuated . In giving up every principle of conduct , and resigning himself to the power of fortune , does not the worldling fall into the idolatry of the heathen , who , instead of adoring the Almighty , whose wisdom appeared in the government of the world , chose rather to worship a deity whom they called Fortune . To this deity they erected temples ; they invoked her in every exigence ; they offered her expiatory sacrifices 3 they gratefully ackowledged her Imagined kindness 5 and this idolatry , which is imitated amongst Christians , incensed even the heathen philosophers themselves . € How infamous , ' exclaimed one of them * , < to behold Fortune every where
adored , every where mvoked , and even , in contempt of the Ijocl * every where revered as the divinity of the world . * Is not this the sin with which God reproached the Israelites , in those words of Isaiah—* But ye are they that forsake the Lord , that forget my holy mountain , that prepare a table for that troop , anci that nirnisn the
drinkoffering to that number . * This sacrilege , my brethren , has not only been the crime of the Jews and Pagans ; we behold it in the midst of Christianity , and more particularly at the court , where it is a vice the most predominant . Yes , my dear hearers , and you know this truth better than I do , the idol of the court is fortune : it is at the court she
is adored ; it is at the court where every thing is sacrificed to this idol-- ' tranquillity , health , liberty , and even conscience and salvation . At the court , fortune is the regulator of friendship , esteem , civility , ser * vice , and even duty . The man richly endowed by fortune becomes a divinity in our eyes , his vices become virtues , his words are oracles , his will is law . Yes , I will be bold to say , were a demon sent from the infernal regions , apd advanced to a state of high elevation and favour , there would be found men to offer him incense : but if the
rnan thus idolized falls from his elevation , and we find him no more in place , how little is he regarded ! All his false worshippers disappear , and they are the first to forget him . Why ? because he is no longer the representative of the idol they adore . In such conduct , self-interest is the object of pursuit ; but to seek our interest out of God and his providenc ^ is the grand erro r ; the error from which even the virtuous and the wise are not wholly exempt . It is not , I own , absolutely forbidden tp serve those who are hi high stations , provi 4 ed we regat 4 Pliny .
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C 602 )
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1806, page 602, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1730/page/42/
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