428 CHRISTIAN MORALITY, VIZ. JUSTICE, &C. [SERM. XXYJ, and luxuriousexpences of a twelve -month, devour and swallow up seven years income, or the gain of half their lives. What remains then, when their own substance is not sufficient to supply their vanity, but that they make an inroad upon the property of their neighbour ? They, run deep into debt, with the artificer and trader, and they never concern themselves how to make payment. The workman has built them palaces, instead of 'such common dwellings as their character requires, and the artificers of various kinds have furnishedout their bravery of apparel or equipage : But the unhappy creditors are ready to starve in tattered raiment, through the oppres -, sion and injustice of their luxurious neighbour. And when they make a modest demand of what is due to them, they meet with nothing but a frown or a jest, and the reproachful names of saucy and impertinent. BOY, " woe to him that covets an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high ;for the stone shall cry out of the wall against the oppressor : The beam out of the timber shall answer it, and shall bear witness against unrighteousness, Hab. ii.. 9, 11. This is the crying guilt of many, and very commonly practised in this city, in greater or in less degrees; but perhaps the 'profuse wretch pursues a bolder course of injustice, and betakes himself to robbery and plunder; He' lies at watch on the high-ways, he seizes and as, saults the innocent traveller, and deprives him of his wealth and 'every thing valuable, in order to support his own wild and extravagant expences. Luxury must be fed, though justice be starved ; and luxury must be clothed, thoughjustice go naked. My hearers perhaps-will think themselvesunconcerned in all, this story, and take no share of the conviction to themselves, nor do I know any of them -to whom half this charge belongs. But let it.be considered, that men do not usually rise W this degree of madness all at once. Uririghteousness has several steps and stages in its race ; if we- indulge our .appetites, and spread our tables, or form our apparel. or our furniture but a little beyond our income, if we once begin to admit such a manner of life and expence as exceeds our estate, in order to please Our own sensual or vein inclinations, or to .onie
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