a virtuous and tranquil old age. But,
asks the youth, shall I live longer for subduing my passions and doing
good, for seeking peace and pursuing it? Certainly. Our text teaches
this; so does philosophy, and the scriptures generally. Jesus Christ
says, "Blessed are the _meek_, for they shall inherit the earth." That
is, they shall long enjoy it. "Blessed are the peace-makers for they
shall be called the children of God." The fifth Commandment says,
"Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." By honoring our parents, we
are to understand a filial and submissive obedience to their precepts
by not departing from that way in which with many exhortations,
prayers and tears, they sought to train us up. In this case, honoring
them would of course require us to walk in the paths of virtue and
temperance, and to live an honest, quiet and peaceable life which
would ensure the promise, and give us many days.

Not only do the scriptures promise long life to the peaceable,
temperate and meek, but they on the other hand just as solemnly
declare that "the wicked shall not live out half their days." This
passage has occasioned much dispute among religious denominations; one
affirming that every man's time is appointed in the counsels of heaven
by the decree of God, who "declares the end from the beginning;" and
another affirming that _it is not_, for the above passage teaches that
the life of man may be shortened. But there is no occasion for dispute
on this point, for they are both right, as we have seen in the course
of our remarks. This passage is but the counterpart of our text. It is
the decree of God that the wicked, the abandoned shall not reach the
extreme of human life, because they indulge in those very crimes,
which, in the constitution of things, must inevitably carry them to an
early tomb. Of the truth of this we see thousands of instances in the
world. And God has decreed that the meek, the peaceable shall reach
the extreme of life, because they pitch upon that happy course of
conduct which naturally leads to it. All that we are to understand by
his _decree_, is that he has inseparably connected the _end_ with the
_means_ by so constituting our natures, and so ordering his providence
that _sin, dissipation, anger,_ and _revenge_ shall not only destroy
happiness, but shorten life, so certain as men pursue such a wretched
course. And that the opposite cours