Advent with the Hackney Phalanx: "a moderate pursuit, a prudent husbandry, and cautious use of present things"

From A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year, Volume I (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - a sermon for Advent Sunday, indicating how meaningful observance of the Advent season and belief in the Lord's final advent can find expression in the ordinariness of "a moderate pursuit, a prudent husbandry, and cautious use of present things" characteristic of Anglican piety.

Let such be our reflections in the days of Advent. Above all, let the remembrance of our blessed Lord's first coming and the prospect of his final visitation, be witnessed by us in the frame and disposition of our lives, and in the tenor of our conduct: let it be testified by a moderate pursuit, a prudent husbandry, and cautious use of present things; by a willingness to leave them in the prospect of a better hope; by a great contempt for every vicious course of life, by fortitude and resignation under all the trials and vicissitudes which this world can furnish, and by a constant, uniform endeavour to bear our part in the burdens of these days, which are the days of husbandry and labour, that we may have our joy in the time of harvest, when he who went forth "weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves with him".

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