SERMON II.

ON DEATH.

JOB XXX. 23.

FOR I KNOW THAT THOU WILT BRING ME TO DEATH, AND TO THE HOUSE APPOINTED FOR ALL LIVING.

THERE is certainly no subject whatsoever, which is so frequently presented to our minds as Death. We hear of it every hour as occurring by casualty, or wasting by slow decay; as arresting the progress of the young, or consigning the more advanced in age to their long-expected home. We continually read of it as presenting itself under various and ghastly forms; we see it in the mournful solemnities, with which religion closes the tomb on its pallid inmates; and we silently discourse with it as, in thoughtful mood, we pace the quiet receptacles of the dead.

Yet, notwithstanding the variety of ways, in which a merciful Providence appears to have designed that a subject, so full of interest, should be brought home to us, yet, by a strange perverseness, we suffer the impression, whenever it is made, to be so faint, that it is very soon obliterated. Whether it be that we are really insensible to the vast importance of such a subject, or that its very familiarity causes us to reflect upon it with less frequency and less seriousness

than it deserves; or whether it be that, from the disagreeable and even painful associations with which it is connected, we are anxious to dismiss it from our thoughts; certain it is, that it seldom or ever comes home to any of us as it ought, and that the great majority of our species seem to act, as if they never thought of it at all.

One might think that the mere idea of a dissolution of this mortal frame; when all its compactness shall be disunited, all its bloom decayed, and all its vigour unstrung; would be so strange as well as awful, that it would produce a series of anxious and solemn reflections, whensoever it was presented, however casually, to the mind. One might think that the preparations necessary to be made, even in a worldly point of view, for such a great and lasting change, would so continually recur to us, that they would not only furnish some considerable employment for our time, but also keep alive and vigorous the recollection of the great subject itself. "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die;" was the divine command to Hezekiah. And surely he must be

often and carefully consi

unthinking, who does not der, in what way his affairs should be adjusted, so as to produce no material inconvenience to those, whom he may leave behind; but, above all, so as to do substantial justice to those, with whom he is connected by blood, and to whom he is attached by affection or indebted by gratitude.

This effect should be produced, one would naturally argue, upon any inhabitant of this earth, who was fully aware" that it is appointed unto men once

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to die." But incalculably more serious should be the impression of our mortality, and far more weighty the consideration to those, who are taught, and who believe that the termination of this state of being is only the prelude to another; with whom one of the first and clearest principles of the Religion which they profess is, not merely that " it is appointed unto men once to die," but that "after death is judgement." Here then the subject assumes so vast, so awful an aspect, that we may well wonder at the general languor and indifference, that seem to pervade the minds of men concerning it. The change from life to death is itself amazing; from bodily vigour to inertness; from this substantial mass of flesh and blood to nothingness; from vital breath and intellectual power to dust and ashes. But this change, great and even terrific as it may be, is as nothing when compared with that change, under which the Gospel Revelation enables us to contemplate it; a change from natural to spiritual; from weakness to power; from dishonour to glory; from corruption to incorruption; from time to eternity; from mortal to immortality". Here is a change of sufficient magnitude, we might think, to awaken the fears, to inspire the hopes, to interest the affections, and to guide the conduct of every one, who is capable of understanding that he is a moral and an accountable being; who is conscious of merit or demerit in himself; and who has been taught that he is placed in this life as in a state of trial, to prove his fitness for a higher and a purer

a See 1 Cor. xv. 42-53.

state of being. A change so vast, yet so inevitable, should seem sufficient to engross the whole attention of any one, who has the ample Volume of Revelation unfolded before him; and who, from the information there vouchsafed, has learned the sad tale of universal woe, that overspread the world by the disobedience of the first Adam, as well as the glorious prospects, that have succeeded to that state of woe, by the satisfaction made for sin by the second Adam. So that, in the case of any thinking man, but especially of one, who is assured that " life and immortality have been brought to light by the Gospel," the subject of death should be so continually present with his thoughts, that the main scope of his actions should be to make effectual preparation for its arrival, whensoever it may please the Almighty to bring this period of earthly pilgrimage to a close.

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It appears then incontestably that this subject is of such vast importance, as to affect our well-being through the still revolving ages of eternity; that it is so universal in its application, as to involve every individual of the human species; and yet, that by some strange infatuation or perverseness, we are reluctant, unhappily and unwisely reluctant, to entertain it. Hence is it most imperatively the duty of a Christian teacher frequently and earnestly to draw the attention of his hearers to the contemplation of that event, which sooner or later awaits every one of them; to place it in such points of view, as may assist them in turning the portion of existence which is given them here to the most profitable purposes; and thus, through the hopes inspired by the

Gospel and the merits of its ever-blessed Author, enable them to "become meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light"..

The great obstacle to the effectual improvement of our time in this world, and consequently to our obtaining the qualifications requisite for happiness in the world to come, is no doubt an over-fond attachment to the present life, and an erroneous calculation of the comforts and the pleasures which it is able to supply. Now, if we can but thoroughly persuade ourselves-and when I say persuade, I do not mean that it is difficult to arrive at the truth, but that we are unwilling to be convinced of it,-If, I say, we can but thoroughly persuade ourselves that this life is not merely short, nor merely uncertain, but vain and unsatisfactory; surely our attachment to such a scene of things must be diminished, and our thoughts and actions more rootedly fixed and more surely directed to the permanent, and perfect and certain bliss, which shall be revealed hereafter. The happiness, which awaits the pious and the good in another world, will more than counterbalance every sacrifice and every suffering for virtue and conscience in the present, since it is represented to the imagination under the notion of joys, "such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive."b

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Be it remembered that I am not attempting to expatiate upon circumstances, about which there hangs any doubt; nor to excite your minds by ob

a Coloss. i. 12.

b. See 1 Cor. ii. 9.; Isai. lxiv. 4.

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