since death will so soon overtake them. The Christian will not suffer himself to be so deceived. He knows the secret fallacy of their shallow reasonings, and will give no attention to such evil associates.

From the words of the text, thus opened and explained, we may deduce, that,

1st. Many of the failures and imprudent courses of life are owing to a gloomy apprehension and dread of death.

2nd. That the fear of death must either be surmounted, or be reduced within reasonable bounds ;otherwise the offices of life cannot be discharged as they ought, nor can our moral and religious duties be sufficiently performed.

3rd. That the doctrine of futurity, as cleared and established in the Gospel, teaches us to overcome all these fears, and to pass our lives with fortitude and self-possession. Let us now briefly consider each of these assertions.

First, then, Many of the failures and imprudent courses of life are owing to a gloomy apprehension and dread of death.

No undertaking can be successfully pursued, unless its design is well understood, and the means are known by which it is likely to be accomplished. What, then, is the great final purpose of man's exertions? or wherefore was he born? Was it merely that he might die and moulder into dust ?-or would it not be better to say, that he was born to live, and to discharge the duties of a rational and responsible

being? For it is as absurd to say, that he was born merely to die, as to say that he was born to eat, to sleep, to be clothed, or to perform any of the functions of his nature. Yet, from some such imaginations as these, it happens, that to minds which are wanting in fortitude, the prospect of death is distressingly frightful, and strikes a lasting panic. This king of terrors appears before them in awful solemnity. Heart-rending horrors compose his retinue; and ghastly fears and corroding anguish march in his train. The mind, therefore, loses its proper guard, and is open to every assailant. It becomes an easy conquest to some of those temptations which crowd around us, and which appear more pleasant than they really are, because they form a welcome contrast to the gloom of death. These play the most dangerous artillery against the mind, and supply it with arguments for deceiving and undermining itself. And when men are deluded by such temptations, they adopt the perverse reasoning which is admirably exposed in the apocryphal book of the Wisdom of Solomon :-" Our life," they say, "is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy; neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave. For we are born at all adventure, and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been. For the breath in our nostrils is as smoke, and a little spark in the moving of our heart: which being extinguished, our body shall be turned into ashes, and our spirit shall vanish into soft air. And our name

shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance: and our life shall pass away, as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist that is driven away with the beams of the sun." (Wisd. ii. 1-4.) Thus falsely is man's life represented, when death stands glaring before the eyes, and frights the imagination. How then can the view be relieved, so as to appear more pleasing? "Come on, therefore," they cry, "let us enjoy the good things that are present: let us speedily use the creatures, like as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments; and let no flower of the spring pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds, before they are withered. Let none of us go without his part of voluptuousness: let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place for this is our portion, and our lot is this." (Id. ib. 6-9.) Such is the course of arguing, and such the method, by which the soul is lulled into a perilous repose. The fear of death first disturbs men's reason; and then these flattering delusions are suffered to infect the imagination, and to allure the passions. And when fancy is our only guide, how slippery must the paths be, in which we tread !-how intricate, and yet how gaudy, the mazes through which we are decoyed! Hence it is, that a lively imagination, when not counterbalanced by a solid judgment, becomes sometimes the greatest of misfortunes. It is active to deceive itself; and, after unfortunately mistaking wit for wisdom, it is ready, of course, to mistake sensual enjoyment for the genuine happiness of life.

As a further proof, we may observe, that an overfondness of life is generally shewn by those who are exceedingly fearful of death, and who are ready to own, that the thought of it, whenever it recurs, is most painful and bitter. Single out a man who has plunged deeply into all the gaiety and pleasures that the world affords. Try his real sentiments: and he will fairly own, that his enjoyments have never answered his expectation; that he has found them insipid ; and that, if he could live his days over again, he would not fix his heart upon them. Why, then, does he still pursue the same track? For this plain reason:―because the fear of death is still before him, and makes him lay the faster hold on the remnant of his days, persuading him to live and to enjoy, as long as he can. Unmanly pleasures have already enervated his mind. The fear of death has made him a coward, and will keep him so. Where the true end of life is so little understood, and the intellectual faculty is thus stupified, no wonder that the haunts of folly are, for the sake of amusement, resorted to, and that every thing which has a tendency to seriousness, is studiously avoided. Any objects that serve to flatter the imagination, are eagerly pursued; and schemes that never can be accomplished are formed, and persisted in, as obstinately as if their success were infallible. Thus it is, that an exorbitant value is set upon things which are worthless in themselves, and which, when they are put to the test, yield no satisfaction. Sordid views, a vitiated taste,

and irregular appetites, will grow extravagant; men will become daily more and more desperate; they will be mean and selfish; and they will do any thing, be it ever so base, to extract some chimerical pleasure even from the dregs of life, and to keep the mind insensible to the dreadful approach of death. But

2. The fear of death must either be surmounted, or be reduced within reasonable bounds ;-otherwise the offices of life cannot be discharged as they ought, nor can our moral and religious duties be sufficiently performed.

And here it is not meant, that the mind should be inured to such a contempt of death, as to be entirely regardless of life, and callous to all the circumstances of human intercourse.

To preserve both strength

and calmness in the soul, our hopes and fears should be prudently regulated. We should neither be depressed by timidity, nor excited into rashness. We should not look upon death as a tyrant, or as a flattering siren. The proper medium is to be observed, between the two extremes; so that we may not cling too fondly to life, nor, on the other hand, be too desirous of our dissolution.

Reason and religion must be our aids, to enable us to form a right estimate of that change of being which awaits us. We shall then be prepared to view it as it is in itself, and stripped of all its imaginary terrors; as it is natural to our species, and rendered inevitable by the wise decree of the Almighty.-But here, the

VOL. II.

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