SERMON XXIII.

LIFE AND DEATH, BLESSING AND CURSING, SET BEFORE MAN.

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DEUTERONOMY XXX. 19.

“ I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing ; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”

MOSES, that highly favoured servant of the Lord, was at the time he uttered these words to the surrounding multitude of his people, very near the close of his days. He had, under the directions, and by the presence and power of the Almighty, brought them out of the land of Egypt, and from all their cruel house of bondage; and he had led them about in the wilderness, and had taught them all the words and law of the Lord, and had conducted them nearly to their journey's end. He however, was not to take them

over Jordan, but to leave that work to Joshua, while he himself was to bid them farewell as to this world, and to depart and be for ever with the Lord. His last work, therefore, was to collect them together, and once more to rehearse all the instructions and commands, all the warnings, threatenings and promises which the Lord from time to time had given him for their present and everlasting good. Having done this, he, in the conclusion of this affecting and last act of his labours, makes the solemn appeal to heaven and earth contained in the text. That as a kind and faithful minister of the Lord, he had set before them life and death, that is, he had shewn them how that life was to be secured, and how that death was to be avoided-and then he urged on them to choose life that their souls might live. This, my friends, is also the business of every minister of Christ's Word; and this has been the desire and endeavour of the writer of these discourses. Oh, that you may, through the rich grace and drawings of

the Holy Ghost, be led to choose life. Let us now consider,

First, What this life and this death consist of.

Secondly, How the Lord sets them before us.

First, then, life here means the life of the soul, or the soul's everlasting happiness, the pardoning mercy and grace of God here on earth, and his presence and glory in heaven. And to secure all this, is the great business, or at least ought to be, of every man who comes into this world-for without this pardoning mercy and grace of God nothing beneath the sun can make us happy while we live; and to die without this pardon and peace is a sure and certain forerunner of everlasting destruction. And then what will it profit a man, though he had gained the whole world, though he had been able to enter into, and take his fill of all the indulgences of the flesh, and of all the pomps and vanities of the world, if at the end of this present life his soul is lost? On the other hand, if the soul obtains

peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; if its sins are pardoned, and the heart is brought under the sanctifying, and peace-giving influences of the Holy Ghost, then it is not in the power of an evil world to make it unhappy. Nay, it is possible, even amidst all the trials and troubles of this mortal life, to enjoy a peace which passeth the ungodly man's understanding; it is possible to have such an experimental knowledge of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, as is a foretaste of that joy unspeakable and full of glory, which is partaken of in the heavenly kingdom. Let it then be remembered, that when Moses said "he had set before the Israelites life," he meant, that he had made known to them what the Lord was able and willing to do for them by imparting the blessings of his grace and pardoning mercy in this life, and by putting them in possession of the glories and felicity of his heavenly kingdom when the days of their earthly pilgrimage were ended. Oh, how great is the blessing of enjoying the

presence and love, the pardon and peace of God on earth! and how inexpressibly precious to be admitted into that eternal life, that eternal weight of glory which the blessed inhabitants of heaven enjoy in the kingdom of Christ, and in his immediate presence where there is fullness of joy, and at his right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore!

But Moses speaks of death, and says, that "he had set this death before the Israelites." What does this death mean? It means the displeasure, the anger, the condemnation of the Almighty. It means the being left to our sins, and forsaken of God on earth on account of our determined disobedience and rebellion. And it means the soul being driven away in the Lord's anger at the death of the body, and made to take up its abode where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. This is called the second or eternal death; and it is a death to all happiness, to all peace, to all hope of a change, for ever. For when the soul once departs unpardoned, unsanctified, and