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aware.

As this life is the only time of probation to man; the present is the only period, in which this mighty evil can be prevented. Seize, therefore, this golden season; and, while it lasts, Work out your salvation with fear, and trembling. Think what it will be to die for ever. Remember how short life is; how uncertain; by how frail a tenure possessed; and how apt to vanish before we are Feel, that in this short period, if ever, your salvation is to be secured. Remember, that to all the impenitent, the first death comes too soon, and is always a dreadful introduction to a second infinitely more dreadful. If the first death is terrible to you, and to all men; think what it must be, to endure these terrors in endless repetition. Soon, I beseech you, call to mind how soon, the sun of the longest day goes down. Think how often it is lost in clouds, before it has reached the meridian. Count not upon the evening of life. By him, who postpones the business of the day, it will never be done. Awake from the fatal slumbers of sloth; from the deceitful hopes of procrastination; from the benumbing torpor of security in sin. Let nothing stand between you and Heaven. What would you not give to purchase this glorious possession? What exchange for it would you receive? How poor must he be, who through this life possessed the world; and throughout his endless existence was in want of all things! How wretched he, who wallowed in pleasure here, and languished out Eternity in lamentation, mourning, and wo!

4. How poor a portion is that of the wicked.

The portion of the wicked is all received, and expended, during this little life; and is finally terminated by the grave. Its enjoyments are small; they are few; they are mingled with many woes; they are embittered by many disappointments. Many dangers continually betide men of this character; and many fears beset them. Often they are cut off in the beginning, often in the midst, of life; and always before they are ready. On a dying-bed, they are unable to look back, with comfort, on any thing, which they have done; or forward, with hope, to any thing which awaits them. Here their enjoyments bid them a final adieu. All their future being is a long and dreary night, with no succeeding day.

4. With how much wisdom do the Righteous choose their portion. Godliness, says St. Paul, is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of the life which is to come. The nature of the case, and the experience of man, furnish ample proof of the truth of this declaration. A great variety of considerations combine their evidence to prove, that a good man is, even in this world, happier than a bad one. External enjoyments may indeed be distributed to either, indifferently, in greater or less numbers. There are cases also, in which either may be peculiarly unhappy. The fair application of the rule is, undoubtedly, to what may be called the average of human life; and, if ap

plied to this object, it will be found unquestionably and universally just.

Enjoyments, it is to be remembered, are what the mind finds, or makes, them. Plain food is delightful to the palate, by which it is relished; while the daintiest viands are lost upon a sickly appetite. The spirit of a good man disposes him to consider, and enables him to receive, all his enjoyments as gifts from the best of all friends; and to exercise continually, gratitude to that Friend; the most pleasing of all emotions. On this Friend also, he perpetually relies, as perpetually able, and inclined, to befriend him ; as present wherever he is; as knowing whatever he needs; as exercising towards him everlasting loving-kindness; and as having given his own immoveable promise, that all things shall work together for his good. This train of considerations, regularly attending his whole course of enjoyments, cannot fail to enhance the value of every blessing, in which he shares; and to spread warmth and light, and life, around him in his journey towards Heaven.

At the same time, he is at peace with himself. He has submitted to God: he has yielded himself to the Redeemer. The war between his inclinations and his conscience, the tumult of his passions and his fears, has in a great measure subsided. To this state of agitation, has succeeded the peace of forgiven sin, and an approving conscience. The long night of darkness and storm has retired; and a serene and cheerful morning has arisen upon the world within; a happy presage of perpetual day. A mind, at peace with itself, is the only mind at ease: and a mind without ease is ill prepared to enjoy. Whatever good the world gives, must be imperfectly tasted by him, who is unsatisfied with himself, conscious of his exposure to the anger of God, and terrified by expectations of future wo. An exemption from these evils is the first great step towards sincere happiness, and confers a capacity for enjoyment, which, without it, must be for ever unknown. But the present state is far from being a state of enjoyment only. The means of soothing sorrow are at least as necessary to us, as those of enhancing comfort. In this important privilege, the superiority of the good man's choice is perhaps still more conspicuous. Peace of mind blunts, in a great measure, all the shafts of adversity. A strong sense of the universal Government of God, and of his friendship to the soul, change the very nature of afflictions; and transmute them from curses into blessings. At the same time, the Hope of the Gospel, always present to the mind of such a man, administers to him the richest consolation in every sorrow; reminds him daily, that in this life only will he be a sufferer; and directs his eye to that world of approaching peace, and prosperity, where his afflictions will finally flee away.

In Death itself, all these privileges will be his. Hope, particularly, and peace, will sooth all the sufferings of a dying-bed, and illumine his passage into Eternity. Or should he, as is some

times the case, find fears and sorrows await him at this period; this is his last enemy, and possessed of power over him but for a

moment.

Thus the good man goes through the present life, possessed of a happier character, and of a happier lot, than any, which can be challenged by bad men. His enjoyments are superior in kind, in number, and in degree. He possesses alleviations of trouble, to which no bad man can make any pretensions. Death itself is to him often peaceful; and often filled with hope and consolation. Whenever it is not; it is still the termination of all his sorrows.

In the future world, the difference is infinite. When the good man resigns his body to the grave, and his spirit to the hands of God who gave it; he enters immediately into the joy of his Lord. Sin and suffering, time and death, hold their dominion over him no more. The dawn of his future being is to him the dawn of everlasting day. In this immense duration, his life will be an uninterrupted progress of virtue, honour, and enjoyment. Fixed for ever in the world of glory, and surrounded by the General assembly of the first-born, a companion of angels, and a child of God, he will look back with ineffable delight, on that choice, which accomplished the end of his being, and made life and death blessings to him; and will stretch his view forward with transport to joy succeeding joy, and to glory surpassing glory, throughout ages, which cannot end.

SERMON CLXIV.

THE IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES OF DEATH.

ECCLESIASTES xii. 7.—Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.

IN my last discourse, I made several observations concerning Death, considered as the last Dispensation of Providence to man in the present world. The immediate Consequences of Death furnish the next subject of our investigation.

In the text we are told, that, when man goeth to his long home, the dust, or body, shall return to the earth, of which it was formed, and that then also, the spirit shall return to God who gave it.. In considering this subject, I shall follow the order of discourse here presented to us; and examine those things which, immediately after Death, respect,

I. The Body; and,

II. The Soul.

Under the former of these heads, I observe,

1. That the body is changed into a corpse.

Death is the termination of all the animal functions of our nature. So long as these continue, life, the result of them, diffuses warmth, activity, and beauty, throughout our frame. In this state, the Body is a useful, as well as pleasing, habitation for the soul; and a necessary, as well as convenient instrument, for accomplishing the purposes, to which it is destined in the present world. But, when these functions cease, life also ceases. The Body then becomes cold, motionless, deformed, and useless. The form, which once gave pleasure to all around it, now creates only pain and sorrow. The limbs are stiffened; the face clouded with paleness; the eye closed in darkness; the ear deaf; the voice dumb; and the whole appearance ghastly, and dreadful. In the mean time, the spirit deserts its ruined habitation, and wings its way into the unknown vast of being.

2. The Body is conveyed to the grave.

Necessity compels the living to remove this decayed frame from their sight. Different nations have pursued different modes of accomplishing this purpose. By some nations the Body has been consumed with fire. By others it has been embalmed. By some it has been lodged in tombs, properly so called. By some it has been consigned to vaults and caverns; and by most has been buried in the grave. All nations, in whatever manner they have disVOL. IV.

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posed of the remains of their departed friends, have with one consent wished, like Abraham, to remove their dead out of their sight.

In this situation the body becomes the prey of corruption, and the feast of worms. How humiliating an allotment is this to the pride of man! When the Conqueror, returned from the slaughter of millions, enters his capitol in triumph; when the trumpet of fame proclaims his approach, and the shouts of millions announce his victories; surrounded by the spoils of subjugated nations, and followed by trains of vanquished kings and heroes; how must his haughty spirit be lowered to the dust by the remembrance, that within a few days himself would become the food of a worm, reigning over him with a more absolute control, than he ever exercised over his slaves. Yet this will be the real end of all his achievements. To this humble level must descend the tenant of the throne, as well as of the cottage. Here wisdom and folly, learning and ignorance, refinement and vulgarity, will lie down together. Hither moves with an unconscious, but regular step, the Beauty that illumines "the gay assembly's gayest room;" that subdues the heart even of the Conqueror himself; and says, "I sit as Queen, and shall see no sorrow." All these may, and must ultimately say to corruption, Thou art our father, and to the worm, Thou art our mother, and our sister. But we are not yet at the end of the progress. The next stage in our humiliation is, to be changed into dust. This was our origin: this is our end. The very clods on which we tread, were once not improbably parts, to a greater or less extent, of living beings like ourselves. Not a small part of the surface of this world has, in all probability, been animated, and inhabited by human minds: and the remains of man are daily perhaps, as well as insensibly, turned up by the plough, and the spade.

II. The Events which immediately after Death concern the Soul, are the following.

1. At Death the Soul quits the body, to return to it no more.

At Death, the animal functions cease; or rather the cessation of them is Death itself. Then the flexibility, the power of action, and the consequent usefulness to which they gave birth, are terminated also. The Soul, of course, finds the body no longer fitted to be an instrument of its wishes, or its duties. The limbs can no longer convey it from place to place; the tongue communicate its thoughts; nor the hands execute its pleasure. Deprived of all its powers, the body becomes a useless, and uncomfortable residence for a being, to whose nature activity is essential, and the purposes of whose creation would be frustrated by a longer confinement to so unsuitable a mansion. We cannot wonder, therefore, that the Author of our being should, in his providence, remove the Soul from a situation, so contradictory in all respects to the design of its existence.

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