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the grave crowd round the fearful imagination in the days of health and life; the record of ten thousand blissful departures could most triumphantly testify.

Enfeebled age he strengthens for the conflict; and youth, full of opening hopes, and bright with earthly anticipations, he reconciles to the tremendous change. And even vigorous manhood, suddenly called to die, cut off in health, and consigned to dissolution in the midst of its days, he causes to triumph in the confident expectation of a better existence.

But that which more than all gives witness to the Saviour's presence, and to the fulfilment of his promise, is when some feebler nature is called to grapple with the terrors of mortality; when the dying couch is early spread to receive some consuming victim of earth's gentlest mould; when a soul of sensibility, not hardened by familiarity with the world's rough encounter, not disgusted with the knowledge of its snares and its deceits, not mortified by experience of its disappointments, is summoned to the world unseen. He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, must be there, or we had not so often seen a spirit, which, like the aspen, quivered to the gentlest breath, endued with more than manhood's sturdiness to meet the terrors of that appalling hour. He must be there; or we had not so often seen weakness triumphing over fear, and timid appre

hension, uplifted and sustained by heavenly prospects, advancing fearlessly into the land of shadows. He must be there; or we had never seen such a spirit, strengthened to resist all the relentings of nature's weakness, and when the assiduities of friendship, the gratifications of the world, the fondness of cherished affection, and all that ministers to the inherent love of life, presented their united offerings to make life desirable, could yet turn from them all, and with feelings not merely of composure, but of triumph, contemplate in the full distinctness of perception, the grave's darkness, the coffin and the shroud, the sodded mound above, and below, corruption and the worm, wasting the limbs, and giving back to dust the form that lately walked in beauty and in gracefulness; or rather, that could look beyond them all to the felicities of his presence, and the rapturous joys of Paradise. Blessed Jesus! thou must be there, for thou only couldst support the parting spirit, giving it courage and confidence to endure as seeing him who is invisible.

Oh! there have been scenes of dying blessedness, which, hidden in the retirement of the still death room, have made manifest as day the presence of the Saviour, whispering of celestial joys, lifting to the view of the dying visions which the living could not perceive, and revealing to the departing saint, things which only the departing can understand; until the ravished spirit, forget.

ful of the pains of dissolution, and shrinking from its clay, has struggled and hastened to depart, and like a bird let loose, to be free and disembodied.

My brethren, have we witnessed such scenes? Let us cherish their remembrance for our dying hour. Let us rejoice in the consolations which the religion of Jesus Christ has provided for all believers in death as in life. And if some beloved spirit has passed the portals of the grave in joyfulness and triumph, let us make it our frequent prayer, that the love and peace by which it was supported, may, through God's grace, be our's in the time of our last mortal trial.

The Christian, when he thinks of death, has every thing to assure him. The friends who have gone before have smoothed for him the pathway, and carrying forward his wishes, his interests, his hopes, have already connected him with the unseen world. This thought alone might make welcome his departure. But there are others which have more power to sustain and cheer him. That he will be free from the dominion of passion and of sin; that sorrow and sighing shall then flee away; that his Saviour Christ will then come to receive his parting spirit; and that he will be for ever with the Lord; are the ennobling and elevating consolations which belong to our holy faith.

My brethren, while these thoughts animate us

with the loftiest anticipations of future blessedness, let us reflect that they impose upon us also the strongest obligations to present holiness. Let, therefore, this glorious hope of immortality have its proper influence in exciting in us diligence to make our calling and election sure. Let it chasten our fondness for earth, and control all the actions of our lives, that cultivating the aids of the Holy Spirit, and being renewed after the image of God, we may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, and not be ashamed to meet him at his coming.

H

SERMON XVII.

God's Mercy, the Sinner's Refuge.

ST. LUKE xv. 18.

I will arise and go to my Father.

THE religion of the Gospel, my brethren, comes to us, like its Author, full of grace and truth Truth, in that it shows us our imperfection, frailty, and sinfulness. Grace, in that it is adapted to this our character and condition. It comes with a perfect knowledge of all our wants and infirmities, our temptations and sins; and by penetrating and laying open to our own view the thoughts and intents of our hearts, it makes it evident that God is the discerner of their inmost operations. It appeals to man, not as a perfect, but as a sinful being, fallen from his high estate, exposed to danger, and obnoxious to punishment. Declaring to all men their lost and undone condition, it maintains their inability of themselves to recover the favour of God. But though their state be in this respect entirely helpless, yet it is not repre

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