SERMON XIII. ON DEATH. MAT. XXV. 13. Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh. MAN ages AN, in the earliest of the world, when communities first began to be established, must have found many inducements to the practice of virtue from the necessary conditions of humanity, and the involuntary reflections of his own mind. The many eventual evils to which human life is continually expofed, were almost fufficient, of themselves, to teach a rational U 2 tional creature the great duties which he owed fociety. Without calling in the aid of religion, or insisting on the existence of a moral principle in the human heart, which invariably dictates the pursuit of virtue, and as invariably opposes the practice of vice, we might trace the focial du ties to another fource; that of felf-love. Men could fee their friends and neighbours at all times, and in all places, afflicted with diseases, or harraffed with diftreffes of various kinds. They could perceive, that no fituation was secure from danger, or free from thofe evils which threaten us from within and from without. When, therefore, they saw some pining in poverty, others fmitten with anguish, or laboring under the afflictions of providence, what could awaken pity more, or lay a ftronger claim to their beneficence, than the painful reflection, that every one was subject to the like calamities, and that the revolution of a day might bring them over their heads! HENCE HENCE the tear of compaffion has flowed, and from this prevailing motive, which fprings in every bofom, the heart of charity has been warmed, when religion's voice was filent, or regarded without reverence, and the will of the Deity but imperfectly known. Hence it was that men established the fundamental maxims of virtue, and first of all, perhaps, faw the reasonableness, and felt the juftice of "doing "unto others, as we would that they "fhould do unto us." BUT this confideration, however univerfal, was infufficient to confirm men in the practice of virtue, or govern their conduct with that steadinefs, which ought to accompany every moral influence. We are creatures too imperfect to be ftrictly engaged to our duty by many motives; much lefs was it to be expected from one only. We are constantly deceiving ourselves by hope or fear, and becoming dupes to the pride and vanity of our own hearts. We are too elated with confidence, in the day of profperity, to fuffer eventual evil to difturb our felicity, and, by the fame constitution of the mind, too much depreffed in adverfity, either to bear the ills of life with fortitude, or look forward with the eye of faith to prospects of future comfort. OTHER principles of action were neceffary therefore for beings fubject to fuch weakness and imperfection. Hope, and that vain idea of fecurity which always attends profperity, while it taught men to reject the intrusions of future evil, oftentimes fuppreffed pity, and checked the exercise of common humanity. The truth is, we are not to be governed by cafualties. The paffions cannot be regulated, nor the will controuled, but by fuch principles as are, in themselves, fixed and determinate. FOR this purpose the Almighty hath revealed his will to us, through his only-begotten Son, and established certain laws, which are alone to be confidered as the criterion of human actions, and our only fure guide to piety and virtue., Thefe laws will be found, by every one who rightly confiders them, wonderfully adapted to improve our nature, and promote the happinefs of the world. Nor has the great Author of our being been lefs folicitous to fhew us the neceffity of our conftant obedience to them, than he was at first to establish them. They are enforced in the strongest manner by many confiderations that muft, at times, of neceffity arise in every one's mind. The limits of a difcourse oblige me to confine myself to one only, and that, indeed, is what the words of the text in fome measure require. I mean the awful confideration of DEATH and FUTURITY. THAT there is to be another state of exiftence for all human beings, in which they will be either happy, or miserable, according to their actions while in this life, and that the foul of man can never die, are the grand outlines of every religion. However good men may fometimes differ |