In numerous cases,

of proof to a yet higher point. all these excellencies of the Christian character have been the result of a DECIDED CONVERSION FROM THE VERY INFIDELITY which lies on the other side of our contrast. Multitudes of these Christians, whose principles, moral conduct, benevolence, and useful writings, we have been considering, were once enemies of Christianity, vain, perverse, arrogant, debased, profligate; but they were brought to consideration-they were led to examine, (as I have mentioned in the case of Mr. Boyle,) the question of Christianity with calmness. The result was an entire change from the degradation and vices of infidelity, to the elevation and purity of the Christian faith. They proclaim the alteration. They confess with grief the motives which dictated their former rebellion; they distinctly avow the source of their errors and guilt; they open to us the real cause of the objections of infidelity. Thus the camp of the enemy betrays itself. The Christian advocate, like Augustine in the fourth century, is brought out from the midst of its foes; and we have the singular advantage of knowing the ground on which infidels, continuing such, stand, by the ground on which the Christian convert confesses he once stood himself.

Infidelity has nothing to show of a kind similar to this. Where are her converts from among devout and serious Christians? Where are those who confess the guilt of believing the revelation of the Bible? Where are the regrets and penitence for having obeyed the gospel? All is a blank. Infidelity and her objections, are DISOBEDIENCE; faith, with her solid fruits, is OBEDIENCE to the great God and Father of all.

But I hasten to the last division of our contrast.

III. THEIR DEATHS AND PREPARATION FOR AN ETERNAL STATE OF BEING.

And here the interval widens: the gloom deepens

even to darkness on the one side, whilst the light breaks forth into splendour on the other. Whatever contrast there may be between the two classes, as to their principles, their general conduct, their benevolence, their public labours and writings, this contrast is immeasurably more awful as we view them as to their approach toward death, and their preparation for eternity.

What, then, is the death-bed of the unbeliever? What is he engaged in at this solemn season? How does his conscience respond to the inquiry, "Have I been seeking truth ?" Alas! the thick obscurity of the scene too surely portends what is beyond! For of whatever particular description be his death, it gives a loud and clear testimony against the objections he has been relying on-they condemn, they desert, they betray him at last.

Whether we look to the confessions and regret of some infidels in the article of death the obduracy and insensibility of others--the pride and presumption of a third class the carelessness and levity which mark a fourth the rage and despair by which others are rendered awfully conspicuous; or the self-destruction by which so great a number fall; whatever cases we select and contrast with the circumstances of the dying Christian-all, all proclaim that infidelity is rebellion against the God of heaven, and that her objections are the mere foaming and boiling over of man's inbred corruptions; whilst truth and holiness and the attestations of God, in his moral government, are on the side of Christianity.

1. Notice the REGRET AND CONFESSIONS of the awakened infidel on his death-bed. I hear Burnet's convert1 acknowledge that the real source and spring of his unbelief, was a space of five years spent in profligacy that his vices had led him to seek a miserable

14 Lord Rochester.

refuge in infidelity and presumption. I hear many of the culprits, who have been doomed to expiate their crimes against society by an ignominious death, own and lament their infidel principles, as the first cause of the deeds for which they suffered. 15 What do these confessions teach me? Where is the Christian that ever lamented on a dying bed his belief in the revelation of the gospel? I ask for a single example of any sincere believer in Revelation, being confused and ashamed at last for his faith. Where is the instance? I demand only one, if it exists, that at the least I may weigh the fact against the numerous-the innumerable instances I was going to say-of confession, and shame, and sorrow, which the victims of infidelity furnish. Multitudes of Christians have regretted that they had not more fully obeyed their religion, but not one that he had reposed his trust in it.

2. But take the OBDURATE AND INSENSIBLE class

of death-bed scenes. I approach the dying infidel, occupied to the last instant with secular concerns, calculating on the time which remains for him, without a thought or reference to eternity; without a reflection on the past, or a prayer for the future; utterly callous to every thing that regards him as an immortal and accountable creature; repelling the voice and invitations of the minister of religion. What does all this proclaim? What is there here of a right state of heart? Is insensibility to the greatest of all concerns reasonable or becoming in man?

Contrast with this insensibility the dying couch of the Christian. He perceives death to approach; he prepares for the event; he examines his heart and life; he calls in the minister of grace; he confesses

15 I have in my possession a letter from the chaplain, who attended the conspirators against the lives of his Majesty's ministers, in 1809, known by the name of the Cato-street conspirators, which informed me that all the leading criminals were avowed infidels.

every past sin; he forgives every injury; he composes himself to the nearer struggle with the great foe; he trusts to the mercy of God in Jesus Christ; he commends his children, his servants, to the care of a kind and powerful heavenly Father; he dies in peace. Nature, conscience, the slightest moral feeling, compel one to declare that this man is right-and the other deceived and ruined. It is impossible to look on the one without horror, or on the other without an assurance of his future happiness and joy.

3. But contrast the PRIDE AND PRESUMPTION of other infidels at the approach of death, with the humility and prostration of heart which meekly adorn the departing Christian. I see Gibbon, full of vanity to the last dregs of life, calculating, only twenty hours before its close, on the probability of a continued existence for fifteen years; confessing, that as life wore away, the failure of hope gave a browner tint to the prospects of man;" and meeting the Almighty, whom he had been by his laborious and artful infidelity and licentiousness, daring to his face, with a treacherous confidence. What, what does such a scene teach one? Or, again, when I hear the last presumptuous accents of Rousseau, claiming the favour of his Creator, and declaring that he returned him his soul pure and immaculate as he had received it, what does it impress upon the attentive mind?

Let the humility of the Christian's death-bed give the proper reply. I see the almost unequalled Pascal, after a life of eminent sanctity, and the composition of works which have long been the admiration of Christendom, approaching his end. During his malady, charity and patience were the conspicuous features of his mind. His humility was such, that he desired to have a poor sick person brought into his chamber, and receive the same attentions with himself. Being interrogated by the minister of religion as to his faith, before he received the sacrament, he

said, "Yes, sir; I believe all that with all my heart." He then said, "May God never leave me;" which were his last words, except short thanksgivings, before he fell gently asleep, as it were, in his Saviour's

arms.

4. Come with me to another scene. Let me show you the TRIFLIng and careless infidel, in contrast with the serious and solemn Christian in their last hours; and let conscience say which has followed truth. Hume is near his end. Levity and satire occupy his discourse. He jokes about Lucian, and Charon, and the crazy boat, and the fabled Styx; he frames various reasons, which he might assign for delaying his transmission. Trifling dissipation, even games at whist, fill the intervals. The retouching of his infidel writings is his employment. He finishes on his death-bed,-I relate it with horror,-his Essay on Suicide, in which he encourages a profane and irreligious age to this last miserable act of presumption and despair. In this frame he dies. What an over-acted part! What a frightful unconcern! What an unnatural contempt of that dissolution of the mortal frame, which sin has induced, and which carries man before the tribunal of God! Is this the hero of your natural religion? Is this the man, whose coldblooded scepticism was only equalled by the disgusting licentiousness of his moral code; who overturns all testimony with one hand, and all virtue with the other? Yes, the brand of the Almighty did not appear more visible in the judicial obduracy of Pharaoh, than in the infidel being given up to the levity of such a death-bed.

How opposite to this the seriousness of the judicious. Hooker; a man superior to Hume in all the powers of the mind, as well as in all the moral and religious endowments of the heart. His last words were, "I have lived to see this world is made up of perturbation, and I have been long preparing to leave it, and