tant duty of private prayer, or, what is equally important, attendance on publick worship. Seek, as the first object of your life, to obtain the favour of God; and remember, for your encouragement, that, they who seek him early shall find him. Without this, all hope of happiness and success in life were vain : : possessed of this, you have the best reason for trust and confidence. His arm can give strength to the weak. His grace will enable you to resist every temptation. His comforts will delight your souls in the day of adversity and distress.

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SERMON XIII.

Funeral sermon on the death of the Reverend J. Malcomson.

PHILIPPIANS, CHAP. 21, VER. 1.

"For to me, to die is gain.”

DEATH has been styled the king of terrours, through fear of whom many are all their lifetime subject to bondage. And, indeed, if we consider this event as nothing but a cessation of existence, as a restoration of the dust of which we are formed to its original source, it is natural to expect that creatures, actuated by a strong desire of self-preservation, should feel impressions of sadness and dejection when they look forward to its approach. To bid an eternal adieu to those whom affection and friendship have entwined around our hearts; to shut our eyes for ever to the cheerful light of day, and all the scenes of former enjoyment; to be deprived of sense and motion,

and stretched a lifeless corse upon the earth; to descend into the dark and noisome mansion of the grave, and there become the food of worms these circumstances, attending this awful change, form a picture which the coldest imagination cannot contemplate without horrour. In this point of view death could not possibly be gain to any one. It might justly be deemed inconsistent with the character of a wise and benevolent being, to permit the existence of an evil, which thus, without intermission, lays waste his fair creation; which sweeps away in succession the ages and the nations; which holds us in terrour during life, and closes the scene by reducing us to ashes. Were death nothing else but this, far from inviting you, as we do on occasions of this nature, to contemplate this melancholy subject; instead of vainly endeavouring to reconcile you to an event which would rob you of all your present comforts, and bring you nothing in return, we would advise you to turn your eyes from the dreary prospect, to put the evil day far from you, to spend your years in gaiety and pleasure, and never once permit a thought of death to intrude upon your joys.

In this case, it would certainly be an act of prudence,

to enjoy as much of this world as you possibly could; the maxim of the sensualist would then be founded in the truest wisdom-let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.

But, when we view death in the light which reason and religion throw upon it; when we consider it as a deliverance from all those "ills " which flesh is heir to," as a state of sacred tranquillity and repose; when we reflect that it introduces the virtuous and good into a state of greater perfection and happiness, than eye hath seen, or ear heard, or heart conceived, then the frown of this dreaded tyrant softens into the smile of a deliverer and friend; we are no longer held in bondage by a slavish dread of his approach; we then adopt the language of the Apostle, that for us to die " is gain;" with him, we "desire to depart, " and to be with Christ."

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To

Such a view of death, it must be confessed, belongs not to men of every character. those who are so firmly attached to the pursuits and pleasures of this life, that they can conceive nothing beyond the grave capable of balancing their loss; who, unconscious of the beauties of holiness, have no desire to be delivered from this body of sin and death; whose guilty conPp

VOL. I.

sciences appal them with the awful anticipation of a future reckoning, death must in every point of view be full of terrour. Those very circumstances which make it gain to the righteous, to these only sharpen its sting. To view it as a complete annihilation of their being, would be a melancholy kind of satisfaction. But how dreadful to know that it is not only the conclusion of all present enjoyments, but also the commencement of a state of just and awful retribution! Still, perhaps, if not pleasing, it may be useful for them to meditate on this subject, because bitter reflections at present may prevent endless sorrows hereaf

ter.

The illustration which we now propose of the Apostle's assertion; that to those who live by the energy of Christ's spirit dwelling in them, who live for his honour and glory, and in conformity to the precepts of his blessed religion, death is no evil but a great gain, may happily excite in the wicked a desire of attaining the same enviable privilege, a wish to “die "the death of the righteous," and to have "their last end like his !"

Death was no part of our original constitution. Had we continued innocent, our happiness had known no interruption. Pain and