WHEN guilty passions wing their flight,
Sorrow, remorse, affliction, cease,
Religion's yoke is soft and light,

And all her paths are paths of peace.

Beyond the narrow vale of time,

Where bright celestial ages roll,

To scenes eternal, scenes sublime ;

She points the way, and leads the soul. &

At her approach, the grave appears

The Gate of Paradise restor'd;

Her voice the watching cherub hears,
And drops his double flaming sword.

Baptiz'd with her renewing fire,

May we the crown of Glory gain; Rise when the host of heaven expire, And reign with God, for ever reign.

A COURSE OF LECTURES

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

LECTURE 1.

Reference to the preceding sermons.-Light in which we ought to view death.-Will introduce us to a blissful immortality. This imperfectly recognized by all nations, by the Jews more particularly, and by us clearly and fully.-The design of the following Lectures.-General idea of the plan that will be pursued.What will be the leading features of this and the two following Lectures. -The immortality of the soul clearly manifested by Jesus Christ.-How he hath abolished death. What is meant by the immortality of the soul.-Implies that the soul is free from decay or tendency to dissolution.-In this it differs from the world in which it is placed and the material things with which it is surrounded. For the fair scènes of nature, the productions of art, the devices of politicians, and all animated matter waste and come to ruin.-But the soul will survive the whole.

In the preceding discourses, I have examined the subject of death. While pursuing this impressive theme, our meditations have been solemn, our sympathies have been awakened, and a train of melancholy reflection passed through our minds. In our estimation the importance of man is decreased. Surrounded with this gloomy state of

Q

things, we are prone to draw conclusions painful to us, and dishonouring to our Creator, Struck with the poverty of our present mode of existence and the humbling circumstances connected with our end, some of us have been ready to conclude that man was made in vain; that he lives only to be miserable; that his being is a shadow; that his life is but a dream; that his prospects are gloomy and distressing; that dissolution is his end; and, that the grave is his final and solitary home.

But why this revery of thought! Why these appalling ideas while we contemplate the decay and dissolution of our frail humanity! Why these dark conclusions when we meditate on the carnage of death, and the vintage of the grave! Why survey this subject with such trembling anxiety; or banish it from our thoughts as tending only to make us unhappy! Why look at death only as our enemy, and the grave as our final home! Why mourn for those now gone, as though their existence was extinct, and as if we had no hope of embracing them in a future state of being! Let us abandon this melancholy line of thought, and turn our bewildered minds towards a more luminous subject. Of man nothing dissolves but that which is food for worms; nothing dies but that which is proper furniture for the grave; nothing dies but that which burdens our existence; galls us in our trying journey; checks the nobler sallies of our souls; clothes us in wretchedness; binds us down to our griefs; occupies nearly the whole of our time ; blends our life with pain, and involves it in misery ;misery that clods our brighter scenes, often embitters our sweetest enjoyments, and forms a principal ingredient in our heaviest trials.

Shall we then continue to view death with anxiety, and consider him merely as an enemy! Surely not. If we are pious, he will be our friend. What lays beyond will render it a privilege to pass through his territories! That is one part of

*66%

our passage to a blissful immortality. At this side of his gloomy domain, that felicity and us are separate. It lays beyond where man while in time has ever moved! What may be its literal distance we cannot tell. It may be beyond the journeyings of our most sanguine thoughts; beyond.conjecture's boldest sallies; beyond where our sun scatters his rays; beyond the far distant limits of those shining orbs which adorn the nocturnal heavens, and awaken the admiration of gazing millions; or the far stretched bounds of those which only can be discovered to men, by the sight in regenerating trouble. But, whether, as some think, it be near, or whether it lays at an immense distance from the abode of mortals, the secret will soon be unravelled. Death, now stingless, will come to our help; and will unfold the mystery! He will rend the curtain of our humanity! Drive back the bolts and heave off the bars that now confine us; and, having passed through his dark domain, we shall stretch our flight above stars, and suns, and rolling worlds; and rise triumphant to the throne of God.

Christ, by means of his successful interference, in our wretched cause, has, in the gospel dispensation, brought the glorious subject of immortality to light. We must not, however, conclude that the nations in which the light of the Gospel never shone, have no idea of this important truth. For, in all the nations under heaven, and in every age of time, there have been persons, and their number not small, who have believed that their thinking part would survive the dissolution of their bodies; and have had some vague notions of a future state of being. Neither are we to understand that the attentive and pious Jews, under the Old Testament dispensation, were ignorant of this great fact the future existence of the soul. By the moonlight of their dispensation they saw it, though not with ? that distinctness and clearness with which it is beheld by

1

us.

For us God has reserved a more full and clear display of our own importance, his glory, and our future state of being. Upon us the ends of the world are come. Upon us the sun of righteousness has risen. Penetrated by his rays, the clouds have burst, the night of ignorance retired, and the shadows of an inferior dispensation hastened away! By the clear shining of this light, we are led to the knowledge of many glorious truths, and favoured with manifestations which kings and prophets desired to see. Aided by its important discoveries, we learn, that our thinking part is deathless as the Being who gave us our existence; confidently look forward towards a blissful immortality; and, animated with the heart cheering prospect, exultingly shout, "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift."w

To illustrate and support the immortality of the human soul, is the design of the following lectures. I purpose to point out a few of the leading particulars in this momentous truth,-produce the arguments by which it is supported, and survey the importance of which it is possessed. In this and the two following lectures I will endeavour,

To POINT OUT A FEW OF THE LEADING PARTICULARS IN THIS MOMENTOUS TRUTH:

1

Or in other words state the leading features of the doctrine, of the immortality of the soul. Jesus Christ, our Saviour, is the person to whom the credit is given of more fully discovering this weighty fact. Thus the Apostle, "But is now made manifest by the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ." This is He who is interested in our cause. The Lord of angels and the King of glory. the existence of a solitary creature. was the Word, and the Word was Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" who was the wonder of Seraphs and the glory of Paradise,

He who was before "In the beginning with God, and the

He