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have recorded the meekness of Moses; you have recorded the patience of Job; but had it not been for the trials which they underwent, the dangers they had to combat, and the distresses they had to bear, their glory might have perished, and their names been lost in oblivion. As the nightingale, it is said, when bereft of her young, fills the woods with the music of woe, and from the impulse of sorrow, warbles her sweetest strains; so, from the wounded mind, and from the broken spirit, the fervour of devotion, and the eloquence of prayer, come up with such pathetic memorial before the throne, that the Divine ear listens delighted. True religion, true virtue, brightens in distress; she emerges from the deep with tenfold radiance, and never shines with such transcendent, such triumphant, such immortal beauty, as when wandering through the darkness of an eclipse. You see, then, that in these paths you are in the company of the good, and are encom→ passed with a cloud of witnesses. You are not left alone to climb the arduous ascent. On these mountains, the feet of patriarchs, the feet of prophets, and the feet of martyrs, have trode. On these mountains, a greater than patriarchs, than prophets, than martyrs, appeared.

IV. I proposed to consider Christianity as affording a joyful consolation against the fear of death.

Many and various are the evils to which human life is subjected. To finish the mighty sum of them, and to make the scene end with pain, as it began with sorrow, comes the evil of death. The king of terrors, with his black train of attendants, even when seen at a distance, makes the firmest knee to shake, and the stoutest heart to tremble; and, when exerting his influence upon feeble minds, and assisted by the power of the imagination, has kept multitudes all their days under the cloud of melancholy, and under subjection to bondage. It is the great excellence of the Christian religion, that as it affords consolation in all the evils of life, so it also provides a remedy against the fear of death. Hence the prophet, looking forward unto the days of the Messiah, breaks out into these strains of exultation: "I will redeem them from death: I will ransom them from the power of the grave: O death, I will be thy plague; O grave, I will be thy destruction." Hence says the Apostle Paul," Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he himself also took part of the same, that he might de

stroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage."

The evils attending death to men, in a state of nature, are manifold.

One of these is the uncertainty of our future destination. Reason gives us little information concerning the state of the soul when it departs from the body. We see the body mingle with its kindred elements, and return to the dust from whence it was taken. But what becomes of the soul? Does it too cease to exist, and vanish into air? Or does it still live and act in another scene! Here we are lost in conjectures and uncertainty. We see the traveller involved in the cloud of night, but we know not assuredly of any morning that awaits him. The ocean spreads before us vast and dark, but we know not with certainty if it will waft us to any shore. What a disconsolate situation of mind is this! Afflicted with the view of our past life, tormented with present pain, and hovering over an abyss from which we are uncertain if we shall ever emerge! To pass for ever into the dominion of darkness; to go we know not where! Lost in these doubts, troubled with the fears of futurity, the Roman Emperor addressed his departing soul: "Ö my soul, thou art leav ing thy once loved haunts, thy former companions, and thy wonted joys; but into what unknown regions and dark abodes art thou now going? Alas! thou canst not tell !" These doubts and perplexities are now removed by the coming of Christ. When the Sun of Righteousness rose in our region, it dispelled the shadows of the everlasting evening; it poured its radiance upon the path of immortality, and brought full to view the scenes of the invisible world. The future scenes of happiness and glory are not only discovered by the gospel of Jesus, but are set before our eyes. In the inspired oracles we hear the voice of the archangel and the trump of God; we see the dead arising from their graves; a mighty army of saints and martyrs springing with joy from dust and corruption. We see Jesus upon the throne, and the faithful at his right hand. We hear the happy sentence pronounced upon them, "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you before the foundations of the world were laid." We see them with palms of victory in their hands, and with crowns of glory on their heads, ascending up on

high with their Lord, and sitting down with him upon

his throne.

Another evil attending on death is the sense of our sins and transgressions, which when rising up to our memory inack colours, overwhelm us with horror of mind. But to those, who receive the privileges of Christianity, the bed of death will not be a scene of terror. With a faith which overcometh the world, they give up their souls into the hands of him who made them. "I have indeed sinned, most merciful Father, against Heaven, and in thy sight. Mine iniquities compass me about. I am covered with confusion, and condemn myself, and often have been afraid lest thy judgment should confirm the sentence of my own heart. But thou art merciful and gracious.Thou hast no pleasure in death. I am unworthy of the least of all thy mercies. But worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive blessing, and glory and honour, and power. In his death I see the price of my redemption. In his life I see the path which leads to immortality. In his resurrection I see the proof of my own, and evidence of my immortal existence. I have accepted the offers of thy mercy, and have endeavoured to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith I was called. With whatever failings I may have been encompassed, thou knowest that it has been the study of my life to approve myself to thee, and to obtain the testimony of a good conscience. Trusting to thy mercy, and relying on the merits of my Redeemer, Father of all, I come to thee! With the joy of the Patriarch, I follow thy call into the land unknown."

Thus, my brethren, I have endeavoured to set before you some of the joyful consolations derived from the Gospel of Jesus,-consolations which not only serve to support and animate us under the afflictions of this present life, but which also enter within the veil, and constitute our happiness through everlasting ages. But before I conclude, regard to my duty prompts me to warn and admonish you, that though the glad tidings of the Gospel are proclaimed to all, yet the consolations which they contain are not intended for, and are not conferred upon, all who hear the Gospel. It is only they who believe, who repent, who reform, that will ever reap any solid advantage from the Christian religion. The profession of Christianity will avail us nothing. It will avail us nothing to say that we have faith. We may easily deceive our

selves, and make a lively imagination pass for a strong faith. But unless our faith purifies the heart, unless it works by love, unless it produces the fruits of righteousness, it is no better than the faith of the devils, who believe and tremble. Let me therefore persuade you, never so much as in thought, to separate the ideas of faith and morality; of belief in Christianity and a good life. If you make the attempt, you are undone for ever.

SERMON XVII.

ACTS xvii. 30.

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.

THIS is part of a sermon which the Apostle Paul deli

vered at Athens. The Athenians were the most ingenious and most illustrious people of Greece. Situated in a happy climate, and blessed with the highest degree of liberty which mankind can enjoy, they bent their genius to the cultivation of the sciences and arts. These they carried to such a pitch of perfection, as gained the palm from the contending world, and has attracted the eyes and admiration of all succeeding ages. But to shew the darkness and the ignorance of the human mind when not enlightened by the wisdom which cometh from above, as soon as they turned themselves to religion, they displayed nothing but their own absurdities and follies. In place of a rational and liberal form of religion, a gross and stupid idolatry universally prevailed; in place of the true God they bowed the knee to a dumb idol; and, instead of the worship of the heart, consecrated to his service impure and profane observances. Zealous to destroy this fabric of superstition, the Apostle Paul rising in the midst of an assembly that was convened on the hill of Mars, reproved those masters of science, those lights of the Heathen world, with the boldness and the majesty of an apostle of the Lord. "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all

things ye are too superstitious :-the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent."

Repentance towards God is the great and leading duty enjoined both in the Old and in the New Testament. Along with every revelation of the Divine will; along with every new commission to prophets and holy men to preach this Divine will, the duty of repentance is always inculcated in the strongest terms. The Patriarch Noah preached repentance to the world before the flood. John the Baptist began his public ministry by preaching the doctrine of repentance. "Except ye repent, ye shall perish," was the awful denunciation of our Lord. And his apostles constantly began or ended their sermons with exhortations to this duty. This message so often delivered to the world, I now address to you; and demand your serious attention to this most important subject. And, in further treating upon it, I shall, in the first place, explain to you the nature of repentance; and, secondly, lay before you the motives which ought to influence your minds to the practice of this duty.

I. I proposed to explain the nature of true repentance. Repentance unto life, as it is well defined in that excellent summary of theology, the Shorter Catechism, is, "A saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endcavour after, new obedience." According to this definition, repentance includes, first, a true sense of sin; secondly, grief and hatred of sin; thirdly, apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, the forsaking of sin, and endeavouring after new obedience.

First, A true sense of sin. This must be the groundwork of all the rest, because it is impossible to hate what we do not feel. It is impossible to conceive a hatred and aversion against a thing of which we are not sensible, or to flee from a danger of which we have no apprehension. Where there is no sense of sin, therefore, there can be no repentance. Accordingly, the Pharisee who trusted in himself that he was righteous, was too proud, even when he was praying to God, to confess any guilt of his own. "God, I thank thee," says he, "that I am not as other men are." He was conscious, it seems, of no sin, though inwardly full of rottenness and hypocrisy. Such insensi

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