Gift Tappan Besb. Assor, 3-29-1733 SERMON. No apology, I am sure, will be required, for the selection of the words which closed so appropriately and eloquently, the able discourse delivered at your last annual convocation, as the theme of our present meditations; they are recorded in 1 CORINTHIANS, xv. 58. THEREFORE, MY BELOVED BRETHREN, BE YE STEADFAST, UNMOVEABLE, ALWAYS ABOUNDING IN THE WORK OF THE LORD, FORASMUCH AS YE KNOW THAT YOUR LABOR IS NOT IN VAIN IN THE LORD. THE eye of the Apostle is directed to the future resurrection of the righteous. Rapt in wonder and joy in contemplation of the grace that gives victory to the believer over death and hell, and filled with grateful emotion in view of so signal a triumph, he is unable to repress the awakened sensibilities, which burst forth in this strong language, at once admonishing to faithfulness in duty, and supplying encouragement the most animating and ample. We indeed look not onward, at this hour, to the final resurrection of the dead, at the sounding of the archangel's trump, so much as to the interven |