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whom he hath ordained: wherein you must give an account of your conduct; and wherein those sins which you have committed, and of which you have not repented, will appear along with you before the tribunal of your God. You cannot live always of this the experience of others, and the infirmities engendered by the latent principle of death within you, give you sufficient warning. The world itself exists but for a season. The silent lapse of ages, and the gradual decay of nature, announce, in sad and solemn language, that awful period when the works of nature and of art shall all be dissolved. A few ages and generations more having passed away, that day, at length, arrives for which all other days have revolved; that great day when this earthly scene of things shall be finally closed when the mighty plan of providence shall be unfolded: when the corrupt shall be separated from the worthy, and each shall receive the fruit of his labour. Then shall heaven open wide its everlasting doors and behold the Judge cometh in clouds; every eye shall see him; and you who, daily, pierce him by your sins and your ungodly lives, shall, sadly, mourn in dismay and anguish. He is, no longer, that

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weak and helpless mortal who wept at Bethel, and who suffered upon Calvary. The reed is now turned into a sceptre, and the crown of thorns into a crown of glory. He appears in the glory of his Father: clothed with the splendour of divinity, and attended with the host of heaven. Before him who was once dragged as a criminal to the judgment seat of Pilate, the whole world is assembled. The great tribunal is erected: the books are opened: sentence is pronounced on every man, Down to the prison of everlasting darkness and despair, the wicked are driven, where, bound in chains, they suffer in the flames of that lake whose smoke ascendeth for ever and ever: while the righteous ascend with their Lord, to be put in possession of those happy mansions prepared for them before the foundation of the world.

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I conclude in the words of St. Peter.Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to "be in all holy conversation and godliness." Amen!

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SERMON IV.

On the uncertainty and awfulness of death; preparation for it to be found only in the conscientious practice of christian duties.

1 THESS. CHAP. 5, VER. 2.

"The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night."

RELIGION bears the same proportion to every human pursuit that eternity does to the short space of threescore and ten years. The concerns of this life soon have an end: at death our connection with the world ceases for ever when we descend into the tomb, the cares and schemes and business and pleasures and hopes of this life cannot follow us: there the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest: the ties and relations and dependencies of society are for ever dissolved: there the servant is free from his master, and the prisoner hears not the voice of the opBut religion has no end; it reaches

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into eternity; it goes with us into another life, and influences our state of existence beyond grave. How comes it, then, that we are so much attached to the things of this life, and prosecute them with so great an ardour and so unremitting an assiduity, while the objects of religion occupy so small a share of our attention, and so seldom excite one anxious thought or desire? This question has raised the attention of every thinking man, and moralists and divines of every age have found it difficult to give it a rational solution; and, indeed, it must, for ever, continue to perplex them, because, the conduct being irrational and absurd, it is impossible to discover causes fully adequate to the effect. Some causes, however, have been discovered, and the time spent in inquiring into them, has not been misemployed, because, the more we are acquainted with the nature of the disease, the nearer we approach to a knowledge of the remedy.

One cause, which seems to have great effect in procuring to earthly things an attention so disproportioned to their value, appears to be the difficulty, or rather, the impossibility of ascertaining their true and exact importance.

The duration of life and its affairs is uncertain; the period of death is to us unknown.

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cometh, as the Apostle expresses it, “like a "thief in the night," who gives no warning of his approach, whose coming cannot be foreseen, but, always, takes place when men think not of it. If we knew the number of those hours and days which were appointed to us, then, we could calculate the precise value of every human pursuit, and adapt our projects and business to the time they were to last.But a knowledge of the future is wisely withheld from mortals; and the fatal moment marked out for the hour of their departure, is a secret written in that eternal book which the Lamb alone has a right to open. If this moment were pointed out to every one of us, if, when we came into life, we had written on our foreheads the number of our years, and the term fixed for their close, then the thoughts of death, in certain approach, would wholly occupy our attention, would disturb our minds, and trouble our repose. The image of death, ever present to our minds, would embitter our pleasures, disgust us with the affairs of the world, and render us unfit for the business and the duties of society. The day or the hour,

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