tion of his future destiny on the uncertainty of the truths of the gofpel: That he is to be pitied, because his only tranquillity muft be, in living without faith, worlhip, confidence, or God: Becaufe, the only hope he can indulge, is, that the gospel is a fable; the belief of all ages, a childish credulity; the univerfal opinion of men, a popular error; the first principles of nature and reafon, prejudices of education; the blood of fo many martyrs, whom the hopes of a future ftate fupported under all their fufferings and tortures, a mere tale, concerted to deceive mankind; the converfion of the world, a human enterprise; and the accomplishment of the prophecies, a mere ftroke of chance. In a word, that every thing, the best established, and the most consistent with truth and reason in the world, must all be false, to accomplish the only happinels he can promise himself, and to save him from eternal misery.

O man! I will point out to thee a much furer way to render thyfelf tranquil, and to enjoy the fweets of eternal peace. Dread that futurity thou forceft thy felf to disbelieve. Ques tion us no more, what they do in that other world, of which we tell thee; but afk thy felf, without ceafing, what thou art doing in this; quiet thy confcience, by the innocency of thy life, and not by the impiety of thy unbelief: Give repose to thy heart, by calling upon God, and not by doubting that he pays attention to thee: The peace of the unbeliever is despair. Seek, then, thy happinefs, not by freeing thyself from the yoke of faith, but by tafting how sweet and agreeable it is. Follow the maxims it prefcribes to thee, and thy reafon will no longer refufe fubmiffion to the mysteries it commands thee to believe. A future ftate will cease to appear incredible to thee from the moment thou ceaseft to live like thofe who centre all their happiness in the fleeting moments of this life. Then, far from dreadVOL. I. ing

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ing a futurity, thy wishes will anticipate it. Thou wilt figh for the arrival of that happy day, when the Son of Man, the Father of all future ages, fhall come to punish the unbelieving, and to conduct thee to his kingdom, along with those who have lived on the earth, in the expectation and hope of a blessed immortality

That you, my brethren, may be partakers of this eternal felicity, is my fervent prayer. Amen.

SERMON

1

SERMON IX.

ON DEATH.

LUKE Vii. 12.

Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold there was a dead man carried out, the only fon of his mother, and fhe was a widow.

WAS death ever accompanied with more affecting cir

cumstances? It is an only fon, fole fucceffor to the name, titles, and fortune of his ancestors, whom death fnatches from an afflicted mother and widow; he is ravished from her in the flower of age, and almost at his entry into life; at a period when happily past the dangers of infancy, and attained to that first degree of strength and reason, which commences man, he seemed leaft exposed to the fhafts of death, and at last allowed maternal tenderness to breathe from the fears which accompany the uncertain progress of education. The citizens run in crowds, to mingle their tears with those of the disconfolate mother; they affiduously seek to leffen her grief, by the confolation of those vague and common-place discourses, to which profound forrow little attends; with her they furround the mournful bier; and they deck the obfequies with their mourning and presence; the train of this funeral pomp, to them, is a fhow; but is it an inftruction? They are ftruck and affected,

but

but are they from it lefs attached to life? And will not the remembrance of this death perish, in their minds, with the noise and decorations of the funeral!

To fimilar examples, we every day bring the fame dispofitions. The feelings which an unexpected death awakens in our hearts, are the feelings of a day, as though death itself ought to be the concern of a day. We exhaust ourselves in vain reflections on the inconftancy of human things; but the object which struck us, once out of fight, the heart become tranquil, finds itfelf the fame. Our projects, our cares, our attachments to the world, are not less lively, than if we were labouring for eternal ages; and at our departure from a melancholy spectacle, where we have fometimes feen birth, youth, titles, and fame, wither in a moment, and for ever buried in the grave, we return to the world more occupied with, and more eager than ever, after all thofe vain objects, of which we fo lately had seen with our eyes, and almost felt with our hands the infignificancy and meannefs.

Let us at prefent examine the reasons of fo deplorable a mistake. Whence comes it, that men reflect fo little upon death; and that the thoughts of it make such transitory impreffions? It is this: The uncertainty of death amuses us, and removes from our mind its remembrance: The certainty of death appals, and forces us to turn our eyes from the gloomy picture: The uncertainty of it, lulls and encoura ges us; whatever is awful and certain, with regard to it, makes us dread the thoughts of it. Now, I wish at prefent to combat the dangerous fecurity of the firft, and the improper dread of the others. Death is uncertain: You are therefore imprudent not to be occupied with the thoughts of it, but to allow it to furprise you: Death is certain: You

then

then are foolish to dread the thoughts of it, and it ought never to be out of your fight: think upon death, because you know not the hour it will arrive: Think upon death, because it muft arrive. This is the fubject of the present discourse...

PART I.-The first step which man makes in life, is likewife the first towards the grave: From the moment his eyes open to the light, the fentence of death is pronounced against him; and, as though it were a crime to live, it is fufficient that he lives, to make him deferving of death. That was not our firft destiny: The Author of our being had at first animated our clay with a breath of immortality: He had placed in us a feed of life, which the revolution of neither years nor time could have weakened or extinguished. His work was fo perfect, that it might have defied the duration of ages, while nothing external could have diffolved, or even injured its harmony. Sin alone withered this divine feed, overturned this bleffed order, and armed all created beings against man: And Adam became mortal, the moment he became a finner: "By fin," faid the Apof"did death enter into the world."

́tle,

From our birth, therefore, we all bear it within us. It appears, that, in our mother's womb we have fucked in a flow poison, with which we come into the world; which makes us languifh on this earth, fome a longer, others a more limited period, but which always terminates in death: We die every day; every moment deprives us of a portion of life, and advances us a ftep towards the grave: The body pines, health decays, and every thing which furrounds, affifts to deftroy us; food corrupts, medicines weaken us; the fpiritual fire, which internally animates, confumes us; and our whole life is only a long and painful

fickness.