will acknowledge that he prefers a vicious to a virtuous character; or that he loves the sinner, and hates the christian. But although the judgment and conscience may approve of the christian character, and although a person may love christians because he considers them as friendly to him; this is no evidence of regeneration. "If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that love them." But that love which is evincive of the new birth, is entirely different from this. The true christian loves God's children, because they belong to Christ, and bear his image. This is the love of complacency. He delights in their society and heavenly conversation, and "esteems them the excellent of the earth."

Thus, my hearers, I have attempted to lay before you the evidences of a gracious state. Each one of you must examine for himself. No mortal can decide in your case. In this business, every individual must sit in judgment on himself. Deal faithfully with your souls. A false hope is worse than none. A mistake in this momentous concern is awful. Beware of building on the sand, for the trying hour is coming. Our business lies with the heart-searching God. Examine well the foundation on which you rest your hopes of heaven, lest you discover your mistake too late. On whatever foundation you build, remember well-remember all, that you are building for eternity.

SERMON XIII.

Death.*

O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.-DEUTERONOMY Xxxii : 29.

WHENEVER We are called upon to mark the end to which we are hastening, we are required to take a serious view of death with all its consequences. Sometimes the peaceful and happy death of the righteous, and the glorious rewards of heaven, is the end to which we are pointed by the finger of God. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." Sometimes the unhappy death and everlasting destruction of the finally impenitent, is the end which we are called upon seriously to consider. Says the psalmist, "I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked"-" Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment." "Whose end is destruction." "Who are nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned." "If judgment begin at the house of God, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel ?"

Of similar import is the text. The Lord had repeat

* Preached on a funeral occasion, and also on the last Sabbath in the year.

edly warned the rebellious Israelites, but they would not hear. He had annexed an awful penalty to his law- a penalty which could not be repealed. And yet they continued to rebel. Notwithstanding the awful end to which they were hastening, they continued to persist in their desperate course. And strange to tell, their insensibility increased with their increasing danger, until the Lord himself exclaimed "O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end."

The text more than intimates a strong aversion in sinners to serious consideration of their death and its consequences. They can converse with freedom about the trifles of time. They are wise to plan, and active to pursue the business of this world. But few, very few seem to be making their plans for the world to come. At times, however, the thoughts of death and eternity may alarm them, while they hear the thunders of God's law, or witness their friends in the agonies of death; yet how soon all is forgotten.

Others there are who form some faint resolutions to reform, or become Christians before they die; but ere one short day or hour is past, all is gone and forgotten. The subject is dismissed. Death and eternity are viewed as at a distance. The sinner presumes that

there is time enough yet. But ere long his friends assemble around him. They take him by the hand, and tell him, you are dying. Now, for the first time, he begins to realize that he is mortal. "All men

think all men mortal but themselves." But he is now too far gone to make preparation. The solemn truth that he must die, is whispered to him at the last moment, on the very threshhoid of the eternal world. He,

perhaps, dies, without uttering a word respecting his soul. His friends, too, may be equally reluctant to speak on the subject. All are concerned-all are active-all are anxious for the body; but if any are anxious for his soul, nothing is said-nothing is done. What reluctance, what backwardness to speak of death, and its solemn consequences. Whence is it that mankind will not pause, and reflect on a subject of such infinite moment? Whatever may be the cause, the fact is obvious. On all other topics, friends and neighbors can meet and converse with ease and interest, but on death, judgment and eternity, they have little or nothing to say. The great end for which we came into being, must neither be talked of nor thought of. In this, both the wickedness and folly of sinners appear. On all other subjects they seem to have some wisdom, and a little understanding, but on this they have neither. "O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end."

However reluctant men may be seriously to reflect on death, and its consequences, it is absolutely necessary. Without it no preparation will be made. God once commissioned a prophet to cry in the ears of all the world. "The voice said cry. And he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of the Lord shall stand forever."

Philip, king of Macedon, it is said, employed a crier to call at the door of his bed chamber every morning,

and cry, "Philip remember that thou art mortal." Were the sinner seriously to reflect on death, judgment and eternity, for one half hour every morning and evening, he would soon be astonished at his own. stupidity, and the folly of thousands around him.

It is useful to the Christian, as well as the sinner, to become familiar with this subject. "If you cannot face the image, how will you endure the reality?" "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to heart."

The text leads us to contemplate death and its consequences.

1. It separates soul and body.

It is the soul which constitutes the man. It is that only which is worth an important thought. It dwells in a tenement which is subject to dissolution. " We dwell in houses of clay; our foundation is in the dust." Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made.

"Our life contains a thousand springs,

And dies if one be gone,

Strange that a harp of thousand strings,
Should keep in tune so long."

The body must die and return to dust.

"There is

no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death; and there is no discharge in that war." The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the soul can no longer keep possession, but must return to God who gave it.

The soul and body do not part without a struggle. It is a solemn thing to die. Aside from its consequences, death is in itself, solemn. Hence it is called