for ever from the friend of his heart. He will find him again in the kingdom of the just: He will there renew the bonds of amity with him, and, in that glorious state, nothing can disturb their generous and virtuous friendship. Thus the hope of the christian can never be put to confusion. It alleviates to him every calamity, which overwhelms the hopeless and plunges him in utter despair.

Let us, lastly, contemplate these two persons, while lying on the bed of death, and consider their different exits from the world. Approach the unhappy man who feels himself dying, and yet is totally destitute of all hope of another and better life. See how anxiety and dismay distort his visage, how he wrings his hands from perturbation and distress, what desponding looks he casts on the persons around him! Death appears to him in his most dreadful form, he is to him a king of terrors, and, poor man, he has no armor to put on against this foe, nothing to comfort him in this most awful moment. He sees himself turning to dust, he sees the grave and corruption before him, and dare not hope that from this prison he shall ever be ransomed. The thought of his annihilation strikes a chillness through his soul, and fills it with unsurmountable terrors. Whatever has hitherto administered to him pleasure and joy, is now flown from his imagination and vanished for ever. He now, for the last time, sees the orb of day, the all reviving sun, and is in expectation of an eternal night. His friends take leave of him for ever, and their charming converse, as he thinks, will never cheer him again. He must quit all things without any hope of acquiring more!-Can you figure to yourselves a more deplorable condition than this?

On the other hand, observe the christian, who, believing in the resuscitated Savior, looks for a

blessed immortality. How edifying are his last moments, and how calmly he meets death and eternity! Death is to him a messenger of peace; he announces to him deliverance and freedom; he conducts him to life, to a far better and completer life than the present. Why should he not willingly follow his call? Why should he not readily exchange this life for the other? He loses nothing that will not be restored to him or infinitely overbalanced. He has already a foretaste of the joys that await him; and, the nearer his end approaches, his countenance brightens, and his soul is more cheered. He hastens to the place of his destination with a pious impatience, and may address his sorrowing friends with comfortable assurance: Weep not for me, O my friends, I shall soon embrace you in another life; continue to trust in your great redeemer !" Thus dies the christian, full of hope, and enters into the joy of his Lord.

Such is the vast difference between the hopeless mortal, and the christian that expects a blessed eternity. Such are the incomparable advantages the one possesses over the other. To the former all nature is an unfathomable mystery, and the purport of his own existence is beyond his view: The latter knows to what he is ordained, and the creation is to him the mirror of the perfections of its author. Knowledge and virtue, the sources of our happiness, are shut against the one, and he has little or nothing to induce him to apply to them for repose : To the other, to the christian, these sources of pleasure stand constantly open; and in the knowledge of truth and the practice of virtue, he finds the most permanent joy. The former sinks under the weight of misfortune: The latter rejoices even in tribulations, and no accident can divest him of his happiThe former loses all courage in death, and

ness.

shudders at the approach of his dissolution: The latter, the just man, has even hope in his death, and first begins properly to live, when he seems to be dying. Must you not confess, then, my brethren, that, as christians, we possess infinitely greater advantages than the unbeliever? Must you not allow, with the apostle in our text, that we should be the most miserable of all mankind, if our hopes were bounded by this life, if, after it, we had no other, no better to expect? How many causes, therefore, have we to extol and commemorate our risen Redeemer, who has brought life and undecaying existence to light by his doctrine? How can we be grateful enough to him for the victory he has obtained over death and the grave, for the glorious revelation he has given us of futurity! Does not such a teacher, such a benefactor, merit all our veneration? Does he not merit our entire reliance, our most willing obedience? What groveling sentiments shall we not betray, how much should we abhor ourselves if we despised the gospel of the son of God, if we undervalued his promises, and rejected the felicity to which we are called? No, no; we have the happiness of being christians; we have the hope of everlasting life. Let us prize this happiness as it deserves; let us walk worthy of this hope. Let us break forth in shouts of triumph to our glorified Redeemer, who has delivered us from the dread of annihilation, and given us the assurance of everlasting life. But let us also shew, by our whole deportment, what lofty expectations we have. How ill would it become us, christians, to seek our rest, our satisfaction, our happiness, in the things of this world, since we are ordained to eternity! How ill would it become us, to be inconsoleable at the loss of our earthly possessions, or of our dearest friends, like the heathens who are destitute of hope!

How irrationally should we act, if we should only provide for the body, to the neglect of our soul; How bitterly shall we hereafter lament our foolish choice, if we prefer the hard bondage of vice to the easy service of virtue, and so lose the pure delights and the eternal felicities of heaven! Oh animate then yourselves to a generous and holy conduct, ye christians, created and redeemed to an immarcessible glory! Set loose your hearts from every thing fugacious and earthly. Never attach your desires and views to the objects on this side the grave. Raise yourselves often in thought to eternity; endeavor to excite and confirm in yourselves a heavenly mind, and let your whole behavior be regulated by the future world. Evince in all things, even in the most calamitous events of life, that you are christians, who look not so much on the things that are seen, as on those that are not seen. Do honor to the religion you profess by a steady and cheerful virtue, and take fast hold on the hope that Christ has given you. It will not fail you, even in death: and you will enter rejoicing into the kingdom of your God.

Easterday.

SERMON XXV.

Of Spiritual Experiences.

O GOD, our gracious father, that thou hast called us

to christianity is a benefit for which we can never sufficiently thank thee! A benefit, which in regard to knowledge and morals, to means of improvement and peace of mind yields us the greatest advantages over the rest of the inhabitants of the earth! A benefit which might and would afford us as great advantages over them in regard to wisdom, to virtue, to real felicity, if we employed it aright! But of this not all of us-alas, perhaps only few of us can boast. No, christianity is certainly not what it might and ought to be to us! No, we are not yet become by it so wise, so good, so cheerful and happy, as we might! We now confess and feel it, O merciful father; we are now ashamed before thee of our ingratitude and our negligence; we now wish to become better christians, and to experience more of the blessed efficacy of the christian religion. Oh let this confession, this sentiment, this remorse be truly salutary to us and our wishes be actually accomplished. Teach us to understand christianity in its true nature and end, let it be thoroughly important to us, open our hearts to its divine, efficacious influence, to its all quickening spirit, and let it dwell and govern in us, and reform us into such persons as are christians indeed and in truth! Bless to the end the discourse of thy servant! Let his remonstrances find admission, adhere deeply in our minds, and there effect much good and happiness! We pray thee for it as thy children and as the followers of thy son Jesus, addressing thee farther, in filial confidence, as he prescribed: Our father, &c.