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then the Lord himself, the offended Sovereign and Judge, appears for our salvation, in a manner how wonderfully calculated to express both his displeasure against sin, and his love to lost mankind. Need I represent to any, who have been born and brought up in the bosom of Christianity, who are acquainted with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the exceeding love and condescension of God, in giving up his own eternal Son to the death, that men " should not perish, but have everlasting life;" and at the same time his indignation against sin in requiring such a sacrifice for it?" Glory be to God in the highest," who hath wrought out such a salvation for us, who "thought on us in our low and lost estate," and provided such a Redeemer. Blessed be God, that by Christ's meritorious sufferings and death we are delivered from eternal misery, and made heirs of never ending glory. In the blood of Christ you will find a healing balm for every wound, however deep and painful; a remedy for every distemper, a supply for every want, and a perfect enjoyment of every hope. How happy the situation of that man who can say, upon good ground, in the midst of distress," the Lord "is my strength, and my salvation."-" What though trouble like a tempest surrounds me "on every side; what though I be encumbered

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"with an infirm and sickly body; what though "I have to struggle with poverty, as with an "armed man; what though I be deprived of that " which I loved as my own soul; what though my "dearest, fondest wishes and expectations have "been blasted, yet still I am a child of God "through Jesus Christ; my God is my portion." Upon this I rest, as upon a rock, and can bid defiance to every storm of adversity. What, "though my earthly house of this tabernacle be "dissolved, I have a building of God, an house "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." But, oh! how miserable must the situation of that man be who has no such support "in "the day when trouble cometh?" who is conscious that his Maker is his enemy, and that all the afflictions which befal him here are but " the

beginning of sorrows?" Oh, that all such would speedily lay to heart their danger, their misery, and improve the day of grace while it lasts! that they would be wise to improve the dispensations of Providence, the strokes they receive, as monitors to return unto the Lord from whom they have revolted, that so iniquity may not prove their ruin. May God enable all of us to glorify him in whatever we do, or whatever we suffer, and to his name be endless praises. Amen.

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SERMON XXXIII.

JOB XXX. 23.

For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

ON THE CERTAINTY OF DEATH.

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THERE is no truth which the holy scripture more frequently and more warmly inculcates than this, that man is born to die: the voice of experience loudly proclaims the same, and the language of reason and reflection, if attended to, must undoubtedly bring it home to ourselves— addressing every one of us in the words of the prophet to David, "Thou art the man;" thou art subject to the universal law; in a very little time thou must resign thy being, and be reduced to the same state with all the preceding ages and nations of the world, which have been successively swept away with the besom of destruction.

The order and frame of nature are big with the seeds of corruption and dissolution, and these bodies of ours are so constructed, that though

we were exempt from the outward accidents by which life is often destroyed, and those inward distempers whose violence every day carries off mankind by thousands, and ten thousands, they would of themselves fade, wither, and die away; the springs of life would by little and little relax, the wheel stand still, motion would utterly cease, and man become a lump of insensible earth.

The certainty and universality of this event then is deducible from the course of nature, and the constitution of our bodies, as well as from the supreme positive will of God, which, as part of the punishment of sin, has given death a commission to extend its dominion over the whole human race. As this then is a subject in which all of us, and at all times are equally interested, whatever be our station or situation in life, it never can be improper to lead our attention this way, for there is nothing so likely to engage us to live well, as the remembrance that we are one day to die as it is chiefly owing to a neglect of this awful truth, that we are so indifferent about the great objects which religion offers to our consideration.

It is proposed, then, through the divine assistance, in discoursing from this subject, to consi

sider death in the following views:-first, as the separation of the soul and body; secondly, as a removal from this world with all its employments, pleasures, and troubles; thirdly, as the commencement of an eternal state; and then to lead to the practical use of these considerations.

First then, death is the separation of the soul and body. I shall not, at this time, go about to prove either the existence of the human soul, or the immortality of it, independent of, and separated from the corporeal part, as I am persuaded that every one now hearing me is fully satisfied of the truth of these particulars; and though we are ignorant of the nature and manner of the union which subsists betwixt the two constituent parts of man, that there is in reality such an union, we need little argument to be convinced of, and indeed an union of the closest kind it must be, as we find each of them affected in the most sensible manner with whatever affects the other-the soul taking part in all the sensations of the body, whether pleasurable or painful, and the body in its turn participating in all the emotions and passions of the soul; and so intimate, so tender is their mutual sympathy, that nature is shocked and shrinks back at the thought of separation, and by its strongest principle is unceas➡

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