enced by our doubts, but will do what he knows to be just, and what is just, rendering to every sinner "according to the deeds done in the body."

We should guard against the influence of mere feeling, in judg ing of God's holy government, and in contemplating the penalty of sin. Our feelings may be benevolent and sympathetic, but they are limited and, in many cases, incompatible with the permanent welfare of the kingdom of God. It is the part of pious submission, distrustful of self, to yield to the high behest, "Be still and know that I am God."

Some may charge this doctrine with embittering all happiness, and may wonder how those who believe it can be happy in this world or the next. But it should be remembered, that there is a bright side to the divine economy, and the brightness is so greatand glorious, that to the devoted Christian, intent on admiring its glory, the darkness is hardly perceptible. Perdition is a dark spot in the moral universe. But we are to behold also Christ's mission and death to save sinners. We are to rejoice and glory in a crucified Redeemer, and the hope of salvation through him. The saints in glory will behold God on the throne without "clouds and darkness round about him;" they will understand his love and justice, and the reasons of his administration. His mysterious acts, whether in this life, or in the future, will appear to them, in the light of eternity, to be all wise, and right, and good. And they will join with angel-worshippers in everlasting "Alleluias," with no murmurings at his past decisions, to mar their felicity.

The loss of the soul, duly realized, would restrain the spirit of worldliness, and lead us to use this world as not abusing it. The pursuits of pleasure and schemes for accumulating wealth, "choke the word," and drown the souls of multitudes in destruction and perdition. Here is the great danger which threatens the immortal interests of men at the present day. The extraordinary prosperity of the country, in its increase of business and wealth, has stimulated the masses, and enlisted the energies of men in money-making. Rushing eagerly forward, they are in great danger of forgetting God and their souls. Is it not so? Turn your thoughts to the scenes of coming destiny. Could you reject the Saviour if you realized what is comprehended in the loss of the soul? Suppose you have goods laid up for many years, "What shall it profit?"

The piety of Christians, in many cases, withers under an absorbing worldliness, and degenerates to a dull and lifeless formality. How shall this declension be avoided, and the heart be secured and elevated above the stupefying, bewildering influence of the world? We must pause and consider how these things will appear on our passage to eternity, and amidst the decisions. of the righteous tribunal. What if hope should then depart, and

dread despair lift its unavailing cry, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

The loss of the soul, duly realized, would make us anxious to save others, as well as ourselves. We are journeying with fellow travellers to eternity. We should speak to them of the way and the end, and strive, by our prayers, our counsels, and our kind efforts, to turn their feet from the broad road to destruction, into the path of life and heaven.

The loss of the soul! Let me say that the reality far surpasses the representation that has now been presented. The time is not distant when every impenitent sinner will be amazed at his present indifference to the great concerns of his soul. The present world will then have passed away. Time will have numbered its years. The vast world to which you go, will have openedeternity, heaven, and hell. The sinner's doom will be fixed. What a prospect is this! Prepare to meet the awful scenes of eternity in peace.

What can I do, in bringing this discourse to a conclusion, but to hold out the signal of hope: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."

Ah, sinner, your soul is in danger of being lost forever, and immense difficulties lie in the way of its being saved.

Your soul has been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God; it was worth the infinite ransom; and it is worth being saved by a life of faith, and self-denial, and prayer. Your soul has been cared for in heaven. Will you not care for it yourself? Christ offers to save you. Will you not come to him that you may have life?

You see the prospect before you, of eternal communion with the wailings of the lost. You may shrink from the effort necessary to escape the coming doom. There is the plea of business, the plea of pleasure, and the plea of carnal apathy, coming up in favor of some more convenient season. But consider, and be wise: "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

SERMON DCXXIII.

BY REV. WILLIAM WHITTAKER,

PLAINFIELD, N. J.

IMMORTALITY.

"If a man die, shall he live again ?"-JOB xiv. 14.

THE belief of a future state of happiness or misery seems to have been coeval with the existence of man. The Almighty revealed the doctrine of the soul's immortality to the original progenitors of the human race, and by them it has been transmitted to their posterity. It is beyond all controversy that the whole nation of the Jews, with the exception of the Sadducees, did believe in a state of rewards and punishments after death, even before "life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel." The truth of this remark will appear perfectly obvious to the unprejudiced mind, by a reference to the answer which Abraham returned to the question of Dives, when he requested him to send Lazarus to warn his five brethren, lest they also should come into the same place of torment. Abraham said unto him, "they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. If they hear not Moses and the prophets; neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Now this passage proves conclusively that the Old Testament scriptures do contain evidence sufficient to convince the most skeptical, that there is beyond the grave, a heaven for the righteous, and a hell for the wicked.

This doctrine will receive further confirmation from the Mosaic account of the creation, recorded in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis: "And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." In this declaration, there is an evident distinction between the material and the immaterial part of man-the body and the soul; in accordance with the language of Solomon, recorded in the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, and the seventh verse: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

Another argument in favor of the immortality of the soul, and a future state, is derived from the language of David when speaking of the death of his child. "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Now the consciousness that David should follow his child to the dark and silent tomb, and that the stern tyrant would hold them both in his iron grasp forever, could not infuse one drop of consolation into his bruised and

broken spirit. It was the firm conviction that he should meet it again, in a brighter and a better world, beyond the ravages of death, that enabled him to submit with becoming fortitude and resignation to the mysterious and painful dispensation of divine Providence.

Job, under all the afflictions and persecutions which he was called to endure in this present life, was supported by the assurance that his "Redeemer liveth,-that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth-whom he shall see for himself, and his eyes should behold and not another."

From the several instances which we have thus noticed, it must be obvious to the reflecting mind, that the doctrine of a future state was believed by the great body of the Jewish nation before the introduction of the Gospel dispensation.

If we pass from the Scriptures of the Old Testament to the philosophical writings of ancient Greece and Rome, we shall find many beautiful and sublime passages relating to a life beyond the grave. Their sages and philosophers felt the seeds of mortality within them; they saw daily instances of it round about them, but how far the power of death reached, they knew not. They beheld the body deposited in the grave; but whether man had an immortal part which would survive the ravages of death and live forever, was a problem which they could not solve. Such thoughts as these, we may suppose, would naturally arise in the mind of a reflecting heathen, and we therefore conclude that they must have had some indistinct conceptions of a future state of existence. They talked much of their Elysian fields, where the souls of the good would enjoy pleasure and delight, and of Tartarus, where the wicked would be punished forever.

Socrates, in the full prospect of his own dissolution, makes use of the following language: "Death would be very hard to me, if I were not persuaded that when I depart hence, I shall go to the wise God, and to those who are already departed this life, without doubt, abundantly better, and much happier than those who are left behind." After his condemnation, he is represented as saying to his judges: "I have a good hope that it will happen well to me, that I am thus sent to death. What delight to live and converse with the immortal heroes and poets of antiquity. It becomes you also, my friends, to be of good comfort with regard to death, since no evil, in life or death, can befall virtuous men, whose true interest is ever the concern of Heaven."

Likewise, the great Cyrus, in a similar manner, is said to have thus expressed his hopes on his death bed to his own children: "Think not that when I shall leave you, I shall be nowhere or nothing, for even whilst I continued with you, ye could not see my soul, but ye only knew it to be in this body by my actions. And so, in like manner after death, ye may believe that my soul lives, though ye see it not, for never could I be persuaded to

think that a soul which lives in a mortal body should die when it leaves it, or that the soul should be without sense when it escapes from its senseless companion, the body; but quite the contrary, that then it begins properly to live, and to be most wise and happy when it is broken loose from the chains of an encumbering flesh."

Such was the language of the most enlightened heathen, in relation to that most important inquiry: "If a man die, shall he live again?" before the clearer light of the gospel shed its illuminating beams upon the world. But as mankind approached nearer to the Christian dispensation, their views assumed a more definite and tangible form, just as the "rising sun shineth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day." Some founded their notions of a future state, on the immortal and spiritual nature of the soul-some from the strong desire of immortality implanted in the human breast, and others from the unequal distribution of good and evil in the present life, or the seeming inequalities in the dispensations of divine Providence. It is true, that after all, they were involved in great darkness on the subject; all their investigations ended only in doubt and uncertainty, yet the bare possibility of living again after death, afforded them a degree of consolation, and they were willing to hope that it might prove true.

Suffice it to say, that the belief of a future state is common to all ages and nations of the world, where all mankind will be happy or miserable, according to their conduct in the present life. It is a fact standing prominently forth on the broad basis of man's history, from the beginning of the world up to the present hour. Proof of this fact is to be found in the most refined American, who basks in the full splendor of gospel light and liberty, and in the wildest savage who roams the desert, and scours the forest for his prey-in the most enlightened Christian, who "looks through nature, up to Nature's God," and the dark idolator who deifies a river-falls prostrate before the noon-day sun, or calls upon the stars to behold him, while he worships the silent moon in the still hour of night.

Such is the nature of man, that he cannot live contentedly upon the things of time and sense; it is not in the power of any finite object to satisfy the cravings of his rational and immortal mind. Though the world of nature is redolent of life and beauty, and teeming with wonders to call forth our gratitude and praise, yet in vain do we look for an object commensurate with our wishes, or on which the restless spirit may expend its deathless energies. Amidst all the vexations and disappointments of this life, man looks for consolation to the unseen and eternal; he penetrates the veil which hides futurity from mortal sight, and finds rest only in the paradise of God. "That is the mark we tend to, for the soul can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal."