You suppose Tyre to be responsible, and then ask means which are resistless; and you question whether enough has been done for man, unless there be enough to make him cease to be man. But you will not perhaps allow me to be right in this argument. You will concede, that means must be kept within certain limits; but then you will contend, that the means which exceed not those limits in the case of Chorazin, would equally not exceed them in the case of Tyre. The miracles wrought before the inhabitants of Chorazin left them moral agents; and, therefore, had they been wrought before the inhabitants of Tyre, they would have left them moral agents. There may possibly, but not necessarily, be truth in this statement. Chorazin was a Jewish city, and Tyre a heathen city. Chorazin was comparatively familiar with divine manifestations, while Tyre was completely a stranger to such displays. The history of the Jew was full of God's working; the history of the heathen was unacquainted therewith; and, therefore, means which consisted with the responsibleness of Chorazin, might possibly have destroyed the responsibleness of Tyre. If I had never seen a miracle, a single one would be overwhelming; but if I had seen ninety and nine, the hundredth might persuade, but not compel me to obedience. Such are the remarks I have to offer on this subject. They may be summed up briefly; and to this summary I ask your particular attention. Had Tyre availed herself of the sufficiency of means already in her power, Tyre would have been saved; and therefore, it is not true that she perished through want of additional means. Tyre would have repented had the additional means been vouchsafed: but since she had sufficiency before, additional would have destroyed her moral responsibleness. And while it is in proof, that the addition of means would not have amounted to compulsion upon Tyre, Tyre being a heathen city and Chorazin a Jewish city, that which would have been resistless to the one might easily be powerless to the other.

Now, I pretend not to suppose, that these hints remove every thing of mystery; the great mystery remains still just as it ought to do, unexamined and

unapproached. Why God should give his Gospel to this nation and deny it to that-why he should effectually call one individual, and not effectually call another-these are points on which I say nothing; these are points on which nothing can be said. But I have endeavoured to show you, that finite as are our capacities, they are enough to discern that God deals justly towards all, yea, mercifully towards all-that he affords unto Tyre just as well as unto Chorazin, such means as agree with moral responsibleness and surely I know not how after this demonstration it can be argued, that special and distinguishing loving kindness to a few interferes with the offer of deliverance that embraces the many. There is much in the doctrine of election that baffles man's comprehension: there is nothing that impeaches God's justice or his mercy. He invites all and beseeches all, and gives all a sufficiency of means. If he elects some to life, he elects none to death. So that all who eternally die, die through rejecting life which was offered most freely to their acceptance-life which was thrown most scornfully back.

But I forbear dilating on the difficult topic I have approached. Our text is one requiring to be examined with a decided reference to the circumstances of its original delivery: but if we now throw away the names of Tyre and Sidon, and Chorazin and Bethsaida, and read the admonition independent of the geography, then, my brethren, I think there is not a verse in the Bible which should come home to Englishmen with so much of keenness and power as this denunciation against those who profit not by privilege. The sun I believe hath never shone 'upon a land for which the Almighty hath done so much as he hath done for the beloved country of our birth. I speak not merely of the ægis of protection which has been thrown over these islands, shielding them from that assault of war which was destructive to every country in Europe, and hath raised her to the summit in the scale of nations; so that although she seem nothing on the map but a lonely speck on the waste of waters, she hath extended far and wide her name and jurisdiction, and the broad world confesses her the leader among

the kingdoms. I speak not of her commercial greatness, I speak not of her martial prowess; I speak only of her religious advantages: and I do hold it up as a wonderful exhibition that, amid the almost universal profligacy of the Continent, God should have preserved his Gospel among ourselves; and that while infidelity and neology and a thousand other vampires have been sucking the life-blood of society abroad, the Cross of the Redeemer should have been faithfully preached in our churches, and salvation by the atoning blood proclaimed with all the vigour and fidelity of the earliest Protestanism. God hath done marvellouly for England in planting the standard of his truth among us, and in not removing our candlestick out of its place. He hath not allowed Christianity to become disguised and deformed by the accursed heresies and inventions of designing men; for now in the very evening of time, he seems to multiply the number of zealous pastors, and to rear up in every part of the land fresh and bold advocates of the truth as it is in Jesus. But if much has been done for England, much shall be required of England. It is idle to say-that as a nation we act up to our privileges. Woe unto thee, England! woe unto thee Scotland! for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in Asia or Africa, they would have repented speedily in sack. cloth and ashes. Oh, I do fear, that, crowded as the land is with the despisers of the Gospel, with the disciples of an ensnaring and destructive liberalism, the Almighty may be provoked to withdraw from us our advantages, and leave us as a State to the havoc of revolution, and as a Church to the ravages of impiety. We are not, and we would not be blind to the fact, that thousands are thirsting for the overthrow of our church establishment; and that parties, however separated in other things, bind themselves together for the object of hunting down its venerable institutions. Be it so. We are not bigoted enough to argue that the Church of England is too pure and perfect to need any reform; but we are bigoted enough to believe, that the Church of England is the great bulwark and pillar of national religion; yea, that her existence is so identified with the State, that when

England shall cease to have an Established Church, she will cease to have an Established Kingdom. The State, wearied and lacerated by the importunities of designing men, may if she please, throw the Church over. board; but the Church will not sinkshe has too much of the Cross of Christ in her, and that never goes down in the most troublous ocean. But the State having rid herself of what thousands call an incubus, will be no gainer by the separation; she will have lost, if I dare use the expression, her ballast, and rolling backwards will at length sink beneath the mighty whirlpool of evil. We stand not here as prophets of evil; but we do stand here as preachers of truth. As a nation and as individuals, we have been made partakers of privileges, which, if they issue not in our salvation, must swell awfully our condemnation.

It consists not with the place or the season that I enter more at length upon national delinquency: but I press home upon you, in conclusion, individual de linquency. You who are my stated hearers, have I been wont to deal faithfully with you?—have I set before you the Gospel of redemption ?-have I stirred you to repentance and to faith in Christ Jesus? I am not to be deterred by any false delicacy from urging these enquiries. Away with the delicacy that would not mention Hell, except in a most courteous and affable manner. God is my record that I have striven to deal faithfully with you: you have had the way of redemption opened before you sabbath after sabbath; you have been warned and counselled and encouraged; and now I ask you, whether you are improving the means of grace? Do I preach in vain to you? In vain? I know it cannot be in vain. Sermons die not. You shall give account of these means of grace; they shall not be neutral and if death find you not edified by them, judgment shall leave you crushed beneath them. Oh, infinitely better had it been for you never to have heard the Gospel, than having heard it to remain unconverted. I trust it is not curiosity brings you here, nor a restless excitement. The scene on earth at which angels weep most is, that of a weak mortal vapouring away with a pulpit for his stage, and hundreds of his fellow-creatures wait

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ing to catch up morsels of his oratorical or poetical language. How awful the absurdityand impiety of setting the day of judgment to music, and when the woes of the lost have been arranged to the gamut, summoning the town to the delightful oratorio! But this is one sample of what is done in our huge metropolis. The sabbath must have its recreations as well as the week day; and popular preaching must supply the vacuum which is caused by the withdrawment of secular enjoyments. For every means of grace we shall assuredly give an account; and these our weekly assemblies are means of grace, even if men debase them into modes

of amusement. And I leave you with that solemn address to Chorazin which follows immediately on our text:"And thou Chorazin, who art exalted unto heaven"-see there the privilege -" shalt be brought down to hell"see there the condemnation. "For if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you"-now let every drowsy and sluggish evangelical tremble at these words—“ I say unto thee, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee."

These words have a primary and immediate reference to the Apostle Peter, of the nature and manner of whose decease our blessed Redeemer, who has a perfect acquaintance with all things, past, present, and future, was pleased to advertise him. The circumstance occurred after our Lord's resurrection from the dead, when, as the fourteenth verse of the same chapter informs you, he showed himself to his disciples for the third time after he was risen from the dead. On this occasion he pointedly addressed himself to the Apostle Peter, gently upbraiding him for his defection, interrogating him with respect to his love and attachment towards his Master, and renewing to him his commission. "He saith unto him the third time, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time lovest thou me; and he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep." He then proceeds to point out the manner of his departure from our world, and foretells what should happen to him in the evening of life, and in he closing scene of it. "Verily, ve

rily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkest whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thine hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God." This was a distinct prophecy of the martyrdom of this his faithful servant; and it was literally fulfilled. The day arrived when the aged Peter, after having received many an honourable scar in the sacred conflict, was seized by his persecutors, bound with cords, fastened to the cross, and endured a death, as ecclesiastical history informs us, similar in many of its circumstances to that of his divine Lord. So that he, who once denied his Master, and by a gracious look was restored to his friendship and his love, after having heroically maintained his cause, poured out his blood for this very Master, and thus gained the martyr's crown. But whatever peculiarity of appropriation these words bear to the Apostle Peter, they contain a sentiment of general interest and importance, and lead us to this observationthat as it is the honour and privilege

of every disciple of Christ to glorify his Lord in his life, so also in an especial manner by his death, whatever the form or the manner of that death may be.

The fell destroyer has again been permitted to enter this fold, and has hidden in the grave the revered, the honoured, and the loved. The departure of our Christian friends, at any age and under any circumstances, is always matter for mutual condolence among ourselves; not only because the ties of nature are burst asunder, and the heart is made to bleed, and the cry is heard, "My father, my father;" but because the visible church of God on earth is thinned, the number of the militant host is reduced, and the body of witnesses for God in our fallen world diminished: so that we may justly say, Help Lord for the godly man ceaseth, for the righteous fail from among the children of men." We therefore do grieve, and must grieve, over those who have fought side by side with us in the battles of our Lord, with whom we have walked to the house of God in company, and taken sweet counsel. Our sympathies bleed on such occasions, and we mingle together the tears of our affection.

But there are a variety of considerations which go to relieve our sorrow when our departed friends have been enabled to glorify God in their lives, especially in their last sickness and dissolving hours, when they have been enabled to bring glory to their Saviour: and when we have traced them in their upward flight to that world where they will bid an eternal adieu to the cares and toils and sorrows and pollutions of this mortal state, we check our tears, learn to smile, and we can even hail the departure of those who have reached the courts of eternal life and blessedness. It is in the sanctuary of God we find a balm for these sorrows. Here it is we hear a voice saying, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, henceforth they do rest from their labours, and their works follow them." In the mean time it behoves us to become followers of them who through faith and patience do inherit the promises; and I know not that there is any point to which the desires and the noblest ambition of the Christian heart may

be directed with more propriety, than that which the text brings forward before us this morning.

From these words I purpose to show you, FIRST, That death is inevitably certain-it must come. SECONDLY, That the specific form and character of death is the subject of God's allwise determination and arrangement. And then, THIRDLY, Show you that in whatever form death may come, it is the privilege of the true believer to glorify God in it.

First, DEATH IS INEVITABLY CERTAIN. All men must submit to its destroying stroke; for" it is appointed unto all men once to die." Christians themselves are not exempted from the stroke of death. Peter and Paul and John died. "The fathers where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?" It has sometimes been a question, how it happens that death should have been continued as to its outward form under the economy of redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ. The question has been put, Could not God have easily translated his children from the present world, as he did Enoch and Elijah, in their respective order and succession, without subjecting them to the necessity of dying; and more especially as it is certain that death is abolished, and that life and immortality are brought to light by the Gospel? My brethren, perhaps, we do not enquire wisely concerning this. It behoves us to take up the appointment as we find it, humbly to submit to it, and devoutly to adore the wisdom of God in it. Without question he might have thus translated all his ransomed children from the abodes of mortality to the abodes of bliss; but though he has abolished death as to its sting, he has not abolished death as to its stroke; and therefore, every human being, the ransomed people of God not excepted, must submit to the infliction of death.

Death is inevitably certain in consequence of the original sentence which has been pronounced upon our apostate race. God was pleased, when he placed Adam in paradise, to appoint a visible test of his obedience and subjection; and that test was found in the prohibition of a certain tree, of which God said, "Thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt

surely die." You are all perfectly aware that man transgressed this original constitution of his Maker; he put forth his presumptuous hand-he plucked of the forbidden fruit-he ate and he died. Then was the sentence pronounced, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." The irreversible decree of heaven dooms us to the dust. Death hath reigned through all | generations to the present hour, because the wages of sin is death; and till you can produce me a specimen of human nature exempt from the contagion and contamination of sin, you cannot produce me a being who is exempted from the penalty of death. O man! because thou art sinful, therefore thou art mortal. There is no discharge in this war we must needs die.

Secondly, The constant reiteration of this fact demonstrates the certainty of man's mortality; for however much the life of man may be protracted, yet you are all aware it must come to an end. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." Before the flood, the existence of man upon earth was wonderfully lengthened out and protracted; but even those who lived the longest, for seven, eight, nine hundred years, bordering upon a thousand, it is recorded of all, he died-and he died-and he died. "One generation passeth away and another cometh." There are many here who have lost their remoter ancestors, whom they can just recollect in the days of their infancy; there are others who have lost their immediate parents and predecessors; there are others who are trembling in the anticipation of the loss and this proves, that here we have no continuing city; we cannot continue by reason of death. Look back on the history and records of human nature-walk in the churchyard-meditate among the tombs-consider that you tread upon the dust of former generations; and then make the application to yourselves-I must die; the time is coming when in like manner I must be gathered to my fathers, and the place which now knows me shall know me no more for ever.

Thirdly, Consider, that constituted as human nature now is, there is an impossibility that we should enter upon the

spiritual employments and blessedness of the heavenly world. Man as a compound being is composed of a material and corruptible body, and an immaterial and immortal mind. The mind in its disembodied state is capable of entering upon the enjoyments and employments of heaven; but the body in its present earthly form, made up of mutable, decaying, and material particles, requiring the constant refreshment of sleep and food, and occasionally of medicine, and of a great variety of other attentions-the body thus constituted would not be a meet companion for the mind in the employment and enjoyment of future bliss, unless it should undergo a previous process of dissolution and resurrection, so that it may become fitted by such a process to take its part in the peculiar exercise of the spiritual worship, and in the felicities of a spiritual heaven. Therefore you have sung, and the language always falls upon my ear with inexpressible beauty and impressive sweetness

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"Corruption, earth, and worms, Shall but refine this flesh; Till my triumphant spirit comes, To put it on afresh." "For this I say," observes the Apostle Paul, this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” This goes to prove that two things are absolutely necessary, in order that our entire person may enter upon that state of promised fruition which is beyond the grave. Either there is the necessity of dying, or there is the necessity of undergoing a change, which is fully tantamount to dying. Those who sleep will be raised again in the possession of a spiritual body, a body spiritualized and made fit for the abodes of blessedness; and those who do not die must be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, in order that there may be such a renovated and altered constitution as may fit the whole person for the glory which is prepared above.

The necessity and inevitable certainty of death will appear, if you consider, finally, The conformity which must be preserved between Christ the head, and all the members of his mystical