SERM. that day, if he fhall live to fee it, will be the burden thereof. It has been remarked,

V.

that as men advance in years, they care lefs to think of death. Perhaps it occurs oftener to the thoughts of the young, than of the old. Feebleness of spirit renders melancholy ideas more oppreffive; and after having been fo long accustomed and inured to the world, men bear worse with any thing which reminds them that they muft foon part with it.However, as to part with it is the doom of all, let us take measures betimes for going off the ftage, when it fhall be our turn to withdraw, with decency and propriety; leaving nothing unfulfilled which it is expedient to have done before we die. To live long, ought not to be our favourite wifh, fa much as to live well. By continuing too long on earth, we might only live to witnefs a greater number of melancholy fcenes, and to expose curselves to a wider compafs of human woe. He who has ferved his generation faithfully in the world, has duly honoured God, and been beneficent and useful

IV.

useful to mankind; he who in his life has SERM. been refpected and beloved; whose death is accompanied with the fincere regret of all who knew him, and whofe memory is honoured; that man has fufficiently fulfilled his courfe, whether it was appointed by Providence to be long or fhort. For bonourable age is not that which ftandeth in length of time, nor that which is measured by number of years; but wisdom is the grey bair to man; and an unfpotted life is old age*.

SERMON V.

On DEATH.

V.

ECCLESIASTES, xii. 5.

Man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.

SERM. THIS is a fight which inceffantly prefents itself. Our eyes are so much accustomed to it, that it hardly makes any impreffion. Throughout every season of the year, and during the course of almoft every day, the funerals which pass along the streets, fhow us man going to his long home. Were death a rare and uncommon object; were it only once in the course of a man's life, that he beheld one of his fellow-creatures carried to the grave, a folemn

awe

V.

awe would fill him; he would stop short in SERM. the midst of his pleasures; he would even be chilled with fecret horror. Such impreffions, however, would prove unfuitable to the nature of our present state. When they became so strong as to render men unfit for the ordinary business of life, they would in a great measure defeat the intention of our being placed in this world. It is better ordered by the wisdom of Providence, that they should be weakened by the frequency of their recurrence; and fo tempered by the mixture of other paffions, as to allow us to go on freely in acting our parts on earth.

Yet, familiar as death is now become, it is undoubtedly fit, that by an event of sọ important a nature, fome impreffion should be made upon our minds. It ought not to pass over, as one of those common incidents which are beheld without concern, and awaken no reflection. There are many things which the funerals of our fellow-creatures are calculated to teach; and happy it were for the gay and diffipated, if they would

V.

SERM. liften more frequently to the inftructions
of fo awful a monitor. In the context, the
wife man had defcribed, under a variety of
images fuited to the eastern style, the grow-
ing infirmities of old age, until they arrive,
at that period which concludes them all;
when, as he beautifully expreffes it, the
filver cord being loofened, and the golden bowl
broken, the pitcher being broken at the foun-
tain, and the wheel at the cistern, man goeth
to his long home, and the mourners go. about
the ftreets. In difcourfing from these words,
it is not my purpose to treat, at prefent, of
the inftructions to be drawn from the
profpect of our own death.
I am to

confine myself to the death of others; to
confider death as one of the most frequent
and confiderable events that happen in
the courfe of human affairs; and to fhow
in what manner we ought to be affected,
first, by the death of ftrangers, or indif-
ferent perfons; fecondly, by the death of
friends;
and thirdly, by the death of

enemies.