Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

not in vain, but that he will crown them with pardon, favour, and happiness eternal.

'I will therefore with an humble confidence lay hold on the promises of God to fincere penitents; I know (with St. Paul') whom I have believed, and am perfuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day.

It is true, I am to be stript by death of all mo worldly enjoyments; but I am not without hopes of meeting with much greater.

I leave my children behind me; but I comfort myself in this, that I took such care of their education, that I hope to meet them in the paradife of God.

All my trials and afflictions are now to end; now they appear as bleffings which God made ufe of to prepare me for this hour.

I will therefore endeavour to meet my death as a deliverance from fin, from banithment, and from captivity, and as a paffage to a much better world.'

After all; he that hath lived the beft life will stand in need of mercy at the hour of death. And even the greatest finner has not finned beyond the power of grace, and the efficacy of the blood of Chrift, provided he defer not his repentance.

In one word; the fting of death is fin. It is that which makes the very thoughts of death a torment to us. Therefore a Chrif tian life is the only cure for the fear of death,

[blocks in formation]

and for that great change it will make in our condition.

And now, good Chriftians, you see what a dreadful folly it is, to live as if we had nothing to do in this world; or, as if we were to live here for ever.

You see what a change death will make in our condition. No more to be done, too late to repent, to wifh, to refolve, to promise, to do any thing.

And be affured of it, that it is no matter how a man spends his life, if he is not preparing for death and for eternity.

In the death of others, we fee what we ourfelves are, and what we must come to. Could we fee the world as we shall judge of it when we come to die, there is nothing in it that would tempt us to hazard our fouls for.

You have seen a child extremely fond of his play-things, and impatient to part with them. An hour after he falls fick, you ftrive to please him with the things he was just now fo fond of; he lets them drop out of his hand, and will not fo much as look on them.

Why indeed, Chriftians, this will be the cafe of every one of us, when we come to die: we fhall defpife, we fhall loath, we shall hate, the very things which now keep us from preparing for our latter end.

When we fee others go to bless ourselves, that that we are yet alive.

before us, we are apt

it is not our lot, and But, for God's fake,

where

where is the comfort, if we make no good use of the time which God ftill continues to us.

And let me take good notice of it; That though the death of others does not much affect me now, yet it must come to be my own cafe; and when it does do so, it will be of the greatest moment to me whether I am to be happy or miferable for ever.

It is our great comfort, that our time is in God's hands; that nothing can deprive us of life without his leave. So that we may be fure, if we are in the way of falvation when he calls for us, it will be well with us, though we have not done all that we could. wifh we had done.

This, I fay, is our comfort. But then let us not delay one moment to put ourselves into the way of life, left death fhould overtake us

unawares.

Let us ever remember, that we shall rife out of the grave juft as we go into it, either favourites or enemies of God to all eternity.

In one word; let us be perfuaded to live like Christians, and then we may every one of us fay with St. Paul, to me to die is gain.

And, O God! grant, that what has now been faid may contribute fomething to that bleffed end; and that I myself, and all who have heard me, may remember, that our sentence of death is already paffed, that therefore we may make the remainder of our lives a worthy preparation for death.

Deliver

Deliver every foul of us from the blindness of trusting to a death-bed repentance; and fix this truth in all our hearts, that IF WE LIVE WITHOUT CARE, WE SHALL DIE WITHOUT COMFORT.

Now to God the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

SERMON

SERMON XCV.

PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF Mr. EVAN CHRISTIAN.

THE HAPPINESS OF THOSE WHO DIE IN THE FAITH AND FAVOUR OF GOD.

I

REV. xiv. 13.

I HEARD A VOICE FROM HEAVEN, SAYING UNTO ME, WRITE, BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD, FROM HENCEFORTH: YEA, SAITH THE SPIRIT, THAT THEY MAY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS; AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THÊM.

HAVE made choice of this part of the office for the burial of the dead, for our prefent meditations, not without very good reafons, and which you will easily apprehend without much infifting upon them.

For instance: You will conclude, that when I chose these words, I did believe them very fuitable, and applicable, in an especial manner, to the perfon who now lies dead before us; and indeed fo I did, otherwise I should have abused a text of facred fcripture to ends very unworthy of a minifter of God.

But befides this, I had in my thoughts the prefent times of ficknefs and mortality, in which it has pleafed God to vifit very many families.

I confi

« AnteriorContinuar »