SERMON XV.

ALL MEN'S PLACE.

ECCLESIASTES, vi. ver. 6.

Do not all go to one place?

them.

I remember an ingenious writer, who had been very copious in his publications, observed, that the best and most profitable were written after he was fifty years of age: It is supposed, then the judgment is ripened, and the genius is as it were advanced to ma turity and knowledge; and experiences gathered when young, will be inore useful in the decline of life, when hairs are seen here and there grey upon It is said indeed, that old men are twice children; but there are some whose geniuses are so very low that they cannot be twice children, because they are no better than children from their cradle to their grave; but this is not the case with God's children, for upon a reflection of the wrong steps they have taken, if it proceeds from the sanctified sense of afflictions, they serve to make them more instructive in their latter day. This was the case of Solomon, though highly favored when young, for the Lord appeared unto him twice, yet he fell most awfully, and had we not read of his recovery again, the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, must seem to fall to the ground; but we have reason to think that he was restored, and gave evidence of his recovery by writing in such a manner, that none could but one that knew much of God and himself; witness the book of Ecclesiastes, which in all ages of the church

has been received with a peculiar respect. Ecclesiastes signifies a preacher; such Solomon was from his own experience, and exceeded by none but him who spake as no man ever did.

The chapter in which is the text, describes the vanity and misery of our present state, if unsanctified. There is an evil, saith he, that I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: though he is going about to describe a monster, yet it is a monster that walks and stalks abroad, a man to whom God hath given riches, wealth and honor, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, though God gives him not power to eat ; 'this is vanity and a great disease. Was there ever a more striking description of an old covetous miser, who leaves his wealth to some person that spends it faster than the poor wretch got it? He goes on and says, If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial, I say, that an untimely birth is better than he, for he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. Moreover, he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing; this kath more rest than the other. And then though this creature should be supposed to live a thousand years twice told, why,saith he,yet hath he seen no good; he has never been possessed of real good to make him happy here or hereafter; for, adds he, do not all go, both the abortive and the aged, young and old, high and low, rich and poor, whether blessed with chil dren, or have no children, whether like Lazarus, that beg their bread, or Dives, clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, Do not all go to one place?

An important question! shall I propose it to you to-night? Do you know what the wise man means when he offers this question to your consideration,

Do not all go to one place? What can be the design of this? the thing, no doubt, here spoken of, is death; the place here spoken of, no doubt is the grave. An amazing consideration! part of the first sentence that the great and holy God ever denounced against fallen man, to one and all, Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. On account of our first parents' transgression, it is appointed unto all men, all sorts of men, all the inhabitants under heaven, once to die; and therefore the apostle saith, Death hath passed upon all men,even upon those who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam, that is, who have not heen guilty of actual sin. Can there be a stronger proof of the imputation of Adam's guilt, of original sin, or a more culting trial that a tender father and nursing mother can undergo, than to see a dear little child just born, or but lent to the loving parents for a few months, taken away often in the greatest agonies that we can conceive? and if God, my dear hearers, has ever suffered your dear children suddenly to be seized with convulsions, and continue in anguish and agonizing pains for many days together, you have had sufficient proof of it. A friend of mine in London, about thirty two years ago, that was doatingly fond of every child he had, to whom I wrote a letter from Georgia, beginning with these words: Is your idol dead yet? for I thought it was such an idol that would soon go. The account he gave me the first time I saw him was, that the day before my letter was received, the child died in such agony and torture, that its excrements came out of his mouth, which made the fond and too indulgent parent wish to have rather died a thousand deaths himself, than that his child should die in such a way; and added, I was obliged to go to God, and desire him to take my darling away. What an awful proof are there sufferings, that children come into the world with a

corruption that renders them liable to God's wrath and damnation; but the blood, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, it is to be hoped cleanses them from the guilt and filth of sin. So any of you that have got children dead in infancy,O may you improve what I shall say by and by from the text,and pray endeavor to go to that place, where I hope you will see your children making a blessed constellation in the firmament of heaven in this respect all go to the same place,some at the beginning of life, some at the middle, and some at the decline; and happy, happy they who go to bed soonest, if their souls are saved!

:

But, my dear hearers, in another case we may venture to contradict even Solomon; for if we consider the words of our text in another view, all do not go to one place; it is true, all are buried in the grave either of earth or water, but then after death comes judgment; death gives the decisive, the separating blow. Suppose then in our enlarging on the text, we should confine the word to all the unregenerate, and to those who are not born of God; these indeed, die when they will, all go to one place. If you should ask me, for I love dearly to have an inquisitive auditory, who I mean by unregenerate? who I mean by those that are not born of God? answer, I do not mean all that only bear the name of Jesus Christ; I mention this, because a great many people think that all that are baptized, either when they are adult or when they are young, whether sprinkled or put under water, I believe a great many people think that all these go to heaven. I remember when I began to speak against baptismal regeneration in my first sermon, printed when I was about twenty-two years old, or a little more; the first quarrel many had with me was, because I did not say that all people who were baptized, were born again; I would as soon believe the doctrine of transubstantiation. Can I believe that a person who

gives no evidence of being a saint, from the time of his baptism to the time perhaps of his death, that never fights against the world, the flesh, and the devil, and never minds one word of what his godfathers and god-mothers promised for him, can I believe that person is a real christian! no, I can as soon believe, that a little wafer in the priest's hand, about a quarter of an inch long, is the very blood and bones of Jesus Christ, who was hung upon the cross without the gates of Jerusalem. I do believe baptism to be an ordinance of Christ; but at the

same time, no candid person can be angry for my

asserting, that there are numbers that have been baptized when grown up, or when very young, that are not regenerated by God's Spirit, who will all go to one place, and that place is where there will be no water to quench that dreadful fire that will parch them with thirst. I am speaking out of a book which contains the lively oracles of God, and in the name of one who is truth itself, who knowing very well what he spoke, is pleased in the most solemn and awful manner to say, and that to a master in Israel, that if a man be not born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God; he can have no idea, no proper, no adequate notion of it, much less is he to expect to be happy eternally with God hereafter; and therefore as our Lord spoke to this man, give me leave to observe to you. I don't mean the Deists only by unregenerate sinners; I don't mean the profane mocker who is advanced to the scorner's chair, nor your open profligate adulterers, fornicators, abusers of themselves with mankind; these have damnation as it were written upon their foreheads with a sun beam; and they may know that God is not mocked, for if they die without repenting of these things, they show they are in an unregenerate state, and will go to one place; if any of you are going thither, may God stop you this night.