there is a righteous and omnipotent God, He will punish them for the abuse of His good creatures, for defiling their own bodies, which at their baptism were made temples of the Holy Ghost, for tempting others to sin, and being accessory to their eternal ruin, for misspending that very time which God has given them in which to work out their salvation, for the evil example they give, or for leading an idle and an unprofitable life; and that all this while they are under the displeasure of a God who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

By doing this often, a pastor will keep the fears and consciences of such sinners awake. They will at least sin with uneasiness; and, finding that the ways of sin are a state of real slavery, they may at last resolve to seek for that ease and peace, which is only to be found in the ways of God's commandments.

After this, a faithful pastor will endeavour to drive such sinners from all their holds of false hopes, and vain purposes OF REPENTING TIME ENOUGH BEFORE THEY DIE, as if sinners could repent when they please; or as if, by deferring their repentance, they might not at last provoke God to give them over to a reprobate mind.

He will convince them, that they have no reason to depend upon the mercy of God, if it does not lead them to repentance; and that there is certainly the greatest evil towards that man, who sins and prospers in his sin, it being a sign of God's greatest displeasure, and that such a man is left to himself: a condition the most to be dreaded of any thing in this world.

That, notwithstanding all this, if a sinner is truly sensible of his sad condition, in having been in the hands, and power, and a slave to Satan, and desires to return to God and to his duty, he ought to be assured, that that desire is from the good Spirit of God; and if he closes with it, God will receive

him into favour upon his true repentance.

We have the word of the Son of God for it: "VERILY, Mark 3.28. ALL SINS SHALL BE FORGIVEN UNTO THE SONS OF MEN;" to

encourage the greatest sinners to apply to God for mercy and pardon, and not to defer doing so one moment.

If to this, a faithful pastor would add his own most earnest

SERM.
XCVII.

[Heb. 12. 14.]

prayers in behalf of such sinners; beseeching God, over and over again, to touch their hearts most powerfully from above; to take from them all that obstinacy and blindness which hinders their conversion; he would not so often have reason to be concerned and sorrowful for so many of his flock, nor repeat those words in the office for the dead with a sad heart and doubtful mind, "that we may rest in Christ, as our hope is this our brother does."

At least, a pastor will have the comfort of having done his duty, and that the blood of those that perish will not be required at his hands.

But there are another sort of people, though not such profligate sinners, who are yet in the way of perdition, and which a pastor ought to make them sensible of, lest he mourn at the last, when it may be too late to recover them. And these are, such FORMAL CHRISTIANS AS HOLD THE TRUTH IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS; who perform the common duties of Christianity without concern to do them well, or without being bettered by them; who profess to believe in God, without fearing to offend Him, and in Jesus Christ, without feeling the necessity of a Redeemer.

In short, who hope to go to heaven when they die, with the indifference of one who never considers THAT WITHOUT HOLINESS NO MAN MUST SEE THE LORD.

Such formal, indifferent, thoughtless Christians should be made sensible of the absolute necessity of an inward conversion of the soul to God, as well as of an outward religion.

And as an outward religion is not, at our peril, to be neglected, being ordained to honour God, and to create and keep in our hearts a lively sense of His majesty, and to obtain His graces; so neither is it to be depended upon, unless it lead us to love God with all our soul, and to keep His commands, in order to restore us to the image of God in which we were created, and without which we must never hope to go to heaven.

A pastor, who does this faithfully, will have no reason to sorrow as those that have no hope for such of his flock as sleep in Christ.

The next who are most capable of laying a good founda

tion of comfort and happiness both for the dead and the living, are Christian parents.

Most parents are concerned for their children's present well-being; and too often forfeit a good conscience rather than not provide for them; while too few are careful to give them such instructions, and such examples, as, by the grace of God, might secure them an inheritance in heaven when they die.

And so it comes to pass, that, instead of comfort, they often have the torment, the sorrow, of seeing them in the way of ruin while they live, and of misery when they die.

And although this cannot always be helped, even by the most sober parents, yet they ought not, at the peril of their own souls, to neglect all that is in their power; namely, to see they be instructed in the principles of the Christian religion, to pray for them every day of their lives, and to be sure that they pray for themselves; and to take great care that their natural corruption be not strengthened and increased by evil examples; that they get not habits of vanity, of idleness, of pride, of intemperance, of lying, of fraud, or of uncleanness, under their own eye, or through the examples they themselves set them.

When they are grown up to years of discretion, they should be brought to the ordinances of religion, and made to understand them; to Confirmation, and to the Lord's Supper; that once understanding the promises and threatenings of the Gospel, they may not fall into sin without the checks of conscience, and a fear for themselves.

And when parents are providing for their children, the Wise Man's maxim should be always before their eyes: "Better is a little with righteousness," that is, honestly (Prov. 16. 8.] gotten, "than great revenues without right." Remembering, that when a canker goes with a portion or an inheritance, it is generally the ruin of whole families.

Lastly; such parents as squander away their inheritance should seriously consider, (if such people ever do consider any thing,) that they tempt their children to curse their memory, and to imitate (as far as they leave it in their power) and follow their extravagant ways; and, which

SERM will still be the conclusion, they will have no comfort in them, living or dying.

XCVII.

On the other hand; where people live in the faith and fear of God, whether they live or die, their friends find motives of comfort in them.

If they are in pain of body, or under affliction of any kind, [Heb. 12. they comfort themselves with this certain truth, "that whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth; and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth ;" and that afflictions are more a sign of God's love, than of His anger.

[ver. 18.]

Afflictions, indeed, bring us the nearest way to God. Even death itself, the greatest seeming affliction to human nature, is a sure passage to a much better life and world than this we are in, if it has not been entirely our own fault.

Would you then strip death, with all the train of afflictions leading to it, would you strip them of all their terrors, then look on it in this view: as it is a sacrifice for sin, which God will mercifully accept of, in union with that of Jesus Christ, if we prepare for it, and submit to it as a penance due to our offences.

In this view, death is only the deliverance of a prisoner, the recalling of one from banishment, the end of all miseries, and a passage to another world.

With these considerations, good Christians will comfort their souls upon the bed of sickness.

But how shall we comfort those who feel, who smart under, the loss of their departed friends?

We must ever despair of doing it by such arguments as human reason may suggest. And indeed we do not want them, since God in His holy Word has furnished us with so many and more effectual.

COMFORT ONE ANOTHER WITH THESE WORDS, saith St. Paul, in the close of this chapter. What are these words? Why, with the assurance, the infallible assurance which God has given us, THAT SUCH AS SLEEP IN JESUS ARE HAPPY beyond what we can imagine or describe; that they are out of all manner of danger of ever miscarrying; and that, if we endeavour to follow their good examples, we shall meet them (and that very soon) in peace and happiness which will never end.

Now, that this is the happy condition of her whose remains lie before us, they, who are most apt to bewail their loss, have all the reason in the world to know and believe it assuredly.

They know how well she answered the character of a prudent wife, of a careful tender mother, of a kind mistress of a family, of a good and charitable neighbour, and with what prudence and piety she has governed her children and family.

She had from a child been bred up in the fear of God; and when she became a mother of children, it was the great concern of her life to make a grateful return to God for that mercy, by endeavouring to bring up her own children after the same godly manner.

If we consider her loss in this view: what she was, how she lived, and what she now is; it will lead the most sorrowful of her relations to bless God for His mercies and graces vouchsafed unto her while she lived, and for the good use she made of them; and to endeavour, as far as human nature will suffer them, to resign their will to the will of God, who never did, never will deprive His servants of any thing in this world, but when He sees it will be for our good, if we resist not His will.

Nay, we may venture to say, that He deprives us of nothing but what in His infinite wisdom He sees would make us more unhappy.

This will be acknowledged by every body who knows (and who does not?) that the very best of men do stand in need of warning to consider their latter end; to remember that this is not the world they were made for; to lay up their treasure in heaven betimes, that their hearts may be there before they die; that they want very strong motives to wean their hearts from a world which they are apt to be too fond of, and which yet they must leave very soon.

And lastly; most Christians want to be endued with such habits of patience and resignation to the will of God, as may render death, with all the miseries that generally lead to it, less frightful and amazing. And nothing sure so proper to effect these good ends, as such mournful occasions as this before us.