SERMON XIV.

THE MORTALITY OF MAN.

JOB xiv. 1, 2.

Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.

He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

THESE are words, which many, perhaps all of you, in your turn, have heard read, under circumstances that must have impressed your minds with a lively sense of their truth and propriety; I mean, at the solemn ceremony of the burial of those who have confirmed and verified them by their death. And who among you, when bending over and looking into the grave, just opened to receive the mortal remains of some loved friend, while the minister of religion pronounced

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those affecting words, "Man that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery; he cometh up and is cut down like a flower, he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay;" who among you, I ask, has then failed to make a secret acknowledgment to himself, that the shortness and vanity of human life are most justly represented by those comparisons? Who among you but has then felt the conviction most forcibly impressed upon his mind, that man is a weak, miserable, insignificant creature; that he is "as a thing of nought," light as the feather which is the sport of every air, empty and unsubstantial as the bubble, which just glitters for a moment on the surface of the water, and then bursts and disappears, leaving no mark where it had been?

You will say that I am entering upon a stale and worn out subject, on one which is the continual theme of sermons, and which has been so frequently handled, that it is become not merely dull and uninteresting, but absolutely offensive. And I allow my brethren, that it is old; I grant that the truth in this matter is so very striking and self-evident, that it has not escaped the observation even of those who are the least given to reflection; I am aware, that from the time of the Patriarch Jacob, who declared that his days

had been "few and evil," down to the present hour, language has been exhausted, in endeavouring to represent the frailty and nothingness of human life. And if I were certain that all who are ready to make this acknowledgment, were equally disposed to draw from it, the serious conclusion, and the practical application, to which it ought to lead, I would be silent, and not needlessly waste your time by offering any remarks of mine, on so common a subject. But when I consider the strange inconsistency of man, when I recollect that the very same persons, who know and confess that their " days are but as it were a span long," and that they are liable to be ushered into the world of spirits at any hour, without a moment's notice, are nevertheless so absorbed in the affairs of life, and so lay out their various schemes of pleasure and of profit, as if they were to endure for ever upon earth, I feel certain, that the time is not yet arrived, when it will be unnecessary to upbraid them with their folly, or to implore them to behave in a manner more conformable to their real character as mortals.

Do

you

refuse to believe this general charge of folly and thoughtlessness, without proof? I refer you then to your own knowledge of yourselves, and to your own experience of the ways Q?

of mankind. Only look around the world, and see what is going on there! See if the greater part of men seem to think that they have any more important business to attend to, than the affairs of this life! See if they do not spend their whole time, and thoughts, and strength, upon things which can only last them till they die, if even so long! See if they are not idly and unprofitably industrious in the pursuit of the vainest of vanities, and the most trivial of trifles! See if Mammon, the God of this world, has not many more servants, than the Lord Jehovah, the God of Heaven, and if his servants are not in general more faithful and devoted! See if the broad road, (the great highway, which is frequented by the lovers of the world, the seekers of earthly pleasure,) is not trodden by multitudes without number, while we may almost count those who are carefully pursuing their journey towards their eternal home, in the strait and narrow way! Alas! alas! we are most of us, I fear, nearly in the condition, in which the Jailor of Philippi was before the prison doors were burst open; like him we almost require a miracle to awake us out of our sleep, and to force us upon the solemn enquiry, how we are to be saved? We find so much to do to provide for the comfort and gratification of our bodies,