it becaufe he is love. this! Therefore, How amiable a view of him III. We may certainly conclude that if God be love, then all his creatures ought to love him. Love him, O all ye inhabitants of Heaven! But they need not my exhortation; they know him, and therefore cannot but love him. Love him, all ye inhabitants of the planetary worlds! if fuch there be. Thefe alfo I hope need no exhortation, for we would willingly perfuade ourselves that other territories of his immenfe empire have not rebelled against him as this earth has done. Love him, Oye children of men! To you I call; but O! I fear I fhall call in vain. To love him who is all love is the most hopeless propofal one can make to the world. But whatever others do, love the Lord, all ye his faints! You I know cannot refift the motion. Surely your love even now is all on fire. Love the Lord, O my foul! Amen. John v. 28, 29. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the refurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the refurrection of damnation. VER fince fin entered into the world, and death by fin, this earth has been a vast grave-yard, or burying-place for her children. In every age, and in every country, that fentence has been executing, Duft thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. The earth has been arched with graves, the laft lodgings of mor tals, tals, and the bottom of the ocean paved with the bones of men*. Human nature was at firft confined to one pair, but how foon and how wide did it spread! How inconceivably numerous are the fons of Adam! How many different nations on our globe contain many millions of men, even in one generation! And how many generations have fucceeded one another in the long run of near fix thousand years! Let imagination. call up this vaft army; children that juft light upon our globe and then wing their flight into an unknown world; the grey-headed that have had a long journey through life; the blooming youth and the middleaged, let them pafs in review before us from all countries and from all ages; and how vaft and aftonishing the multitude! If the pofterity of one man (Abraham) by one fon was, according to the divine promife, as the ftars of Heaven, or as the fand by the feafhore, innumerable, what numbers can compute the multitudes that have fprung from all the Patriarchs, the fons of Adam and Noah! But what is become of them all? Alas! they are turned into earth, their original element; they are all imprifoned in the grave except the prefent generation, and we are dropping one after another in a quick fucceffion into that place appointed for all living. There has not been perhaps a moment of time for five thousand years but what fome one or other has funk into the mansions of the dead; and in fome fatal hours, by the sword of war or the devouring jaws of earthquakes, thousands have been cut off and fwept away at once, and left in one huge promifcuous carnage. The greatest number of mankind beyond comparifon are fleeping under ground. There lies beauty mouldering into duft, rotting into ftench and loathsomeness, and feeding the vilest worms. There lies the head that once wore a crown, as low and contemptible as the meaneft beggar. Nnn There *No fpot on earth but has fupply'd a grave; YOUNG. There lie the mighty giants, the heroes and conquerors, the Samfons, the Ajax's, the Alexanders, and the Cæfars of the world; there they lie ftupid, fenfelefs, and inactive, and unable to drive off the worms that riot on their marrow, and make their houfes in those fockets where the eyes fparkled with living luftre. There lie the wife and the learned, as rotten, as helplefs as the fool. There lie fome that we once converfed with, fome that were our friends our companions; and there lie our fathers and mothers, our brothers and fifters. And fhall they lie there always? Shall this body, this curious workmanship of Heaven, fo wonderfully and fearfully made, always lie in ruins, and never be repaired? Shall the wide-extended valleys of dry bones never more live? This we know, that it is not a thing impoffible with God to raise the dead. He that could first form our bodies out of nothing, is certainly able to form them anew, and repair the waftes of time and death. But what is his declared will in this cafe? On this the matter turns; and this is fully revealed in my text. The hour is coming, when all that are in the graves, all that are dead, without exception, Shall bear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth. And for what end fhall they come forth? O! for very different purposes; fome to the refurrection of life, and fome to the refurrection of damnation. And what is the ground of this vaft diftinction? Or what is the difference in character between those that shall receive fo different a doom? It is this, They that have done good fhall rife to life, and they that have done evil, to damnation. It is this, and this only, that will then be the rule of diftinction. I would avoid all art in my method of handling this fubject, and intend only to illuftrate the feveral parts of the text. All that are in the graves fhall bear his voice, and fhall come forth; they that have done well, to the the refurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the refurrection of damnation! upon I. They that are in the graves fhall hear his voice. The voice of the Son of God here probably means the found of the archangel's trumpet, which is called his voice, because founded by his orders and attended with his all-quickening power. This all-awakening call to the tenants of the grave we frequently find foretold in fcripture. I fhall refer you to two plain paffages. Behold, fays St. Paul, I fhew you a mystery, an important and aftonishing fecret, we shall not all fleep, that is, mankind will not all be fleeping in death when that day comes, there will be a generation then alive earth; and though they cannot have a proper refurrection, yet they fhall pass through a change equivalent to it. We shall all be changed, fays he, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet fhall found, it fhall give the alarm; and no fooner is the awful clangor heard than all the living shall be transformed into immortals; and the dead shall be raised incorruptible; and we, who are then alive, fhall be changed, 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52. this is all the difference, they shall be raised, and we shall be changed. This awful prelude of the trumpet is alfo mentioned in 1 Theff. iv. 15, 16. We which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, fhall not prevent them which are afleep; that is, we fhall not be beforehand with them in meeting our defcending Lord, for the Lord bimfelf fball defcend from heaven with a fhout, with the voice of the archange!, and with the trump of God; that is, with a godlike trump, fuch as it becomes his majefty to found, and the dead in Chrift shall rise first; that is, before the living fhall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and when they are risen, and the living transformed, they fhall afcend together to the place of judgment. My brethren, realize the majesty and terror of this univerfal alarm. When the dead are fleeping in the filent grave: when the living are thoughtless and unapprehenfive apprehenfive of the grand event, or intent on other purfuits; fome of them afleep in the dead of night; fome of them diffolved in fenfual pleasures, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage; fome of them planning or executing fchemes for riches or honours; fome in the very act of fin; the generality ftupid and carelefs about the concerns of eternity, and the dreadful day juft at hand; and a few here and there converfing with their God, and looking for the glorious appearance of their Lord and Saviour; when the courfe of nature runs on uniform and regular as ufual, and infidel fcoffers are taking umbrage from thence to afk, Where is the promise of his coming for fince the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 2 Peter iii. 4. In fhort, when there are no more vifible appearances of this approaching day, than of the destruction of Sodom on that fine clear morning in which Lot fled away; or of the deluge, when Noah entered into the ark then in that hour of unapprehenfive fecurity, then fuddenly fhall the heavens open over the aftonished world; then fhall the all-alarming clangor break over their heads like a clap of thunder in a clear fky. Immediately the living turn their gazing eyes upon the amazing phænomenon: a few hear the long-expected found with rapture, and lift up their heads with joy, affured that the day of their redemption is come, while the thoughtless world are ftruck with the wildeft horror and confternation. In the fame inftant the found reaches all the manfions of the dead, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, they are raised, and the living are changed. This call will be as animating to all the fons of men as that call to a fingle perfon, Lazarus, come forth. O what a furprise will this be to the thoughtless world! Should this alarm burft over our heads this moment, into what a terror would it ftrike many in this affembly? Such will be the terror, fuch the confternation, when it actually comes to pafs. Sinners will be the fame timorous, felf |