"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

2. View death in its attendants, when it actually comes in its certain reality, and with all its dread accompaniments, and is it not the sinner's plague? It is true, indeed, that what we are now about to say does not hold good of all who die. Upon some, death descends with almost the lightning's swiftness, and, without any demonstrations upon the out-works of the fortress, is suddenly found in possession of the citadel. It must be admitted, too, that when his approach is more slow and gradual, it is not always to the most guilty sinners that his appearance proves the most appalling. It is of such that the Psalmist strikingly testifies :-" There are no bands in their death; but their strength is firm. They are not in the trouble of other men; neither are they plagued like other men." Still we say, that when death is contemplated in its true and proper light; if it is a serious thing to think of death, and to speak of death, it is a most serious and a most solemn thing to die. Let him approach in what form he may, he can never cease to be to the sinner the King of Terrors. There is, first of all, the fear of death-that fear through which even the righteous are oftentimes in bondage. The unknown, or at least untried, and uncertain nature of the journey begets an undefined, indescribable dread, as the time approaches when we must set out. Some may pretend to deride this fear as groundless, extravagant, and foolish, asserting that

Man makes a death that Nature never made, And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one. But the feeling must be founded in nature, for it is all but universal; and nothing, indeed, is a more frequent source of disturbance and distraction to the human mind, than the contemplation of any thing mysterious and obscure. Now, what is death but just the grand unfathomed mystery of wonder, and depth, and fear, which lies under life from its beginning to its close? Philosophers may plausibly argue about the uneasiness of dying, and ungenerously maintain that our exit from this world must be as unconscious as our entrance into it. But, after all their fine drawn speculations about a matter of which they absolutely know nothing, the plain stubborn fact remains to stare every living man in the face, that death is awaiting him,

and that he knows not what it is to die. In the description which the younger Pliny has left of the agitation produced among the wretched inhabitants of Campania by that eruption of Mount Vesuivus, which overwhelmed whole cities, not the least striking circumstance is, that "some wished to die from the very fear of dying." The truth is, that the dread of death, which all more or less feel, in spite of themselves, is but a modification of that instinctive love of life which man shares in common with the rest of the animal creation; and however much the feeling may at times be deadened, the trembling anxiety of the stoutest heart at the apprehended approach of dissolution, impressively proclaims how deeply it is rooted in our nature, and how well he knew what was in us, who said,— "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life."

But the anticipated terror of death is not its only attendant. It was a death-bed saying of the great and good John Howe, "I am not afraid of dying, but I am afrai of pain."

Around Death, ranged
In terrible array, and mixture strange
Of uncouth shapes, stand his dread ministers.
Foremost, old age, his natural ally
And firmest friend; next to him, diseases thick,
A motley train,-fever, with cheek of fire;
Consumption wan; palsy, half warm with life,
And half a clay cold lump; joint-torturing gout,
And ever-gnawing rheum; convulsion wild;
Swoln dropsy; panting asthma; apoplex
Full gorged. There, too, the PESTILENCE that
Walks in darkness; and the sickness that destroys
At broad noon-day. These, and a thousand more,

Horrid to tell, attentive wait; and when,
By Heaven's command, Death waves his ebon wand,
Sudden rush forth, to execute his purpose,
And scatter desolation o'er the earth.

But bodily torment, and overwhelming sickness, and convulsive throes and struggles as for life, make up but a small part of the plague of death. There is the keen anguish of forced and final separation from all that is dearest to the soul. To be dragged away-and it may be suddenly and violently-from all the pursuits and pleasures, all the favourite employments, and all the sweet enjoyments of life; to have the near and certain prospect of losing in a moment, all that a man has lived and laboured to attain-of being left with nothing-to forfeit in an instant the accumulated acquisitions of long yearswith both hands full to have to drop the hold, and become poorer than the poorest

beggar! "O death! how bitter is the thought of thee" to every man, but most of all "to the man who liveth at rest in his possessions!" Brethren, is this world your portion? Do you feel in it as at home? Are all your good things here below, and is it in them you have all your delight? Then these are the very things that make a death-bed terrible; and the more of these things you have the misfortune to possess, so much the more terrible will your death-bed be.

And, moreover, it is after all this previous conflict that comes the reality of dying. The bitterness of death is not yet past. Tell us, ye mighty dead, what it is to die? Tell us, what are the sensations of the last pulse-the last breath-the last close grapple with the foe? Tell us, how is it that the soul issues from the clay tenement, which it had possessed as its dwelling, and fondly loved as its home? and what are its feelings, as the scenes of a new and unknown world burst upon its view? The dead are silent; they wait us, till we follow and rejoin them, ere long, by the same road. Of what it is to die, we are all this day equally ignorant; but we shall one day know it equally well, when each of us shall have learned it for himself. We can see, however, that the separation of soul and body, is in many cases an agonizing struggle of intense severity; and we are led to presume that, where the union has been so close and intimate, the human frame must sustain, in the actual passage of death, a shock, of which it could previously have had no experience, and perhaps no conception.

Yet, to the impenitent sinner, all these are but the beginnings of sorrows. That death which has so plagued him in its forerunners-its attendants-its actual reality becomes most of all his pestilence in,

3. Its Consequences-its future and final consequences. We see its immediate consequences as to the body; and how loathsome and pestiferous must that be, which compelled Abraham to say of his once beauteous and beloved Sarah, "Bury her quickly out of my sight!" How degrading and disgusting for man, formerly the lord of the living creation, to have to say to corruption, "Thou art my father;" and to the base worm on which he treads, "Thou art my mother and my sister." The dust then returns to its dust; and

whither goes the spirit? To God, the Judge, to stand naked, helpless, alone, at the foot of his righteous tribunal. And what naturally follows on the judgment of an unjustified sinner? What can follow, but condemnation? "I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and his name that sat upon him was Death, and Hell followed in his train." That which may emphatically be said to crown the King of Terrors, is the second death-the death that never dies. And, if we would be rightly impressed with this view of the subject, let us only represent to ourselves, what would have been really, in point of fact, our condition before God this day, if the sentence, "Thou shalt die," had been allowed to be executed upon our race, in full and unmitigated rigour, without the intervention of any mediator, to stand between them and its eternal consequences? Then, assuredly, all the plague arising to man from the forerunners, the terrors, the attendants, the reality, the immediate effects of bodily death, would have been overlooked and forgotten, in the dismay and horror resulting from the prospect of nothing but death -constant, perpetual exclusion from Him who is life-in whose favour is lifewhose loving-kindness is better than life. The worm that preys upon the human corpse dies in its turn; but in hell the worm never dies. The funeral pile on earth is soon extinguished; but in hell the fire is never quenched. There is at once a dying life, and a living death; and they have no rest day nor night; and the smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever. That is the plague of death, compared with which, all previous and lesser plagues are as trifles, unworthy of a thought; for surely to live in perfect and endless misery, is worse than absolute annihilation.

Such, my fellow mortals, is the plague of death to sinners, and such has it been from the first. No sooner was the forbidden fruit tasted, than the ANGEL OF DESTRUCTION established his throne on the earth, and set out on his career of victory, conquering and to conquer. There have been many extensive insurrections, but there has been only one universal empire-the empire of death. There have been many long-lived beings; but shew me a reign in history so lengthened as has been the reign of death. It seems as if the only immortal upon the earth were

mortality. This mighty and merciless potentate, having claimed the whole globe as his lawful and undisputed domain, is revelling as usual, in his banquet of blood, surrounded with the dry and blanched bones of his countless victims, and exulting in the anticipation of future conquests; when suddenly, one is seen advancing towards him, in the form of pale and dying humanity, having the appearance of one of death's liege subjects; and he beards the lion-king in his den, and with a voice of thunder, breaks in upon his dream of everlasting empire, with the words, "O death! I will be thy plagues! Too long hast thou reigned to tyrannize over this unhappy race. Know, that in due time thou shalt be scattered and destroyed." "When a strong man armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils."

II. Christ is the plague of death. Where philosophy can do nothing, and infidelity does worse than nothing, Christianity steps in, and does every thing. We might here shew, how our Lord Jesus Christ has well earned to himself this most expressive designation, "the pestilences of death," by his complete conquest over death, of all kinds-temporal, spiritual, eternal; how he has satisfied the law, which was the strength of sin; and shall destroy sin, which was the sting of death; how he has converted all the forerunners and attendants of death into friends; how he has changed death itself, the worst thing in the world, into the best, even into unspeakable gain, making the last thing of cursed earth, the first thing of blessed heaven. Instead, however, of dwelling at length on the nature of the Redeemer's victories over death, it is more in accordance with our present plan, to lay before you some of the many proofs of their reality. And we observe, that,

1. Christ shewed himself the plague of death, by the full discoveries he made, and the clear instructions he delivered regarding it. Until he appeared, a thick cloud rested on the state of the dead. For, besides that the Jewish revelation had but partially benefited the world at large, and independently, too, of the fact, that the original Jewish faith had been grossly corrupted, by the time of Christ's advent, -it cannot be denied that, among the

ancient people of God, even in their best estate, there were so many privileges merely outward; so many rewards and punishments merely earthly and temporal; in short, the whole dispensation had so much the aspect of a dispensation only of present good, that it is with some plausibility a distinguished advocate of the Divine legation of Moses has maintained, that the Jews possessed no certain knowledge of the future existence of souls, or the future resurrection of bodies. While we repudiate such a notion as altogether unscriptural, and unworthy of the Jehovah of Israel, it is nevertheless no disparagement of the ancient economy, if we assert in the spirit of the text, that the great triumph over death was to be reserved for the time of the new and better covenant, which was to be established upon better promises. Not the infidel Sadducee alone, but every carnal Jew, who looked no farther than to the enjoyment of Palestine as the land of promised rest, must have regarded the grave which receives the dead body to consume and rot, as the destruction of all future hope to many. But when the Great Teacher appeared, he preached "the kingdom of Heaven:" he said, "I am the resurrection (of the body,) and the life (of the soul.) He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And he that, living spiritually, believeth on me, shall never die eternally." As the Sun of Righteousness, he dissipated the clouds which hung over the tomb-he poured a flood of light on the regions beyond it-he disclosed futurity in all its bliss and in all its wo; and by shewing that the soul could live though the body were dead, and that the body should rise again, he plagued, he slew, he abolished death, and brought to light, by his Gospel, life and immortality; that is, the present existence of departed spirits, and their eternal duration, when reunited to the raised body.

2. Christ shewed himself the plague of death, in many of the miracles he performed. Are disease and wretchedness the concomitants of death? It was his daily work of mercy to make distress vanish, and to chase away misery. He himself carried off our infirmities, and bore away our sicknesses. But not satisfied with giving repeated checks to death's ministers, he trampled on the grim mouster himself. Death, who often delights in selecting