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to us the blessing of peace. He was a friend to the order, discipline, and government of the New England churches called Congregational. He was kind and helpful to them; and to his brethren in the ministry; and often invited to counsel and advise in matters of difficulty. Though he had much warmth and fire in his temper and constitution, yet it was not an ignis fatuus: He could not be justly called an enthusiast, in religion, as he happily tempered his zeal with meekness and prudence.

He was honored with long life, and usefulness: and was perhaps an unparalleled instance of carrying on ministerial labors without being interrupted by any bodily infirmity, for the space of fiftythree years, from the time of his settlement. But the best constitutions must fail at length. The prophets do not live for ever. He, after serving God in the gospel of his Son, for more than fifty-five years, now rests from his labor. He died, we doubt not, the death of the righteous-a death attended with hope, peace and safety. His last sickness, which was very painful, he bore with much patience and submission to the divine will. He viewed the approaches of his change, with Christian calmness and fortitude. He appeared willing to depart and be with Christ. This account of the state of his mind, I have from those who were with him in his last days and hours. He is gone, we trust, to receive the reward of a faithful servant-and, "having turned many to righteousness," of which we hope he hath been instrumental, "to shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as a star for ever and ever."

We pray God to sanctify his death to the bereaved children, and posterity. Though the loss you have sustained is great, yet you have many considerations suited to comfort and support you under it. You should be thankful that you enjoyed him so long, and that he was made so great a blessing to you. We hope you will receive and enjoy much benefit still, from the recollection of his good instructions and pious example, and from his fervent prayers which he presented to the throne of grace for you. We wish you to possess much of his spirit of piety, and exemplary virtue; and that in your several stations, you may serve God faithfully to the death, and receive a crown of life, that shall never fade away.

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May we, my fathers and brethren in the ministry, be duly affected, and instructed by the removal of this aged and venerable servant of God, from laboring with us in the gospel harvest! we not ready to cry after this ascending prophet, as Elisha did after Elijah. "My Father, my Father-the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" O that a double portion of that Spirit, which furnished him for, and assisted him in his work, might rest upon us! Let us labor to be followers of him, so far as he was

of Christ. Soon our days will be numbered and finished; and all opportunity to do any thing for the advantage of our own souls, or of those committed to our care, will be at an end. Let us work while it is day, with fidelity, diligence, and zeal, sensible that the night is approaching, in which no man can work.

What shall I say to you, the beloved church and society in this place? God hath removed from your head, your late worthy and venerable pastor, who has for so many years been ministering to your fathers, and to you. I trust you have a conviction upon your minds, that he has been a faithful minister to you; that he hath taken much pains, to set your duty before you, and to teach you the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. Those lips, which, as Solomon says of the lips of the righteous, fed many, are now closed in the silence of death. No more will you hear that strong and penetrating voice, which has so often been lifted up like a trumpet, to teach, admonish and warn you respecting the things of your everlasting peace. Doth it not become you, my friends, seriously to inquire with yourselves how you have received, heard and improved the counsels and instructions you enjoyed, under his ministry. If any of you have turned a deaf ear to all those faithful warnings, admonitions, and counsels, which he hath delivered, with a deep and tender concern for the good of your souls—if after all, you continue impenitent, and hardened in sin, O how dangerous is your condition! Are you not sensible, that you shall be called to an account for all the gospel privileges which you have enjoyed? What a painful meeting will you have with your deceased pastor, at the bar of Christ, if you persist in your sins till death! What cutting reflections, when your consciences and your Judge shall remind you of the many weeks, and months, and years, in which you enjoyed his plain, serious, and faithful instruction; and yet closed your life, without any practical and experimental acquaintance with that way of salvation, which he opened and explained! and that glorious Saviour, whom he so earnestly and tenderly recommended to your affections, and your choice! O! be entreated to consider the danger of your case, before it becomes hopeless. Bless God, that the overtures of his mercy are still continued to you. To-day, while it is called to-day, hear his voice, and go not on to harden your hearts.

But I hope the labors of your deceased minister have had a more favorable influence on many of you that you have received the truths of the gospel, delivered by him, in the love of themthat you have embraced, with a cordial faith, that glorious Redeemer of lost men, whom he hath so often, and so affectionately recommended to you-and that having received Christ Jesus the Lord, you have been careful to walk in him, by lives of exemplary piety and holiness. May not you, with whom this is the case,

look forward with a pleasing expectation, to that glorious day, when you shall meet your deceased pastor, at the right hand of Christ, to be each other's joy and crown, in the mansions of glory?

Let me, my friends of this church and society, with all the warmth of Christian affection, entreat you to endeavor to improve well the loss you have sustained, in the death of your minister, and to conduct properly in your bereaved and destitute circumstances. Trust in the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls, to guide, to defend, and to feed you; and to prevent your being scattered as sheep without a shepherd. Pray for his guidance, into proper steps, to obtain another pastor, after his own heart. Endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Live in love and peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you and bless you.

I shall close the discourse with a third inference from what has been said, viz.—

3. How foolish and dangerous is it to content ourselves with an indolent wish to die the death of the righteous, without that care and pains which are necessary to this happy end? The thing is of the highest importance, an object of the greatest magnitude. But is it not an unattainable good? We ought not to consider it as such. It may, by the aids of divine grace, be attained, if we are not wanting in proper endeavors for that purpose. We have the fullest evidence of God's readiness to afford his blessing to succeed suitable exertions, and render them effectual. Do you ask what may be deemed such? You may be sure that cold wishes, and languid desires, like those of Balaam, are not. If they were, who would not die the death of the righteous? Who would fail of this happy end? Those who are most devoted to sinful pleasures, of one kind and another, when they could enjoy them no longer, would be glad of a safe and peaceful death. But we must expect that the end of our life will be like the course of it. Wishes and hopes, that it may be otherwise, will prove vain and fruitless. What a man soweth, in the seed-time of life, that shall he reap, at his death; at the end of the world, which is the harvest. Balaam could be never the better at death, and in the future state, for the wish in our text, if he persisted in the practice of unrighteousness.

Nor do I conceive that persons have much to expect, if, just at the close of life, they turn such wishes into earnest cries to heaven. "Lord, deliver me from the sting of death, which is sin. Save me from the second death. Let not the iniquities of my life cut me off from hope, safety, and happiness, when I pass out of this world into another. Though I have never been reconciled to the practice of holiness here, yet take me-O take me into thy holy presence in heaven. Call not my sins to remembrance in

the great day, nor suffer me to sink under the weight of their guilt." I say, persons have little to expect from such cries, at the close of a sinful, careless life, cries extorted from them, merely by fearful apprehensions of that strange punishment which is prepared for the workers of iniquity. A meetness for heaven must be obtained, by the sanctifying grace of God, and the practice of piety and holiness, in order to the peaceful and happy death of the righteous.

I mean not to limit the grace of God; nor do I say, that he never extends his pardoning and sanctifying mercy to a sinner, in the last hours of his life; though I think we have no reason to suppose this to be a common case. The case of the penitent thief on the cross, which has been often mentioned as an instance of it, seems to have very little in it to the purpose. Can we say that he was not in a gracious state before, though he had fallen into gross sin? Or can we determine that he did not repent of that sin before this last hour? That was a time of wonders and miracles, and such marvellous displays of the power and grace of the Redeemer, as are hardly to be expected in common times.This might be the first time, in which he had any knowledge of the great Saviour of lost men, and so the earliest opportunity for his faith to act upon him. This is not the case of sinners, who have been born and brought up under the light of the gospel; or who have for many years heard, and disregarded the calls and invitations of it. I therefore conceive little encouragement of finding mercy, at the close of life, is to be derived to gospel sinners, from the history of the penitent thief on the cross, to whom our Saviour was pleased to say, "this day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

And have we not other arguments to prove, that the appearing penitence, and earnest cries, and religious promises of sinners, when they are, or suppose themselves to be, on a death bed, or near the close of life avail little to obtain safety in death, and happiness in the future world? Those who are raised up from such a state, and have their lives prolonged, too seldom give evidence, by their after behavior, that their repentance was real, thorough, and genuine. And where has God promised to hear the last cries of sinners, who have obstinately persisted in their evil ways, till death stares them in the face? Hath he not given frequent, and alarming intimations to the contrary? Are not those awful words, in Proverbs i. 24, &c. to be taken in this view? "Because I called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded: I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me,

but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me."

If you would lay a solid foundation to expect the death of the righteous, it must be by living the life of the righteous. You will not imagine, that I mean to intimate the most righteous life which any can live, to be meritorious of peace in death, and felicity in the world to come. When we have done all, we must say we are unprofitable servants; and place our dependence on the free mercy of God, through the mediation of Christ, for pardon and salvation. But there must be those religious principles in your hearts, which produce, in your lives, the fruits of righteousness; in order to your having a meetness for, or title to the happiness of the heavenly world, according to the gospel. "The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Let your hope of dying well be laid in nothing short of repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; proved to be true and genuine, by an habitual love to holiness, and delight in the service of God-by a hatred of all sin, and a constant care to avoid the appearances of it. If this is become your habitual temper, and governing practice, there is nothing in death, at which you need to be affrighted. You may adopt the language of the apostle; "For me to live is Christ; and to die is gain.'

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