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SERMON V.

PREPARATION FOR DEATH.

PSALM XC. 12.

So teach us to number our days that we may ap ply our hearts unto wisdom.

ABOUT one of the most difficult things in nature, is that of calmly and frequently casting the eye forward to the momentous change which we undergo in the dissolution of our mortal bodies: and about one of the most valuable privileges in grace, is that of our being alike inclined and enabled to realize, as it were, that change in a sweet and abiding serenity of soul. No other topic is or can be equally interesting to the mind, whether in a regenerate or unregenerate state;and accordingly on no other topic has so much been both said and written in each successive age of the world.

But though all are disposed to generalize upon

it, very few indeed are ready to appropriate it individually to themselves,-I mean, of course, among those whose condition is without Christ, and therefore without hope, in this life. By some men, while in the full flow of health and strong animal spirits, and of great outward resources, bold and dazzling sentences on the subject of death have been strung together, which carry an air of bravery and defiance; and by others in the wane of life and the wastings of sickness, (who have been wiled out of all real comfort by the sceptic and the infidel) a kind of desperate plunge has been made, and their names and their sayings have come down surrounded by the enemies of truth with a halo of admiration, which has led the unconverted heart to view them as models of fortitude in the trying hour of death.

But the soul which has been taught by the Spirit of God, knows the folly and the madness of these swelling pretensions, and while it is borne up above all which can properly be called cowardice, it has an awful sense of that event which sin has made unavoidable, and the circumstances of which sin has invested with terror. approaching his death, the believer sees with unaffected solemnity that last blow coming which sin can deal upon him, but he sees it without dismay. He is sustained above all depression, by the assurance God's word gives him, that he who died in order to subdue sin, and death

In

which came only from sin, has secured him a home beyond the grave, where he can no more be distressed by the pressure, the torment or the consequences of sin. Indeed, in death itself, there could be no sting, if in the heart there remained no sin, "for the sting of death is sin." Without Christ he must-he could not but have-looked forward to death, with unmingled horror, but in Christ he sees that all the power and dominion of Satan perish, and the sword which by and in death, that malignant spirit wields over mankind, falls irrecoverably from his grasp, when once the believer steps on the threshold of eternity. As man became mortal when he became sinful, so he ceases to be sinful when he ceases to be mortal; and that glorious event takes place, "when the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God that gave it." Hence it was necessary that the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the friend of sinners, the Lamb on whose head was laid the sin of us all,-it was necessary that he also should suffer death, or the inheritance to life eternal could not have been secured for his people, as well as the penalty of sin paid for them, in the only sacrifice God would deign to accept. Man must have lain under the captivity of an immovable curse had not man's ransom price been paid and admitted at the bar of God; and millions of generations must have passed away, under the withering of that curse, in a

line interminable, and paved with sepulchres through the vast ages of eternity. But in mercy God left not his rebellious creatures in this state of hopeless, bitter, thrilling despair! for we read, "he commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more then, being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."

Here is the blessed truth, which changes gloom into joy, and fixes the believer safe upon the rock from which nothing can displace him. True it is, as Job declares, that as mortal men, God's people "dwell in houses of clay!" true also, that "their foundation is in the dust!" true farther, that "they are crushed before the moth," and that like the matchless being, who brought life and immortality to light, they must all "lie down in the grave;" but mark the comfortable assurance which follows, "If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection ;' for we are taught, that "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God:" and as a consequence, we are privileged to "reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

This being the great gospel truth, so full

of all comfort, what is the evidence supplied by the believer, that it is a motive of conduct, while it is a stay and support to him, during his prilgrimage on earth?

Is it not, first, that in fervent prayer, he is constantly seeking from God the blessing asked for in the text? and,

Secondly, that, in answer to prayer, his walk and conversation are made more and more conformable to his desire?

1. With respect to the first point, that is, his fervent prayer to be taught wisely to number the days remaining to him, more is meant, than that he has a serious thought, when considering the brevity, the uncertainty, the unsatisfactoriness of this mortal life; more is meant than that we follow in the train of the thousands who utter ejaculations of awe and horror, while some remarkable calamity is green in the memory, heightened perhaps in its interest from having occurred in his own immediate neighbourhood; more also than that when in the house of God, he hears the solemn warnings as to eternity, and the anxious preparation for it enforced from the bible, he is for the time most earnest in his view of the vanity of life, and most sincere in his wish for meeting death with peace and fortitude; more further, than that, when the funeral bell speaks for the moment effectually to his sleeping soul, he really thinks of so numbering his days, as to