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Creator, after teaching his new-made creature, man, his duty, wherein his own happiness was concerned, added this awful sanction to it:-"In the day that thou eatest thereof" (that thou presumptuously violatest my laws) "thou shalt surely die;" (Gen. ii. 17.) and after his daring transgression pronounced the sentence, (iii. 19.) "Thou shalt return unto the ground, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return:" our common ancestor, Adam, would not then speculate and refine upon his Maker's words, as his too ingenious sons have done since, and suppose himself compounded of two parts, so separate and distinct from each other, that the superior part might live without the other; but would surely conclude, that his whole frame was to be dissolved, and the life which had been so lately bestowed upon him, be taken back by him who gave it.

This hapless state of our nature, to lose our being in death, has in all ages affected and filled the minds of men, who had no other than nature's light, with sadness and melancholy thoughts. The ancients called death, of all dreadful things the most dreadful. The fear of it is surely most natural to those who

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see no ground to look for any thing beyond it. For who would wish to lose this fair existence, and perish for ever, if possible to be avoided? These apprehensions of it are also increased by the sad circumstances accompanying it-to take a final leave of all that is agreeable to us in this world; to quit houses and lands, with a thousand pleasing scenes and enjoyments; but above all to bid adieu for ever to dearest relations and friends, never to see them more ;— the solemn sorrowful parting, often increased by preceding painful sufferings, to be succeeded by darkness, utter oblivion, and nothing.

II.

Our inquiry proceeds: How came we into such a wretched condition?—for it is appointed to all men once to die.

And here divine revelation, which alone could inform us, gives us a very explicit and instructive account, worthy of the moral Governor of the world.

It teaches us, that by the sin of our first parent we are all brought into a state of death. He having transgressed the holy law of God, and becoming mortal thereby, subject to death, all his posterity became mortal too.

Rom.

Rom. v. 12. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men."

1 Cor. v. 22. "In Adam all die."

It is not in consequence of any sins of our own that we die; whether we are virtuous or vicious, it is all the same in this respect; it makes no difference, we must die. This is the constitution under which we are born. The first moment we begin to live, we tend towards death, we begin to die.

But our heavenly Father did not intend that his rational creatures, on whom he has bestowed such powers and capacities, and those so much improved by some of them, should be for ever lost in death, though he has permitted it to tyrannize over the whole human

race.

And formidable as it is in itself, he has converted it into a blessing, and made it one of the means of the greatest possible good to us, by its being conducive to our deliverance from the dominion of sin and the world, and to bring us back to virtue and our duty; which is true happiness, and the foundation of it for

ever..

For what more effectual cure can there be

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to human vanity, to prevent our setting our affections on earthly things? what more powerful motive to check and stop the exorbitant range of ambition, the insatiable hunt after false pleasure, than to know and to feel that the objects we are pursuing, if we could obtain them, are but for a moment? that you may enjoy them to-day, but cannot possess them long; and that if you place your heart upon them you are miserable; for you are sure to lose them soon, and the unvirtuous desire will remain your torment for ever whilst it lasts?

Death and its usual attendants, sickness and pain, lead us also to sobriety of mind and thoughtfulness, becoming rational accountable creatures. The calm pause and freedom from the impressions of worldly things, which frequent diseases, the preludes to our dissolution, bring along with them, teach us our insufficiency for our own happiness, and our necessary dependence on him that made us: "They afford leisure to be good," as one beautifully expresses it; give time and opportunity to inquire after God that made us; his will and designs in placing us here, in such a mixed state of painful and pleasurable sensations, for so short a space; to find out those rules and lessons of

wisdom and virtue which he may have given for our direction; and by what way of conduct we may secure his favourable approbation, whose power is so absolute over us.

Moreover, whenever we see a breathless corpse, each time that you hear the bell tolling some passenger to his long home, or meet the sable hearse or bier passing along the streets, There, may you say, are the fatal effects of disobedience to God: these read each their lesson to us-how odious sin is in his sight; the havoc that it is capable of making among his rational creatures, and the wide-ranging ruin that it has actually brought and entailed upon the whole human race.

These, with many others, are the benefits we derive from death itself, and show how our kind Creator brings good out of our evil,

We are still, however, subject to it; its fatal well-directed dart spares neither young nor old, nor great nor small, nor learned, nor even the holy and the good,

III.

We go on then further to inquire, how we are to be emancipated from under its present inevitable power? And in a few words, but

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