of Occafions of Sorrow. 23s is there in going to funeral folemnities, any S E R M. more than to merry - meetings, if the temper, X. the thoughts and behaviour be the fame, or `'"--1 no better ? And certainly it may be fo. Do not we fee daily vaft multitudes of people affembling on fuch occafions, who, if they would afk themfelves what they came for, could give no other anfwer, than that it was to mix in a crowd of company, to en- tertain themfelves with the magnificence of the funeral pomp, or, at beff, to pay a civil complement to an aPrlided family, and the loft refped to their deceafed neighbour, without any more ferious and affecting Im- preffions of mortality upon their minds, than they would have at a public rejoicing ? What Solomon therefore intends, is, that we fhould make it our diliberate choice to go to the houfe of mourning, on purpofe to have our hearts affected with the fadnefs of the occafion, and the monitory inflance of mor- tality which is there prefented to us ; or ra- ther, that wherever our bodies are, we fhould defignedly engage our attention to fuch fubje is ; that we fhould ferioufly me- ditate on the frailty and uncertainty of hu- man life, the impoffibility of avoiding death, which makes a very important change in the
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