SERMON XLI. 587 that we ourselves must shortly die, and awakens the soulto actual preparation for its departure. Heb. ix. 27. It is appointedfor all men once to die, and after death thejudgment, Joshua and David, saints and kings, tell us they go the way ofall the earth: " The grave is the house appointed for all the living ;" Job xxx. 23. When we behold one after another, made of the same flesh andblood as we are, going down to the dust in a long con- tinual succession, we have a solemnwarning, that we must short- lyfollow : There is no ransom in this ease, no hope of safety, no door of escape, and as Solomon expresses it, there is no discharge in this war ; Eccl. viii. 8. A true christian takes notice of this with a pious awe upon bis spirit ; and when he is ready to grow drowsy and secure, the sight of a funeral, or a grave, shall rouse him out of his sleepy temper, and awaken religion into life again : When he hears of a neighbour's death, he asks his own soul, "Art thou ready ? For the next summons may come to call thee away into theworld of spirits, to standbefore God the Judge of all. " Thus a child ofGod reaps some advantage by the spreading empire of death over all mankind ; he makes a sacred im- provement of the terrible waste that the king of terrors has made over all the earth : Helearns the vanityand emptiness of man in his best estate : He grows humble and dependant on the eternal God : He reads the dreadful evil of sin on every tomb- stone : The death of every man calls him aloud to prepare for his own, and to be in actual readiness for his entrance into the invisible world. Happy souls, who take this warning, and stand ever prepared i But I proceed to the next general headwhich Iproposed; Secondly, As the death of mankind in general, gives these divine lessons to a saint, so the deathof impenitent sinners, which bath something in it very terrible, may be turned to the advantage and profit of believers, these three or four ways : 1. If we are true christians, and persecuted and injured here on earth, then the death of the wickeddelivers us from our ene- mies, and releases us from the wrath ofour oppressors. In the grave " thewicked cease from troubling, as well as the weary are at rest ;" Job iii. 17. Look back to the distance of three thousand years, and see the children of Israel on the banks of the Red-sea, rejoicing in the Lord their deliverer, when an army of Egyptian carcases , floated on the waters, or were cast up in heaps upon theshore : These were the cruel oppressors of the people of God: They were drowned in the evening, and the morning light discovered
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