not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the passion of this world passeth away."* Reason would say "put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no help. Their breath goeth forth, they retnrn to their earth; in that very day their thoughts perish."

In the second place.-Originating in a principle of unbelief, this sorrow is criminal. It is no unusual thing for a man to make his own happiness the criterion by which to judge of another's. He who esteems life the greatest good, will be inclined to view the victim of death as an object of the tenderest compassion. He will regard death itself as the ruin of all that is great and good and fair. Had some untoward fortune stripped the deceased of his possessions; had he been deprived of external ease, or inward repose; the mourner would have commiserated his infelicity; but what bounds shall be set to lamentation, when death lays the axe at the root of earthly bliss, and levels the proudest hopes at a blow? My brethren, such grief comports not with the faith of christianity. You believe the soul immortal; you believe that in the moment of dissolution, she ascends to Heaven; and that holy angels who had encamped around her for her protection and defence, carry her to the bosom of God. You have known her to sigh and pant for the hour of deliverance; and yet when that hour arrives, your cries and your tears would seem to class her among unhappy spirits. Ah, how inconsistent! This soul was indeed an object of pity, when, treading the path of salvation, impending dangers threatened her every step; when participating the interests of the church universal, she saw that church invaded by corruption, and error, and fanaticism; when, exploring truth, she was opposed by the impenetrable veil of mystery; and aspiring to perfection, found it unattainable. But will you now pity her, when she basks in the blaze of the divine glory? When she stands on Mount Zion; when she dwells in the heavenly Jerusalem; surrounded by the spirits

* 1 Cor. vii. 29.-31. † Psalm, cxlvi. 8. 4.

of the just; and consociated with the assembly of the firstborn? - Will you now pity her, when the spirit of God has pronounced "blessed are the dead who die in the Lord for they rest from their toils to everlasting?”

My brethren; accuse me not of preaching a harsh and unfeeling morality; in censuring the grief that flows to the memory of the dead. It is not the grief, it is the excess, which I censure. It is that ungovernable emotion, which regardless of the religious principle, incites us to act as if there were no hope beyond life; and no life beyond the grave. But there is a sorrow which is innocent and becoming; a sorrow which is founded either in tenderness, in self-consideration, or in the exercise of christian repentance.

FIRST.-That sorrow for the dead is innocent and becoming which is founded in tenderness. The heart may feel the privation of dear and accustomed intercourse without excluding the resources of religion. We may lament the pains and sufferings which our friends may have endured in their march through the wilderness, without harbouring a doubt that their toils are compensated by the possession of the promised land. This sorrowful emotion, so far from being criminal, is not more inseparable from the texture of the human soul than it is laudable in a religious view. When I see the lifeless remains of what was most cherished on earth--the friend of my early years-the father whose protecting arm defended me from every evil-the mother at whose breast I hung in helpless infancy--the wife of my bosom-the brother-the sister of my soul-borne from me on the funeral bier-it is no crime to recall the sweet though melancholy recollection of departed joys; the advice that guided me through difficulties; the care that instructed my mind with knowledge, and formed my heart to virtue. It is no crime to call up the days of former years when we took sweet council together; or to dwell on the last struggles of tenderness, and the efforts of expiring love. It was no crime in Joseph, when he arrived at the place where

the ashes of his father were destined to repose, to make Abel Mizraim re-echo the voice of filial sorrow. It was no crime in David, when, informed of the fate of his rebel son, he wept, while the palace resounded with the exclamation "O Absalom, my son, my son!" It was no crime when not long since a nation's tears bedewed the urn of an illustrious chief. Nor is it a crime in you, christians, to dedicate these moments to the memory of him, who was your friend, your guide, your brother, your father, and all in one, your Pastor.

SECONDLY. That sorrow for the dead is innocent and becoming which is inspired by the consideration due to ourselves. At the first view of a dead person, it is natural to reflect that his fate must be ours; and that the gloomy path he has trodden, is "the way of all the earth." Natural, however, as is this reflection, and however universally made, it is too generally evanescent. How vague are the meditations-how superficial the regards—with which the man of levity attends the dead and dying! How innocent is he of self-application! Receiving the rule as general and co-extensive with the terms in which it is couched, that death is the allotment of all men, we must yet judge from his practice that he deems himself an exception; and because he now lives, thinks he will live forever! He hangs over the bed of languishing friendship-watches the approach of dissolution-closes the eye that never more shall beam lustrous affection on him—and joins the train that follows the inanimate reliques to the tomb where all that is admirable in the human form shall moulder in the dust. But how faint and feeble the impressions with which he returns-how soon forgotten the images of mortality, which vanish like the morning dream and leave no trace behind! how empty the sorrow that spends itself in repinings at what is lost, without admonishing him of a fate which cannot be far distant from himself!

Very different is the effect which the death of friends baş

on the man of consideration. In imagination, he extends himself on their bier-he descends with them into the tomb -he attires himself in their vestments-he feels decay already commencing its operations, and corruption approaching to dissolve the fabric that was built but to be destroyed. In the destiny of the deceased he reads his own, and appropriates to himself the lesson of mortality.

THIRDLY.-Jesus Christ has expiated the guilt of believers; and yet death extends his empire over them equally with the wicked. Men, disposed to cavil, have formed from this an objection to the gospel of our salvation. The answer they usually receive is, that if death is a storm, it is yet a storm which wafts us into port, and expidites our passage to a happier state. But, it has been asked, why has not heaven conducted its children by an easier path? Death, after all that can be said, is formidable, and terrors lead on his approach. What pains-what toils-what struggles! What fluctuation and suspense precede that all conquering faith which enables the Christian to die with magnanimity! How rude the separations of the grave! How heart piercing the adieus of affection! No, my brethren, we cannot deny that, although death is a necessary, it is a violent remedy. It is a monument which God has erected of the severity of his justice; of that horrour with which he turns from human crimes; and of that second and eternal death with which he will consume the impenitent, and avenge their unforsaken sins. The more exemplary the life of the deceased, the more affecting is the memento of his death. The more bright the graces of the expiring believer, the more signal the stroke of Almighty justice. Approach, sinner, and look into the uncovered grave. Dissolution has begun its office. In these cold mansions-this mouldering cell--thou seest a body once racked with disease, now yielding food to worms. Are these the reliques of one like thyself, sinner, who made a trade of wickedness, and declared hostilities against God? Or of a believer-a Christian whose life was a pattern of

piety and virtue? Yes, this believer--this Christian—expires. Sprung from a man whose disobedience entailed a patrimony of maledictions on his posterity, he participates the universal destiny, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." What then, shall be thy condition, in whom sin predominates? If the righteous scarcely be saved, wherewith shall the wicked appear? If the judgment of God begins in his own house-burns in his temple-strikes at his altar-what shall be the fate of those who obey not the gospel?

The death of persons thus worthy of our esteem and love, should awaken in us the fear of future retribution, and excite that grief which is necessarily connected with repentance. Sorrow for the dead therefore, originating in this principle, is innocent and becoming; and so far am I from wishing to repress it, that I would be grateful to God, could I make you feel all its force. I would carry you to the place of death where sleep the reliques of your friends. I would remove the sod that covers them, and expose the ruins of man. I would call on each to behold his wife-his child-his brother-his father. I would call on all to bend over the form of one who devoted the years of a long and honourable ministry to your salvation.

Could I so soon lose the impression of recent events Christians, the habiliments of grief by which I am surrounded, and the respectful solemnity visible in every countenance, would remind me of the particular object to which this service is consecrated. But a few days have elapsed since we were employed in performing the last offices for our very reverend and beloved father in Christ, whose memory be blest! No more is necessary to prove the veneration in which his character is held, than the unusual concourse of men of all denominations who attended him to his grave. That was the offering of general grief. This morning is devoted to sorrows peculiarly our own; sorrows, however, that hold no affinity to despondence, but harmonize with the

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