CHAPTER IX.

Preparation for Death.

Since we can die but once, and after death

Our state no alteration knows;

But when we have resigned our breath,

Th' immortal spirit goes

To endless joys, or everlasting woes;

Wise is the man who labours to secure
That mighty and important stake,

And by all methods tries to make

His passage safe, and his reception sure.

POMFRET.

If there is no escape from the stroke of death; if the moment of our departure is uncertain, and may arrive when we least expect it; and if a state of infinite misery, or of infinite blessedness, awaits us beyond the confines of the tomb; of how much importance is it that we should be habitually prepared for our last great change! The Jews were charged, "Prepare to meet thy

God, O Israel." And every affliction which we feel; every death which takes place in our families, or in our neighbourhood; all the appendages of mortality, by which we are surrounded; the interchange of day and night; the close of one year, and the commencement of another; reiterate the salutary admonition, "therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." Nor do our consciences refuse to acknowledge the propriety of these solemn injunctions, but urge us to seek an immediate fitness for that awful eternity which stretches immeasurably before us.

Heaven, the abode of departed spirits, can never receive into its blessed society, those who are enemies to the character and government of God, and who, in consequence of their rebellion, are children of wrath, and heirs of hell. On its pearly gates we read inscribed in letters of gold, "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." The imperial heavens is a state of the most exalted excellence, and of matchless perfection; it is the seat of the infinite Jehovah, and the theatre on which he displays the brightest glories of his character, and the sweetest effulgence of his grace; it is the home of countless myriads of

angelic beings, and of immortal spirits redeemed from among men, who are eminently capacitated for the service and enjoyment of the Almighty; its constitution, its laws, its employment, like its divine Sovereign, are spiritual and holy; and as well may we think of mingling light with darkness, or vile impurity with unsullied excellence, as of associating men whose hearts are under the influence of depraved principles with the general assembly and church of the first-born. Were such an one to steal into heaven, while all the inhabitants of that world gazed upon him, the leprosy would strike to his forehead: nor would it be necessary for them to thrust him out from thence; but conscious of his pollution, like the smitten king of Israel, he would hasten to go out himself. And as the unregenerate are morally unfit for the new Jerusalem, so they are excluded from it by the righteous sentence of that law whose precepts they have broken, and whose penalty they have incurred. "For as many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." A consciousness of these facts will imbitter to the sinner the pains of a sick-bed, and fearfully increase the anguish of a dying hour. For a man to feel himself on the point of separation from all that he valued and enjoyed on earth, and to have no other pros

pect than that of enduring, through an infinity of ages, the unmixed vials of divine wrath, is a situation of awful interest, which may well shake the confidence of the stoutest heart, and turn pale the hardiest countenance.

In order to die safely, it is necessary that we should be raised from a death in sin, to a life in righteousness. Nor let any suppose that although it is important this change should pass on wilful and notorious transgressors, whose language and conduct are a breach of social order and destructive of social happiness, yet that others whose character is fair and upright, and whose morals have stood the test of public opinion, have no need of conversion. Education may throw a restraint on the evil propensities and corrupt principles of the human heart; and a regard to the common decencies of life, or the dread of future punishment, may give a complexion to the external carriage and behaviour; while the mind is in a state of awful enmity against God, and opposed to his holy and righteous government. Every man, in consequence of the fall of our first parents, brings into the world with him a degenerate nature, prone to that which is evil, and averse to all that is good. As he advances in life, and temptations thicken around him, his depraved principles gather strength, and manifest themselves in a practical

disregard of the revealed will of God, and a want of subjection to the method of salvation through a crucified Redeemer. To give us an idea of the dreadful insensibility of the heart, and its moral indisposition to all spiritual and holy duties, it is declared to be "dead in trespasses and sins." The Scriptures, also, speaking of those who live in pleasure, say, that they are "dead while they live." They are utter strangers to the worth and importance of invisible realities; destitute of all true feeling, being "past feeling;" and have no taste for those refined and substantial pleasures which real religion affords. Objects of sense completely occupy their attention, and command their pursuit, to the neglect of the great and pressing concerns of the soul and eternity. And if, at times, they seem to put forth acts which have some appearance of vitality, these proceed not from a principle of life, but resemble those artificial motions of curious automatons, which are so ingeniously contrived as to counterfeit the movements of living animals.

Such being the state of every human being, of how much importance is it that a new and divine life be imparted to the soul, opening to the understanding all the beauties and treasures of the Redeemer's spiritual kingdom, engaging the affections in the love of unseen and eternal realities, and inclining the will in the ardent