prise or terrify them when it came. "Make death familiar to thy thoughts, (says one of them,) that, when fate calls, thou mayest go out to meet it ready and cheerful." It is a great thing, and what we should be learning all our life long, to be prepared for that inevitable moment, so as to depart out of life contented: this was the best advice and consolation they could give.

But it is observable, that, in the scriptures, we have occasion often to remark, that we are never, by our Lord or his apostles, bid to prepare for death, but for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ! The interval betwixt death and the resurrection is not taken in; is overlooked in scripture-estimate. Because the next waking moment, after our eyes are closed to this world and shut in death, presents us (awful thought!) before our great appointed Judge, and the whole assembly of the righteous dead, if we are so happy as to have our lot with them; for the same scriptures, which alone give assurance of our living again after death, do also teach, that the dead in Christ, the faithful christians, shall first be raised to life by themselves and receive their joyful award.

And

And though, when the wicked are to be re stored to life we are not told, we are assured that all the dead shall be raised, and the wicked go into punishment.

Of what consequence to us is it to see that we have our part in this first resurrection, and that we do not miss of attaining to it! and the way we know. Jesus, as he speaks himself, is the resurrection and the life. He first taught and opened to us the way to it; and by following his precepts and example, though we are doomed to die, yet shall we live again, and live for ever.

萨

And especially as time and the hour of preparation for it may be over to us, we know not how soon; certainly cannot be of long duration;

Unto God be glory and thanks for all his good

ness to us!

PRAYER.

O thou most gracious Author of our beings! we are dying creatures: thou only livest for ever and ever! We desire to be made thankful to thee for thy unspeakable goodness to us, that, although thou seest it fitting to place

us

us here for a few days only and then to die, thou intendest us for a happiness beyond the grave, and hast instructed us that death will not terminate our being, but is the opening and passage to a life that will never end.

Enable us, we pray thee, to make a right use of the short day of our present life, that we may lay in betimes a foundation of true wisdom, and loyal obedience to thee and thy righteous laws, and may finish the work of holiness prescribed to us before the night cometh in which no man can work.

And when temptations and difficulties arise in the discharge of our duty which we owe to thee and thy truth; and we are purposely placed in the midst of them by thine hand for our good, and for the exercise of our faith and adherence to thee; cause us to remember for our encouragement the conflicts which the apostles of Jesus, and thy faithful servants of old, endured in the cause of thy gospel; and help us to follow their example in bearing our open testimony to it, that we may, in our time of need, partake of the comforts and supports which they derived from thee.

And although it hath pleased thee, O thou sovereign

sovereign all-righteous disposer of all things, to make a solemn stop and suspension of our being and powers when we depart out of this world, before we enter upon our eternal state; we desire cheerfully to acquiesce in thy methods of conferring so immense a blessing upon us, especially as we are persuaded that all thy ways towards thy creatures are directed by infinite goodness.

Finally, O heavenly Father, of thy mercy assist us always by patient continuance in well-doing, and faith in thy promises to us by Christ Jesus our Lord, to aspire after and to look forward with joy to that blissful state kept in reserve for us in thy future world, where there will be no more danger or hazard of falling away from thee; and where thy faithful servants will go on improving in virtue and happiness, and in thy favour for ever!

Now unto thee, O Father, who art the only living, &c.

The Lord bless us, &c.

March 25, 1781.

SERMON

SERMON XXIV.

MARK V. 1-5.

And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when be was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no not with chains: because that he had been often bound with chains and fetters, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken to pieces; so that no man could tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and the tombs, shouting, and cutting himself with

stones.

IT is sometimes proper in christian assem

blies to illustrate miraculous facts recorded in the scriptures which appear to be objectionable, and to have some difficulty in them; and it can rarely happen but that much useful in

struction