in this tabernacle, do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of lif. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that, which I have committed unto him, against that day, 2 Cor. iv. 16. v. 4. and 2 Tim. i. 12.

III. We are next to consider this disciple of natural religion, and the disciple of revealed religion, at the tribunal of God as penitents soliciting for pardon. The former cannot find, even by feeling after it, in natural religion, according to the language of St. Paul, Acts xvii. 27. the grand mean of reconciliation, which God hath given to the church; I mean the sacrifice of the cross. Reason, indeed, discovers that man is guilty, as the confessions, and acknowledgments, which the heathens made of their crimes, prove. It discerns, that a sinner deserves punishment, as the remorse and fear, with which their consciences were often excruciated, demonstrate. It presumes, indeed, that God will yield to the intreaties of his creatures, as their prayers, and temples, and altars testify. It even goes so far as to perceive the necessity of satisfying divine justice, this their sacrifices, this their burntofferings, this their human victims, this the rivers of blood that flowed on their altars, shew.

But, how likely soever all these speculations may be, they form only a systematic body without a head; for no positive promise of pardon from God himself belongs to them. The mystery of the cross is entirely invisible; for only God could reveal that, because he only could plan, and only he could execute that profound relief. How could human reason, alone, and unassisted, have discovered the mystery of redemption, when alas! after an infalli

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ble God hath revealed it, reason is absorbed in its depth, and needs all its submission to receive it as an article of faith?

But that, which natural religion cannot attain, revealed religion clearly discovers. Revelation exhibits a God-man, dying for the sins of mankind, and setting grace before every penitent sinner: grace for all mankind. The schools have often agitated the questions, and sometimes very indiscreetly, Whether Jesus Christ died for all mankind, or only for a small number? Whether his blood were shed for all, who hear the gospel, or for those only, who believe it? We will not dispute these points now but we will venture to affirm, that there is not an individual of all our hearers, who hath not a right to say to himself If I believe, I shall be saved; I shall believe, if I endeavor to believe. Consequently, every individual hath a right to apply the benefits of the death of Christ to himself. The gospel reveals grace, which pardons the most atrocious crimes, those that have the most fatal influences. Although you have denied Christ with Peter, betrayed him with Judas, persecuted him with Saul; yet the blood of a God-man is sufficient to obtain your pardon, if you be in the covenant of redemption: Grace which is accessible at all times, at every instant of life. Woe be to you, my brethren: Woe be to you, if, abusing this reflection, you delay your return to God till the last moments of your lives, when your repentance will be difficult, not to say impracticable and impossible! But, it is always certain, that God every instant opens the treasures of his mercy, when sinners return to him by sincere repentance. Grace, capable of terminating all the melancholy thoughts, that are produced by the fear of being abandoned by God in the midst of our race, and of

having the work of salvation left imperfect; for, after he hath given us a present so magnificent, what can he refuse? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom. viii. 32. Grace, so clearly revealed in our scriptures, that the most accurate reasoning, heresy the most extravagant, and infidelity the most obstinate, cannot enervate its declarations; for, the death of Christ may be considered in different views it is a sufficient confirmation of his doctrine; it is a perfect patron of patience; it is the most magnanimous degree of extraordinary excellences that can be imagined: but the gospel very seldom presents it to us in any of these views, it leaves them to our own perception; but when it speaks of his death, it usually speaks of it as an expiatory sacrifice. Need we repeat here a number of formal texts, and express decisions on this matter? Thanks be to God, we are preaching to a christian auditory, who make the death of the Redeemer the foundation of faith! The gospel, then, assureth the penitent sinner of pardon. Zeno, Epicurus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Porch, Academy, Lyceum, what have you to offer to your disciples equal to this promise of the gospel?

IV. But that, which principally displays the prerogatives of the christian above those of the philosopher, is an all-sufficient provision against the fear of death. A comparison between a dying pagan and a dying christian will shew this. I consider a pagan, in his dying-bed, speaking to himself what follows. "On which side soever I consider my state, I perceive nothing but trouble and despair. If I observe the forerunners of death, I see awful symptoms, violent sickness and intolera

ble pain, which surround my sick-bed, and are the first scenes of the bloody tragedy. As to the world, my dearest objects disappear; my closest connections are dissolving; my most specious titles are effacing; my noblest privileges are vanishing away; a dismal curtain falls between my eyes and all the decorations of the universe. In regard to my bcdy, it is a mass without motion and life; my tongue is about to be condemned to eternal silence, my eyes to perpetual darkness; all the organs of my body to entire dissolution; and the miserable remains of my carcase to lodge in the grave, and to become food for the worms. If I consider my soul, I scarcely know whether it be immortal; and could I demonstrate its natural immortality, I should not be able to say, whether my Creator would display his attributes in preserving, or in destroying it; whether my wishes for immortality be the dictates of nature, or the language of sin. If I consider my past life, I have a witness within me, attesting that my practice hath been less than my knowledge, how small soever the latter hath been; and that the abundant depravity of my heart hath thickened the darkness of my mind. If I consider futurity, I think, I discover through many thick clouds a future state; my reason suggests, that the Author of nature hath not given me a soul so sublime in thought, and so expansive in desire, merely to move in this little orb for a moment: But this is nothing but conjecture; and, if there be another œconomy after this, should I be less miserable than I am here? One moment I hope for annihilation, the next I shudder with the fear of being annihilated; my thoughts and desires are at war with each other, they rise, they resist, they destroy one another." Such is the dying heathen. If a few examples of those, who have died other

wise, be adduced, they ought not to be urged in evidence against what we have advanced; for they are rare, and very probably deceptive, their outward tranquillity being only a concealment of trouble within. Trouble is the greater for confinement within, and for an affected appearance without. As we ought not to believe, that philosophy hath rendered men insensible of pain, because some philsophers have maintained, that pain is no evil, and have seemed to triumph over it: so neither ought we to believe, that it hath disarmed death in regard to the disciples of natural religion, because some have affirmed, that death is not an object of fear. Af ter all, if some pagans enjoyed a real tranquillity at death, it was a groundless tranquillity, to which reason contributed nothing at all.

O! how differently do christians die! How doth revealed religion triumph over the religion of nature in this respect! May each of our hearers be a new evidence of this article! The whole, that troubles an expiring heathen, revives a christian in his dying bed.

Thus speaks the dying christian.. "When I consider the awful symptoms of death, and the violent agonies of dissolving nature, they appear to me as medical preparations, sharp, but salutary; they are necessary to detach me from life, and to separate the remains of inward depravity from me. Beside, I shall not be abandoned to my own frailty: but my patience and constancy will be proportional to my sufferings, and that powerful arm, which hath supported me through life, will uphold me under the pressure of death. If I consider my sins, many as they are, I am invulnerable; for I go to a tribunal of mercy, where God is reconciled, and justice is satisfied. If I consider my body, I perceive, I am putting off a mean and