-severing brothers from sisters, husbands from wives, friends from friends-cutting up all the pleasing schemes that fancy had sketched, turning joy and animation into weeping and mourning-bringing forth the plumed hearse in place of the gay equipage, exchanging the mansion of social comfort for the cold and damp tenement of clay! Oh! is not death then an enslaver? and are we not, brethren, in a hopeless condition, if such bondage were to be our fate for ever? But the Almighty has not left us in despair. Man is not doomed to vanity and vexation of spirit for ever. No, my Christian hearers. There will be a glorious deliverance at last. Sin and death shall be swallowed up in victory. Christ shall reign among his saints in majesty unveiled. They shall walk in brightness," with crowns on their heads and palms in their hands." They shall become children of God, inseparably united to him by tenderer ties than those which linked the sinless tenants of paradise; for a Mediator's love has cemented them and gratitude for redemption shall exult in fuller notes than those which the archangel breathes forth in the consciousness of unforfeited

blessedness.

The courts of heaven shall be

more enchanting than the walks of Eden. The crystal throne of God shall outblaze the lustre of the sun. The regenerated body shall surpass in beauty the excellence of its original creation; and that nature, which our God has deigned to put on as a vestment, shall shine amid cherubim and seraphim, the first in created dignity. There the redeemed shall behold their Saviour in the splendour of conspicuous Godhead, "Light of light, very God of very God;" no longer the object of faith, the topic of preaching, the theme of history; but the visible glory of the Father, encircled with myriads of holy angels. There shall they experience, in company of the apostle himself, the fulfilment of his animating words, their deliverance" from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

Oh that the sons of men would with one heart embrace the mighty scheme, by which Heaven designs to overpower the malice of Satan, and to elicit good from evil. Oh that they would no longer shut their eyes against

Y

those things which angels desire to look into. Brethren, that terrible sentence of final dismemberment from God, which he deigned for a time to ward off by subjecting the creature to vanity, must eventually be your portion, if you will not lay hold of the hope that is here set before you. The Bible proclaims that annihilation shall no more be the result of apostasy in man, than it is in devils. A full redemption is offered to all involved in Adam's condemnation. But if the unspeakable boon be rejected, mercy can do no more. The claim of Satan over his original prey returns with unresisted power. The season of probation allotted them on earth, kept him awhile at bay; but when that fleeting period is past, he becomes for ever their prince and their tormentor. Mercy shall disappear from their horizon, and stern justice commence its interminable reign.

There needs no comment upon this fearful alternative. Oh, may you all be persuaded to flee from the wrath to come. May you be disposed to accept deliverance from "the bondage of corruption," by the path which Jesus Christ

has opened," into the glorious liberty of the children of God." And may you escape the second death through him who is "the way, the truth, and the life."

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SERMON XIX.

HEZEKIAH'S SENTENCE AND REPRIEVE.

ISAIAH XXXviii. 1.

Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order : for thou shalt die, and not live.

THIS chapter, in conjunction with the preceding, contains the history of Hezekiah, king of Judah. In one, we read of his triumphant success over Sennacherib, king of Assyria-in the other, of his miraculous recovery from mortal disease. He was stretched upon a bed of sickness. The hour for his departure was approaching. He prayed fervently for a reversal of the sentence of death which had been issued against him. His prayer was heard; and Isaiah the prophet was commissioned to announce to him God's gracious decree, that the disease, which was fast bringing