394 THE STATE OF SUCH AS DIE IN THEIR SINS.

The pleafures of fin are momentary, fenfual and brutal; or they are infernal. They are overbalanced by the pain and torment which accompany and follow them. Life and death are fet before us, bleffing and curfing. Either depends on our own choice.

Should it not then be the earliest and most importunate enquiry, What fhall I do to be faved? The anfwer is, Believe in the Lord Jefus Christ. He only hath power to fave from fin and wrath. He is able to fave to the uttermoft all that come to God by him. For he offered a perfect facrifice for fin, and ever liveth to make interceffion for tranfgreffors. Admit a conviction of your guilt and mifery, your impotency through indwelling fin. Know that fin is exceeding finful, the accursed thing, the cause of all other evil. believe in the all-fufficiency of Chrift. Commit your fouls to him in well doing, before the day of the Lord's anger. Think not of continuing in fin, that grace may abound. For what is this but to make the gofpel, which was ordained to life, a favour of death unto death? Thofe, who defpife the riches of mercy and long fuffering, are veffels of wrath fitted for deftruction. Believe and fly for refuge before the decree bring forth, which cannot be reverfed, appointing your portion with those who believe and tremble in hell.

The words, which have been under confideration, fet before us the way of life, and the way of death. Believe that Jefus Chrift is the Son of God, and you fhall have life through his name. No other hath the words of eternal life. If you will not come to him for life, if you live in fin, you are in the way to eternal death. Confider the oppofite iffue of faith and unbelief: And the Lord incline your hearts to choose life.

SERMON XXVI.

THE FUTURE BLESSEDNESS OF THE

RIGHTEOUS.

■ THESSALONIANS, iv. 14.

FOR IF WE BELIEVE THAT JESUS DIED AND ROSE AGAIN, EVEN SO THEM ALSO WHO SLEEP IN JESUS WILL GOD BRING WITH HIM.

THE

HE words call our attention to the future bleffedness of believers. It is incumbent on me to ftate and to evince this doctrine.

The fcriptures fpeak of death as a fleep. The common death of all men is thus represented. "Man lieth "down, and shall not awake, nor be raised out of fleep "till the heavens be no more. They who fleep in the "duft of the earth fhall awake; fome to everlasting "life, fome to fhame and everlasting contempt. Speaking of those who perished in the deluge, Mofes faith, They are as a fleep. The pfalmift prayed," Light"en mine eyes, that I fleep not the fleep of death.”

But to fleep in JESUS is appropriate to fuch as die in the Lord; that is, in the faith and hope of the gofpelthe contraft to dying in fins, alienated from God. We meet with the fame expreffion as that before us, 1 Cor. xv. 18. They who are fallen afleep in Jefus. Death to a good man is refembled to taking reft by fleep; because he "refts from his labours" and fufferings. "David, "having ferved his generation by the will of God, fell "on fleep." Some of his laft words were, "Thou "haft made with me an everlasting covenant ordered "in all things and fure."

The doctrine of the torpor or infenfibility of the foul at death is inadmiffible upon the principles of our faith. These affure us, that thofe, who fleep in Jefus, enter into the joy of their Lord-are with him in paradife. Says our apostle, "We are confident and willing rather to "be abfent from the body, and to be present with the "Lord. I have a defire to depart, and to be with "Chrift, which is far better." When the righteous are taken away, they enter into peace. Lazarus at his death was conveyed by angels to Abraham's bofom. Now be is comforted. "I am," faid God, (after the death of the three patriarchs) "the God of Abraham, Ifaac and Ja"cob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living." After they slept in the duft, they lived to God, and enjoyed him as their portion. The pious dead "in"herit the promises." To inherit the promises, to be prefent with the Lord, implies a state of perception and blifs. Nor is there any reasonable prefumption against the opinion, that the foul, diflodged from its earthly tabernacle, perceives and acts more freely, than it does in union with it. This material body may rather clog and embarrass the faculties of the foul than affift them.

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Indeed, mental perception is often clogged, and fometimes appears to be wholly fufpended, while body and foul are united. Will it therefore follow, that, when the union is diffolved, the foul does not refume its activity? Do perception, intelligence and vigour depend on a connection with matter? There are, you will admit, intelligent beings, who excel in mental difcernment and activity, though they never had any fuch connection. He who is perfect in knowledge, is a pure and perfect Spirit.

If they who die in the Lord, are bleffed from thenceforth-if it is far better with them, than while they abode in the flesh, then the foul is not inactive at death. For in this probationary state, Chrift's joy is in believers: His peace paffeth all understanding. True, they have to ftruggle with tribulation and temptation: But

these are "working out for them a far more exceed"ing weight of eternal glory." Their continuance in the flesh also fubferves the cause of Chrift. Would it then be eligible to forego this peace and thefe advantages for a state of entire infenfibility? Why was Paul in a strait whether to die or live? how was death gain to him, if it wholly fufpends the noble powers of the foul? To him to live was Chrift. No one poffeffed a warmer, or a more enlightened, zeal for the gofpel; or contributed more to the fpread of it--to the fupport, proficiency and confolation of its difciples. When his life was fo much to the honour of Chrift, and the immortal interefts of Chriftians-when he knew how much Chrift would be magnified in his body; why had this chief of faints a wish to depart, if departed fpirits are as fenfeless as the body in the grave? Let us not cherish the uncomfortable-may I not fay the unfcriptural and unphilofophical opinion?

The Spirits of just men, of them who fleep in Jefus, are made perfect. We cannot fay after what manner they exift--what are their employments-what is their bliss. But the fcriptures warrant us to fay thus much: They are released from all the burdens under which they groaned in this earthly tabernacle-from all affliction of body or mind-from all imperfection and fin-from all temptation and danger. They have an intuitive view of Chrift in the separate state-an immediate affurance and unintermitting manifeftations of his fpecial love-fuch fulness of unmingled happiness as the separate state will admit. Their flesh refts in hope of a joyful refurrection.

The fcriptures are our only guide on the subject of a future life. They inform us in general of the future bleffedness of them that fleep in Jefus; and, by a variety of expreffion, lead us to conclude, that this blessedness commenceth at death. Why then fhould any fuppofe that it will be deferred until the refurrection? why

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suppose the intermediate ftate to be a ftate of infenfibility? Though the world to come is very much unknown, it is yet a fatisfaction to be affured in general, that the exchange of worlds not only liberates the faithful from all fin and temptation, from all forrow, pain and anxiety; but also introduceth them to the prefence of Chrift-that to be abfent from the body is to be present with the Lord. In this view the day of death is better than the day of their birth. At their birth they came into a world full of trouble and fnares. Defcended from a corrupt stock, pollution was the condition of their birth; but death, the last enemy, diffolves their connection with the firft Adam, The body is dead, because of fin; the spirit is life, because of righteoufnefs. "The fouls of the righteous are in the " hands of God, and there fhall no torment touch "them. In the fight of the unwife, their departure "is taken for mifery, and their end to be without "honour. But they are in peace, and their hope is "full of immortality." While they lived, the feal of the Spirit was "the earnest of their inheritance, un"til the redemption of the purchafed poffeffion."

They fleep in him who hath the keys of hell and of death. Our fubject refers us to his fecond coming, when the body, redeemed from corruption, raised in glory, will be a fit habitation for the purified, perfected fpirit. If we believe that Jefus died and rofe again, even fo them alfo that fleep in Jefus will God bring with him. The refurrection and fecond coming of Chrift are here mentioned as truths affuredly believed. Did Jefus die and rife again? There is a fure hope of the refurrection and glory of all who fleep in him. Them will God bring with him. "If Chrift be not raised, 66 your faith is vain; ye are yet in your fins. Then they also, who are fallen afleep in Chrift, are perish"ed. If in this life only we have hope in Chrift, we "are of all men moft miferable. But now is Christ "rifen from the dead, and become the first fruits of