come, till their souls should experience a holy sensibility of sin, and a tremulous apprehension of the wrath of God, which might warn them not to enter on the dangerous and seducing paths of vice; surely, to those advanced in years, and who, in the natural course of things, cannot have many seasons before them, it is to be hoped that the insanity, not to say the wickedness, of waiting for a more conve, nient season, will be evident: your own experience must have, long since, convinced you of the treachery of such an expectation every conviction resisted only confirms us in sinevery time conscience is dismissed with the deluding promise of Felix, her return is the longer protracted; and the oftener we listen to her voice, without being alarmed in earnest, we become the more and more insensible and indifferent to her faithful admonitions. You may, probably, have unhappily experienced somewhat of the truth and justness of the startling climax of the most eloquent of British preachers, the venerable Jeremy Taylor, and found that "Vice, first is pleasing-then it grows easy-then delightful-then frequentthen habitual-then confirmed-then the man is impenitent-then he is obstinate-then he resolves never to repent-and then he is damned."*

* Sermon on the Deceitfulness of the Heart. Works, Vol. V. p. 520.-Heber's Ed.

Beware! oh, beware of resisting the influence of God! Beware! oh, beware of stifling. the convictions of conscience! Dismiss her not with the deluding and fatal promise, that at a more convenient season you will call for her.

299

SERMON XVI.

Revelation xiv. 13.

"6 BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD."

Whatever difficulty may be connected with explaining the prophetical import of some parts of this book, the general truth presented to our minds in the passage which has been read, is both obvious and full of consolation to the people of God. The condition of the church of Christ, under every dispensation, has been such as to require for its support and comfort, every argument deducible either from its present privileges or anticipated felicity. In this world, it is but emerging from the lowest depths of misery and guilt; and in rising to the loftiest eminence of dignity and happiness, it has not unfrequently to wade through the deepest waters of affliction, while all the billows of tribulation are rolling over it in succession. The verses preceding the text,

appear to contain a prediction of some of those revolutions, the design of which was to separate the people of God from the world, and to purify and prepare them for the enjoyment of final blessedness. In verse 6, there is a prophetic description of the wide circulation of the Word of God, and extensive preaching of the Gospel, which may be considered as having begun when the deep silence which reigned through the dark midnight of the middle ages, was broken by the loud and uncompromising protestations of the German reformers: "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Verse 8, contains an announcement of the downfal of that antichristian and heretical system of religion, which for ages has lorded it over the consciences of a large portion of the inhabitants of Christendom: "And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." Verses 9-11, describe the unhappy destiny of those who die in religious communion with that wicked and apostate church: "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if any man worship