you despise the curse threatened against persons of your description, and bless yourselves in your hearts, saying that you shall have peace, though you walk in the imagination of your hearts; in this case, unless your doom be averted by a timely repentance, and a sincere reception of the atonement, even that God, with whom there is plenteous forgiveness, will not spare you, but then the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy will smoke against you, and all the curses that are written in his book will lie upon you without mitigation, intermission, or end. (See Deut. xxix. 19, 20.)

Finally, I little doubt but there are those here, who, whatever misgivings of heart they may occasionally feel on the subject, have yet good ground to conclude that there is forgiveness for them, and that they are interested in the blessings of God's grace and mercy. Let me urge such of you to give a still increasing diligence to make your calling and election sure, and to seek after a still more confirmed persuasion of a special interest in that forgiveness which is with God. For while you thus take the most effectual step towards preserving and promoting your personal comfort and peace of mind, you will also find, through the influence of divine grace, an increasing inclina

tion and ability to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things, it being when the heart is in this way most enlarged, that we are most disposed to run with alacrity in the way of God's commandments. (Psalm cxix. 32.)

258

SERMON XV.

THE CHRISTIAN'S OBJECT IN LIFE, AND PROSPECT IN DEATH.

PHIL. i. 21.

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

A VERY slight view of the nature of Chris tianity, and of the actual state of man, will lead at once to the remark, how exactly suited the one is to the other. To verify this remark, we need refer to no other instances of that suitableness, than those suggested by the text. Man, destitute of divine revelation, is utterly at a loss as to the great end of his creation; quite in the dark as to the purpose, for which he was sent to live in the world: while the thoughts of the close of that life, of the design of which he is thus ignorant, serve only in general to fill him with horror. In both respects, however,

Chris

THE CHRISTIAN'S OBJECT IN LIFE, &C. 259

tianity exactly meets his wants. It at once sets before him the great end, to the pursuit of which his life should be devoted; and enables him to look forward to death, not merely with a submissive resignation to the divine will, but with a joyful anticipation and hope. It enables him, in a measure, to adopt as his own the language of the text; and to say with the apostle, "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." "The promotion of the glory of Christ, and of God in him, is the worthy object for which I live; and death itself, which puts an entire end to all the happiness, such as it is, of the irreligious character, is to be numbered even among my treasures, as it will introduce me to the fulness of my joy."

It is true, indeed, that there are but very few persons, who, with the unhesitating and magnificent confidence of the apostle, can appropriate the language of the text. Still, as there is no real Christian who has not at heart the object which St. Paul so incessantly and strenuously pursued; and in whose case death will not prove inconceivably advantageous: the words before us may well bear, nay, they absolutely require, a more extensive application. They will lead us to consider generally,

I. The Christian's object in life. This is the promotion of the glory of Christ to him to live is Christ and,

:

II. The Christian's prospect in death: to him to die is gain. The words before us will lead us to consider,

I. The Christian's object in life.

It were easy, indeed, to affix a variety of meanings to the clause, " to me to live is Christ." If, especially, we take the passage by itself, and without a reference to the context, we might make it speak many truths, each of which is agreeable to the analogy of faith, and deserving our most serious attention. It is not, however, our business to see how many meanings we can affix to these words: but to ascertain their real signification, and to adhere to that. Now for that we shall be at no great loss, if we consult the context. If you turn to what precedes and follows the text, you will find, first, that the life, to which the apostle here refers, is his natural life, his life in the flesh as he expresses it, that life which alone he mentions in the present connexion just as the death, to which he refers in the other clause of the text, means his natural death. And you will find, secondly, that, when he says that this his life is Christ, or that to him to live was Christ, he means that it was his great object to devote this life to the honour of Christ. He had just expressed his earnest expectation