education; the Academy and Historical Society an associate greatly interested in their flourish. ing state; the University an attentive Overseer. The clergy throughout the country have lost a hospitable and liberal brother; his family a most careful and excellent father, husband, and master; and his friends an honourable and faithful friend. Now the day is at hand, when, in this town and in this place, will be collected, as usual, many of his friends, whom he would have delighted to meet and to honour, how painful is it to think, that they will look in vain for this friend of many years! his face will no more greet them, and the place which knew him will know him no more, forever. God hath changed his countenance, and sent him away in the midst of his years. He hath died and wasted away; he hath given up the ghost, and where is he? Such dark and unsearchable dispensations of providence are indeed God's strange work; and it is impossible in the present state entirely to unfold the kindness of his designs, though we may discern enough to pacify our disturbed minds, and to change our most melancholy feelings to those of hope and resignation. It is impossible for us, from whom God has mercifully hidden the future, to tell, what evils or temptations any christian may escape, by an early removal from this region of uncertainty. The preacher once said, "wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive." It may be so now. Our departed brother is at least delivered from an emaciating and distressing complaint; and what other perils God may have spared him by this early removal, those may best conjecture, who have lived to weep over others, for whom they would gladly have died; to have their hearts rent by unexpected trials, their prospects darkened by unforeseen calamity, their faith and virtue shaken by the pressure of circumstances, and life worn out at last by lingering disorders, and in painful confinement. O'tis well With him. But who knows what the coming hour, Still less will the release of good men from their mortal cares and labours suggest any doubts and reproaches of Providence, if we consider, that to them it is a welcome dismissal. The longer any christian, and especially a christian minister, remains in the world, the more elevated become his ideas of duty; the more laborious and self denying will be his occupations. The more good he attempts, the more he finds to do. His calls and opportunities are multiplied by his exertions; and the means of accomplishing all the good, which he imagines and intends, become the more difficult to use with discretion. Often does he form schemes of unattainable amelioration; often does his mind brood over the vices and consequent miseries of society, and droop under the ill success of his own efforts; and rivers of waters run down his eyes, because men keep not God's law. Who can wish to call him back from that world wherein dwelleth righteousness; where there shall be no more curse; where the throne of God and of the Lamb is established, and his servants serve him day and night; and God wipes away all tears from their eyes? Nothing can more clearly manifest our want of faith, than excessive lamentations over the pious dead. Oh! if the gates of heaven could be thrown open before us, and the assembly of pure and exalted spirits burst upon our vision, engaged in their blest and noble employments, all our ideas of what the best men might have done, had they continued longer on earth, would surely be lost and forgotten in the glory that would thus be revealed! My christian hearers! there lies a friend, snatched in the midst of life from the scene of his joys, his usefulness, and his expectations on earth. And does he leave us projecting distant plans of ambition, and saying to ourselves, thou hast many goods of fortune, and acquisitions of mind laid up for many years? Does not every thing on earth, every thing in our religion tell us, that we are but pilgrims and strangers here? Is not the great purpose, for which we are sent into the world, to prepare to leave it, and to leave it better for our residence in it? Shall we put off then till tomorrow a single good, which we may confer to day? Shall we leave that great work unattempted, for which we were all sent into the world-the work of our salvation? Let good men learn also not to look for the reward of their exertions, and the recompense of their sacrifices on earth. The most beloved, the most respected men, they, from whose labours and whose friendship we anticipated the most, are often taken away in the midst of their years, to impress it upon our minds, that the ends, at which we should aim in our virtuous actions, are not all to be attained on earth. The only fruits of virtuous exertion, in which we cannot be disappointed, are its effects on our own minds; and the full reward of this is reserv ed for a future stage of our existence. Let this dispensation then abate that love of the world, which is so fatal to the excellence of our christian characters. For, what does our departed brother now carry with him out of life ?-Fame ?-No: he hears not a word of our commendation! Honours? -They are paid to his lifeless corpse.-Fortune? Ah! his only treasures are in heaven!-Genius, learning, accomplishments?-They are valuable only as they have made a part of that wisdom which conducts its possessor to salvation. Virtue only reremains for ever. "This unites us to the whole rational creation, and fits us for conversing with any order of superiour natures, and for a place in any part of God's works.--Remember that nothing else deserves one anxious thought or wish. Remember, that this alone is honour, glory, wealth, and happiness. Secure this, and you secure every thing. Lose this, and all is lost."* * The conclusion of a well known passage in Dr. Price's Morals, This dissolution of another dear connexion must also help to loosen in some degree our strong attachment to life. Surely, when we return from the grave of our brother, the path, which leads us back to our pleasures and secular pursuits, will not appear so interesting as before. Surely, some of the glare of hu. man life will have faded; and one more affection, one more wish of our hearts have been transferred from earth to heaven. Surely, we may now give his remains the tribute of one good resolution, which will be more precious than a thousand tears, if the remembrance of him shall help us to keep it. MY BRETHREN IN THE MINISTRY, I should not venture to add another word to the repeated and serious applications, which within a few days have been made to us, did not the succession and variety of joys and sorrows, at which we are called to be present in our profession, tend to make our hearts rather a highway of sentiments, than a fruitful soil of good affections, and leave us talking much of the last things, and yet thinking little of them. It is one of the infelicities, or at least one of the dangers of our employment, that we, who are constantly engaged in impressing sentiments on others, come at last to imagine that we feel their power; and to believe those to be the practical principles of our conduct, which are the most familiar topicks of our discourse. The rapid contrasts also of life and death, funerals and births, sick chambers |