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This Sermon was preached by the Rev. R. Ibtinb to hit Congregation on the last Sabbath of 1847, with a view to improve the solemn events of the season, in accordance with a custom . hich he has uniformly observed since his settlement in this place. He has been requested by the teachers of the Sabbath School connected with his congpre- g^tion to publish the Sermon for the benefit of the School. It is with some reluctance that he ventures before the pnblit, but if it shall please God to bless the preaching or perusal of the discourse to the awakening of any of the Souls com- mitted to his pastoral care, he shall feel amply rewarded for the pains he has taken in preparing the manuscript from his notes, as he is accustomed to preach extempore. While it is his sincere desire that the souls of his people may be profited by the Sermon, it is also his fervent prayer that the proceeds which the sale of it may realize, may pro- cure some spiritual nourishment for the Lambs of Christ's fiock. Tfl an( ofl «DI rec int be( pr< poi fttl sal bo te\ of th hi ro to ti fj 1 f SEEMON. THE MBSSAGB OP GOD TO KING HEZEKIAH. " 6M Aim ham II. Kiiroa, IS.— I. in onkr, for Aim rtoA iU »md not lite." to hit View to 'fdance ice bis by the ongre- School. pnWit, ►crusal s com- 'arded script •pore. eople rayer pro- rist's Thb Patriarch Job tella as that death is " the king of terrors," and the history of Hezekiah proves that death is also the terror of kings. This common enemy of man has no respect to per- sons. The annals of the human race are replete with the gloomy records of his deeds. His work commenced soon after the introdaction of sin into our world, and his career has ever since been marked with blood. From the day of Adam till the present moment, he has pursued the family of man, and has pointed his arrow at the hearts of its most promising and hope* ful ornaments. He has caused age and youth to share the same common fate. He has snatched the infant from the bosom, and left the affectionate mother to weep over its lifeless remains — he has seised the young man, the brightest hope of all the family, and with a ruffian stroke has stretched him on the bier, a cold, a lifeless, and a ruined thing. He has laid his hand upon the father and the mother, and stripped the fa- mily of an earthly head, leaving a group of h llpless orphans to deplore the havoc be had made. He has tra.eiled in majes- tic terror from city to city, and from nation to nation, investing famine, pestilence, and plague with authority to kill and to destroy. He has unsheathed the sword of war, and bathed it in the blood of empires. He has entered those cities whose frowning battlements bade defiance to many a foe, and whose streets were gorged with a swarming population, and has caus- ed them to share the fate of the empires to which they belonged* Before him the stoutest warriors of earth have been made to quail; — the Philips, and Alexanders, and Hannibals, and Bona* partes, who buried nations in a common grave — where are they 1 Let death answer, and he will say, ** they are gone the way of all flesh. ^' It matters not in what form this terrible enemy approach us — it matters not whether he come in the 8wi(l career of a raging peatilence^t matters not whether he come in the wasting and withering ravages of famine— it mat- ters not whether he come in the deafening shouts of battle— it matters not whether he enter our dwellings in the pale and ghastly Mpect of coQsamption— it matters not whether he wrap ourselves and our families in the flames of a scorching fever — — it matters not whether he sweep over our nation on the wings of a fatal epidemici— his approach in one and all of these forms is terrible. But to enter the palace of royalty at a time when the monarch had reached the zenith of his glory ; to pluck the crown from bis head, to dash his sceptre in pieces, lo strip a nation of its head, and bathe a kingdom in tears, makes his approach still more terrible,— and sucfh arc the cir- cumstances under which death approached King Hecekiah.— This pious monarch had ascended the throne at the age of twenty-five, when he found the kingdom in a state of idolatry, the Church in a state of apostacy, and the people in a state of rebellion against Heaven. Among the first acts which distin- guished his pious reign, was an effort to suppress idolatry and establish the worship uf the true God. |n this Hezekiah was signally successful. " He removed the high places and brake the images and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made : for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehustan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.** The beginning of his rule being thus marked by the most obvious tokens of Divine approval-»and all his enemies round about being subdued by the miraculous interposition of God on his behalf, this godly man resolved to spend the remainder of his days in promoting the religious interests of his empire. For aught we know, he had many praiseworthy projects which he intended to carry out among his people, all of which were designed to consolidate the reli- gious institutions of the country^ He and his subjects looked forward with the highest hopes to a long and a prosperous reign ; but how true are the words of inspiration — ** in the nidst of life we are in death.*' For at the very time when Viozekiah and his people least of all expected it, Isaiah the prophet was commissioned to visit him with the message con- tained in the words of our text— » Set thine bouse in order, for le in tbe [hether he '—it mat- I battle— ic jpale and ke wrap fever- In on the id all of alty ata is glory ; \n pieces, in tears, i the cir- ekiah— f age of idolatry, I state of 1 distin- »try iind iah Was >d brake eces tbe lays the ailed it at after lor any igthus l-»and culous Ived to igious many mong ! reli- >oked erous a the n'hen i the con- r,for thou thalt die and Mat live.*' Although this nie4s«ge was at first dfllivtred under special circumstances, it contains a gene* ml trmh; and although it was intended by God to remind Ileaekiah of tlM preparation necessary to meet his approaching diMolution, it is designed to awaken us aH to a sense ol the same lfai«g. Th« Mknpuncemeat of these words suggests two thon^hlA, wbich ought to be kept continually before tbe mind : I. ' The certainty of death, and II. The preparation necessary for meeting it. The message of God ortunity, addressed continually to you and me t Is it not inscribed or every page of inspiration, in such fltatements as follow: — " Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble ; he cometh torth like a flower and is cut down, lie fleeth also as a shadow and continuetb not." -** All flesh is grass, and all tbe goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field ; the grass withereth and the flower fadeth." ■** The days of our years are three score and ten, and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow, for it is soon cut ofi" and we fly away." Tbe figures thus employed by inspiration to denote the brevity of human life, and the certainty of death, are so apt and signifi- 6 cant, thkt Iht irtMt cartlem peruser of ibe tiered page ctHBOl miitake tks ieMoaa which they are intended to co'^rey. Nor are inch atatementa diabeliered ; the very sceptic, who dia- pntes the divine origin of revelation, never attempted to deny the truthfulness of its stateraenta on this aokject. To deny them would be to deny the teatimony fumiahed by the hbtory . of the whole hnmao family ; for the reeorda of the human race are a verification of the statements we have quoted from the Word of God. Since the day that sin invaded our earth, it ho puraued the family of roan from generation to generation and from age to age. One generation haa passed away, and another has filled its place— each has played fta part on the atage of time, and then retired to make room for the performance of a auc> ceeding one, while death, their merciless conqueror, haa laid bis fatal arrest upon them all. Having entered our world aoon after the institution of religious worship in the family of Adam, death has followed the human race wherever they have travel- led. His march has been over the nationa of the earth like that of a Bweeping whirlwind— he has not been awed by the daule of royalty — he has not been bribed by the riches of empires — he has not been soothed by the incantationa of priests — he has not been moved to compassion by the cry of penury ; but, with the sceptre of his might, he has smitten alike the monarch on his throne and the beggar in his hamlet. Do we follow death in the onward march of pestilence and plague, as they hasten from city to city, and from continent to continent — do we travel in his wake over the slain heaps of the battle- field — or do we trace his conquests amid the marshalling of elements and the battling of storms— or do we follow him in disease and affliction into the homes of wretchedness and the dwellings of poverty, the history of death is the same — it is the history of generations that were. The fact that death is certain, is thus registered in the chronicles of the human family, since the beginning of time. The same truth is equally obvious from the passing events of providence ; death is walking abroad in the streets and lanes of our City at this moment, and with an arm unexhausted by the lapse of time, he is smiting all classes and orders of men. The ranks of the living are being thinned, and the abodes of the dead are being peopled more rapidly than ever. We arc reminded by the daily toll of the funeral bell — by the mourning processions that are daily parading our streets — by the sable bier and the gloomy pall, that " man who f • ctMaot .''•y. Nor ' (o lieoj To deny '• hittoiy I'A^n race «heWord punued 'from age "•tber baa o^'llme, >'' a aoc. liw laid '''<' aoon fAdam, 9 (ravel. rth liJce ' by tbe cbea of Prieaia •Bury; ^ke tbe Do We roe, aa itineot battle. ng of 'ni in d the 8 the io.is Mbe I the the irtn ind nd an ur 10 ia born of a woimii ia of few daya/* Tbe hialory of tbe paat, and the paaaing eventa of the preaent, like the torob-atonea of the grave-yard, declare that death ha^ no reapect to peraona ; for aa all have died, ao all nuat die. Nor ia yoath more exempt than age from the attack of the common eaemy. We aee that tbe infiwt, who boa acarcely breathed the air of heaven, i» aeiaed by bia fatal graap and couaigned to an early tomb. Tbe achod-boy firom bia claM hi torn away with the band of violence, and borne to " the houae appointed for all living." The young man and the yoang maiden, who have reached matarity, and are looking forward with the brighteat hopea to a career of uaefulneaa in their reapective familiea, or in their reapective chnrchea ; and the old man, waated and withered, and pining away by alow degreea amid tbe decrepitude of natnre-xtbeae, all theae, are the victima againat whom the weapona of death are indiacriminately directed, and over whom tbe emigna of death are daily waving. To all these proofs of tbe certainty of death, we might add anothei clasa of evidences equally convincing. We refer to tbe experience of every i>on of Adam. He feela that the seeds of decay are sown in his own nature. Man is heir to a variety of paina and diseases, by which his body is daily ripening for tbe tomb ; sq that like the flower which paints the landscape, he buds, and blooms, and ripens, and then droops, and withers, and decays. To the man who inherits any of the constitutional diseases which infest our race, no proof is required that he must die save that which is furnished by the consciousness that be is born to die. He carries about with him a daily memento of the fact, that sooner or later the materialism of his nature must " return to the earth as it was, and the spirit must return to God, who gave it." This momentous truth, being thus inscribed alike on the book of Nature, of Providence, and of Revelation, we are furnished with the most unequivocal proofs o(the necessity of being prepared to meet death ; which is the Sboond thought suggested by the words of our text. ** Set thine house in order.** Men of the world set tbe Chris- tian an example in this matter. The dying man gathers his friends around him, and appoints some one to make out an in- ventory of his effects, and to allocate to each surviving claim- ant his portion. Having thus arranged his temporal afiairs, he prepares to meet his God ! The concerns of the world frequent- ly pursue us to the .very threshold of eternity, urging us to 8 mk§ UNM c^dXiible ttrfangement (br the faitiiH«8 we are ftbont 19 \§»¥$ ^Mnd oa ttn% the f»rudent mftn anticipates deatb* «tt^fae betakes himself to bis olosety and sets i» wmk \n Mriiest that he may be prepared to meet death on tfl# ft{^lfl(#d Alky. We imagine that we see soch a man, fltng- in§ ib9 ir^rtd bt^bind bim, abandoning tbe balls of commerce, fofiftkiflf hU ^onniing-faouse, or bis vocaiion, whatever it may 1^, fbtiMifigf fbe Very concerns of bis family out of bis heart, H'ftt^Mtlf (b« progress of the sun in the firmament, and oonut- lllf «Mb b«ftf of tbe clock, which is measuring out the allotted il^ft «f bli ««}si#tiC6 by tbe shortest subdivisions of time. The fflftll f» ^tlfiflofi becomes alarmed by the tidings of the angel, b# %U§ b«€Om«/s earnest about the destiny which awaits bim. Wby^ ib«fl^ li tbis anxiety so rare among tbe members of the fmmftfi im^iyi Why are so few engaged in this work of a 4fff If ^ ftfi botftly preparation for death ? Has not God revealed tb# §§fUAn%j of onr dissolution by proofs as indubitable as (b^agb tfl ftfjg«l from heaven were despatched with the mes' Mj|# l§ «S«b Outfit Yhere is a monitor in the return of every mtmn, \n ib# jntercbang^ of every day and night, in the flight ^Sfetf ptmiiig moment, which speaks with as much certain' « we are about cipates dieatb, Mate, and «etB ndactofaaob Bible rscoD- bis principle. inff. atld bids » And sot live. te of glory to- ''1847, and to addrna, and ' of 1818, be Mf'bfiitater- ate produce, It cottgregtL' — aborning le w^alls, and g with dole. «nger, each At )a«t be d ghastlyuu. ' riven witb plaee-^be •t* and sets >t death on "WB, fling- sommerce, ''eritniay his heart, ud odaui> d happy ^e tomb. — many -ody on that day robed in the vigour of strength and the .Joom. of youth, has since been wrapped in the gar- ments of mortality and consigned to the grave. Since the 28th of December last, I have followed to the tomb fifty-four mem- bers of the human family. These have died at all ages, be- tween that of four months and seventy-one years, and of all diseases ; some having wasted away by the pining hand of an insidious consumption, — some having fallen by the band of suddenalid unexpected accident, — some having fallen amid the flames of a violent fever, and some having gradually sunk amid the flight of years. They are all gone the way whence they shall not rofprn : and I think I hear a voice speaking from the tomb of each of them, and warning the audience which I now address, of the shortness of time. Could the spirits of those departed friends who have been taken away fh)m this con- gregation during the past year, speak to you from their respec- tive destinies, they would admonish you of the same thing. The death-beds, the funerals, and the grave-stones of these friends, however, speak. There is a volccf in each which speaks loudly to the living, and admonishes us all of (he value of time and the momentousness of eternity. There is a voice issuing from every open grave, from every dying bed, and from every mourning family, which speaks in the same admonitory language, and warns yon and me, that we have not a single moment to lose ; yet although these are admonitions which are daily, I might say hourly, falling upon our ears, Biill we seem^ to pass them by unheeded and unheard. These are the voices of God speaking, and these are warnings from God sent for the express purpose of impressing us with a due sense of the value and preciottsness of time. Supposing I address an audience of e[ight hundred people, or one-fourth of the congregation, in- cluding parents and children, then, it is a startling fact, that, according to the average rate of mortality among us, before the last Sabbath of Eighteen-bundred and forty-eight, no less than one-sixteenth part of this audience, or ohe-sixty-fourth part of the entire congregation, shall be summoned to meet God in death, and to enjoy or endure their respective destinies in a future world. This is a calculation from which yon feel inclined to shrink, bnt the data upon which it is founded are as certain as though a messenger from the world of spirits were to begin at my right hand and travel round this assembly, setting every sixteenth person apart by himself, and then to address the vie- 12 tims ojji whom the lot had fallen, saying, '* before another year has run its course, you must be either in heaven or in hell !" If the data furnished by the mortality of the past year, be a. sufficient guide, the calculation may be made with the most perfect safety. Now were I to announce this calculation before my audience, I have no doubt it might alarm some,— it might ofiend others, and it might astonish all. Still the calculation is correct— 'the statement I hazard. May the Spirit of the living God convey it with power to the heart of every onq whom I now address,-— before the last Sabbath of 1848« one out of every sixty-four of this (^Congregation will either be in heaven or in hell! •«i Many wonderful events have occurred during the past year, all of which are designed to admonish us of the value of time. Some of you have buried yoi^r husbands ; some have buried your wives; many have followed the remains of their children to the grave. Whole families have been swept away by a raging epidemic! Some have stood .by the graves of their dearest relatives, and sighed when they beheld their cold re^ mains consigned to Xh'S tomb in a foreign land ; others have been doomed to weep for the loss of the nearest kindred, who have fallen amid the raging seas, or have been removed by other fatal accidents ; others still have received tidings from the land of their nativity, acquainting them with the death of their nearest and dearest earthly relations. » In addition to these local and personal events, there are others of a more general and national character, which are intended by God to admonish us of the value of time, and in- duce us to keep death continually before the mind. Famine has been prevailing in the mother country — this has been fol- lowed by epidemic— thousands of our countrymen have been swept away by these judgments of heaven. Others, having fled from the land that gave them birth, to better their condition in colonial settlements, and in the ac^jacent republic, have been pursued thither by disease, — our hospitals and alms- houses have become charnel-houses, and thousands of our wretched countrymen have only set their foot on a foreign soil when they were seized by the raging fever, or thrown into a foreign tomb. Famine and disease, followed by commercial depression at home, have exercised their respective influences upon a colonial population. The emigrant has carried disease into all the cities of the British Colonies in the West, while the |er ^ear .heli!»» Ir, be a M most i be/ore I' might luiatipn I Jiving yhom I 'every or ia t year, '^time. uried 'iid»en by a their id re- fa a ve who ed by from ithof ■ are are I ill- line fol. Ben mg on ive iS- ar if a il 13 antaiiiig amount of exports, in the fthape of provisions from the Uoited States of America, has exhausted our colonial supplies, and this, combined with ^u accession to our numbers by a foreigr^or an emigrant population, threatens pur colonial cities with want during the winter. Business is at a stand, and a general paralysis has s'eiced all the commercial and mauufac- turiug towns in the British Empire. To all this we must add the fact that crime is on the increase. Sabbath-profanation, combined with drunkenness, blasphemy .and murder^ is pre- vailing aronnd us. .National crime and national jtid Tieitt, as in days of 6ldi seem to be as intimately connected as ca^. and effect, in the chepker^ history of Great Britain during th past year. The sin^ of the nation have risen to heaven, and brought down famine and plague alid distress among her in- habitants. Such are the circumstances that blend their colours in the portitiiture -of the past year; and since crime is on the increase, and sin continning to prevail, we have no reason to conclude that matters shall be much better during the eusuiug year ; but in the midst of all these great national ilU under which the empire groans, we hear the voice of God speaking to every surviving inhabitant, and calling upon him by the calamities of the past, and the threatenings of the future, to be up and doing, for the time is short. To neglect the admonitions of heaven, as they are uttered in these passing events of provi- dence, is to hazard thr salvation of our immortal souls. The past is gone,^ — the present alone is ours ; and upon the present are pending the momentous consequences of the future. The present we are apt to fill ,up with pleasures, and .he future with regrets. Every moment we mispend, is a moment lost — and tears of deepest sorrow cannot atone for the guilt of mis- spending one of jthe highest privileges heaven has bestowed. " The bell itrikes one. We take no note of time " But rrom ita low : to give it tlien a tongne " la wise of man. As if an angel spoke, "I feel the Boletnn sound. If heard aright, " It is Ihe knoll of my departed hours. " Where are ibey' 1 with the years beyond the flood. " It ia the signal that demands despatch : ' " How much is to be done ! my hopes and fears " Start up uiorm'd ; and o'er life's narrow verge " I^ok down— on what 7 a fadiomless abyss. " A dread eternity ! how surely mine I " And can eternity belorg to me, " Poor peniiouer un the boiuuties of an hour 7 14 3. Another prepantjve for meeting death it personal holi- new. The Scriptore iafonat us that. *^without holiness no man shall see the Lord/' This is the work of iiie Holy Spirit in the heart, and the heart which is unholy b Becc88arily,tor< raenied with the terror of death.. The death-bed of the un- godly man furnishes us with a painful i'Joatration of this fact. Place yourselves in imagination by ^Iie dying bed of the sin- ner, and listen to the tremulous - dice which speaks of God and of eternity, hear those sighs which issue firom a heart un- sanctified by the Spirit of God, see those eyes which are grow- ing dim with the shadows of mortality, and behold that coun- tenance which betrays the inward v^orkiiigs of remorse, and you see a fearful picture of the bondage by which the ungodly man is enslaved at a time when the consolations of personal holiness are most of all required. Why is it that the sinner is so much terrified by the approach of the last enemy t it is because be has not been made holy. The work of the Holy Spirit within disarms a man of the fear of death. While man remained holy he had no dread of death, just because he had no sin, and when a man is sanctified he has no dread of death, because the power of sin has been destroyed. Sin and death are as intimately connected as cause and effect, while holiness and death are as opposite as two extremes, and hence it is that so long as sin maintains an ascendancy in the soul, it clothes the seal with the terrible apprehensions of distolution ; while, on the other hand, so long as holiness maintains the ascendancy within, it strips death of his terror. The Spirit of God is the author of all life, and by filling the soul with spiritual life, he banishes death from its precincts. We read that Christ ** de- stroyed death and him that had the power of death, that is the devil." This statement is as true of Christ, when he enters the human heart, as it was when he entered the grave and con- quered death in his own territory. — He hunted the enemy into his gloomy dominions and broke the sceptre which he had swayed with despotic tyranny for ages — He then returned to earth, on his way to glory " leading captivity captive." In a similar way, when he enters the heart of man— He finds a soul entombed in sin, — He finds the spiritual department of our nature enslaved by the ** king of terrors," — He lays his hand upon the captive soul and death makes his escape. It is theofiice of the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ within us, and this is no sooner doue than we are emancipated from all the dismal tti holi. leat BO Spirit w IIB- ['• facf. >e MO. jfGod "tnn- groir- conn- •• and godij votial ner Ja 7 it is Holy i