SERMON XXI.

PREPARATION TO MEET GOD.

Amos iv. 12. Prepare to meet thy God.

FROM these impressive and solemn words, I propose to give an answer to the following enquiries:

I. To whom may the command be considered as addressed?

II. Why should a preparation be made to meet God?
III. In what way are we to prepare for it? and
IV. When should it be done?

I. To whom may the command be considered as addressed? The general answer to this enquiry is obvious. It is to be regarded as addressed to all those who have made no preparation for meeting God; I mean those who have never made this a specific and settled part of their plans, or who have not devoted their attention to it so as to have that done which is needful to be done. This class comprises a large portion of the human family; a large portion of those to whom the gospel is preached. The idea is, that they have done nothing which can be considered as having been performed with reference to the future interview with their final Judge. They have done many things-and done them very well-with reference to other matters, but they have done nothing with a distinct desire and intention to be prepared to stand at his bar.

This general description comprises several classes who may be regarded as especially addressed.

(1.) Those who have designedly crowded the whole subject from their minds, and who have been unwilling to bestow any thought on it as a personal matter. They may have listened respectfully to the preaching of the gospel; or they may have bestowed some attention on religion as a speculative enquiry, but they have intentionally resisted all its appeals to them personally. Whenver they have reasoned or conversed on the subject of

religion, it has been with an intention that it should make no personal impression on them. They have never allowed the warnings and appeals of truth to have any direct bearing on themselves; nor in the whole course of their lives have they ever done one thing with a distinct and simple intention to be prepared to meet God. They have done nothing which cannot be accounted for on some other supposition, and they are conscious that they have never spent one half hour in their lives in doing any thing with a sole desire to be prepared to meet their Maker.

(2.) This description embraces also those who have deferred the subject with an intention to prepare at a future time. They have some sense of the importance and necessity of making preparation. They see and admit that something more is to be done than has been done. It is not their design that it shall be wholly neglected. But they have deferred doing what is necessary to be done-whatever they may suppose that to be—to a future period; one till he shall have finished his education; another till he shall be more at leisure, and less burdened with cares; another to a bed of sickness; another to old age, or the hour of death. Whatever may be the motives which lead them to delay it; or whatever may be their views of what is necessary to be done, they agree in this, that it is not yet done, and that a preparation is yet to be made.

(3.) There are embraced in this general class, also, those who have spent their time in preparing for other things, so as to crowd this subject out, though without any specific or settled intention to do so. They have been anxious to get ready for this life, and they have unconsciously, almost-or thoughtlessly, at any rate-neglected a preparation for a life to come. At one time they have been occupied in preparing for a journey or a voyageand then it was crowded from the mind. Or the youth has been fitting for college, or for a profession; or the young female has been engaged in acquiring skill in music, or solid learning, or preparing to adorn the refined circle ; or the young man has been preparing to be a merchant, or a mechanic; and a preparation to meet God has been-not exactly with design, but insensibly

neglected. It has not come before his mind as a matter of distinct enquiry, what is necessary to be prepared to meet God, as it has what is necessary to prepare him to act his part well in life—or if it has, it has been a momentary suggestion, and the solution has been deferred to a future period, and he is now unprepared.

(4.) The general description embraces, also, those who have given some slight attention to the subject, but who have settled down on that which will in fact constitute no preparation when they come to appear before God. They are relying on some delusive views and hopes; some erroneous doctrine, or opinions; some vague, unsettled, and unsubstantial feelings; something that is dif ferent from what God has declared to be essential to a preparation to meet him. It is immaterial to my purpose what that may be; nor will I run the risk of exciting prejudice against what I am yet to say, by attempting to specify what I mean. The general remark is all that is needful here—that it is not every thing which will prepare a man to meet God. On some things we should agree on others we might differ. We should agree that it is not a man's height or color; not beauty or strength; not talent or learning; not wealth or adorning; not external accomplishments or professional eminence; not splendid mansions or equipage, that constitute a preparation to meet God. We might differ as to the point whether amiableness and honesty; whether a fair character and a life of integrity; whether, if we do right to men, though we neglect our Maker, some or all of these things would be a sufficient preparation. It is not needful to argue that point here. The general observation will be undisputed—that there is something which is required to prepare us to meet God, and that it is possible that we may be depending on something else rather than on what God demands. If it is not beauty that is required, it is something else; if it is not wealth, it is something else; if it is not accomplishment, it is something else; if it is not amiableness, it is something else; if it is not external morality, it is something else; and we may be mistaking that which is not required for that which is. But in such a case it is clear that there would be in fact no preparation to meet God.

These classes, it will be seen at once, embrace a large portion of the human family. What with those who intentionally crowd the whole subject from the mind, and those who designedly postpone it to a future period, and those who in preparing for other things neglect a preparation to meet God, and those who make a false preparation—in the church and out of it-no one can doubt that a very large proportion of the community is embraced. For the most solemn and important moment of existence no preparation is made, and the mass of men live as if it were never to occur. The use to be made of this fact belongs to another part of this discourse. I proceed to the

II. Second point of my discourse-to show why preparation should be made to meet God. Why may it not be left without special solicitude as an event where preparation would be needless? The answers to this question will probably at once occur to every reflecting mind; but though obvious, they are such as in the hurry and bustle of life we are prone to forget, and I will recall some of them to your recollection. They are such as the following.

(1.) Because it is to be our first interview with him, face to face. Here we do not see him. We attempt to trace the proofs of his existence in his works, and look "through nature up to nature's God"; or we listen to his commands and threatenings in his word. But he is unseen still, and the conception is faint and obscure. “No man hath seen him, or can see him and live." We trace along the proofs of his existence in his works from point to point; but we do not see God. We stretch our eyes over the vast ocean, and see the proof that he is great; but we do not see God in the distance. We follow the lightning's rapid flash as the clouds are covered with a blaze of light; but that flash does not enable us, through the openings of the clouds, to see God. We seize the telescope and point it to the heavens, and look on rolling worlds, and penetrate into the unfathomable abyss where no numbers can compute the distance; but still amidst those distant worlds and systems we have not seen God. We close our eyes in prayer, and address the invisible

and the great God, and attempt to form in our imaginations an image of what he is; but we have not seen him. When we die we shall meet him face to face. It will be the first interview where the veil of flesh and sense will not obscure the vision; and for such an interview with the Almighty God man should be prepared.

(2.) We should make preparation because we shall meet him in very solemn circumstances. It will be away from friends; from the body; from the familiar scenes with which we have been conversant here. It will be when we shall be alone with God. It will be the next act that shall succeed the solemn act of dying. A man who is to meet God as soon as he dies, should make some preparation for it. If he were to meet him on a lonely mountain, like Moses, amidst clouds and tempests-though he had left many friends at the base-as he clambered up its steep ascent, he would feel that he ought to be prepared for that solemn interview. How much more when he leaves his friends weeping around his pale, lifeless body; when he travels alone and disembodied, the untrodden, dark way up to God; when he goes there without a friend or an advocate; when he goes to come back no more! (3.) We should make preparation because we go there on a very solemn errand. We go there not as idle spectators; not to behold the glory of the divine dwelling and throne; not as we often travel to other lands to see the works of nature, or the monuments of art; but we go on the final trial, and with reference to the irreversible doom of the soul. A man who is soon to be put on trial for his life, feels that much must be done with reference to that important day in his existence; and makes the preparation accordingly. Every thing about the kind of testimony on which he can rely; every thing in the law, in the character of the judge and of the jury, becomes to him a matter of moment, and he looks it all over with most anxious solicitude. He who should have the prospect of such a trial before him, and who should evince the same unconcern on these points which the mass of men do in reference to their trial before God, would be regarded as a fool or a madman. Should we go into his cell and find him engaged in blowing up bub