varied sorrows, the heart-rending separations, the bitter despair, which death, unrelenting death, occasions? Look into that opening tomb-the father and the child-the husband and the wife-the young and the aged, are crowded into one remorseless sepulchre.

But this is little. For, O the unutterable woes of that everlasting death which sin has incurred separation from God, the fountain of bliss-the chain of eternal darkness-the worm that never dieth and the fire that never is quenched -the body and soul, through a measureless and inconceivable eternity, condemned to pains without limit, and without alleviation!

For a desolation so extensive, so tremendous, what remedy shall be found? Revelation furnishes the answer. Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord. Yes, my brethren, a voice of mercy resounds from on high. The eternal Son of God hath become man to redeem us from death. He hath encountered our deadly foe. He hath grappled with the insatiate destroyer, and hath prevailed. By his own obedience unto death he hath accomplished a sacrifice of inestimable price; he hath stood in our place; he hath borne our sins in his own body on the tree; he hath, by death, destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Sin, the force and power of this dreadful adversary, is overcome,

pardon for it obtained, grace to subdue it purchased; and thus the cause, the strength of death being removed, the monster himself is weakened, is made void, is in the proper sense of the term abolished. Our blessed Redeemer hath blotted out the hand-writing which was against us, which was contrary to us, and hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to his crossthere is the sentence of condemnation reversed to every true Christian; and this being expunged, Christ hath, in the most glorious manner, spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. And now the Christian combatant may join the Apostle and say, The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The faithful, indeed, have still to pass through the valley of the shadow of death; but with this remarkable difference, that now they need fear no evil. It is the semblance of power which death retains, rather than the reality. The terror is removed. The eternal separation from God and goodness is to be dreaded no longer. Its consequences-the eternity of woe, which sin deserved, are prevented, repealed, annihilated. To die is now only to sleep in Jesus, in order to awake to joy and felicity: it is now only to put off a garment of disgrace,

that we may be clothed upon with robes of triumph; it is only to pass a narrow defile that we may reach an eternal home; it is only to leave behind us the bonds and fetters by which the soul was imprisoned, that we may walk at liberty in the presence of God, and in the assembly of just men made perfect.

In the faith of such a victory, we may well say that death is abolished. The strong man armed is bound, his operations are counterworked, his strongest holds demolished, his terrors neutralized-he lies impotent and helpless. The stroke which he now inflicts is, indeed, still painful to nature,-still alarming to the weakness of our faith-still a source of sorrow, and humiliation; but, in the most important sense, it is no longer an evil. The enemy hath become a messenger of mercy, to call us to our heavenly reward. And soon shall the last fragment of his power be literally annihilated. Soon shall the end come, when the last enemy, death, shall be utterly destroyed. Soon shall this corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality; and then shall be brought to pass, in the fullest sense of the terms, the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

2. But this is not all. The divine.Conqueror has carried his triumphs further; and, having abolished death, hath brought life and immor

tality to light, through the Gospel ;-having removed the dark intervening cloud, he has disclosed, in all their native lustre, the realms of eternal life, having discomfited the great enemy that opposed our entrance, he has thrown open the gates of endless bliss and joy.

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and a state of heavenly felicity, was only obscurely known before the appearance of our Saviour in human nature.

The notions of the heathens on the subject of the soul's immortality, did not deserve the name of knowledge. The few unconnected

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opinions, or rather conjectures, on this head, which were scattered amongst them, regarded, chiefly, the fact of existence after death, and did not at all touch on that life of infinite purity, holiness, and happiness, in the immediate presence of God, which Christianity reveals. Even these feeble traces of knowledge were chiefly confined to the schools of philosophy, and were so mingled with fatal errors, and so void of any adequate sanctions, as to produce little or no influence on the practice and character. They were speculations rather than principles of action.

The Jews, indeed, had a revelation of a future state, bright and efficient, compared with the darkness of the Pagan world; but it was by no means clear, or explicit, or generally re

ceived. And, at the time of our Saviour's advent, the multiplied sects into which the nation was divided, had so obscured this, as well as the other great truths of the Old Testament, that, except to the few who waited for the consolation of Israel, the doctrine had almost disappeared.

Christ, then, our divine Saviour, first brought life and immortality to light. He established these truths, as the foundation of his Gospel; he cast upon them the strong and clear light of certainty; he brought them into open day, and placed them in the full view of mankind. Nothing is now wanting to their illustration and authority, as the practical principles of human conduct.

For our Lord taught the nature of the endless happiness of the righteous, as consisting in the fruition of God; in the perfect holiness of a glorified state; in the enjoyment of all the bliss of which the rational soul is capable, when purified from every imperfection, and reunited, in the abode of glory, with the body raised from the grave.

He displayed also the ground and foundation of these blessings to sinful man; even his own incarnation, his death, his propitiation, the grace of his Spirit. This, this is the peculiarity of Christianity; not that it reveals merely a future life of happiness and joy, but that it