On occasion of the death of General Samuel L. Winston.

Washington, Mississippi, March 11, 1832.

BY REV. WILLIAM WINANS.

Delivered at

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, 1 Cor. xv, 56, 57.

Ir is a well known fact, that, in the economy of Providence, death is made to minister to life. The seed which is sown in the earth dies to impart nourishment to the plant which springs from it; and, in innumerable instances, the life of one animal is sustained at the expense of that of another. The economy of grace is similar to that of Providence. All spiritual life, in the case of sinful man, is the fruit of death. In accordance with the scheme of both Providence and grace, we would render the melancholy occasion of our present meeting tributary to the purpose of our existenceto our eternal salvation. We would press into the service of our souls the death of our brother and friend, whose obsequies we meet to celebrate. Our business is not with the dead: to them we preach not: for them we pray not. They are in weal or wo beyond our reach, and beyond the reach of change. Nor is it our business to eulogize their memory. But we would seize the occasion, when the heart is softened by affliction, to attempt the making of those impressions which in seasons of prosperity it is too unapt to receive. In our exposition of the text we shall keep this object in view; and we shall do this the rather, as we consider the history of our lamented friend a practical comment on the doctrines of the text. We observe,

That death, to the unregenerate of our fallen race, has ever been considered an enemy. Few of those have been able to contemplate his approach without consternation; and the few who have succeeded in quieting their apprehensions, have done it at the expense of that rational sensibility which exalts man above the beasts that perish. An instance of more brutish stupidity could not be evinced than that of meeting death with composure unassured of the Divine favor.

But whence is it that death is so terrible to man? Is it because it removes him from the enjoyments of the present life? This might be assumed if only the wealthy, the gay, those in good health and surrounded by ample means of both selfish and social enjoyment, looked upon death with alarm. But, when it is seen that poverty, that sorrow, that affliction, that a deprivation of pleasure and of friends-that any of these, or that all of them together, are insufficient to reconcile man to death, or to disarm him of those terrors by which he affrights the child of sin, we are compelled to seek some other solution of the question.

Nor is it that annihilation is apprehended, as the consummation of death. Man, however educated, feels in himself an instinctive evidence that he is destined to immortality; nor did vice ever put man, prone as he is to absurdity, upon a more difficult attempt than that of discrediting this testimony which the Author of nature has so legibly impressed upon his intellect and passions. That love of life, that invincible abhorrence which every man feels to a deprivation of being, or what amounts to much the same thing, of consciousness, have all the force of demonstration, in support of the immortality of man; especially when it is seen that this love and this abhorrence are strong in those who suffer the extremity of human misery, as well as in the most happy of mankind.

But may we not account for the terribleness of death to man, by the uncertainties of that destiny which is to follow upon it? Sơ far from it, that, if there was not some other, and very different ground of apprehension, there are thousands of the human family whose spirit of adventure, whose love of novelty and passion for discovery, would send them, before their time, to explore that terra incognita, "that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns." They would pant for those "new scenes, that untried being," which await those who die; and, sick of treading the beaten track of life's perpetual round, would hasten away to scenes more adventurous, and perhaps more various.

The question, therefore, recurs upon us, Why is death terrible to man? and is answered by our text-The sting of death is sin.' It is sin, and sin only, that renders death formidable to man. But what is sin? Sin, some will tell us, is moral wrong, an incongruity to the fitness of things, a derangement of the order and harmony of the moral world. And all this is true: but who, on simply considering sin in this abstract light, will be able to trace its relation to death, or discover that it is this which renders death so terrible to man? Were it allowed us thus to consider the subject, we should mock at the terrors of death, and laugh at the shaking of his spear, confident in its weakness. But when we learn that the strength, the energy, the efficiency of sin is derived from the law'-the law of God, and that it is, consequently, guaranteed and enforced by the authority and sufficiency of the Deity himself, the subject assumes a quite different aspect. Death,

thus armed and thus supported, becomes insupportably terrible and invincibly formidable to man. It is thus that he has held mankind in bondage to fear in every age. It is thus that his

terrors have made the most stout-hearted quail and faint at his approach. It is because he is thus armed and supported that man, even in the extremity of human suffering, chooses to continue in life a little longer. Disarm the tyrant of his sting, or withdraw the energy which renders this weapon effective, and thousands who now shudder at the thought of death, would hail his coming as the period of calamities utterly intolerable in any other view than as they can be removed only by his agency. It is guilt alone which makes man afraid to die; and guilt has this effect only because it involves the displeasure of the righteous Governor of the world, from a violation of whose law this guilt proceeds, and whose character, as Lawgiver and Governor, renders it requisite that he should secure the inviolability of his law and the order of his dominions, or avenge their violation upon the head of the guilty. This connection between sin and the penalty of the Divine law, and between that penalty and the displeasure of the omnipotent Ruler of the universe, establishes in the human mind a conviction that, either in this life or in some future state of being, the guilty must suffer for their crimes; and, as retributive suffering is seldom seen to fall upon the offender in this life, it is inferred, with moral certainty, that it is to be endured in a future state. Hence, death is intimately associated in the mind of the sinner with the fearful reckoning with Divine justice to which his offences expose him, and with the punitive sufferings which are to be the award of that reckoning. To the apprehension of the sinner, death is always closely followed by hell. To his affrighted imagination, the tyrant, brandishing his spear, appears, and hell is close behind.' These views of the subject are the sober inductions of reason, from principles firmly fixed in the very constitution of the human mind: but they do not derive their whole support from such inductions. The conclusive authority of Scripture confirms the inductions of reasoning, and assures us that, as it is appointed unto men once to die,' so 'after this, the judgment' will sit upon the conduct of man, when he must give an account of his deeds, and receive according to what they have been, whether they have been good, or whether they have been evil;' so that they who have sowed 'to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption' but they that have sowed to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.' What wonder, then, that death is terrible to the guilty? What wonder that the boldest, whose hearts are not steeled against feeling, if they are not confident of the divine favor, should tremble at the prospect of being arrested by this invincible agent of the Divine wrath, and of being handed over to the tribunal from whose sentence there is no appeal, whose awards are irreversible, whose punishments are unmitigable and eternal? Not to tremble in such

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circumstances would evince, not bravery, but brutal insensibility— not magnanimity, but madness.

But may not this enemy be propitiated by man? No: he scorns alike the bribery of wealth, the blandishments of beauty, the pride of power, the amiableness of virtue, the charms of youth, and the venerableness of age. True to the trust committed to him, no argument can swerve him, no wit can dazzle, no flattery can soothe. His commission he executes to the letter, though the heart of brotherhood, of parental, of filial, or even of conjugal affection bleed in consequence. Of all the human family, two only, and these by especial dispensation from God, have passed from life without being victims to death.

But if death may not be eluded by man, may he not be disarmed? Cannot man, armed in the panoply of his own virtues, repel or render innoxious the sting to which this adversary owes the terrors by which he is rendered so formidable to man? As successfully would he man a straw against a whirlwind. To accomplish this, there must be in those virtues atoning merit, to satisfy the claims of violated law, and the demands of insulted justice. There must be an energy equal to the healing of the breach, occasioned by sin, in the order and harmony of the moral world. The law must be indemnified for its violation; and sufficient satisfaction rendered to magnify and make it honorable. Its dignity had been insulted, its sanctity sullied, its authority brought into question:--these injuries must be atoned, or death remains armed in all his terrors. And can the independent virtues of man, even supposing him capable of such virtues, accomplish all this? No: nor any part of it.

Is there, then, no possibility of man's escaping from these terrors? There is; and the knowledge of the fact inspired the apostle, as it should do every man, with ardent gratitude to God. He had contemplated death in all the terrors derived from a violated law exacting upon man, under the guarantee of omnipotence, for his sins; and, while overwhelmed with the anguish which such a view of the wretched condition of man was calculated to produce, he casts his eye to Calvary, and, in view of the blood-stained banner of the Redeemer, under which man may achieve a victory over death, he breaks out with, Thanks be to God!' Nor was there ever greater cause for thankfulness, whether we consider the greatness of the benefaction, or the manner in which it was wrought. It is, considered in all its relations and dependencies, nothing less than complete deliverance from the dreadful consequences of both original and personal transgression. It implies pardon, sanctification, the assurance of hope, and resurrection from the dead. It raises man from the ruins and ignominy of the fall, to 'glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life.' The manner in which this deliverance was wrought is equally calculated to inspire gratitude. It was not by a simple benevolent