AND SUPPORT IN DEATH. 243 where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory! Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. At length, O most merciful Father! the solemn hour will come, and I must die. O in that hour, when my flesh and heart fail, be thou the strength of my heart; may thy rod and thy staff comfort me! O in that hour, when all the tenderness of sorrowing friends will avail me not, be thou more to me than all the world! Disperse, by thy presence, the gloom that shades the grave; and brighten that otherwise dark valley with the sweet dawnings of immortal day! Cheer my departing spirit with the consolations of thy love; and may thine everlasting arms be my support! In the last hours of dissolving nature, enable me to testify the value of thy love, and may those, who witness my dying moments, see me favoured with such blessings as shall make them feel that early piety is real wisdom. Gladly may I take my farewell of earth, and leave friends and kindred without regret, assured of going to dearer, better friends above. Then may He, who suffered for me, be the foundation of all my hope; and leaning my languishing and dying head upon his compassionate arm, may I breathe my last, and sleep in Jesus. And when, O Lord, I am numbered with the dead, when my last hour is finished, and all the joys or sorrows of life concluded for ever, O then may those ministering angels, that watch thy children's steps, become my convoy to the abodes of bliss! And may my joyful spirit, though bereft of the sweet converse of those it held most dear below, yet find that it shall for ever hold much sweeter converse with angelic friends. 244 PRAYER ADMISSION TO HEAVEN. Then may an abundant entrance be administered unto me into the everlasting kingdom of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. May he introduce me into thy presence; there, with all thy saints of ancient days, in glorious happiness to wait the still fuller accomplishment of thy promises when time itself shall finish. There, O my God, may I exult in thy presence, even while those I left behind attend this feeble body to its last long home. While they, with affectionate tears, commit "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," O may I be rejoicing in having reached that land where a sigh was never uttered, nor a tear ever shed. And, merciful Father, if friends or relatives should survive me that know thee not, O may my death be their life! and may they go from my grave to prepare for their own! And when the period for that state of intermediate glory, which thy word reveals, shall have past, may my sleeping dust arise to the resurrection of life; enraptured may I view the Judge eternal on his great white throne; with gladness may I hear the last trumpet sound, and the last thunders roll; with pleasure see the last lightnings play, and the stormy scenes of time conclude. And O from the kind hand of Jesus, may even I receive that crown of life, which fadeth not away; the crown, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give, at that day, to all that love his appearing. Then, O my most gracious God, fixed in eternal rest, then, blessed with all the bliss of heaven, may I with all thy ransomed family unite in rendering thee praises for those infinite wonders of redeeming love, for which eternity itself will never praise thee enough. Then may I and NO GOOD WITHOUT RELIGION. 245 millions more unite in that sweet song, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be to him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." Amen. CHAPTER XIV. NO REAL GOOD POSSESSED BY THOSE WHO ARE DESTITUTE OF RELIGION. § 1. THOSE Considerations from which I have hitherto endeavoured to show the infinite importance of early piety, have been mostly of a pleasing kind; but if you be one on whom all these have been urged in vain, permit me now more briefly to display the value of religion, by presenting to your view some of the dreadful evils to which the want of it will expose you. Consider the words of the Lord Jesus to an amiable youth, "One thing thou lackest." He wanted that one thing, which is of infinitely more importance than every thing united besides. Humble religion is the best of blessings, and the want of it "Is worse than hunger, poverty, and pain, Religion is so truly the one important blessing, that it would, in the end, make up for the want of every thing, while all earthly blessings united can never supply its want. Were the whole world your own, it could not give you real peace in life; it could not quiet the stings of conscience; 246 IRRELIGION DEPRIVES THE SOUL it could not ease you in the hour of pain, nor support you on the bed of death; nor obtain for you a place in heaven. If you possess friends, the most faithful, endeared, and affectionate, yet they cannot supply the want of his friendship, whose favour is better than life. They cannot drive sickness, pain, or death away; nor cheer your trembling soul when going to meet an injured God; or when standing at his awful bar. Helpless comforters would they then be; nor could their prayers, or tears, or agonies, arrest the dreadful sentence, " Depart from me, ye cursed." Neither in God's sight will any personal, any mental, or even any moral recommendations stand in the stead of humble piety. "You must be born again," or never enter heaven. Without that divine change, God will look upon you as an object of abhorrence; and all that is most pleasing in human esteem, will no more recommend you to him, than dressing a putrid corpse in fine apparel would do to recommend it to man. The richest dress could not make such a melancholy object pleasing; but if life, and the bloom of health and youth were restored to it, then it would be so, though in the meanest garb. While destitute of religion, you, in the divine sight, are only a disgusting mass of corruption and iniquity; nor can the bloom of health and youth, or the charms of beauty, nor the attractions of all the pleasing endowments imaginable, hide from the eye of God the loathsomeness of ruling sin. He is declared to hate all workers of iniquity. (Ps. v. 5.) Even to be satisfied with being almost a Christian, is to continue destitute of all real good; you would then be like a whited sepulchre, fair without, but within full of uncleanness. In OF NUMBERLESS BLESSINGS. 247 this way you would go to hell, as it were, by the gate of heaven. But if your nature were renewed, and the divine image formed on your soul, then though you were on earth most despised, yet God would approve and love you. § 2. The want of religion is a want which deprives you of a thousand benefits and comforts. You live, without true wisdom, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding. They must be strangers to wisdom who are strangers to Christ, the wisdom and the power of God.-You want the forgiveness of sins; all your crimes are upon you, and the least of them is heavy enough to sink you to hell. Forgiveness is the portion of those who have come to Jesus for it. You want composure of mind and inward peace. The peace which passeth all understanding cannot be yours. -You may be asleep in sin. -Your conscience may be seared as with a hot iron; or you may be indulging dreams of future happiness, which never will be realized; but the true peace of a humble and pious mind cannot be yours till you are Christ's. He left the blessed legacy of Peace, not to the world but to his own. -You want peace with God. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. You are naturally alienated from God by sin, and till reconciled to him, God must be to you an awful Judge, and you a rebel, deserving his severe displeasure; and boundless as his love is to those that return to him by Christ, yet to others he is a consuming fire. You want his fatherly care. In the hour of distress you have no God to go to that you can justly call your friend and Father. His children may ap Prov. ix. 10. Isa. lvii. 21. Heb. xii. 29. |