SERMON XX.

THE PROFIT DERIVED FROM MEDITATION ON DEATH.

IF perhaps not the smallest interval of time elapses, my Christian hearers, in which new comers are not arriving on the stage of life, whilst those who have occupied it for a longer or shorter period, again quit it, yet it sometimes appears, as if the messengers of death were doubled, and as if he more urgently and unsparingly demanded his ever certain prey. This is also actually the case from time to time, not only when on fields of battle he mows off, as the reaper the ears of corn, thousands in a few hours, or when he knows no mercy in frightful disorders and contagious diseases, the consequence of war or of hostile elements. Even in the midst of peace, and when all seems safe and free from care, he often quickly attacks every age, every rank, every generation, and hurries them, prepared and unprepared, out of the number of the living. And if there are some among them, whom we personally knew, with whom the relations of professional 388employment, of business, or friendship, or similarity of years and of destination, made us acquainted, a secret consternation naturally seizes us, and the accustomed proportions of life and death appear to us subverted by a greater mortality.

The last days that have elapsed confirm my observation. More frequently than usual the last pomp of death and the funeral bell, which attend the dead to the common resting-place, have reminded us of the departed. Old, well-known, and proved fellow-citizens have attained their end. To others, who a few weeks ago were strong and vigorous in their calling, before they, before we, apprehended it, their final evening of rest is come. Nor has death spared childhood and. the flower of youth. You yourselves, my friends, have followed the coffin of one of your brethren to the grave. How is it on all sides confirmed, “The days of man are but as grass; he flourished as a flower of the field. When The wind goeth over it, it is gone, and the place thereof knoweth it no more.” Whoever does not pass his days entirely without thought, is not unmoved on such occasions. But how dissimilar are the impressions which they leave behind. That which in one person finds vent in empty unmeaning talk, becomes in another abundant matter for earnest meditation. That which fills one only with anxiety and terror, engenders in another calm resignation. Whilst the former strive to efface the 389unpleasant impression, which remembrances and admonitions of their end left in them, in wild dissipation, the latter seek retirement and quiet. That which in the one case leads to the undervaluing of an uncertain existence, heightens in the other the sense of the value of every hour. It strengthens the resolution to exert all the faculties in useful activity, “while it is day.” And if, lastly, but faint praise or unjust blame is commonly heard at the grave of the dead, yet the better man proves his own work, and from self-knowledge proceed justice and fairness. But that the right contemplation of death school of wisdom, in this the enlightened men of antiquity agree with the declarations of our holy Scriptures. Which of us does not know those words, so rich in purport, in the 90th Psalm?

Psalm xc. 12.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

THESE words shall guide our further meditation. We will, first, call to mind the different impressions, which expected and unexpected deaths create in the majority of men, and secondly, obtain a knowledge of that wisdom, which is the sure profit resulting from a proper meditation on death.

When we dwell, in the first place, on the usual effects which the dissolution of our brethren is wont to produce in the minds of men, we do not speak of those persons, who as declared enemies of all serious consideration, avoid all impressions of this kind by an assiduously nourished frivolity, which they call the wisdom of life, who for the same reason have no other advice to give to the mourner and the wounded in heart, than as quickly as possible to drink oblivion from the drowning goblet of pleasure, and to lose themselves in the dissipations of life. What in the quite uninformed and unthinking is a bluntness of feeling, an insensibility, which neither joy nor pain has power to affect, is in them an artificial indifference, which, however, seldom stands the test of critical moments, since a secret apprehension and fear so often lies concealed under the appearance of undisturbed serenity. We speak not now of these, but of such only as willingly yield to the impressions which the vicissitudes of life make upon them, and in whom the natural feelings are as little deadened, as the expectations of another existence and a higher destination; although neither their mind may have reached that degree of; purity, nor their heart that firmness, by which we discern the genuine Christian, the virtuous and the pious. That which is usually first excited by the intelligence of expected or unexpected deaths is a lively sense of our own mortality. He in particular 391who discovers a certain similarity of years and circumstances between himself and the departed, so much the sooner finds in every such instance of death a warning of his own. An early decease, therefore, affects most men more powerfully, than the end of one far advanced in life. The order of nature seems violated, the surety of years and of fresh and vigorous life is become unsafe. Apprehension increases, and the most trivial changes and casualties of the body are looked upon as forerunners of imminent danger. Time and diversion are required to give a brighter colour to existence. As if any death could surprise us, any age were not ripe for death! Ye quickly alarmed and desponding, have ye needed to be especially reminded of that which the experience of all ages, which every view of the graves could teach you;—the arbitrary will of nature, which without rule or fixed law makes leaves and blossoms fall off, and permits but few to become fruit and ripen? Or think ye, that the duration of your life depends on any thing else, than on him, through whom all generations of men dwell on the earth, and who in the immutable councils of his wisdom has provided and predetermined for every one living, how long he shall inhabit it?

Yet frequent visitations of death in their circle make another part of our brethren not so much apprehensive for their own existence, as 392colder and more indifferent to the value of life. It appears to them vain toil and fruitless labour, that man should exert himself without knowing how long he shall have the ability, or how much he shall attain. Thus a discontent is engendered, which often breaks out into ingratitude, and indulges in complaints against Providence. To what purpose, they say, should we undertake or aim at any thing great and estimable? To what purpose employ all the powers of the mind, in order to acquire a treasure of knowledge? Wherefore deny oneself enjoyment, in order to attempt what one seldom can accomplish, and what those who come after us so often destroy? Who ensures to us the next hour? And how all projects then crumble to pieces, and all extensive schemes dissolve into nothing! Do not all designs disappear with us, which only a state of longer efficiency could have carried into execution? They who have at least understood how to enjoy their uncertain existence, will then ridicule our zeal and sneer at the simplicity, which, in an enthusiastic excitement or in anxious regard to duty, has defrauded us of the sparing gift of nature. Yes, if death seized only the idle, the unserviceable, who have become a burthen to themselves and others! But these he passes by and spares. These, who seem to have. the highest claim to attain the farthest limit, the most excellent, the most necessary in their larger circle of action, and in the smaller one of their family, 393the universally loved, he too frequently tears away in the midst of their days. And this discontent, how easily is it turned into a perversion of mind, which at last imagines that sensual enjoyment alone constitutes life, which, according to an unfortunate, and almost customary mode of speaking, reckons the measure of life, the much or the little, by nothing but the quantity of such enjoyments, and finally does not hesitate to exclaim with those whom the Apostle found among his contemporaries, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!”

Far worthier and more beneficial appears a third effect, which unexpected deaths especially work in the mind. Whilst the uncertainty of the hour of dissolution is more strikingly exhibited to the soul of man, he thinks he has not a moment to lose in preparing himself for it. Would that the resolution were always adopted In the sense of the Redeemer, would that he proved himself to have that constant vigilance, which he commends in the “servant whom his Lord, when he corned], shall find watching, and in the peaceful consciousness of his fidelity always ready to render an account! But this preparation becomes at one time an aimless neglect of all the business of a man’s worldly calling, as if it must necessarily disturb a mind directed to eternal things; again, it is a gloomy withdrawing from all connexions with the world, as if every one of them were an impediment to striving with the 394entire soul after the kingdom of God; again, when the loss of one beloved has lacerated the heart, there arises often a brooding and sinking of the soul into melancholy, pardonable indeed in the first moments of grief, but reprehensible when lasting, by which men would honour the departed, and make themselves familiar with the thought of dissolution. Every thing puts on the hue of mourning to those, whom the death of beloved friends so estranges from life. All its relations, all even its purest gratifications, in which others indulge, are shunned or bitterly censured. They are determined to die to the world, that they may live for heaven; but they darken this very heaven, and in their erroneous conceit confound a morbid condition of body and soul with life in God and in eternity. No, my friends, all these are not the impressions from which that wisdom emanates, which is called by our text the fruit of meditation on our frailty and mortality. But it will not be wanting, when reflection on the flight of life and on the irrevocable law, “It is appointed unto men once to die,” teaches us correctly to estimate the true import of existence, faithfully to fulfil the duties of each succeeding day, and more and more to purify and ennoble the enjoyment of life on earth. We shall, in the first place, grow wise, my dear friends, through the contemplation of death, the more we learn by it to estimate justly the true import of life. For the decease of our 395brethren teaches it us with a loud voice. This reminds us, on one side, of all which is vain and transitory, and teaches us, on the other, to discover what is true and imperishable in it. It reminds us of what is transitory. This voice, indeed, is often scarcely necessary in order to make it manifest, how vain and idle is the turbulent struggling and striving of so many around us after riches, after splendour and honour, after the satisfaction of their always increasing and ever less sufficing wants. How often does one observe in the living, what little power that which is their highest wish, and which they set up as their idol, has to fill their vacant hearts, and to afford them what they expected from it! That everlasting restlessness which tosses them about, that early satiety which so soon overcomes them, that depression, that inward cheerlessness in the midst of abundance of possessions and the intoxication of pleasures, sufficiently proves how unsatisfactory their life is to them. But when they are suddenly snatched away from this life, then those uncertain and treacherous things first appear in all their vanity and worthlessness. It is as if there blazed before us, by the light of the tapers which surround their bier, the inscription, “The world with its pleasures passeth away! The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life,” all is now at an end, all is vanished like. a dream! They who were esteemed happy, the envied, 396the feared, all their happiness, all their glory is now gone! How desolate and void must their minds feel, which know no other treasures than those which the earth bestows, and of which not one can follow them!

But the contemplation of death brings to our notice also what is real and imperishable. For if we stand by the grave of those, who early began to distinguish the enduring from the transitory, reality from appearance, though they have been called away ever so soon, how entirely different are our opinions then! Though it were the humblest sphere of action which God had allotted them, yet none of the good which they performed in it is lost: The plans and designs of ambition, of a love of rule, of earthly gain, may fall asunder into nothing, if death interferes with the calculations. Designs for public or private benefit, ideas born in noble minds, nourished by affectionate hearts, and communicated to congenial souls, these remain in the world, whether they are brought sooner or later into execution. They are a seed for posterity which infallibly springs up, which makes the life even of the early departed, even On earth, an imperishable life. Think, my beloved, of the many, the earthly part of whose composition has long since crumbled into dust and ashes, but whose fruitful life still flourishes, as in the freshness of youth, in that which they have thought and done, of 398whom we reap what they sowed! Think of those wise men, who have deposited in immortal works, the discoveries of their inquiring minds, and transmitted them to posterity I Think of those. good men, who were not weary in well-doing, and by their institutions do not cease to be benefactors of mankind Above all remember Him, who hath bequeathed to us his disciples the most excellent pattern of a godly life. That which made this life illustrious—verily it was nothing after which vanity strives, and in which the. corrupt taste of the .multitude seeks its supreme good. It was consumed in fatigue and labour, in abstinence, in poverty, in persecution, in griefs of all kinds, and his sun went down at noon. But he has acquired to himself an infinite merit! His life has become the life of the world. From its inexhaustible fulness we all derive treasures of knowledge, of truth, of ability unto all good. It is the leading star of the pious in good and evil days. It is the highest and most expressive proof, what consequence man is able to give to the shortest existence upon earth, and that no portion of it which belonged to the invisible world shall ever perish.

Thus, my beloved, meditation on death teaches that wisdom which justly estimates the import of life, and knows how to distinguish the fading from the lasting. But it also teaches us worthily to execute the task of every day, every hour, and thereby 398to demonstrate in the conduct the genuine wisdom of life.

A great part of mankind lives far more in the future than in the present, and but too often in a future which never becomes present. This is never more commonly the case, than in times of great revolutions in the external world, when the history of each day bears with it the germs of new, and not to be calculated events. Then fear contends in the soul with hope; then men apply, more than at other periods, every thing that happens to their own fate, and an insignificant and most unfounded tale affords nourishment to the most various passions. Almost every other subject of conversation is banished from society, except the history of the day, and the conjectures and prognostications which cross each other in perpetual contradiction. Every one takes only these thoughts with him into the stillness of solitude, and they frequently disturb his nightly rest. O, ye disquieted and full of anxiety, were the business of the hour more important to you, ye would not attempt what ye never can accomplish,—to solve the problem of a future hid in darkness. And if you could accomplish it, what would it avail you? Look around, call to mind the many whom death unforeseen, and contrary to all which is called probability, has removed out of the relations of the earth. What have they now, who, anxious only for future days, and vexing themselves 399with what they were ignorant of, neglected the business of the moment, or performed it with divided mind and heart, what have they now gained by all these cares? On the contrary, how many precious hours have they irrecoverably lost! Of all which they so anxiously feared, nothing has befallen them. Of all which they hoped, nothing has been granted them.

O, my friends, there is something far more important in life to execute. The outward vocation, the sphere of action, whether large or small, claims our first attention. A due earnestness and activity therein leaves little time over. A faithful, diligent, prudent, well-ordered, and unwearied industry often requires collectedness of mind, even in unimportant matters. And then how much have we to do for our real self, our internal part! How much to improve in our knowledge, to cleanse in our inclinations, to ennoble in our sentiments. How ought we to respect and preserve all the powers that God has implanted in us! for this reason to be much at home with ourselves, and rather to let the external world, which we cannot alter and still seldomer improve, pass by us unobserved, than that the first duty of our life should remain unfinished. That is the right mode of living to the present; that is at the same time the right provision for futurity. For thus we become qualified to meet all which it brings us, and which lies beyond all calculation; if 400joy and happiness, worthily to enjoy it; if affliction and want, firmly to endure it; if anxiety and danger, to oppose to it courage and confidence. And should we depart hence before that future comes, which makes others so apprehensive, then is the treasure won; which accompanies us beyond this scene, and every well-employed hour gained for eternity.

Lastly, the proper contemplation of death is also a school of wisdom, inasmuch as it enlightens us respecting the enjoyment of life; and teaches us more and more to purify and ennoble it. Immediately before the words of our text it is, indeed, asserted that this life, even in its best estate, is but toil and labour. And who can deny that, if we except the untroubled years of childhood and early youth, no other lot has fallen to most men, even those who are called fortunate? But what a difference between those who wisely know how to “use the world without abusing it,” and those who, much as they fancy themselves masters of the art of the enjoyment of life, yet by their restless exertions derive gratification but for the moment, a gratification, which they must often repent for years. How they toil, how they weary themselves to obtain what is vain and transient! Even better men, how frequently they deprive themselves of quiet and pure enjoyment, because they are deficient in the true wisdom of life! Yes, my friends, though toil and labour be our lot, nevertheless 401there is an enjoyment of life in the midst of labour, and toil itself has its joys. Are they not the reward of difficulties overcome, of final victory after a hard struggle, of the end attained after faithful and indefatigable labour, of renewed strength after exhausting exertion? God has thus provided for elevated self-enjoyment, in that he has granted nothing great and glorious to man, which must not be acquired by labour and trouble. And thus, finally, have they enjoyed their existence, as in the worthiest and purest, so also in the most gratifying manner, who have not forgotten that sooner or later they must die, and unseduced by the show and glare of false happiness, have sought first the kingdom of God; who, therefore, while here were already blest in hope, comforted in affliction, joyful and grateful for the smallest gift, inwardly secure in the midst of the disturbances of life, which they could not escape, and, if disposed to be dispirited, remembering that the time was not distant, when they should come to the peace of the people of God, and enter into the joy of their Lord.

Lord of our days! Teach, O teach us rightly to reflect that we must die. So shall we certainly become wise unto all eternity.