Spiritual writers are of opinion, that the Scripture does not contain a more awful denunciation, than that which is contained in this text. Although addressed immediately to the Jewish people, it is not to be considered as applicable solely to them. Jerusalem, regardless of the time of her visitation, is the emblem of a soul unfaithful to the calls of grace, and the judgments denounced against that guilty city, have a farther reference to impenitent Christians. It would likewise be wrong to suppose, that, amongst Christians, the threat of the law of God is confined to that comparatively small number, which has laid aside all religious restraint, to follow implicitly the guidance of the passions. No! my brethren, it extends moreover to those, who indulge in unlawful gratifications here, and yet flatter themselves with the hope of escaping the justice of One, Who will punish crimes hereafter. It extends to all that multitude of Christians, who stifle remorse of conscience, the last grace offered by a departing God, with intermediate purposes of reform. It extends, my brethren, to as many among you, as continue in sin, under the persuasion of your being able, at any time, to recover the friendship of your Creator.

To die in sin, and to suffer torments of endless duration, which this implies; I dare say, there is not a person in this assembly, who does not tremble at the very thought of such a misfortune. You discover, by the light of your faith, the incalculable evil of this death, and you finally persuade yourselves that it will never be yours. But does your confidence rest upon present conduct, or upon resolutions of future amendment? Are you at present free from the tyranny of criminal passions, or are you waiting the time when their violence shall subside? Can you now look forward towards eternity with confidence, or do you expect at the hour of death those powerful graces, which enable the sinner to triumph in an instant over rooted habits of vice? If the latter supposition be true, then does Jesus Christ say to you, as he did to the Jews, you shall die in your sin.

To give some extent to these reflections, it is intended, in the following discourse, to show the insufficiency of death-bed repentance--for this is the point at which delayed conversion almost always ends--by arguments drawn, first, from the justice of God; secondly, from the character of man.

Few arguments are so frequently urged against delay of repentance as the uncertainty of human life, and there are few which so clearly show the folly of the unrepenting sinner. To be convinced by the most sensible proofs of the precarious tenure by which life is held, yet to dispose of its various periods with an assurance which unlimited control would hardly justify; to repose with confidence upon years, without being certain of an instant, is indeed a folly, for which reason is at a loss to account; and can only be explained by the inconsistent character of human nature, and the unhappy influence of passion in blinding the understanding and rendering unintelligible the most obvious truths. But when to the numberless accidents which give cause to death, and which have their origin in natural occurrences, in internal weakness or external violence, we add, that He, whose displeasure is provoked by sin, can in an instant cut the thread of life and summon the sinner to his tribunal in the midst of his days, our surprise at his presumption is still farther increased. For, that the Supreme Being not only possesses, but on a variety of occasions exerts this power, is a truth less evident indeed to the senses, but not less certain than the former. He does not, it is true, as heretofore, exert his prerogative in a visible manner. He does not now precipitate the rebel Israelite alive into the abyss, nor does he disclose the hand that strikes Baltassar in the midst of his infamous debauch; but his anger is equally formidable, although it acts unseen. Not choosing to disturb the harmony of his works by any direct interposition of his power, he conceals his wrath under the appearance of natural agents, and forms his designs to the similitude of ordinary occurrences; yet he does not suffer the executioner of his decrees to strike at random; he still guides unerringly the arm of death, and safely lodges his arrows in the bosom of the destined victim.

If, in the pursuit of criminal pleasure, a sinner receive a mortal stroke; if he fall motionless in the hour of insensibility; if some unknown cause extinguish the vital spark, it was God, my brethren, Who gave the fatal order. But, then, considerations of the natural uncertainty of human life, and the secret judgments of God, though sufficient to terrify a religious mind, do not leave the determined sinner entirely without resource. He may still continue attached to habits of vice, without resigning his pretensions to the rewards of virtue. The casualties of life, though innumerable, he may chance to escape, and the judgments of God, though they fall upon thousands, may yet not light upon him. But the words of our Divine Redeemer, which are the subject of this discourse, render impenitence hopeless: they leave no medium between present conversion and final reprobation, with all its consequent horrors. In fact, if the threat of the Son of God fell upon those only, who by sudden death are deprived of the opportunity of seeking a reconciliation with him, or only upon those monsters of impiety, who, for an ostentatious display of courage, neglect it when offered, the sinner would seem to have some grounds for his presumption; since the far greater part, even of those who have lived in an open violation of the divine law, quit this world with every seeming mark of sorrow and repentance. But it is this last prop of impenitence, which He particularly intended to remove. He does not therefore say, you shall be surprised by death; the midnight assassin, the noon-day ruffian, or the hand of chance shall hurry you in an instant out of life; you shall have neither time nor opportunity to repent. No! He says something more terrible. He says, you shall seek Me: that is to say, you shall perform everything in appearance requisite for real conversion; you shall confess your sins, you shall sigh and implore forgiveness; your friends shall be overjoyed at the seeming happy change, and declare, that though your life was immoral, your death was most holy; but I say to you, that you shall die an outcast and a reprobate. You shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin. Christians, you startle at this indignation, this stern and unbending rigor. But are you ignorant of its cause? It is divine justice, the justice of that God Who has declared that He will not be mocked, and that what a man sows, the same shall he reap.

This is the motive and the cause. This it is, which narrows the stream of mercy upon the bed of death. It is this which renders a death-bed repentance of all things the most difficult in the order of grace. But is there then a time, when the sinner is forbidden to hope? No, my brethren, to hope is, to his last breath, his bounden duty; and even the most desperate are commanded never to despair. This is indeed true, and it is equally true, that the sinner, who strays in a forbidden path until the evening of life, shall in vain seek to return, when he is overtaken by the night. It is equally true, that the sinner, who, to the call of grace inviting him to repentance, has uniformly answered, I will not obey, shall find his God deaf to his sighs and prayers, in the last tremendous hour. I called, says the Spirit of God, and you refused: I stretched out my hand, and there was none that regarded. You have despised all My counsel, and neglected My reprehension. I also will laugh at your destruction, and will mock, when that shall come to you which you feared.

Yes, my brethren, the sinner, who in the day of his strength has been in the habit of mocking God, shall himself be mocked and insulted, when from the bed of sorrow he raises his dying voice in supplication towards a brazen sky. Then, says the same Spirit of God, shall they call upon me, and I will not hear. Oftentimes does the sinner say in his heart, there will be time enough to think of God and eternity, when I shall be summoned to quit this busy scene. I will then confess my sins, and appease the anger of heaven, by the fervor of my repentance. Supposing him to be then in a condition to perform the external part, who shall answer for what depends on God? Will you then, O sinners, regain the forfeited friendship of your Creator without His permission? Will you snatch graces from that hand which shall be then armed only with thunder? You may indeed pray, but will God attend? You may sigh, but will He absolve? If there be aught of truth in His divine word, He will not. No, He denies not, that you will seek him; but He says, you shall not find him. He acknowledges that you will implore forgiveness, but He tells you He will not hear: He supposes that, standing on the margin of the abyss, you will endeavor, by promises and entreaties, to move Him to compassion; but to this He answers, I will be avenged and be consoled. I am well aware, my brethren, that this language, which contradicts the opinion of God's unbounded clemency, will sound harsh and grating to the ears of Christians little accustomed to reflect on the rigor of his justice. But, my brethren, if this be severe, it is at least the severity of God. It is not the dream of fancy, nor the phantom of imagination: it is neither a sounding brass nor tinkling cymbal, but it is God's immutable word; and to Him, if severity there be, must the imputation of severity attach.

After all, my brethren, where is the severity? Is it then unreasonable that God, so often insulted by the sinner, should at length spurn him in his turn? Is it unjust, that He, Who had so frequently exhorted the sinner to repent, should refuse to hear him, when he can no longer offend? Is it unrighteous that, after a thousand invitations slighted, and a thousand mercies abused, He should at length depart in dreadful anger from him, and leave him to die in his sin? Let the Christian, who understands so well the laws of propriety, who exacts the debt of punishment with so much rigor from an equal, and requires so many humiliations from an offending brother, before he will restore him to his forfeited friendship, be here the judge: and let him declare, whether a Being of infinite dignity exceeds the just measure of retribution, after years of ineffectual endeavors to reclaim His own ungrateful creature, if He at last oppose to the cold insensibility of the sinner's heart, the stern inflexibility of His own? When a religious Christian, my brethren, beholds, in those ill-fated countries which have never received the light of the Gospel, millions of beings cut off by their Creator; when he beholds this same God, even in the midst of these chosen nations, rejecting from his kingdom so many unfortunate infants, who for want of baptism, can never become citizens of heaven; not presuming to question the justice of Him, whose judgments are ever right, he humbly adores its unfathomable depths. But, when he sees an obstinate sinner called, invited, and pressed in vain to return to his father's house, and at length, in consequence of his abuse of grace, abandoned by God, and his tardy repentance rejected with indignation; neither his reason nor faith is shocked: far from feeling surprised that God is thus inexorable to a dying sinner, his only wonder is, that sinners, knowing, as they do, that He will not accept of this reluctant conversion, should yet continue in sin, until no mercy remains to stay the hand of His justice. But why all this display of divine justice? Is it not still true, that our God is a God of compassion? are not His mercies above all His works? is He not said to be all mercy? Yes, He is indeed a merciful God; and of this there can be no better proof, than His patience in bearing the ingratitude of sinners, and the kindness with which he still holds out the hope of pardon.

But let us not exalt one attribute at the expense of another. If He is a God of mercy, He is likewise a God of justice; and, although to exercise clemency be His delight, He will not so far indulge this favorite attribute as to forget the rights of the other. He is a merciful God; but then it is a mercy that must contribute to His perfection and His glory; not a mercy which favors iniquity: a mercy which consists in accepting the prompt repentance of a sinner, who is ready to sacrifice the dearest object of his affection for the recovery of the friendship of his God, and to offer a broken heart at the throne of his offended Creator; but not a mercy which dispenses with the punishments of sin, and views the rejection of every grace with equal indifference.

Were it possible for mercy to gain such undue influence in the divine bosom as should make God close His eyes to the presumption and persevering ingratitude of the sinner, furnish him still with time and grace that he may continue to abuse them, and at last crown all his favors by an unqualified remission of every crime, he would then resemble those senseless idols with which, in the days of paganism, His worship was insulted. He would then, indeed, have eyes and see not: and is it thus, O sinner, that you deem of One whom you cannot but acknowledge to be all perfection? Is it thus that you value graces which were purchased by the last groans of the Son of God? Is it thus irreverently that you trample on the precious pearl of final perseverance? Unhappy persevering sinner, is there nothing to alarm your presumption in the fall of those illustrious men who seemed to have secured to themselves this precious gift? Solomon, the wisest of men, and the favorite of Heaven, after following, for forty years, the path of righteousness, is at last permitted to stray, and so far is his wisdom perverted unto folly, that he, who was the first to erect a temple to the God of Jacob, offers incense to the divinities of the nations, and bows his gray hairs to the idols of Ammon. Judas, an apostle, tutored by Christ Himself to virtue and holiness, admitted to the familiarity of his divine Master, and intrusted with power more than human, falls, notwithstanding all those favors, and dies in despair. Anchorets of the desert, grown old in sackcloth and chains of iron, heroes of Christianity and martyrs of penance have been tempted at the close of their painful career, have fallen from their stupendous heights, and died in their sin. If these examples are insufficient to show the value of grace, turn your eyes, my brethren, to another kind of spectacle, and consider what the saints thought of this first and greatest of all the gifts of Heaven. You will find among them men whose names give luster to our calendar, angels in mortal bodies, vessels of election, replenished with good works, and adorned with innumerable trophies over the world, the flesh, and hell, still trembling for the precious grace of final perseverance. Whilst they hoped for it from the divine goodness, they yet feared lest a severe justice should withhold from them what it is beyond the power of human nature, however holy, to secure. Hence those sighs, those tears, those humble acknowledgments of unworthiness: hence the bed of ashes and the culprit's cord. How widely different are these dispositions from the presumption of the sinner! He, in the midst of his irregularities, engaged in numberless criminal habits, daily plunging deeper in the gulf of iniquity, and daily repelling his God to a greater distance by fresh excesses and fresh crimes, still relies with full security on obtaining this grace. Unwilling himself to doubt, he is offended with those who doubt of its being granted him even on the bed of death. You have seen, my brethren, what little reason he has to expect it on the part of God; if you now consider his personal efforts to obtain it, you will find that the threat of Jesus Christ, however well-founded on divine justice, receives its principal confirmation from the sinner's own heart. The examination of these dispositions will occupy the remaining part of this discourse.

To prove the insufficiency of death-bed repentance, as it depends on the co-operation of the sinner, abundant testimonies might be adduced from those illustrious fathers of the Church, whose opinions, if superiority of genius affords a clearer insight into the working of the heart of man, or elevation of sanctity enables to take more enlarged views of the counsels of God, cannot be too highly respected and reverenced. But the time is now passed, when the assertions of an Ambrose or an Augustine were equivalent to demonstration. The present is an age of reason. To reason, therefore, I appeal. Religion, though abundantly supplied from the fountain of inspiration, rejects not the tribute of her handmaid. We will then suppose, that the sinner, borne rapidly down the stream of life, has reached at length the indivisible point that separates eternity from time, and that he now lies before us on the bed of death. Or, if there be one in this assembly, who rests his salvation on the delusive hope, let him suppose, that he himself is there. A supposition, which, before this very day is ended, may be realized, will not appear strange. Nor can those vague and indeterminate notions of future conversion, which he may entertain, be any obstacle to it. The man that will not now resolve to leave his sins, only deludes himself when he thinks of doing this hereafter. The same difficulties that now stand in the way of his conversion, will oppose it a week, a month, or a year hence.

The same passions that now possess his heart, will continue there, until the time of mercy shall have passed away: the same evil propensities, that now hurry him forward from indulgence to indulgence, from crime to crime, will attend him to the verge of life, and descend with him into the grave. His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust. He may, therefore, without the help of imagination, consider this as his last hour; for, with regard to amendment, it will certainly be so. Here, then, let him figure to himself his own situation as a dying man, and his dreadful responsibility as a dying sinner. Let him, parched with fever, and tortured with pain, the powers of his mind enfeebled by mortal sickness, and the liberty of his will diminished by the violence of returning anguish, consider how he is to make his peace with an offended Creator; and, whilst the hand of death diffuses torpor and insensibility through his frame, let him calmly and collectedly sit down to review the book of his heart, and put the last hand to the accounts of eternity.

You, my brethren, if you have ever been reduced by sickness to the point of death, can say how well he will perform the task. But pain and death are not the only intruders that will break upon his meditations. A disconsolate family surrounds his bed, and, even when he is expiring, would persuade him he is not mortal. Instead of advising him to think of the neglected duties of religion, they watch the moment of returning reason, to raise his hopes of life, to divert his mind from what alone should occupy it, to turn his attention to the occurrences of a world, which it would be now his greatest happiness never to have known, or to fix upon themselves the sigh that should whisper mercy of his God.

Yes, it is thus, to spare a momentary pang, that the husband, the wife, the child, the friend, is exposed to eternal, unutterable anguish! Oh could I here throw open the gates of that abyss, in which these victims of a fatal caution are for eternity confined, with what curses would they load this guilty fondness! Even when nature gives evident signs of approaching dissolution, the minister of religion is reluctantly called, and as if, instead of the consoling rites, which he is about to administer, the secondary purpose of which is to restore corporal health; as if he came, like the enthusiast priest of some fictitious deity, to devote his victim to destruction, his arrival is viewed with mingled sentiments of horror and dismay. At last, he reaches the bed of death, and, had he time to meditate, what a field is here for his meditation! The gay votary of pleasure, who perhaps but yesterday attracted the admiration or the envy of the thoughtless crowd by wit, by beauty, or by fortune, now laid prostrate at the feet of death, with every feature sadly changed, the disconsolate parent stripped of the staff and glory of declining age, the flourishing family about to fall to ruin in consequence of the removal, of a corner-stone; above all, the unhappy soul, dead in mortal sin, and on the point of appearing before its judge; these, my brethren, are scenes for enforcing a conviction of the transitory nature of human happiness, and of the folly of those, who, whilst they throw away the whole of life on the bewitching of vanity, leave the business of eternity dependent on the fortune of an hour. But the time for these reflections is short, and it only remains to administer, or profane the sacraments of the Church. With pious care the zealous minister endeavors to rouse the sinner from his deadly slumber. He urges him to set his house in order. He tells him to remember that he has a God to fear, and a soul to save, and that but an instant remains to save it. Flattered by pretended friends into a belief, that his sickness was not unto death, with what terror does the sinner at last hear the dreadful truth! Must I then die? does he exclaim: must I now be separated from those pleasures which have hitherto possessed my heart? Must I be torn from my riches, those riches which have been acquired with such toil, preserved with so much disquietude, enlarged with so much injustice? O cruel death, dost thou make so bitter a separation? Yes, unhappy man, night has at last stolen upon you, when you are no more to expect the return of day. A few short hours hence, and you will have for ever passed the boundaries of time. But why are you troubled at the thought? have you been so often warned of the vanity of all human things, has experience so often convinced you of their instability, has the noise of fallen greatness so often reached your ear, has the funeral procession so often crossed your way, has death so often severed the friendly knot, has he so often burst in upon the domestic circle, to be still unlooked for, still unexpected? Whilst so many others have become his prey, are you still surprised, that he should seize on you? Can you not now detach your heart from a world, which has long been sinking beneath your feet? Deluded mortal! It was your boast, that you would cease to love the world, when you could no longer enjoy it; that you should then quit it without regret; nay, that your former affection would be turned into hate. The time for making the experiment is now arrived. Hate it, then; innumerable motives call on you to hate it; its emptiness, which always left something wanting to your happiness; its instability, of which you have at present the best proof; and its crimes, of which you have so often shared the guilt, and for which you are now to answer at an unerring tribunal. Ah, my brethren! powerful as is the hand of death to tear the soul from her earthly tenement, it yet has not strength to separate her from her fond idols: gladly would she dwell here forever with them, gladly would she bear them with her beyond the grave. Like Saul expiring on the mountains of Gelboe, the sinner's whole soul is still within him, his carnal inclinations continue undiminished, and the profane love of creatures still burns, amidst the ruins of a shattered frame.

You know, my brethren, that these are almost always the dispositions of a dying sinner, and of that sinner too, who had flattered himself, during life, that he should meet no obstacle in his own heart to oppose his conversion at the hour of death; who had said, that he would then seek his God and find him, and would not die in sin. And, my brethren, are you yourselves under no delusion in this particular? have you never gone into these counsels of the sinner? has his presumption never been, is it not still your own? Is there no one in this small assembly, to whom it appears an unnecessary servitude to follow the severe laws of the Gospel, and to take heaven by violence, when he thinks that one single confession will sweep away every transgression, and remove every disqualification to his becoming a saint when he can no longer remain a sinner? This much, at least, is certain, that confession and communion, at the point of death, are, in the world's estimation, passports that never fail to procure admission into heaven. It may then be worth our while to examine a little into the merits of an action, which is to lay the gates of paradise open to the sinner,--still, however, keeping in mind the dullness, insensibility and anguish, which necessarily attend a mortal sickness.

The first requisite of penance is confession, or an unreserved exposure of the sinner's offences; and not only of those gigantic crimes, that stalk before a dying sinner, summoned by conscience to attend his bed in all their horrors, and to plunge him into despair, but of a countless multitude of other transgressions, which hitherto he has been unable to discover, ashamed to declare, or unwilling to forsake, of a whole life, perhaps the least criminal part of which has been spent in an utter disregard of the great business for which he was created. Treasures of iniquity, beginning with the licentious scenes of youth, in which pleasure and the passions were his only guides, and extending through the lengthened period of manhood, in which fortune was the idol, the world his temple, its maxims his religion, and its laws his gospel; even to the follies of declining age, itself deformed by avarice, ambition, and hard-heartedness, and not unfrequently by more shameful irregularities. Sins peculiar to his station in life; the violated duties of husband, parent, master; sins against his neighbor, the injustice of competition, the malevolence of slander; the ruined character, the murdered soul. Sins against his God; the neglected duty of prayer, the omitted obligation of alms; confessions hypocritical, and communions sacrilegious. Sins against his religion; no, I mistake: the fashionable sinner of the present age has no religion. Religion, its laws and institutions, have been his standing jest. By a contempt for every received opinion, he has manifested the extent of his genius: by arraigning the truths of revelation, asserted his claim to philosophy, and by an affectation of skepticism, destroyed the suspicion of vulgarity. Such is the chaos of iniquity, which frequently in a few hours, the sinner has to arrange and methodize. It is unnecessary to add, how one, who shrunk from the idea of suffering, performs this laborious task, whilst encompassed by the sorrows of death: still, however, if contrition be perfect, the rest were of minor consequence.

But if it be certain that the confession is faulty, it is much more than probable that the sorrow is insincere. This, to be perfect, or even sufficient, must flow from other motives than a servile dread of punishment: it must be tinctured with at least some share of grief for the injury done to God. Now, what are the motives that actuate a dying sinner in his repentance? is he drawn by the attractions of divine beauty?


No, he is impelled by the terrors of divine justice, he is swayed solely by the fear of punishment; and, as the love of God has no part in his sorrow, as he is afraid to burn and not afraid to sin, so the mercy of God has no motive to raise him from the depths in which his soul cries in vain--whilst His threat is exactly accomplished: you shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin.


Should it be asked how I presume to arrogate the prerogative of diving into the secrets of hearts, and of confidently deciding upon what can be known only to God, I answer, that superior wisdom is here unnecessary, his former relapses justify my inference, or if he has never relapsed because he has never confessed, the very nature of his situation renders it sufficiently evident that it is not he that now leaves his sins, but his sins that leave him (i.e. his health or circumstances no longer allow his actively sinning). No, my brethren, there is no need of omniscience to decide in this case; only let death for a time resign his conquest, and you will soon be convinced of the insincerity of this conversion. Let but the storm blow over, and you will behold this seemingly repentant sinner ashamed of his former terrors, laugh at the credulity of a confessor, and improve upon every crime which he now so hypocritically detests. I say nothing of satisfaction, the complement of penance, and the best proof of its sincerity. In fact, what satisfaction can a dying man make? What has he to offer at the throne of grace? His riches? they are no longer his own: they are the spoils of his vanquisher; and his God will indeed be greatly obliged to him for the pious donation of what he cannot retain! Shall he offer his present sufferings? but how does he suffer? Why, as he repents:--reluctantly and by compulsion. What more has he to offer? his life perhaps: but with what sentiments does he die? With what sorrow and regret, because he has not here an everlasting dwelling! What then shall he do to obtain eternal life? or rather, what shall he do to obtain exemption from the lot of those who seek God, yet die in their sins? This is a question which the minister of religion will perhaps himself have to answer; and if charity did not at that awful moment oblige him to conceal the sentiments of his heart, what would be his answer? In all probability, it would be somewhat similar to this: that the sinner should not have slighted the admonitions of those who held out the dangers of delay where all is at stake for eternity; that we are not so far masters of our own hearts as to pass from an ardent attachment to the world during the whole life, to an entire disengagement from it at the hour of death; that the analogy between corporal infirmity and spiritual indisposition is striking; and that, as a constitution shattered by disease is only restored to the exercise of its faculties by the slow and imperceptible operations of nature, so a soul, enervated and enfeebled by habits, is with difficulty and time renewed to health and vigor by the still more insensible workings of grace; that those flashes of grace which strike the sinner to the ground, to make him rise a vessel of election, are not bestowed upon all, and are specially refused to those who have lived in sin on the presumption that they will be granted to them. You shall seek me, and you shall die in your sin. But the language of a confessor is then very different. Truth undisguised would, in these dreadful moments, overpower the sinner, and cloud forever the last faint ray of hope. He is, therefore, the first to exhort him to confidence.

The gates of heaven, he tells him, are never closed upon the truly penitent, even at the hour of death. He calls to his remembrance the laborer who entered the vineyard when the day was far spent; but fails to observe that there is also a night in which no man can work. He cites the example of a Magdalen, of a Paul, and others, who became in an instant eminent saints: but would have him forget that, although the Scriptures relate the conversions of many abandoned sinners, only one instance of this is recorded to have happened at the time of death, and that even this was when a God expired. He quotes various passages from the inspired writings in which the goodness and mercy of his heavenly Father are extolled, but carefully keeps out of view others of an opposite tendency; particularly that which says, you shall seek me, and you shall die in your sin.

In a word, he omits no exhortation which may cheer the flagging spirits; reveals no truth that may damp the confidence of the sinner: he gives absolution, he administers the sacraments; but the effects of these sacraments, the ratification of this absolution, only God, my brethren, can bestow. Yes, Christians, pardon me if I tell you you are grossly deceived when you place any reliance on the conversion of a dying sinner. Nothing in appearance can be more pious than such a death, nothing more consoling; but at the same time, there is nothing more equivocal, nothing more suspicious to the eye of faith. You may perhaps have seen the sinner eager to confess his sins, receive the consolations of religion with streaming eyes, clasp in his feeble arms the image of a crucified God, and repeat with earnestness the name of Jesus the Deliverer. You have heard him, perhaps, deplore the vanities of that world which led him astray from the path of virtue; you have heard him give pathetic instructions to his children, and exhort them not to follow the example which he has had the misfortune to afford them.

Encouraged by these signs of repentance, and still more deceived by self-love, the sinner rejoices in the happiness of his departing friend; raises his eyes for once in gratitude to heaven, and calmly goes his way, in full confidence of arriving at salvation by the same compendious path; whilst even the just man, not sufficiently penetrating the judgment of God, is ready to exclaim, in the fervor of his charity, May I die such a death, and may my last end be like unto his! It were well, my brethren if these attestations of his sincerity could prove of benefit to the sinner at the judgment-seat. Happy would the dying sinner be, if these could save him. But, my brethren, I must once more repeat, that the Son of God supposed every one of these exterior demonstrations of repentance, when He said, you shall seek me, and you shall die in your sin. And, indeed, can it appear surprising, that a person at the point of death, who beholds behind him a life spotted with every iniquity, and before him a Judge inexorably just, should seek the aids of religion, to shield him from the frowns of Heaven? Without supposing a single atom of the love of God, or regret for having offended Him, is not self-preservation a sufficient inducement to a person thus circumstanced to search through Israel for her prophets, to call to his bedside some obscure ecclesiastic, whose unaccommodating firmness at any other time was dreaded or despised? Without acknowledging any revolution of the internal man, is not the bare view of the coming wrath alone sufficient to call forth the sighs, the tears, and the promises of Antiochus? Considering the situation of a dying sinner, is it not to be feared, that all this parade of sorrow and repentance conceals a heart that fears nothing in God, but that red right-hand? detests nothing in sin but its punishment? I would not be understood to mean, that it is ever allowable to form a judgment of any particular individual: but when this much has been conceded to charity, it will still remain certain, that repentance consists not in words, but in actions, not in exterior demonstrations of sorrow, but in a change of heart; and that not everyone, who says, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven.

These remarks, my brethren, have appeared intemperate; yet I shall advance a step farther, and, grounded on the word of God, shall venture to express a doubt, whether those sacraments, which are supposed to bestow an indubitable claim to beatitude, have not, instead of finishing the salvation, put the last seal to the reprobation of the sinner. Or, if I am too severe, be you yourselves the judge. Draw nigh to your expiring brother. The bed of the dying is at all times a school of wisdom; the bed of a dying sinner should be doubly instructive. Behold him, pale and trembling, locked in the arms of death. Survey those features cast in his unsightly mould! You know his life; declare then what you think of his death. He has indeed just received his God within his bosom; but is he there as his comforter or his accuser; his Saviour, or his judge? He utters some unintelligible words; do these contain a fervent prayer for mercy, or an ominous foreboding that all is lost? His eyes are immovably and forever fixed; do they behold the opening gates of paradise, or the jarring portals of the bottomless abyss? His countenance is convulsed, the soul trembles upon the quivering lips; but whither, oh! whither is it hastening? to joys which it is not given to human imagination to conceive? The disconsolate family kneels around the now breathless corpse, and supplicate their Saviour not to suffer that soul to perish, for which He died. Do they move Him to mercy, or to indignation? do they call up the ancient fondness of a father for an undutiful child, or do they stimulate the resentment of a benefactor for grace abused? They solicit the suffrages of the saints for him, who now stands at the bar to receive his final doom; do those holy ones, who surround the throne of God, second these weak efforts with the weight of their powerful intercession, or do they subscribe to the decree of condemnation? Thou art just, O Lord, and thy judgment is right!

Here, my brethren, let us stop our inquiries: and not attempt to burst the seals of that book, which is only to be opened on the great accounting day. However slender our hopes, let us still pray for those who have departed, whether they be connected with us by the ties of kindred, or of a common nature, that they may rest from their labor, and that their works may not follow them.

As for ourselves, though we cannot penetrate the world of spirits, of this much, at least, we are certain, (and it is what it most of all concerns us to know,) that if we now turn to God with our whole hearts, He will, however great may have been our offences, receive us with open arms; that if we delay our conversion, He will at last depart from us, and we shall die in our sins.

If, then, there be any one in this assembly, (I trust there are few; I hope there are none,) but if there be any one amongst you, my brethren, whom conscience accuses of being the sinner here meant to be described, may that person be induced to repent now, whilst repentance will be a virtue: may he be induced to turn to the Lord his God during this acceptable time, into which we are now on the point of entering; and if the difficulties and thorns of penance deter him from such a resolution, let him look with the eye of faith upon the greatness of the proposed reward, and, passing the insignificant baubles of time, upon the wings of hope, survey the greatness, the magnificence and eternal duration of that kingdom which God has prepared for those who love Him. Or, if the joys of heaven have no charms for him, let him descend in spirit to the abodes of those malevolent beings, which have been created for vengeance; and there, amidst the cries of blasphemy, the shrieks of the tortured, and the wailings of a fruitless despair, let him ask himself whether he can endure everlasting burning; whether he can dwell for eternity with devouring fire. Let him there decide between the temporary inconveniences of this life and the eternal punishment of the next. But whatever part he may choose to adopt, let him not forget that the choice which he now makes, is made for ever.