rendered perhaps deftitute,-perhaps miferable for ever! No wonder, that, by the law of nature, this crime was always purfued with the most extreme vengeance; which made the barbarians to judge, when they faw St. Paul upon the point of dying a fudden and terrifying death,-No doubt this man is a murderer; who, though he has escaped the sea, yet vengeance fuffereth not to live. The cenfure there was rash and uncharitable ;-but the honeft deteft. ation of the crime was uppermoft.They faw a dreadful punishment,they thought; and in feeing the one, they fufpected the other.-And the vengeance which had overtaken the holy man, was meant by them the vengeance and punishment of the almighty Being, whofe providence and honour was concerned in pursuing him, from the place he had fled from, to that island. The honour and authority of God is moft evidently ftruck at, moft certainly, in every fuch crime,-and therefore he would purfue it;-it being the reafon, in the ninth of Genefis, upon which the prohibition of murder is grounded;-for in the image of God created he as if to attempt the life of a man had fomething in it peculiarly daring and audacious; not only fhocking as to its confequence above man; all other crimes, but of perfonal violence and indignity against God, the author of our life and death.That it is the highest act of injuftice to man, and which will admit of no compenfation, I have faid.-But the depriving a man of life, does not comprehend the whole of his fuffering; he may be cut off in an unprovided or difordered condition, with regard to the great account betwixt himself and his Maker.-He may be under the power of irregular paffions and defires.-The best of men are not always upon their guard. And I am fure we have all - reafon to join in that affecting part of our Litany,-That amongst other evils,-God would deliver us from fudden death;-that we may have fome fore-fight of that period to compose our fpirits,-prepare our accounts, and put ourselves in the best posture we can to meet it; for, after we are moft prepared,-it is a terror to human nature. — The people of some nations are faid to have a peculiar art in poifoning by flow and gradual advances.— In this cafe, however horrid,-it favours of mercy with regard to our fpiritual ftate;-for the fenfible decays of nature, which a fufferer muft feel within him from the fecret workings of the horrid drug, give warning, and fhew that mercy which the bloody hand that comes upon his neighbour fuddenly, and flays him with guile, has denied him.-It may ferve to admonish him of the duty of repentance, and to make his peace with God, whilft he had time and opportunity.-The fpeedy execution of juftice, which, as our laws now stand, and which were intended for that end,-must strike the greater terror upon that account.-Short as the interval between fentence and death is, it is long, compared to the cafe of the murdered.-Thou allowedft the man no time,-faid the judge to a late criminal, in a most affecting manner;-thou allowedft him not a moment to prepare for eternity; and to one who thinks at all,-it is, of all reflections and selfaccufation, the moft heavy and un. |