though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

12. Psalm xvi. 10. "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell (in the grave)...thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore."

Psalm xvii. 14. "From men of the world, who have their portion in this life...as for me, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness."

Psalm xxiii. 4. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."

Psalm xlix. 14. "Like sheep they are laid in the grave, death shall feed on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning."

Psalm lxxi. 20. "Thou shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth."

Psalm xc. 3. "Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children of men."

13. Prov. xiv. 32. "The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death."

Eccles. iii. 21. "Who knoweth the spirit of man, that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast, that goeth downward to the earth?"

Eccles. xi. 9. "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee unto judgment."

Eccles. xii. 7." Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

14. Isaiah xxv. 8. " He will swallow up death in victory." Isaiah xxvi. 19. 66 Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead."

15. Daniel xii. 2. "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

16. Hosea xiii. 14. "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction."

FAMILY SERMONS.-No. CXL. Ezek. xxxiii. 11.--As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

1. In this passage of Scripture, the character of God is exhibited in a most amiable and attractive light. The persons whom he here addresses, are the wicked; those who have wilfully rebelled against him; who have set at nought his authority, and contemned the warnings and admonitions of his word. When we consider the number and the va riety of our provocations against God, we may well stand astonished at the condescension and grace which are manifested in such declarations as these. Nor are these indications of mercy and kindness towards rebellious man of rare occurrence in the word of God: they are to be met with in almost every page. "Look unto me, and be saved, all ye ends of the earth." "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity? He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy."

God is love." "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." And these declarations of

God's word, which might be multiplied almost without end, are confirmed by the dispensations of his providence, which shew him bringing good out of evil, and in the midst of wrath remembering mercy. We find him, for example, at the very moment when the transgression of our first parents had for feited his favour, even while passing on them the sentence of condemnation, opening to them a door of hope, and assuring them that the Seed of the woman should one day bruise the serpent's head. Witness also the effect of Abraham's intercession for the polluted city, whose cry had gone up to heaven. But why dwell on these less pregnant proofs of the love and kindness of God towards guilty men? Contemplate his dear Son quitting the bosom of his Father, taking upon him our nature, submitting to pain and poverty and reproach, and all the miseries incident to humanity, and at length dying an ignominious and excruciating death, that he might redeem us from everlasting destruction, and, renewing us in the Divine image, raise us to happiness and heaven. Can we call to mind this Saviour, the Help of the helpless, the Hope of the despairing, the Salvation of the lost, and not be convinced of the overflowing grace and condescension which mark the Divine character?

If this part of God's character were fully known and appreciated, he could not be slighted as he is. If, instead of regarding him as a hard taskmaster, or as the enemy of our happiness, we were habituated thus to view him as the God of grace and mercy, and our minds were fully imbued with a convic tion of his loving-kindness, we could not fail to be attracted towards him: our hearts would be deeply impressed with a seuse of the baseness and ingratitude of sin; we should feel the pangs of remorse, and the yearnings of affection: with the prodigal, we should be dis

posed to seek our Father's face and our Father's forgiveness; and, with the penitent publican, to cry out, God be merciful to me a sinner.

2. But the text not only exhibits this endearing view of the character of God, but it points out also the fearful consequence of sindeath; not merely the ordinary death to which all men are subject, but death spiritual and eternal. This death is the wages of sin, the infliction of God's righteous displeasure. It is called the second death, and involves in it everlasting banishment from the presence of God-an everlasting exclusion from heaven-an everlasting extinction of peace and hope-an everlasting abode in those regions of misery and despair, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. In the various displays presented to us in Scripture, of God's mercy, no intimation is given us that the impenitent sinner shall escape his vengeance: even in our text, full as it is of mercy and encouragement, there is not one word which can be wrested to countenance such an idea: and yet it is the unfounded presumption of escape, in which men indulge, that leads them to go on in sin, until ruin at length overwhelms them. They assume it for granted that wrath cannot overtake them, but that, in some way or other, they shall experience the Divine clemency. The doubt suggested by the tempter, finds entrance into their minds, as it did into that of Eve. With venturous hand they pluck the forbidden fruit, and perhaps only discover their folly when it is too late to repair it. Such is the delusion which Satan has practised upon man from the creation of the world to the present day, and, till the grace of God renews the heart, with the same success now as at the first. We are still too often led to question the universality of the command, "Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden;" and are still tempted to doubt the

certainty of the punishment threatened to disobedience: "Ye shall not surely die." We are not made wiser by the universal experience of six thousand years that are past; and even after our own experience has taught us the danger of such suggestions, we are again and again deceived and deluded by the same specious artifice. But whence this false hope? Our text indeed assures us, that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but it adds an earnest exhortation, that he should turn from his evil way and live: "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die ?" O may this affecting expostulation, these remonstrances of grace and mercy, arm us against the ruinous delusion which I have been pointing out; for in the accents of love and compassion they entreat us to turn from sin which must otherwise inevitably issue in our destruction.

3. But the text, besides exhibiting to us an endearing view of the character of God, and pointing out eternal death as the sure consequence of unrepented sin, opens to us the way of life.-Life is here inseparably connected with repentance; with turning from our wicked ness unto God. Let us consider for a moment the various forms of wickedness which are continually meeting the pure and holy eyes of God, and provoking his just indignation. In some persons, sin appears in the outward conduct. They practise iniquity without shame or remorse. They shrink not from the most unholy practices-nay, they glory in them. Their very conversation is characterised by impurity and profaneness, and is an outrage on common decorum. In others, however, sin assumes a less obtrusive form it dwells more in the secret recesses of the heart; but it betrays itself even to the eyes of fellow-mortals in the selfishness of the conduct, in a devotion of the thoughts to the world and its objects, in a manifest alienation of the heart from God

:

But

and his service, and in an indisposition to attend to the things which belong to our everlasting peace. But whether the sins which beset us, be sins of the heart or of the life, our danger is equally certain, if we turn not from them. It is not only notorious sinners, the harlots and the publicans, whom our text addresses, but those also who, like the young man in the Gospel, maintain the decencies of outward conduct, while their hearts are selfish, engrossed with the world, and alienated from God. To these last, as well as to the former, is the admonition addressed, "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die ?"--Perhaps we are externally decorous in our conduct, perhaps we make even a creditable profession of religion; and we may therefore be apt to conclude that we are not proceeding in any evil way, and to assume that all is well with us. surely it does not follow from our maintaining a fair appearance before men, from our even expressing ourselves in the language of godliness, and having succeeded in obtaining a reputation for piety, that we have really turned from the ways of wickedness. Saul of Tarsus was zealous in what he deemed the service of God: he was strict in the performance of all external duties: touching the righteousness of the ceremonial law, he was blameless: he stood high among the professors of godliness: he was no neglecter of prayer, or public worship, but, on the contrary, was strict, even to excess, in attention to every religious observance; and yet all this time he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity; he was alienated from God by wicked works; and had not God interposed by a miracle of mercy to turn him from his evil ways, he would have perished in unbelief and hardness of heart. Let his once awful, but afterwards eminent, example, lead us to search and examine ourselves, whether we

be indeed in the faith, whether our hearts are right with God, whether we have really turned from every evil way unto him; for otherwise we are still reprobates, outcasts from the favour of God and the hope of heaven.

But I have remarked, that the text so links life with turning from wickedness, that they cannot be disjoined. God hath indeed united them indissolubly together; but man is continually striving to dissever them. We ardently desire happiness, but then we are desirous of enjoying it in the ways of our own devising. We are desirous of enjoying the pleasures of sin, without forfeiting our hope of future blessedness. But the thing is impossible. God's immutable decree stands opposed to such an unholy alliance. The ways of sin lead, by an unavoidable necessity, to everlasting death, to the blackness of darkness for ever.

The text connects the exercise of the Divine mercy with our turning from sin to God. If he had been set before us only as the holy and just Judge, who will by no means clear the guilty, and who will render to the wicked wrath, tribulation, and anguish, what encouragement should we have had to turn to him? Turning to him, in this view of his character, would only bring us into a situation more fully to anticipate the coming vengeance, and to fill us with all the horrors of despair. But to be called to turn to him as a God of mercy and grace, furnishes such ground of hope and encouragement as serves to allay our fears, and to quicken us in his service; as serves to fill our souls with peace, and love, and heavenly consolation. Oh! were it not for the Saviour whom God hath given us-for Him who is the way, the truth, and the life; the prevailing Advocate at the right hand of God, where he ever liveth to intercede for us-were it not for Him, in whose blood a fountain hath been opened for sin and

uncleanness and for the gracious assurances given us in Scripture through him; how could we turn to God with any hope of viewing his reconciled countenance, or of being restored to his favour? It is through Christ, then, that we must turn to God, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved.

Here, then, life and death are set before us. On the one hand, death; implying, in this world the darkness and alienation of the heart from God, a course of wilful rebellion against him, and the absence of peace and hope; and in the world to come, eternal banishment from his presence, and eternal misery in bell. On the other hand, life; in. cluding in it a mind enlightened with a knowledge of His will, gratitude for His mercies, love to His name, delight in the ways of holy obedience, a hope that will not disappoint us, a peace which passeth understanding; and hereafter, the eternal enjoyment of the Divine presence and glory, happiness large as our largest wishes, and endless as our immortal souls. Who would not desire to partake of such blessings? Can we hesitate in our choice? Can we go still farther, and, as too many do, deliberately choose death, and reject the gracious offer of life with all its unspeakable benefits? If we have never maturely considered the momentous question before, let us consider it now. Hear God himself condescending to expostulate with us: "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way, and live: turn ye, turn ye, from your evil way; for why will ye die?" He here addresses every soul of man. let his voice enter into our ears; let it reach our hearts. We shall otherwise have hereafter to lament the folly and infatuation of our conduct, when there will be no eye to pity, no hand to rescue us; when even God, the God of mercy and