SERMON IX.
ON DEATH.
"Now, when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold there was a dead man' carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." — Luke vii. 12.
Was death ever accompanied with more affecting circumstances? It is an only son, sole successor to the name, titles, and fortune of his ancestors, whom death snatches from an afflicted mother and widow; he is ravished from her in the flower of age, and almost at his entry into life; at a period when, happily past the dangers of infancy, and attained to that first degree of strength and reason, which commences man, he seemed least exposed to the shafts of death, and at last allowed maternal tenderness to breathe from the fears which accompany the uncertain progress of education. The citizens run in crowds, to mingle their tears with those of the disconsolate mother; they assiduously seek to lessen her grief, by the consolation of those vague and common-place discourses to which profound sorrow little attends; with her they surround the mournful bier, and they deck the obsequies with their mourning and presence; the train of this funeral pomp to them is a show; but is it an instruction? They are struck and affected, but are they from it less attached to life? And will hot the remembrance of this death perish in their minds, with the noise and decorations of the funeral?
To similar examples we every day bring the same dispositions. The feelings which an unexpected death awakens in our hearts are the feelings of a day, as though death itself ought to be the concern of a day. We exhaust ourselves in vain reflections on the inconstancy of human things; but, the object which struck us once out of sight, the heart, become tranquil, finds itself the same. Our projects, our cares, our attachments to the world, are not less lively than if we were labouring for eternal ages; and, at our departure from a melancholy spectacle, where we have sometimes seen birth, youth, titles, and fame, wither in a moment, and for ever buried in the grave, we return to the world more occupied with, and more eager than ever after all those vain objects of which we so lately had seen with our eyes, and almost felt with our hands, the insignificancy and meanness.
Let us at present examine the reasons of so deplorable a mistake. Whence comes it that men reflect so little upon death, and that the thoughts of it make such transitory impressions? It is this: the uncertainty of death amuses us, and removes from our mind its remembrance; the certainty of death appals, and forces us to turn our eyes from the gloomy picture: the uncertainty of it lulls and encourages us; whatever is awful and certain, with regard to it, makes us dread the thoughts of it. Now, I wish at present to combat the dangerous security of the first, and the improper dread of the other. Death is uncertain; you are therefore imprudent
