To conclude. How are the mighty fallen! Fallen before the desolating hand of death. Alas! the ruins of the tomb The ruins of the .. tomb are an emblem of the ruins of the world. When not an individual, but an universe, already maried by sin and hastening to dissolution, shall ago. nize and die! Directing your thoughts from the one, fix them for a moment on the other. Anticipate the concluding scene, the final catastrophe of nature. When the sign of the Son of man shall be seen in heaven. When the Son of man himself shall appear in the glory of his Father, and send forth judgment unto victory. The fiery desolation envelopes towns, palaces and fortresses. The heavens pass away! The earth melts! and all those magnificent productions of art, which ages, heaped on ages, have reared up, are in one awful day reduced to ashes ! 4 Against the ruins of that day, as well as the ruins of the tomb which precede it, the gospel in the CROSS of its great HIGH PRIEST, offers you all a sanctuary. A sanctuary secure and abiding. A sanctuary, which no lapse of time nor change of circumstances can destroy. No; neither life nor death-No; neither principalities nor powers. Every thing else is fugitive; every thing else is mutable; every thing else will fail you. But this, the CITADEL of the Christian's hopes, will never fail you. Its base is adamant. It is cemented with the richest blood. he ransomed of the Lord crowd its portals. Enbosorned in the dust which it incloses, the bodies of the redeemed " rest in hope." On its top dwells the : Church of the first born, who in delightful response with the angels of light, chant redeeming love. Against this citadel the tempest beats, and around it the storm rages and spends its force in vain. Immortal in its nature, and incapable of change, it stands and stands firm, amidst the ruins of a mouldering world, and endures for ever. Thither fly, ye prisoners of hope!-that when earth, air, elements, shall have passed away, secure of existence and felicity, you may join with saints in glory, to perpetuate the song which lingered on the faultering tongue of HAMILTON, "GRACE, RICH GRACE." GOD grant us this honor. Then shall the measure of our joy be full, and to his name shall be the glory in CHRIST." AMEN. |