ritual, and not merely earthly beings, may be partly understood from the consideration even of the bodily change which we shall undergo. We shall not rise again the same as we are committed to the ground. The poor, pale, infirm, and mouldering mass, which we consign to the grave, will not rise again in the same form. It is sown a natural, it is raised a spiritual body; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power and therefore natural, inferior, worldly things cannot then affect us. All will be spirit and holiness; and if it shall be said that as our memory will remain with us, and therefore we may recal to mind our sins and our sorrows, I answer,-whatever we remember of our sins, will be so much only as will increase our gratitude to the God who has forgiven them; and with respect to our sorrows, they will be as much forgotten, as the man of a hundred years has forgotten the tears of his infancy or the toys of his childhood. If we shall be, as our Saviour said, like the angels of heaven 10, no worldly considerations will give us either grief or joy.

There is another objection to the opinion, that earthly recollections will be revived in the world to come. It is this: the grief which must be excited in the bosom of Christian parents, kindred, and friends, to be conscious that those whom they loved and regarded upon earth, are excluded from heaven and its everlasting happiness. In reply to this ob

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1 Cor. xv. 43.

D

10 Mark xii. 25.

jection I can only say, that I have no doubt that the glorified spirits of the redeemed will be enabled to adore the justice which condemns, as well as the mercy of God which saves: and thus they will be reconciled by some mysterious power upon their spirits, to the decrees of the Almighty. More than this I dare not say; for I may not so far speak only of the consolations of religion, as to deny its solemnities and its sanctions: and I cannot but be aware that our Lord Himself has mentioned this truth as one of the very proofs that we shall be known to each other in the future world. Then, says our Lord, shall be weeping, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves thrust out ". I dare not weaken the force of this appeal; I would rather urge it upon you as the most impressive warning to parents, and children, and kindred, and friends, to live together in this world as Christians, partaking of the same hope of immortality; as Christians who shall appear before the same Judge of the world, and partake of the same happiness, by means of the same mercy. Yes! my Christian brethren, the dead shall meet again. Parents! the subject appeals to you, that you so bring up your children in the faith and fear of God, that you may adopt the joyful language of Scripture in the great day of account: Behold, I and the children which God hath given me 12. The dead shall meet again. Children! the subject appeals to

11 Luke xiii. 28.

12 Isaiah xviii. 8.

you, that you honour your parents, that you obey and love them; that you overlook their infirmities, and venerate their counsel. It is probable, that, by the course of nature, you may be called upon to follow your parents to the grave. So honour, and love them now, that you may have no reason to look back with regret upon the past; and never forget that the affections of kindred may revive hereafter. And so I might proceed to appeal to all;-to all who have lost kindred and friends, whom they have dearly loved, and highly valued, and whose immortal spirits they believe to be partakers of the happiness of the world to come; and I do implore them to live now the life they shall desire to have lived when they are about to die. Honour the memory of the righteous by following their example, that you may meet them again with joy, and not with grief. I beseech those who remember the dead, and those who shall soon die, to follow the example of those, who through faith and patience have gone to inherit the promises; and I conclude with entreating you to join with me in this prayer-that all who are now present may be united as one sacred family in the last great day; and that neither parent, nor child, nor brother, nor friend, of all who are here, be finally lost from among the number of those, who shall be admitted, through the mercy of our Lord, to the happiness of heaven.

SERMON III.

HISTORY OF JONAH.

JONAH i. 17.

Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Of all the narratives in the Old and New Testament, there is not one which has been made the subject of so much ridicule, as the account of the prophet Jonah.

Whoever has lived but a few years in the world, and mingled but a little in society, must have met with many persons, who are apparently negligent and regardless of the truths of the Christian Religion. If a grave and serious friend, or relation, or minister of truth, expostulate with them upon their conduct;-if we remind them, that the soul is immortal, that the dead shall live again, that the graves shall open, and all the generations of mankind shall stand before the Judge of the world to receive the reward of their works, whether they be good or evil;-if we assure them, that the day must come when the wicked shall be punished with ever

lasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power-though they are frequently overpowered, for the moment, by the very sublimity and terror of such representations, yet they soon recover from the effect; and, instead of acting upon the convictions which for the moment subdued them, they return to their usual habits of thinking and speaking; and they endeavour to justify their conduct by inventing themselves, or by adopting from others, some absurd and unfounded arguments against the truth of the Bible which condemns them. They begin by questioning the truth of Revelation, and they become hardened in wickedness, when they meet with any supposed improbability or difficulty in its sacred pages and the history from which this text is taken, is uniformly made the subject of the ignorant reasonings of such persons. "Are we to be"lieve," they say, " in the account of the prophet "Jonah? Is it possible that a man should be imprisoned in the body of a fish for three days and "for three nights, and yet continue to live? Are we to receive such a narrative as this? "cannot give our faith to this part of Scripture; " and therefore, if we may reject one portion of "the Bible, because it cannot be true, we may, "with equal propriety, reject another also. We

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may reject those parts, therefore, which condemn "our conduct, and we may live as we please, and

1 2 Thess. i. 9.