No. 1.]

For the Christian Journal.

A Sermon, delivered in St. Paul's Church, Troy, at the Funeral of the Rev. James Lawrence Yvonnet, Sept. 23, 1824, by the Rev. David Butler, Rector of said church.

[See our vol. viii. p. 316.]

GRIEF cannot be eloquent; it can find no adequate expression in words; it must vent itself in silence, in solitude, in secret. I have now no such privilege; I must discourse upon the subject of mortality; inculcate the lesson it is designed to teach; and allude to a melancholy event, that deeply interests the hearts of us all. I know not how to do it. It is difficult to talk when the heart is full; it presses the tongue with a force that paralizes it. Still the effort must be made, and, with divine assistance, it may be enabled to impart a small share of the emotion that is felt; and which naturally claims another method of utterance. But I fear, my brethren, that too much is already excited to leave you sufficiently composed to be greatly benefited by any thing I can say. Let us, however, try to moderate the agitated affections of our hearts, that we may profit by the serious consideration of our mortality; which is most powerfully awakened at this time, by an event that comes home to the bosoms of every one of us. That this may be the case, I have chosen, as the ground of our present meditation, the following words, written in the fourth chapter of St. James, at the 14th verse

"Ye know not what shall be on the morrow: for what is your life? It even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

We now feel the full force of what is here asserted. Another of our dear friends is gone to his long home, and brought it fresh to our memory. It becomes us to notice such events with the strictest care. They must not pass by VOL. IX.

[VOL. IX.

us unobserved; nor must we suffer them to vanish from our recollection. It is the design of God, in these instances of his providence, to awaken our attention to our true state and condition in this world, and that the impression should remain upon our minds. More is intended by them, than that we should merely turn our thoughts upon death; be agitated a few moments with grief at the loss of those we love; overcast with gloom at depositing them in the grave; and by recollecting that we too must soon lie down in the same dark and dreary abode.

All this does not answer the design of providence in the instances of mortality that he causes to pass before us. Viewing death with dread; grieving at the loss of friends; and looking down into the grave with horror, are not acts of religion, but merely the instinctive emotions of our sensitive nature, equally common to all who have not, by the deepest depravity, extinguished in their bosoms every tender, humane, and virtuous tendency in the heart of man. These emotions, I say, are merely instinctive, and are of no farther use than as they tend to excite our consideration to objects that lie beyond those by which they themselves are moved. This, it is true, they are calculated to effect. By the death of a friend we are grieved; but there is no virtue merely in this grief. Still its tendency is to make us reflect upon the cause of death. Sin brought death into the world. This is the origin of the evil we deplore. Under this impression, the next inquiry that naturally arises in the mind is, whether this evil does not cleave to me; and if so, how shall it be removed? Thus a train of thought is excited, that may lead to the happiest consequences; the mind is directed into the path of truth, and moved by an impulse which, if yielded to, will lead to the attainment

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of that moral excellence, which will secure the favour of God, and entitle both soul and body to a blessed immortality. By looking down into the grave, it is seen to be a dark and gloomy place. The mind is dreadfully agitated with the view; the thought of having our bodies lie there; being fed upon by worms; wasted by putrefaction, and mouldered into dust; this fills us with solemnity and awe. But this solemnity and awe constitute no part of religion; these are emotions in themselves of no moral value: their tendency however is good; they may be turned to the best account, therefore it is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting. By looking down into the grave we are naturally led thus to reflect: Is this, can it be the final end of man? must he lie here in eternal silence? must he perish for ever? Is the spark of intelligence that was in him extinguished? has that mind which was susceptible of knowledge, and grasped after it; that brought into view the whole of the visible creation, and comprehended many of its laws; that knew there was a Creator who presides over, and governs it all by infinite wisdom, goodness, and power; that stretched its thoughts into the most distant futurity, and longed for immortality; that had implanted in it affections capable of being directed to the most noble objects; that could love goodness, feel gratitude, and detest what is wrong: has this noble, this intelligent principle of his nature, perished with his body? Is it, like that, unconscious, insensible; and is the grave to shut up for ever all that belonged to him whose body is to lie there, moulder into dust, and perish like other animal substances? Such reflections as these are awakened by looking down into the grave; and these, if pursued to their proper termination, will make us wiser and better. That they should be so pursued, is the design of providence in commissioning death to approach near to us, and calling upon us to attend our friends and neighbours to their long home, the place appointed for all living.

When the reflections I have now mentioned are aroused by such events; when we are led by them to consider

our frailty, and to look forward, and conjecture what will become of that part of us by which we now reflect upon this, and which is grieved at the loss we have sustained; what will become of this when we die-then our minds are in a suitable frame to receive the impressions of divine grace, and to be benefited by their holy influence. If we pursue the train of thought thus excited, we shall be led to embrace all the glorious objects laid before us, and freely offered to our acceptance in the Gospel of Christ. The dark and gloomy cloud under which we commenced our contemplations will be dissipated; light will break in upon our minds, and we shall be filled with the cheerful hope of a blessed immortality. Death is not what it appears to our natural eyes. It is true, it was brought upon us by sin, and was inflicted as a curse. Such it still appears, and such it truly is, to the mind unenlightened and uninfluenced by the revelation of God. But a fountain has been opened for purification from this sin, and this curse has been removed. The blood of Jesus Christ has been poured out to wash away our guilt, and he has taken the curse from us by bearing it himself. He has, therefore, totally changed the nature of death as to all those who die in him; all those who, sensible of the thraldom of their nature, flee to him for refuge; who are humbly sensible of their natural depravity; deeply mourn for their sins; embrace him in all his offices with ardour, with that faith and reliance upon his merits which influences them to endeavour to do his will; to regulate their hearts and lives by his Gospel; to yield submissively to the sanctifying influences of his Holy Spirit: from all such the curse is removed; it is changed into a blessing: for he himself assures us, that "blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."

To attain this blessedness is now, my brethren, within the reach of us all; the death that we so greatly dread may be changed in its character; and, in a great measure, lose its sting and its terror. The Son of God, seeing us involved in sin; alienated from our Creator; mortal, dying in our bodies, and

our souls sinking down into everlasting misery; seeing this he compassionated our wretchedness; assumed our nature into his own; fulfilled the law adapted to our condition; suffered the penalty due to our guilt, and thus perfectly answered, in our stead, the demands of justice; procured for us a new covenant adapted to our state; the terms of which are penitence for our transgressions; faith in him as an acceptable Mediator between God and man; reliance on his merits, and the grace he has procured for us, to renew and sanctify our nature; this, with a compliance with all his holy institutions, and habitual efforts to bring into exercise all the pious dispositions and virtuous actions demanded by him; this will fulfil the conditions of the Gospel covenant, and reconcile us to God. Those who are thus qualified are said to be in Christ. They are united to him by that living faith which influences them to become like him in the tempers and dispositions of their minds, and the conduct of their lives. When this is the fixed and settled habit of the mind, the failings that proceed from human infirmity are forgiven, are overlooked by our gracious God, through the merits of our blessed Redeemer; and his grace is indulged to increase our moral strength; to bring us nearer and nearer to himself; and we thus go on from one degree of strength to another, gradually increasing in our resemblance of God, like the light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Whenever we bring into exercise genuine repentance, with entire confidence in the true character of Christ, and, with full reliance on his merits, throw ourselves upon the mercy of God, resolving for the future, through the assistance of his grace, to devote ourselves wholly to his service, we are then forgiven by our gracious God; accepted by him; justified in his sight; and, from that time, if we coutinue in the course we have begun, we may be said to be in Christ Jesus; and if we die, even upon our first entrance on this state, we shall die in the Lord, and of course our death will be blessed.

Still the reward will be less in those who thus die, than in those whose faith has

produced the fruits of holiness in a pious and virtuous life. Such as these rest before they have hardly commenced their labours, and have no works to follow them, but barely their penitence and faith, so that it seems only possible that they should enter into the joy of their Lord. Repentance-upon the brink of the grave is not much to be relied upon. The best test of its sincerity must necessarily be wantingthat of a pious and virtuous life. It must, therefore, present itself before God without any of its fruits; it has no good works to follow it.

Thus we see the warning we should take by the death of others; the effect that it should produce upon our lives. In this way God in kindness admonishes habitual sinners; those who live regardless of their duty to him, to turn from their evil ways, to repent, and be converted, that their sins may be blotted out. And in this way he reminds those who have commenced a life of piety and virtue to increase their vigilance; to watch and pray; to keep their lamps continually trimmed and burning: this he does by setting before them the extreme uncertainty of human life, and giving them to understand, by examples, that the Bridegroom may come in an hour when they look not for him. Thus we see, my brethren, that our Saviour has not secured to his disciples an exemption from death, but sanctified and blessed it to them.

Our

He undertook his office for us after we were placed by sin under the power of death. His design was to retrieve, not to preserve us from death. guilt he engaged to remove, and to restore us from the dominion of the king of terrors. He, therefore, took the burden of our guilt upon himself, and answered the demand that the justice of God required for it. He likewise subjected himself to that death which was inevitable to our fallen nature; submitted to a separation of soul and body, that he might rescue both from their captivity. He went with the former into the place of departed spirits; while the latter was laid in the silent tomb. While his body lay thus prostrate and sunk in death, his soul winged its flight into paradise, the sacred repo

sitory which contained the spirits of just men placed there in virtue of the mediatorial office he had undertaken. There he appeared as their Deliverer, their Redeemer; and it was doubtless there that he went and preached to the spirits in prison; reviving their hopes; assuring them of a higher state of bliss and glory when his mediatorial kingdom should cease by being resigned up to the Almighty Father. While he was there executing his high office, as a human soul, like the rest of his brethren around him, his body lay in the silent tomb, unheeded, unthought of, except by a few despised disciples, who doubt less thought, that, like other human bodies, it would perish there. Thus humbled under the hand of death lay the blessed Jesus for three days; the tomb giving no indication that it contained any thing more than the remains of a mortal man mouldering into dust. Thou triumphant king of terrors, never before didst thou hold such a prisoner under thy dominion! But thy strong hand was weak; thy iron chain as the slender thread, when the Omnipotence to which thy captive was united demanded back thy prey. The mighty dominion of death was soon at an end. On the third day the soul of our Redeemer left the place of departed spirits; exerted the divine power to which it was united; returned and reanimated its lifeless body; arose from the tomb the glorious conqueror of death; ascended up on high; took his seat at the right hand of God, where he now dwells as our Advocate, our Intercessor; possessing the power of raising our dead bodies, and uniting them with our souls; which he has promised to accomplish at the great and last day; to assemble the whole world before him, the living and the dead, small and great, and then to judge them; clearing the penitent and believing from guilt, and taking them with him into the highest heavens, there to reign with him for ever and ever; and sentencing those who have neglected and despised his offers of pardon and mercy, to those dreadful regions of misery where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

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Thus, by the death of others, we are

not only reminded of our own frailty, of the slender thread by which we are suspended over our graves, but of the momentous consequences that must follow the extinction of our lives. None but Christ can rescue us from the ruin that must ensue upon death as the natural effect of the sin that produced it. He has unconditionally procured for us the resurrection of our bodies. Be our character what it may, we shall, in virtue of Christ's mediation, rise from the dead. But we shall rise to be judged; and, when judged, we shall certainly be condemned, unless we are of the number of those who die in the Lord. It is conditionally; only we must remember, that Christ has procured for us a happy and glorious immortality. Thus, then, we are reminded by the death of our friends and neighbours, of the uncertainty of life, and of the tremendous consequences that attend its extinction; and it should awaken our attention to the things that belong to our everlasting peace. We know not what shall be on the morrow; we see that our life is even as a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. We should, therefore, be excited to improve every moment of it while it lasts, in securing to ourselves those glorious objects procured for us by our blessed Saviour, which he has put within our reach, and offered to our acceptance. Those who live regardless of their God and Saviour; who are wholly devoted to the objects of the world, whether old or young, stand upon an awful precipice, from which the arm of their Redeemer is perpetually stretched out to rescue them; and, without laying hold of which, they must, at their death, plunge into remediless ruin. All such he now invites to repent; to mourn for their sins; to change their course of life; to yield to the sanctifying influences of his Holy Spirit, thus to escape from the ruin that awaits them, and become qualified for the heavenly felicity. He not only by his word, by his ministers, by the influences of his Holy Spirit, but by his providence, awakens us, alarms us, shows us the necessity of perpetual watchfulness and care. When he snatches away our friends and neighbours by