from our very side, a friend, a relative is summoned to his dread account-sinks unwarned into the tomb; will we coolly calculate on length of days? will we postpone to some future period a preparation for that eternity on whose brink we are standing? How infatuated are we! to presume still longer on the forbearance of that God whose mercy we are contemning, and to delay securing the interests of that immortal soul which perhaps this night his indignant justice may require of us!

Yet a little while, heavenly Father, forbear to execute upon us the just sentence of thy wrath; and, in mercy, awaken us to an immediate and serious attention to the things that belong to our eternal peace, ere they be for ever hidden from our eyes-ere we sleep that last sleep, the sleep' of

death!

SERMON XV.

DEATH-BED REPENTANCE.

MATT. XXV. 10.

And the door was shut.

THE church at this holy season calls with more than usual frequency and solemnity to repentance. Her faithful members she exhorts to more than customary acts of humiliation and self-denial, and to a particular acknowledgment at the throne of God, of those infirmities, and imperfections, and sins, from which the best in this probationary state are not exempt: for "there is no man that liveth and sinneth not."

She also feels a deep solicitude that her solemn calls may awaken, those who have hitherto slumbered secure in their iniquities; who, liable to the just wrath of an offended God, with fatal indifference cry to their conscience, Peace! and though on the brink of the abyss of perdition, are sporting in their sins.

Alas! her calls are seldom availing: often they do not even penetrate the hardened heart: and more frequently the compunction, the apprehension, the good resolutions, which they excite, are dissipated by the soothing solicitations of present pleasure; and sinners delay-yes, they delay the work of repentance to a season more convenient;

like the foolish virgins in the parable, they delay, even until the last hour, preparing for the coming of their Lord-delay, expecting that then they may enter into his kingdom. Alas! "the door is shut!"

This delusion is most dangerous; and it is as common as it is dangerous. Few indeed are. the individuals who are so hardened in their sins, and so indifferent to their God, to judgment, to the concerns of an eternal world, as to dismiss these awful subjects entirely from their thought: still fewer is the number of those who encourage the expectation, as impious as it is absurd, that without repentance they can be the objects of the favour of God, or be qualified for his presence. But when is this work of repentance to be performed?-to what period do they assign it?-to the last stage of life-to the bed of death? Yes-a death-bed repentance has been the dependence, the fatal dependence of thousands; it has deceived them, to their eternal destruction. They have been compelled, at the hour of midnight, at the hour of death, when they should have been ready to obey the summons of their Lord, to repair their past negligence; and alas! before they are ready to enter into his kingdom, "the door is shut!"

Let me then dissuade you from trusting to a death-bed repentance.

A death-bed repentance is a most dangerous dependence:

It is barely possible:o)

It is eminently difficult:

It is most hazardous:

a future

1. A death-bed repentance is barely possible. No limits indeed can be set to that mercy of God which willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should repent and live; and which prompted God not to spare his only Son, but freely to give him to suffering and death, to purchase redemption for sinners. That mercy extended pardon, and peace, and the joys of paradise, to the penitent thief upon the cross. To this mercy no limits can be set; and therefore we say, a deathbed repentance is possible.

Whenever the penitent sinner comes unto that Saviour whom he had rejected or despised, he has the assurance that he shall "in no wise be cast out."* With the grace of God, nothing is impossible; and by the power of this grace, the bed of death may become the scene of holy contrition, of strong crying and tears; and the earnest supplication of the dying penitent my reach the ears of the Lord of hosts, and call down his blessing on this late, this momentary, but this sincere repentance. God forbid, then, that we should shut against the dying penitent the arms of that mercy which has constantly been inviting him to leave the scenes of guilty pleasure, and to repose in peace on the favour of his God. No; God is merciful-Jesus Christ is mighty to save: his merits are all-sufficient-his grace is almighty; and if the moments of death be those of penitence, they shall be also those of peace.

But this death-bed repentance is barely possible: for,

What is it which often deters men in the fulnessof health and strength from this necessary work of repentance? What is it which prompts them to postpone it from day to day, from year to year-to postpone it to the bed of death? It is a work of unavoidable difficulty, of pain, of remorse, of pungent sorrow, and therefore men dread to enter on it. Is it then a work that is fit to be performed on the bed of death? Is the hour when the sinner is racked by the agonies of dissolution, the hour to sustain the remorse, the sorrows, the conflicts of penitence? Can the work of days, of years, of a whole life, be crowded into one day-perhaps one short hour, and that an hour of agony, the agony of death?

What are the constituents of repentance? It must be founded on a clear and strong sense of the evil and guilt of sin.

The penitent must discern sin in its most odious form, lifting up the arm of rebellion against the most high God; contemning the justice, violating the authority, abusing the goodness, trampling on the forbearance of the righteous and merciful Maker of the universe: he must behold it spreading disorder, corruption, and ruin through that world which, when it rose under the hand of the Almighty Architect, God pronounced to be good.

The penitent also must be deeply impressed with the evil and guilt of sin, in its effects upon his own soul; defacing that divine image in which she was formed; blinding her understanding, perverting her will, and corrupting her affections; and consigning her, in this world, to shame, to remorse, to misery-and in the world to come, to blackness of darkness for ever.