But let us now mark attentively the very different case and circumstances of one who has received and kept the saying of Christ. He has obtained, through faith in the great atoning sacrifice, the free pardon of his transgressions. He is no longer, therefore, a condemned sinner, except as he ever penitently condemns himself, and is willing to "grieve his life away, for having grieved his God." "There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." By such the approach of death is contemplated with emotions, not indeed less serious than those before described, but less terrific. In them the eye of faith has been opened; and the glorious light of revelation shining upon them, they behold death as divested of its enmity, and the very curse, by the abounding grace of the gospel, "turned into a blessing, because the Lord their God loved them." Christ hath so far "abolished death," with respect to all his believing and obedient followers, by satisfying the demands of the law which sentenced them to death, that they are not now, strictly and properly, under its merely legal power. They are still appointed to die; but it is in virtue of a wise and gracious constitution of their reconciled Father, which has determined on death as, on the whole, their best and most advantageous way of entrance into life eternal. To such as die in Christ, death is not, as in the case of men "under the law," and practically "without Christ," a pure and unmitigated penalty. As a penalty, indeed, it must ever be regarded, if viewed in its origin, its painful accompaniments, and its direct and visible results; but it is a penalty so modified, and sanctified, and overruled, as to be substantially converted into a benefit. It becomes one of the "all things” which "work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." And it is therefore put into the inventory of the Christian's privileges: "Life,—death,-all are yours ;"--because all part and parcel of God's great and comprehensive plan for promoting in the highest degree your everlasting advantage.

Now when men are thus "found in Christ," and "keep his saying," it is plain that they cannot any longer "see

D

death," as death is seen by others who have no such new relations, no such spiritual immunities, no such glorious hopes. To them death comes with an amicable commission, from Jesus their best friend, and is the messenger not of angry justice, but of love and mercy. His arrival is not, in their case, the signal of approaching perdition, but that of final and complete salvation. He comes for purposes of release and deliverance; to terminate their state of affliction and temptation and spiritual peril; and to bring them the summons and the gracious passport to joy unspeakable and full of glory. Enlightened by the doctrines of Jesus, which render life and immortality a matter of divinely attested certainty,-possessed of that Spirit of Jesus who witnesses their adoption, through faith in the blood of the cross, into the family of God, and their evangelical right and title to an inheritance in heaven,—and supported by the promises of Jesus, which engage that all needful succours and consolations shall be afforded, to sustain the infirmity of their natures in their latest hours,—the faithful servants of Christ are usually enabled to welcome death. They contemplate him as not now so much a foe, as he is a friend; not as the executioner of the threatening, but as the instrument of fulfilling the promise. His aspect towards them is changed; and he often seems to smile on them, rather than to frown. The natural terrors of his countenance have, in numerous instances, so entirely vanished, or been so mercifully overpowered by the glory of God's special presence, and the opening splendours of eternal day, that the dying saint, though previously accustomed, perhaps, to think of the moment of dissolution as exceedingly formidable, and to shrink from the anticipated mortal strife with feelings approaching to timidity and gloom, has been heard eventually to exclaim, in sweet surprise, "Tell me, my soul, can this be death ?" Thus has the happy believer "found his latest foe under his feet at last," and gratefully enjoyed the triumph achieved for him by his Lord.-Even this is death certainly; and in a very solemn sense, too, of the expression: But it is not that form and character of death, to which man subjected

himself by sin; it is not that unmitigated penalty or curse of death, which was the legal punishment of the original offence.

But these words, "He shall never see death," were probably intended to include, secondly, the promise of a joyful resurrection, as well as that of a safe, and tranquil, and victorious.death. Some render the text thus: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall not see death for ever:"that is, he shall not always remain under the stroke of death, even as to the outward man; but shall be gloriously raised from his dusty bed in the morning of the last day. Christ has so completely conquered and deposed death, that as it hath no longer any merely legal power to seize the bodies of the saints at all, but visits them under a commission expressly granted by himself in mercy and in wisdom, so neither can it retain its permitted tenure of them for one moment longer than he shall be pleased to consent and appoint. For he, (0 most comforting and important truth!) he, our almighty and ever compassionate Saviour, he "hath the keys of hades and of death;" and he will at the proper period unlock the gates of the grave, and set at liberty all who loved his appearing," and died in the steadfast faith and cheerful expectation of this "day of redemption." The hour cometh, when the dead shall hear his voice, and come forth; and to them who sleep in Jesus, there shall then be "no more death for ever, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor pain; for the former things shall have passed away." Together with their burial-vestments they shall lay aside all the marks and relics of their former mortal degradation, and shall "put on beautiful garments;" their once "vile bodies" being "changed, and fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself."

I shall not, according to the judgment of some eminent commentators, have stated to you the full import of the privilege we are considering, if I do not add, thirdly, that

the text implies a promise of exemption from the second death, and of eternal life by Jesus Christ. "If a man keep the saying of Christ he shall never see death, that is, death eternal: he shall live for ever."-The awful punishment denounced against "the fearful and unbelieving," and against various other classes of sinners who wilfully reject or practically violate Christ's saying, is that "they shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death." This death eternal is the just desert and legal penalty of sin. The worst and most tremendous part of that infinite calamity, thus described as the doom of the ungodly, will doubtless be their complete, and final, and everlasting separation from the blessed God, who is the only fountain of true life and comfort; a separation aggravated by their own torturing consciousness and conviction of the dreadful fact, that they are thus hopelessly and irrevocably excluded from the presence and the mercy of God, and must eternally remain abandoned and abhorred by him. From this "death that never dies," our divine Saviour will assuredly deliver all who "keep his saying." It is his firm and dearly-cherished purpose that such "shall never perish." The grace which saves them here from the guilt and power and pollution of sin, which makes and keeps them his holy and devoted followers, which gives them peace and consolation in their dying moments, which has extracted from death its sting, and will make even the grave restore the spoils of its boasted victory, that grace shall crown and consummate its previous triumphs by opening the kingdom of heaven to all believers; "and so shall they be ever with the Lord."

HAVING offered these general illustrations of the CHARACTER and the PRIVILEGE which the text describes, I shall now proceed to show you how eminently they were exemplified in the Life and Death of my lamented friend, lately removed from earth to heaven. It will not be difficult to prove, that the passage of Holy Scripture which I have ventured to select for this occasion is strictly applicable to him whose departure we universally deplore. Probably you have already been reminded, as I proceeded in the discussion of the subject, of what you know to have been his character while he lived among us, and of those holy hopes and consolations which you have heard that he experienced in the near approach of dissolution. I could think, indeed, of no one text which seemed more appropriately to introduce the Sketch which I shall now attempt to furnish of his peculiar and specific excellencies, and the delightful Narrative of the goodness of our God and Saviour to him in the closing scenes of life.

I. 1. Mr. WATSON was distinguished by his profound acquaintance with Christian Truth ;—the result of an early, persevering, serious, and careful study of the mind of God, as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures. He studied not merely the critical and philological import of Christ's saying, not merely the words and etymologies, but the doctrines contained in it; and those doctrines, not as separate and insulated truths, but as parts of a grand and magnificent whole, which he surveyed in their connexion and order, their mutual bearings and relations, their harmony and collective glory. This practice accorded with his naturally great and active faculty for generalization; a faculty which habit had strengthened, and rendered very delightful to him in its exercise. In all his private studies and pursuits, he had evidently more