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their hearts were changed, but because they are now beyond all ✅ possibility of change.

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But surely the mere circumstance of death will not have rendered them fit for that heaven for which we before feared they were unfit. Far be it from us, indeed, blind and sinful as we are, to pass sentence upon them, to pass sentence upon any. We dare not venture to pronounce what may have passed between God and their Souls, even at the last hour. We know that infinite mercy is not restricted to times! or seasons; to an early or a late repentance; we know not but in that little interval their peace was made, their pardon granted, through the atoning blood, and powerful intercession of their Redeemer. Nor should we too scrupulously pry into the state of others, never indeed, except to benefit them or ourselves; we should rather imitate the: example of Christ, who at once gave an admirable lesson of meekness and charitable judgment, when avoiding an answer which might have : led to fruitless discussion, he gave a reproof under the shape of an exhortation. In reply to the inquiry, " are there few that be saved," he thus checked vain curiosity-"Strive (you) to enter in at the strait » gate." On another occasion, in the same spirit, he corrected inqui sitiveness, not by an answer but by an interrogation and a precept "What is that to thee? Follow thou me."

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But where there is strong ground to apprehend that the contrary may have been the case, it is very dangerous to pronounce peremp‐5 torily on the safety of the dead. Because if we allow ourselves to be fully persuaded that they are entered upon a state of happiness, it will naturally and fatally tempt us to lower our own standard. If we are h ready to conclude that they are now in a state of glory whose principles we believed to be incorrect, whose practice, to say the least of it, we know to be negligent, who, without our indulging a censorious Į or a presumptuous spirit, we thought lived in a state of mind, and a course of habits, not only far from right, but even avowedly inferior to our own; will not this lead to the conclusion, either that we our eti selves, standing on so much higher ground, are in a very advanced si state of grace, or that a much lower than ours may be a state of safety? s And will not such a belief tend to slacken our endeavours, and toɔ lower our tone, both of faith and practice?jiler to yrlaassen ofT By this conclusion we contradict the affecting assertion of a very sublime, poet, 誊 co bangah ten end 29953183098 no buscss "For us they sicken and for us they die." ti was on For while we are thus taking and giving false comfort, our friend, as to us, will have died in vain. Instead of his death having operated as a warning voice to rouse us to a more animated piety, it will be rather r likely to lull us into a dangerous security. If our affection has so blinded our judgment, we shall by the indulgence of a false candour to another, sink into a false peace ourselves.on doid & d

It will be a wounding circumstance to the feelings of surviving friendship, to see a person of loose habits, whom though we loved yet we feared to admonish, and that, because we loved him; for whom though we saw his danger yet perhaps we neglected to pray; to see

him brought to that ultimate and fixed state in which admonition is impossible, in which prayer is not only fruitless but unlawful,

To shut our eyes upon death as an object of terror or of hope, and to consider it only as a release or an extinction, is viewing it under a character which is not its own. But to get rid of the idea at any rate, and then boast that we do not fear the thing we do not think of, is not difficult. Nor is it difficult to think of it without alarm if we do not include its consequences. But to him who frequently repeats, not mechanically but devoutly, "we know that THOU shalt come to be our Judge," death cannot be a matter of indifference.

Another cause of these happy deaths is that many think salvation a slight thing, that heaven is cheaply obtained, that a merciful God is easily pleased, that we are Christians, and that mercy comes of course to those who have always profest to believe that Christ died to purchase it for them. This notion of God being more merciful than he has any where declared himself to be, instead of inspiring them with more gratitude to him, inspires more confidence in themselves. This corrupt faith generates a corrupt morality. It leads to this strange consequence, not to make them love God better, but to venture on offending him more.

People talk as if the act of death made a complete change in the nature, as well as in the condition of man. Death is the vehicle to another state of being, but possesses no power to qualify us for that state. In conveying us to a new world, it does not gives us a new heart. It puts the unalterable stamp of decision on the character, but does not transform it into a character diametrically opposite.

Our affections themselves will be rather raised than altered. Their tendencies will be the same, though their advancement will be incomparably higher. They will be exalted in their degree, but not changed ins their nature. They will be purified from all earthly mixtures, cleansed from all human pollutions, the principle will be cleared from its imperfections, but it will not become another principle. He that is unholy will not be made holy by death. The heart will not have a new object to seek, but will be directed more intensely to the same object.

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The necessity of religion is as urgent now as it will be when we are dying. It may not appear so, but the reality of a thing does not depend on appearances. It does not depend on the organs with which we view it. Besides, if the necessity of being religious depended on the approach of death, what moment of our lives is there in which we have any security against it? In every point of viewe therefore, the same necessity for being religious subsists when we are in full health as when we are about to die.

We may then fairly arrive at this conclusion, that there is no happy death but that which conducts to a happy immortality;· -no joy in putting off the body, if we have not put on the Lord Jesus Christno consolation in escaping from the miseries of time till we have obtained a well-grounded hope of a blessed eternity.

EXTRACTS FROM "DEATH," A POEM.

(By Bishop Porteus. )

[Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, was the youngest but one of nineteen children, and was born at York, May 8, 1731. His parents were of respectable descent, natives of Virginia, in North America. He received the first part of his education at Ripon, and was removed thence to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he soon distinguished himself by his classical proficiency. He became Fellow of his College, and took orders in 1757; soon after which he obtained the Seatonian Prize for his beautiful Poem on Death, of which we here lay before our readers an interesting portion. Having brought himself into notice by this performance, and by an able Sermon, preached before the University, in reply to an insidious attack upon Revealed Religion, he was preferred by Archbishop Secker, in 1762, to be one of his Domestic Chaplains; and to that excellent Prelate he ever afterwards expressed the highest gratitude for the value of his example in piety and learning. On his Grace's death he became his executor, and, as joint executor and editor of his works, prefixed to them an interesting memoir of Life.

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Mr. Porteus married in 1765, and shortly afterwards received the Living of Hunton, in Kent, which was his favourite residence for many years, and where he devoted himself with earnest zeal to the welfare of his parishioners.

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The author of this short sketch of his Life recalls with pleasure the image of this amiable Prelate, whom in his boyish days he has seen addressing the children from his pew, (as was his custom,) and familiarly explaining to them the sacred mysteries of our Religion in illustration of the Church Catechism. He remembers with delight the sweet tone of voice and affectionate manner which characterized his elocution.

In 1767 he took the degree of Doctor in Divinity, and was appointed Rector of Lambeth, which he resigned in 1776, on being raised to the See of Chester, by the free gift of his Sovereign. In 1781 he obtained an Act of Parliament to prevent the gross abuses of the Sabbath which then prevailed. In 1783 he stood forth as an advocate for the civilization and conversion of the negroes in our West India Islands, and became one of the first and most strenuous opposers of the Slave Trade; nor did he ever afterwards remit these benevolent exertions, until the abolition was finally accomplished in 1807.

Every step in his preferment had uniformly been obtained without solicitation. In November 1787 Mr. Pitt notified to him the King's approbation of his translation to the See of London, then vacant by the death of Bishop Lowth; an appointment which called him to the exercise of highly important and extensive duties, which he conscientiously discharged during the remainder of his life. In 1789 he was chosen by his Majesty to preach before him at St. Paul's on the Thanksgiving for his Recovery. His residence in the metropolis afforded his Lordship the opportunity of devoting his attention in Parliament to the service of Religion, in support of which he procured many valuable enactments. By his means a considerable legacy, bequeathed by the celebrated Mr. Boyle to the College of William and Mary, in Virginia, (now become a Province of the United States,) was, after a long contest, appropriated to the Christian Education of the Negroes in our own Colonies.

At the commencement of the French Revolution, Bishop Porteus was indefatigable in exertions throughout his populous diocese to stem the torrent of infidel and revolutionary principles, which then invaded this kingdom. In conjunction with the present Bishop of Durham, whose long life has been steadily devoted to the welfare of his country, he was mainly instrumental in obtaining a verdict against the publisher of "The Age of Reason," and in opposing with eminent success other impious and seditious publications which had been widely spread among the people. In the year 1798, for the further protection of public morals, he commenced, at St. James's Church, during Lent, a course of Lectures on the Gospel of St. Matthew, which drew together vast assemblies of all ranks, and these were afterwards published with great benefit to the cause of Religion.

He became a zealous promoter of the new system of Education, and the Establishment of National Schools, and employed his interest in founding them in the Colonies as well as throughout the parent country.

When the British and Foreign Bible Society was formed for the dissemination of the Holy Scriptures through all parts of the world, the good Bishop lent his cordial support to a plan so enlightened; he accepted the office of Vice-President of the Institution, and took an active share in its proceedings.

His life, protracted to a venerable age, had been unceasingly occupied in works of piety and charity. When at length his health gave way he made a last effort in the service of Religion by requesting an audience of his present Majesty, then Prince of Wales, to entreat his discountenance of the fashionable assemblies on the Sabbath-day, and having received a gracious reception and an assurance of compliance with this solemn request, he expired without a pang a few days afterwards, at his Palace of Fulham, on the 13th of May, 1809, and in the 78th year of his age.-L.]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PATRIARCHAL LIFE.

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In sober state,
aid of basThrough the sequester'd vale of rural life,
bonisado The venerable Patriarch guileless held
dow dredThe tenor of his way; Labour prepar'd

9 His simple fare, and Temperance ruled his board. bebe Tired with his daily toil, at early eve

THe sunk to sudden rest; gentle and pure

As breath of evening Zephyr, and as sweet,
Were all his slumbers; with the Sun he rose,
Alert and vigorous as He, to run

His destin'd course. Thus nerv'd with giant strength
He stemm'd the tide of time, and stood the shock
Of ages, rolling harmless o'er his head.

At life's meridian point arrived, be stood,
And, looking round, saw all the valleys fill'd
With nations from his loins; full-well content
To leave his race thus scatter'd o'er the earth,
Along the gentle slope of life's decline
He bent his gradual way, till, full of years,
He dropp'd like mellow fruit into his grave.
Such in the infancy of Time was man ;
So calm was life, so impotent was Death!
O had he but preserv'd these few remains,
The shatter'd fragments of lost happiness,

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Snatch'd by the hand of Heav'n from the sad wreck
Of innocence primæval, still had be liv'd
In ruin great; tho' fall'n, yet not forlorn ;
Though mortal, yet not every where beset
With Death, in every shape! But he, impatient
To be completely wretched, hastes to fill up
The measure of his woes.-'Twas Man himself
Brought Death into the world; and Man himself
Gave keenness to his darts, quicken'd his pace,
And multiplied destruction on mankind.

THE DEATH-BED OF A CHRISTIAN.

Almighty Father, at thy own good time,

Let death approach; I reck not-let him but come
In genuine form, not with thy vengeance arm'd,
Too much for man to bear. O rather lend

Thy kindly aid to mitigate his stroke;
And at that hour when all aghast I stand
(A trembling candidate for thy compassion)
On this world's brink, and look into the next;

When my soul, starting from the dark unknown,
Casts back a wishful look, and fondly clings
To her frail prop, unwilling to be wrench'd

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From this fair scene, from all her custom'd joys,
And all the lovely relatives of life;
Then shed thy comforts o'er me, then put on
The gentlest of thy looks. Let no dark crimes,
In all their hideous forms then starting up,
Plant themselves round my couch in grim array,
And stab my bleeding heart with two-edg'd torture,
Sense of past guilt, and dread of future woe.

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Far be the ghastly crew! And in their stead, bus,brevy
Let cheerful Memory from her purest cells 4bits to asbo
Lead forth a goodly train of Virtues fair,
Cherish'd in earliest youth, now paying back

col With tenfold usury the pious care,

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filioq aldiazoq And pouring o'er my wounds the heav'nly balm oilo aill Mods of conscious innocence. But chiefly, Thou, asw dɔue bas Whom soft eyed Pity once led down from Heav'n benimtut To bleed for man, to teach him how to live, ou aqida odt nok And, oh! still harder lesson! how to die; y rodas ot Disdain not Thou to smooth the restless bed sola and Of Sickness and of Pain. Forgive the tear That feeble Nature drops, calm all her fears, Wake all her hopes, and animate her faith, Till my rapt soul; anticipating Heav'n, 601 sat d ̧ Bursts from the thraldom of incumb'ring clay, And on the wing of Ecstasy upborne, Springs into Liberty, and Light, and Life.

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