How will you ap your fellow men. Perhaps you doubt that there is a God-and from the selfish obduracy of your conduct, as well as from reports founded on your own confessions, which, though not officially before us, have, from their notoriety, reached our ears, we fear that your heart hambeen long since hardened, and your mind darkened into atheism-hat infidelity was the source of an early and intense depravity, and the ultimate cause of your last most aggravated and heinous crime. You have indeed pursued your career of blood regardless of God or man. You have defied the powers of earth, and set at nought the vengeance of heaven. Reckless of your own fate, you have not scrupled to involve in it the temporal and eternal doom of others. You have sent a confiding hus band suddenly to his account, and sought the destruction, body and soul, of a treacherous and deluded wife; and you have done all this without provo cation, without resentment, without ani mosity, without passion in cold blooded malignity, and from heartless calculations of profit to yourself. In contempt of the divine command, you coveted your neighbour's house and his wife, and in order to obtain them you have violated, without compunction, every remaining precept of the moral law. You say nothing. Nothing is to be said. The crime for which you are to suffer is of the deepest dye; the circumstances under which it was committed are of the most atrocious cha racter; and your guilt has been most clearly established. By your own confession, you planned and executed the destruction of the deceased with the most deliberate and perfidious cruelty. Not with the ferocity of the tyger; but with the cunning of the serpent-the malignity of a fiend Impelled by lust and avarice, you directed your subtle machinations to the possession of the person and property of his wife; and having succeeded in one part of your design, you pursued it with remorseless energy, and unrelenting perseverance, until you had removed, as you supposed, the sole remaining obstacle to the accomplishment of the other. You commenced by seducing this weak, infatuated woman, from her allegiance to her husband; proceeding, beguiled her from her duty to society, her friends, and her God, and ended her ruin with the murder of her husband; and had you escaped detection, you would probably have realized the guilty expectations that tempted you to these acts of complicated villainy. But the murderer seldom escapes detection, or lies for any length of time concealed. Evenhanded justice, sooner or later, is sure to overtake him; and a special Providence seems frequently to discover him, when, trusting to his artifices, he thinks himself secure. This may have been the case with you. You probably imagined, that if you could elude the vigilance of man, your guilt would continue unrevealed; or even, that if you could escape punishment in this world, you would have nothing to apprehend in that which is to come. But justice has been swift to overtake you, and you now stand convicted, trembling and weeping, before a tribunal of If you had no dread of eternal conse quences, and deliberately resolved to hazard your own reputation, your peace of mind, and even your mortal existence, in the prosecution of your nefarious ends-had you no consideration, no remembrance of your friends? Did it never cross your active, scheming, restless mind, that you had honest parents, and other reputable connections, whose good name would be tarnished, whose peace would be injured, and whose lives might terminate in sorrow for your crimes? If your heart were not of stone-if it could have felt one touch of humanity-that reflection would have staid your murderous hand. If, in the hardness and self-sufficiency of your heart, you forgot or despised them, yet will not this court overlook their request, or disregard their grief; but, from respect to their unmerited suffering, will spare them the additional pang of ordering your lifeless body for dissection, and, in the exercise of its discretion, will direct it to be delivered into their hands. If the monitor within your breast be not already awakened, and you regard not what is said to you, listen, I charge you, to the still small voice of conscience. It can admonish you more potently, and convince you more deeply, than can words from the lips of man. If you have not already began to feel that you owe your being to an Almighty and Eternal Author, and that you have offended not merely against human ordinances, but against the immutable laws of the infinitely wise and righteous Ruler of the Universe; if you do not already believe that your accountability is not confined to this world—as sure as you still exist you will one day know it-and you will soon know that, without the divine mercy, you must meet eternal punishment, as sure as there is a God. For in the grave there is neither repentance nor forgiveness; neither can man venture to assure you of pardon, for God alone can read your heart. Im prove, then, the time afforded you. It will be long enough for every essential purpose of preparation-but not for encouraging vain and delusive imaginations, or reviving lingering regrets, or fallacious expectations. From this instant, consider yourself cut off from this world, and all that therein is. Look only to your entrance into the next.~~~ And, at your final departure, seek not the applause of men; but humble yourself as becomes you before an offended God. Affect not the character of an heroic felon; but endeavour to behave like a Christian. And however penitent and contrite you may feel, be not deluded into supposing yourself a martyr or a saint; but remember, to the last moment of your life, that you are a malefactor and a sinner. The sentence of the law is-That you, Jesse Strang, otherwise called Joseph Orton, be taken hence to the place from whence you came, there to remain in custody of the Sheriff of the county of Albany, until Friday, the 24th day of August, instant; on which day, between the hours of 12 at noon and 3 thereafter, you are to be brought forth by the said Sheriff to some proper place, to be by him selected for the purpose, and there hung by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy on your immortal soul! Prepare, then, to meet him face to face. Pray, if you ever have, or ever can, for his mercy, for that only can avail you now. Die you must. On earth you can expect no pardon. From heaven alone must you look for it: and there may be mercy there, even for one so vile and wretched as yourself. But it is to be obtained only from the infinite mercy of the God whom you have denied; through the merits and intercession of the Saviour you have despised; and by the influence of that Holy Spirit whose aid you have rejected. Full and unfeigned repentance is the only condition on which it is vouchsafed. But your heart of stone must be converted to a heart of flesh; you must be brought to feel and abhor, as well as to acknowledge, your guilt; and by penitence and contrition, must your soul be purified. Be not, however, deceived. Your only hope of pardon after death depends on the since rity of your repentance before you die. 16. New-York Convention meets. Calendar for October, 1827. 7. Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity. 14. Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. 18. St. Luke the Evangelist. 21. Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity. Twentieth Sunday after Trinity. 28. St. Simon and St. Jude. Ecclesiastical Meetings in October, 1827. 3. Maine Convention meets. Swords's Pocket Almanack.-Secretaries of Conventions and of Societies appertaining to the Church, are reminded that it is time for their lists to be supplied for insertion in the Ecclesiastical Register. They are respectfully requested to transmit them, free of postage, without delay, to the publishers, whose wish it is to issue the Almanack at an earlier period than has heretofore been usual. For the Christian Journal. A Sermon preached in St. Thomas's But, what human reason was inadequate to discover, revelation has VOL. XI. [VOL. XI. clearly disclosed-and its disclosures are full of consolation and joy. On those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, ignorant, desponding, wretched-brooding over the thought of dissolution as the greatest possible evil, and contemplating its approach with terror and dismay-light has sprung up, and doubt, and fear, and despair have fled before it. The Sun of Righteousness has risen on a benighted world, and shed a cheering radiance on the future destiny of man. brought life and immortality to light, The Gospel of Jesus Christ hath and changed conjecture into certainty. The dark mystery of the grave is penétrated-its appalling secrets are unveiled-and the cause and the issue of that decree of Omnipotence, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," are satisfactorily explained. The departing mortal, trembling on the verge of dissolution, is inspired with an imperishable hope-the word of truth bids him look forward to a life of eternal duration—and divests the grave of its terrors, and death of its sting, by pointing to their "Conqueror," enthroned in glory at the right hand of God. This, however, is not the sum of that consoling disclosure which revelation makes concerning the future state of man. Christianity, affording an hope "full of immortality," and proclaiming the fact, that the soul never dies, and that the body itself shall be reanimated-exhibits to the eye of faith an enrapturing prospect of future glory. It bids the believer in Jesus anticipate something far more joyful than the mere prolongation of existence. tells him, that when his "earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, he has a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." It 38 It teaches him to rejoice in the expectation of an incorruptible inheritance, and to look forward to a glorious recompence, and an eternal reward. It assures him that the grave leads to a place of rest-to an abode of perfect peace, and perfect happiness-where the aggravated evil of the present life shall be more than compensated by good which endureth for ever; and the trials, and sorrows, and suffering of his earthly pilgrimage, shall be abundantly remunerated by unadulterated pleasure, and uninterrupted joy, in the presence of his heavenly Father, his gracious Redeemer, and his almighty Friend. This, brethren, is the issue of death to the Christian; this, the sum of that sure hope beyond the grave, which the Gospel inspires, confirms, and establishes; and to the certainty of such blessedness it is that the apostle adds his testimony, when he declares, in the words of my text-"There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God." In meditating on the "precious promise" which these words contain, we are naturally led to inquire, in what this rest consists, and who are they for whom it is reserved. Of the nature of the rest, of which the text assures us, revelation is our only instructor. Those Scriptures which create the hope, and confirm the certainty of future existence, alone explains its nature. In doing this, how ever, they do not enter into a minute detail of circumstances, but confine their instruction to general description. They draw a bold and vivid outline, and leave it to our own minds to fill up the picture. From their brief, but energetic declarations of the state of departed saints, we deduce the consoling truth, that the "rest" to which we are privileged to look forward consists, among other things, in an entire exemption from all the ills incident to mortality. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life," was the sentence of wrath pronounced on the original transgressor; and it extends without diminution or change to all his posterity. From the eventful, period, when the first act of disobedience was commit ted, unto the present time, that denunciation of an offended God has been in a course of perpetual accomplishment. Universal experience confirms the truth, written with the finger of inspiration, that "man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." The world in which we live abounds in evil. It is emphatically "a vale of tears”—an abode of misery-an habitation of sorrow. On its most exalted enjoyments, its choicest pleasures, and its most flattering prospects, are inscribed in characters deep and intelligible, vanity and vexation of spirit." From the ills of life none are exempt. Cares and trials of various kinds, and various magnitude, encompass the steps of the best of men, and throw a melancholy gloom over their path. Pain and sickness wring the brow" of the Christian as well as of the worldling, and with other woes incident to our present state, embitter his cup of joy, and desolate at times his fairest prospects. Affliction of some kind or another, tribulation more gentle or more aggravated, is the portion of all; and that heart cannot be found, in which, if we could scan its secrets, there would not be seen some worm corroding the root of its comforts, and some intolerable burden subduing its strength, and prostrating its happiness. Religion may sustain the disciple of Christ under these inseparable attendants of mortality, and may teach him how to estimate, how to bear, and how to improve them; but it cannot repel their invasion. Faith may go far to alleviate his sufferings, and diminish the burden of his trials; but it cannot remove them. They are the lamentable consequences of transgression; the bitter fruits of " that disobedience by which sin entered into the world," and with their mournful consummation, death, they must pass on all men, "for that all have sinned." They terminate only with our life—but, thanks be to God! then they do terminate, and that for ever. In those mansions of glory, which our ascended Lord has prepared for his faithful ones, and into which the spirits of the righte ous enter when they lay aside the tabernacle of the flesh, sorrow is absorbed in perfect bliss-pain is lost in ecstatic joy-and death, the most formidable of all," is swallowed up of victory." That rest, which the Christian is taught to anticipate with so much confidence, knows none of these evils-none of these trials. Into its blessed scenes no woe can enter-no grief intrude. No calamity interrupts its peace-no corroding care disturbs its sweet repose. The inmates of heaven, it is written, clothed in robes of ineffable purity, made white in the blood of the Lamb, "shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of them shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." This, however desirable as it is to the soul aspiring after immortality, is not all that is comprised in the "rest that remaineth to the people of God." Exemption from pain and sorrow, disease and death, constitutes but a small portion of its felicity. It hath still more sublimated joys-still more exalted privileges. It consists not only in freedom from temporal and moral evil, but in cessation from labour-that labour which the attain ment of everlasting salvation imposes on the soul-that constant and vigilant warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil-and that diligent and unceasing effort to cultivate the spiritual soil, which devolve on every candidate for an "incorruptible crown," and are indispensable to his success. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," proclaimed a voice from heaven;" for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." This enrapturing assurance is signally fulfilled in the future experience of all who possess that distinguishing character. Departing this life, the moral work of the believer in Jesus is finished his duties are all discharged -spiritual graces are all attained--and his soul, perfected in holiness, is relieved from its prolonged exertion, and enjoys its promised rewards. Released from the prison of the body, his pil grimage is ended, and the "way-worn traveller," exempted from farther wandering, reposes from his fatigue and his toil, and partakes of the enduring refreshments of his Father's house Entering the paradise of God, his warfare is accomplished-his conflicts with sin, his struggles with temptation, his contests with evil passions and corrupt propensities, and all those predominant lusts which war against the soul, are terminated. Having fought a good fight, and finished his course, and kept the faith, the soldier of the cross lays aside his armour, and enjoys the fruits of victory. His last enemy being destroyed, which is death, the long protracted combat ceases, and the warrior goes forth no more to battle. His foes prostrate, and their power destroyed, his triumph is complete, and his recompence succeeds. "Come off more than conqueror through Him that loved him, and gave Himself for him," his brow is decked with a diadem of glory, and he wears his imperishable laurels in undisturbed tranquillity, and in perfect peace. But even this, transcendently blessed as it is, and affording an all-prevailing incitement to spiritual ambition, is not all that awaits the virtuous and the good beyond the grave. That rest, which the text holds forth in prospect to the eye of faith, and promises as the reward of obedience and holiness, comprises something more glorious than mere repose. It consists not only in negative, but in positive happiness; not only in the absence of evil, but in the presence of supreme and unchanging good. They who are privileged to enter into the abodes of peace, and "through faith and patience inherit the promise" of a blissful immortality, dwell for ever in the presence of God, and behold his glory. And in this consists their su preme delight, and their chief felicity; for "in his presence," we are told, “is the fulness of joy, and at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore." To enjoy the society of those whom we esteem and love is a natural and predominant desire. Intercourse intimate, constant, and unbroken, constitutes the charm of earthly friendship. |