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SERM. events remote from themselves, fuch as difX. tant dangers and diftreffes, which at the

fame time they know muft in the most fenfible manner affect those who share in them? The moft lively description cannot raife fuch paffions, fuch fear and folicitous defire, prompting all the active powers to exert their utmost force, as if the cafe were our own. In like manner we may think of death in a very unaffecting way, and without laying it to our hearts, while it is not applied to ourselves, and confidered as that which muft very foon make an important change in our own ftate. It is furely of the laft moment for the living to lay death to his heart, in the fenfe now mentioned, be-1 cause his religious preparation, consequently his happiness in a future ftate, depends upon it; and it contains fome of the strongest motives to the practice of our duty. But notwithstanding the difference which I have obferved between thinking of death, and laying it to heart fo far, that they may be feparated; yet is the former a proper and a rational, though not always a certainly ef fectual means of producing the other. We find by experience, that things which do not strike our minds very ftrongly at firft

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SERM.

view, by an attentive, meditation, and re-
volving them often in our thoughts, pro-
duce a great concern, and affect us very
powerfully. This may very reasonably be,
and frequently in fact is the cafe with re-
fpect to the prefent fubject, which is the
very reafon of Solomon's advice, namely,
that instead of eftranging our minds from
the thoughts of death, and banishing it as a
difagreeable object which will marr our plea-
fures in life, we fhould rather defignedly
entertain the apprehenfions of it, and in-
duftrioufly feek occafions of bringing it to
our remembrance, on purpose to engage our
affections, and work up our hearts to a fe-
rious concern and juft folicitude about an
awful event, on which fo great confequences
depend.

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But the great practical objection, if I may call it fo, that is, which influences the affections of men, and determines their conduct, though, if we examine it, it must appear to the understanding very infufficient, is taken from the disagreeableness of the fubjects, mortality, and others which have a connection with it. To think often and deeply on death, with an application to ourselves; and, as what we must expect, is a

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SER M. Very melancholy entertainment; it fills the X. mind with horror, fpreads a gloom over 'the face of all worldly comforts, and damps your lactive powers in pursuing, as well as our pleasure in enjoying them; therefore do for many remove this forrow from their hearts, and put the evil day far off in their imaginations, if they cannot do it in reality. It is not, however, thus, that we reason, or that we govern ourselves in parallel cases; if a man has an important intereft at stake, if there be any ground to apprehend the loss of his fortune or - his reputation, what doth he do? doth he put it out of his thoughts because he wou'd not give himself trouble? No, it affects him fenfibly, and his concern puts him upon using his best endeavours for preferving what is in danger; or, if even that appears inevitable, he cannot help being thoughtful about it, meditating upon the nature and extent of his misfortune, and enquiring with anxiety how he may make the best of it, and if there be any poffibility of mending his condition afterwards. As to the cafe now before us, death is certain, and thereby the lofs of all our prefent enjoyments; the poffibility of preventing it, is a point

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sabfolutely to be given up: But how awful SERM. is the fequel! And it is now depending, it X. must be either very happy, or very mifearable, according to our behaviour. Now when we are fure of fo great a change in our state as death makes, the irrecoverable lofs of life, and whatever is defirable to us under the fun; and there is, we know, a much greater intereft than life at ftake, and and a more lafting condition of happiness or mifery, than any in this world abiding us, according as our deeds done in the body are good or evil, fhall we decline thinking on this change, and fecurely run this hazard, rather than give any interruption to our fhort lived pleafures by the prefent uneafinefs which must attend a ferious confideration?

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But Solomon carries the argument yet farther; he doth not content himself with urging the certainty of death, and the neceffity which is laid upon the living to lay it to heart, as a counterballance to the forrow which will accompany their thoughtfulness about it; he goes farther, I fay, and afferts that this forrow itself is falutary, and even eligible, on the account of its tendency to the improvement of the mind, in wif

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X.

SERM. dom and virtue, which is the Third reafon enforcing the advice in the text. The heart of the wife is in the boufe of mourning, and by the fadness of the countenance the heart is made better. It is ftill to be remembred,) that he doth not mean to recommend forrow merely for its own fake; every one knows that it is a painful paffion, though at the fame time we know too that natured determines us ftrongly to it upon fome ac cafions, fo that the mind even choofes it,.i and takes a kind of pleasure in afflicting itfelf: But fo far as reafon has any share in regulating our paffions, it is becoming us to confider the end of them, and by a re-i gard to that, to govern ourselves in enter taining, or oppofing them. It is farther to be observed, that as all our paffions are liable to exceffes, fo is this in a remarkable manner. Grief is fometimes extreme, when the occafion is ever fo juft; when the mind is overwhelmed and enfeeled by it, and fo rendered incapable of vigorously pursuing the proper remedy, which is the very design of the grief itself. St. Paul, 2 Cor. ii. 7. was apprehenfive of this danger to the penitent offender, whofe grief was very juft under the cenfure which he fuffered for his fcandalous offence,

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