congratulate you. You are now where and know what it is to be in God's presence. tempests and troubles you may expect to I address to you, then, the words that were find, but in your Ark you may rest assur- spoken to Lot, Arise, escape for thy lifeed of protection and safety. You are by look not behind thee-escape to the and by to pass the Jordan, but you have the mountain, lest thou be consumed; and I add, promise, "I will be with thee," and beyond my brethren, if thou hast any in the city, it you have the prospect of peace as lasting sons, or sons-in-law, or daughters, bring as that immortal existence which God has them out heuce along with thee. Noah bestowed upon you. But are you not prepared the Ark not only for himself, within it? are you not seeking from the but for the saving of his house. You are, Saviour the blessings that we have been by and by, to see your children in one of specifying? Are you living in sin and in two affecting situations. Either you are thoughtlessness upon this most important to be called on, to close their eyes in of all subjects? Then, rest assured, there death, or to see them surrounding you are no beings on the surface of the earth, on a deathbed, when you are about to pass that are the objects of such pity and such into the world of spirits, and Oh! how sympathy as you are. You are here ex- comfortable to be able to say, These are posed to trouble, but without the friend my children, I instructed them in the way who can soothe and bless you. You must of salvation, I counselled them to walk in by and by enter the dark valley and shadow that way, I have reason to believe, that of death, and beyond it, if you be impeni- they have listened to my injunctions, and tent and unbelieving, is the scene of divine though we are to be separated, it may vengeance, a sea where there are no be, for a little while, we may meet in far calms, where there is not a moment's respite better and happier circumstances. How from the most agitating tempest. Oh! listen sad again the reflection, There is my to us, then, we beseech you, while we make child, I did not act towards him in the the proclamation that the door of the Ark way in which Noah acted to his family; is yet open, that it is open, just that such on the contrary, by my example I ensinners as you are, may repair to it for couraged him in his wickedness! How safety. But listen to us, also, when we awful to be at the tribunal of God, where remind you that no one can tell how soon I have to answer not only for my disregard that door may be shut. It is even possible of my own soul, but my indifference about ere darkness may again overspread our the souls of those who had such strong land, ere the sun sink again beneath our and tender claims upon me! May God horizon, that you may be called to death, | bless his word. Amen.

THE DESCRIPTION AND BLESSEDNESS OF DYING BELIEVERS; A FUNERAL SERMON PREACHED ON THE FORENOON OF SUNDAY, 9TH JUNE, 1833, OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF THE REV. JOHN GEDDES, LATE MINISTER OF

ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, GLASGOW,

By the Rev. PATRICK M'FARLAN, D.D.,

Minister of the West Parish Church, Greenock,

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."-REV. xiv. 13.

Ir is a general truth, to which, apart from the power of divine grace, and the sustaining and animating influence of the hopes of the Gospel, there are few exceptions, that through fear of death, men are all there lifetime subject to bondage. Death is regarded not only as an evil, but as the greatest of all evils, and is dreaded accordingly by men of

tion. It is terrible, it is said, in itself, and it is no less terrible in its consequences. We cannot look forward without awe to the last struggle of dissolving nature, and to the hour in which our disembodied spirits shall stand in the presence of God, and our bodies shall become masses of inanimate matter. We cannot contemplate, without awe, the

age, expressly commanding him to write, and thus to record this beatitude, for the instruction of men, especially of the saints of God, in all succeeding generations: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." This is the judgment of

final retribution, and the corruption of the silent tomb. He must be lost to all the apprehensions and feelings of intelligent, and social, and immortal beings, who can sport with so solemn a subject as this, or who, without hope of happiness beyond the grave, can anticipate, with indifference, his final separation from all the sources of earthly enjoyment. The judgment or opin-heaven, respecting the dead who are the ion which men form or express respecting followers of Christ; this is the judgment of the death of others, affords a plain indica- the God of heaven, of the Spirit of truth, tion of the light in which they regard it, as and of angels, and of the glorified saints, approaching to themselves. There may be the inhabitants of heaven. It is not procomparatively little distress, on account of nounced for the purpose of cherishing a the death of the infant, or of the diseased, stoical indifference in surviving friends and or of the very aged, or imperfect; but when relatives, or of inspiring a strange and artithe young, the healthy, and the prosperous, ficial joyfulness, when the heart should be are cut down, as if the voice of our com- rent with the agonies of unavailing sorrow; miseration could reach the ear of their it implies not that good men have no joys departed spirits, there is one universal cry on earth, and no cause of sorrow in parting of sorrow, for what we are pleased to call with friends on earth, and present enjoytheir untimely death. We mourn, not merely ments, but it impresses on us this undefor widows, children, and friends, who have niable truth, that it is far more blessed for been bereaved of the support and consola- a good man to die, than to live; for whattion they enjoyed, nor for society, nor for ever the amount of his present enjoyments, the Church, who have been deprived of they are not for one moment to be comtalents, wisdom, activity, and distinguished pared with the happiness to be hereafter usefulness-that were a rational sorrow, and revealed, and it teaches him to be earnest a sorrow which could not be condemned for the blessedness beyond the present state, but we mourn for the individuals them looking on the solemn awful hour of death, selves, for the blasting of their fair pros- as the commencement of a new existencepects of happiness and distinction, for the the day of his approach to an eternity of period of life suddenly cut short, for the unmingled blessedness; while surrounding enjoyments from which they have been dis- friends are taught by it to assuage the bitsevered. We speak as if we looked on terness of their grief, and give thanks to death as to them an evil of the greatest God that, though to human appearance, it possible magnitude, as if it terminated their would have been more profitable to them existence, or at least put a final period to that their departed friends should have retheir present enjoyments, and all their pros-mained in the flesh, it were far better for pects of future happiness. If those, whose death we lament, have died in the Lord if they have laid up for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, laying hold on eternal life, our language is the language of a sinful and extremely reprehensible unbelief. It is a voice from the earth, from this low grovelling world, the great majority of whose inhabitants walk by sight, and not by faith, looking to things seen and temporal, not to those that are unseen and eternal. The apostle John tells us in the words of the text, that he heard a voice from heaven speaking to him in a very different language, speaking to him of the death of believers, and calling from men expressions of mingled joy and gratitude-a voice from heaven, whether they die in youth, or in maturer years, or in extreme old

them to depart and to be with Christ in his kingdom in glory. With a view to the present application of these words, I propose, first, to consider and illustrate the description here given of the state of dying believers: They die "in the Lord ;" and, secondly, their blessedness, They rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."

I am, first of all, to consider and illustrate the description here given of dying believers: They die "in the Lord." It cannot have escaped the notice of the attentive reader of the holy Scriptures, that there is a marked difference in the language of the inspired writers, in describing the character of true Christians, and in describing their state in that character, or their state and character united. When it refers to their

character wholly and chiefly, they are called the righteous, or the good believers, or the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus. When, on the other hand, it refers to their state and character before God, or to their state and character united, they are spoken of as in the Lord, in Christ Jesus, or, as if for explanation, as members of Christ, the brethren of Christ, sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, living stones of the spiritual temple, fellow-Christians, and of the household of God-all which are intended to convey to us the idea of an intimate union with Christ, and God the Father in him, and an interest in all the blessings flowing from his mediation in our behalf. Confining ourselves to our expression in the text, "in the Lord," let us consider its meaning and import.

is to be united to him for our salvation-to be risen together with him-to be living stones connected with him, as the chief corner-stone of his Church. To be in him, is to have, in some measure, that spiritual life and energy which dwell in him inexhaustible and eternal, and, in virtue of which, to bring to him the fruits of righteousness, to the praise of our heavenly Father-it is to be rooted, and fitted up in Christ, and strengthened with all might in the inner man, by the might of his Spirit dwelling within us, and to have his spiritual life in our souls, as the beginning of life eternal.

That what we have now stated is the meaning of the words in Christ, is evident not only from the observations already made, but from the analogy which the Apostle Paul so often draws between Adam as the representative and covenant-head of his

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The Apostle in addressing the Athenians, and speaking of the true God, who made the world, and all things therein, who giv-posterity, and Christ as the representative eth to all things life and breath, says of Him, that He is not far off from us; for in Him we live, and move, and have our being. The words in Him, express the relation in which man and all creatures stand to God as their Creator and Preserver. We live, and move, and have our being in God. He made us, and continually sustains and upholds us. Without Him, or without Him as our preserver, we cease to exist-life would no longer animate our mortal frames -our bodies and our souls would cease to be they would be annihilated. Without Him we cannot move-our bodily organs could not perform the functions assigned them, and the powers of our minds would be equally weak and imbecile. It is because we are in Him, or in union with Him, that it is said, "in Him we live, and move, and have our being." Christ is the Redeemer of his people, and to be in Him, is to be united to Him, in that character, capacity, or relation. He is our righteous ness and strength, and to be in Him, or to be in the Lord, is to have in Him that which we have not in ourselves, righteousness and strength. It is to be united to Him as our spiritual head, as the surety of his people, who, for us, and for our salvation, brought in everlasting righteousness. It is to be crucified with Christ, to be justified in him, to be accepted and accounted righteous before God, not having our own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. To be in Christ,

and covenant-head of his people. Adam sinned, his posterity sinned along with him, and fell with him in his first transgression. Had he remained steadfast in his obedience, they would have inherited his reward. He sinned against God-they sinned in him and fell with him. In him they became children of wrath, and by their descent from him they are the children of the reward. “Now,” says Paul, as by the offence of one came death, even so by the righteousness of one came the free gift of eternal life." And again "as in Adam all died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Our relation to Adam as our fountain-head, has issued in condemnation and death. The relation of believers to Christ in that capacity issues in justification, acceptance, and eternal life, and happiness. The curse of the law and spiritual death are the consequences of the one; acceptance and reconciliation to God, and the possession of eternal life, are the consequences of the other. To be in the Lord is to be in a state of final union with Jesus Christ, to be united to him by lively faith, and to be partakers with him in all the blessings he has purchased. The words are descriptive of real Christians as contrasted with avowed unbelievers, or with men who are Christians in name and in profession, and not in deed and truth. To be in the Lord is to be in a state not of apparent and professed, but of vital union with him, and, consequently, to be the subjects of a real vital Christianity. This must necessarily be a life of devout holy obedi