SERMON VI.

PURGATORY.

2 THESS. ii. 15.

Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

YOUR attention was invited in the last discourse to a principle, probably, of philosophic origin, which could hardly fail of augmenting human apprehensions on the near approach of death. If it were believed, that all who would escape the posthumous vengeance of offended Heaven must compensate, on this side of eternity, by proportionate sufferings for their vicious acts, great anxiety would naturally be felt, in most cases, lest sins and inflictions should by no means have proceeded with equal pace. "Neither has a frowning Providence," would an accusing conscience generally say, "afflicted you nearly to the just measure of your iniquities, nor have your own voluntary austerities at all approached the magnitude of those miscarriages which they were intended to correct

and punish." There is, indeed, ordinarily, a considerable space in men's mortal career, when the cares and riches and pleasures of this world exclude and stifle such reflections. But at length a summons to his "long home" plainly sounds in the sinner's ears. He can no longer conceal it from himself, that he personally must soon occasion "the mourners to go about the streets." Exhausting energies allow him not to doubt, that the time is nearly come for loosing "the silver cord" of life, for returning his "dust to the earth as it wasa." What child of Adam, when at last awakened to this awful prospect, can avoid an anxious desire to ask, And shall my "spirit also return unto the God who gave it?" In such moments of serious thought, the mind, oppressed with an overwhelming consciousness of past iniquities, is constrained to say, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul "?" It was by

a Eccl. xii. 5, 6, 7.

b Mic. vi. 6, 7.

returning an affirmative reply to questions like some of these, that, in ancient England, apprehensions were allayed, excited by the presumed necessity of compensating, by proportionate sufferings, for unholy deeds. Men were told, when writhing under the terrors of an evil conscience, "You have, indeed, failed most grievously of doing what the Lord requireth. You have not done justly, or loved mercy, or walked humbly with your God. Happily called, as you were, to become the child of grace by the washing of regeneration, you have alienated your heavenly Father, and wilfully rendered yourself the child of wrath, by a long, infatuated indulgence of proud, impure, selfish, angry feelings. But you need not despond: that almighty Friend, who constantly cared for you, while you were careless of yourself, has, probably, given you the ability to come before him with tolerable assurance. Use his unmerited bounty with due liberality. Repent truly of your iniquities, and then you may be allowed to redeem that fearful debt which you justly view as threatening ruin to your soul. Charity shall cover the multitude of sins'. Forgive, then, freely; nay more, even

c Micah vi. 8.

d Tit. iii. 5. e 1 Pet. v. 7. f 1 Pet. iv. 8.

benefit and bless your enemies. Let your alms alleviate the privations of indigence. Let the slave be kindly bidden to go free. Let the house of God arise, by your means, among a population enshrouded in religious darkness. Let the bridge, or causeway, draw from future generations blessings upon your memory'." These latter indications, that Christian charity truly wrought upon the parting soul, were, indeed, beyond the powers of ordinary men. But the blessed Jesus has graciously declared the widow's mite of equal estimation, in the sight of God, with an offering proportioned to the resources of opulences. Where, then, in ancient England, was the "broken spirit," where "the contrite heart"," that needed to grapple with man's last great enemy, hopeless for the future?

It was, however, obviously undesirable to render habitually prominent such a prospect of eluding penitential rigours. Had the ordinary course of religious instruction led men generally to calculate upon thus retaining in security their sinful lusts and appetites, how few, unhappily, would have been careful to "war a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience!" How fatally would the

g St. Mark xii. 48.

h Ps. li. 17.