Death inevitable, but the time and manner unknown.

ECCLES. ix. 12.

For man also knoweth not his time; as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

No advice can be more important, or

"What

founded in better reason, than that which Solomon gives in the words a little before the text. soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest." The present is the proper season to cultivate religious knowledge, to acquire heavenly wisdom, to do good to mankind, and to secure the happiness of immortality; for we are all hastening to the grave, which will forever terminate our short and uncertain space of probation. No worldly interests or designs should divert our attention from the concerns of the future life; for every thing relating to this world is small in its importance, and uncertain in its issue. "The race is not to the swift, nor the Vol. I. Y y

battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill." If we make some good progress, and have a fair prospect of success in our temporal pursuits, yet in the midst of them we may fail; for life is always uncertain. We cannot know the day or the hour, when death will arrest our progress and break our purposes. "Man knoweth not his time; as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." What folly-what presumption is it, then, to neglect or postpone the mighty interests of the future world in regard to the precarious and trifling interests of the present?

The several truths suggested in our text, though too little contemplated, are too obvious to be denied, and too serious to be neglected.

The Preacher remarks, The uncertainty of the time of death; "Man knoweth not his time."

The secret manner of its approach; "As the fishes are taken in an evil net."

The impossibility of deliverance, when the snare falls; "Ás the birds are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared."

The suddenness of death; "The snare falleth suddenly upon them."

The evil time when the snare falls; "The sons of men are snared in an evil time."

I. Solomon here reminds us, that the time of every man's death is uncertain to him; "Man knoweth not his time."

There are some circumstances relative to death, which every man fully knows.

He knows the certainty of it. He has no more doubt, whether he shall die, than whether he now exists. However averse he may be to the thoughts of death, he never calls in question the event.

This is made certain by the irreversible judg ment of God, expressly declared in his word. That sentence on Adam, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," is a sentence on the whole human race. Hence the Apostle says, "Judgment is come on all men to condemnation. In Adam all die. By him sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death, passes upon all

men.'

It is also made certain in the course of providence. "What man is he that liveth and shall not see death?" The world, we know, has existed for sey. eral thousands of years; it has all along been peopled by human beings, and these have all been mortal. Look around. Where will you find any of those who were born a century ago? They are numbered with the dead. Innumerable are those, who have gone down to the grave; and every man is drawing after them. What has been the uniform course of nature, without deviation, for nearly six thousand years past, will be its course in years to And we may as well expect perpetual day, or unchanging summer, as hope that we shall live. forever and not see death.

come.

As death itself, so also the nearness of death is certain. This is what all acknowledge, and what men in all ages have generally complained of. Seventy or eighty years, which now bring us to old age, is a short term, compared with the duration of the world. It is nothing compared with the duration which is to follow. "Thou hast made my days an hand-breadth," says David, " my age is as nothing before thee. Verily, every man, at his best state, is altogether vanity."

As we know death to be certain and near, so we know, it will be a most solemn change, when it comes. How great the change will be, we cannot explain; but we know it will be great. We see

enough to convince us of this; and we believe more than we can see.

If we look on the body, we see an affecting alteration. Strength, beauty, sensation, activity, motion are gone; and that, in which these qualities just now resided, is nothing but an unanimated lump of matter, soon to be deposited in the dust, and there to moulder away and be forgotten. When we view this earth on which we tread, it seems almost incredible, that matter taken from this gross mass should be moulded into man. When we contemplate man, in all the beauty and sprightliness of health, it seems as incredible, that what we see of the man should be reduced to earth. are truths, which cannot be denied. dust returns to the earth as it was.”

And yet both At death "the

This, however, is but a small part of the change, which death makes. The immortal spirit, now dislodged from the body, passes to another worlda world so different from this, that we can form but little conception of it. There it is adjudged to a state of retribution, of which there will be no end. The nature of this retribution will be agreeable to the temper and character of each soul, when it quits the body.

This

The certainty, nearness and solemnity of death we know. But no man knows the time of it. is in God's hands, and is known only to him. He reveals it not to mortals in any other way, than by the event itself. What we know, is important to be known, that we may be seriously affected with our condition, and zealously excited to our duty. What we know not, is necessary to be concealed, that we may neither be unfitted for the common duties of life by the immediate apprehensions of death, nor emboldened to the neglect of the special duties of religion by the assurance of years to come.

The continuance of life depends on God's preserving influence. When this is withheld, we die. How long he will continue it, he has not revealed to us, nor can we, in our ordinary state, make any probable conjecture about it.

We know not in what stage of life, we must depart. They who are advanced in age, know that they shall not die young. But there is no period, in which we can be sure of reaching the period, which next succeeds-no stage in which we can be confident of an arrival to that which lies forward on the road.

Multitudes die in infancy. "Death reigns over those who have not sinned, as well as over those who have sinned, after the similitude of Adam's transgression." When we see infants removed by death, we naturally enquire, why they should be sent into the world, if they must be called away before they have done any good, or answered any of the ends of a rational existence? But we ought to remember, that the sovereign and all-wise Creator can make their existence subservient to his own purposes, in ways of which we have no conception. There are also some obvious ends, which their transient life and early death are well adapted to serve. Hereby we are sensibly taught some important lessons, which we could not so well learn from other deaths, or from the more ordinary dispensations of providence. We have here a plain demonstration of the great evil of sin; of the divine displeasure against it; and of the universal prevalence of the original curse, which immediately followed the apostacy. Here we are warned not to place an immoderate confidence in, and affection upon any thing below the heavens; but to direct our supreme regards to an immutable, all-sufficient Being.

But is it not hard, that these little unoffending @reatures should suffer so great an evil as death?