from Scripture. That it is a place-an awful place, where the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever,-a most miserable state, where the worm never dieth, and the fire is never quenched,—that between it and heaven there is a great gulf fixed, so that none can pass from hell to heaven; for none would pass from heaven to hell,—the strong desire expressed by one of its miserable inhabitants, that his seven brethren might never come to that place of torment, ought never to depart from our mind; and we ought to use every means that God has devised and revealed, and that man can use, that we may never enter its never-opening doors to its once admitted inhabitants. The massy bars and bolts of the prisons of this world, that grate harshly on the ears of those who are therein incarcerated, are, generally, after a certain period, turned, and the worn-out prisoners set free; or, if they should all their lives grind in their prison-houses, looking through their grated windows, and never again hear the voice, or see the face of friend or kinsman; yet, the king of whom we are discoursing, finally sets them free; but there is no jubilee, no period of discharge from that eternal abode. These shall go away into everlasting punishment. Leaving, then, these dreadful anticipations, we may assuredly say, that the extent of the dominion of death is very great indeed. What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world, said the Divine Redeemer, and lose his own soul? and what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? But no man ever gained the whole world. Some mighty conquerors have overrun what seemed to them a great, or the greater part of it; but what were their greatest conquests compared to the whole world? Let any man glance at the map of this world, and see what a small part of it any, or even all of them subdued. We cannot form any adequate conception of the vast extent of this little globe. Every child almost can tell its circumference, its length, and its breadth; but after this is heard, how inadequate is our ap prehension of its dimensions! Much have we all read of Jerusalem, and Judea, and all that once happy land; but who that has not seen it, and traversed its length, and its breadth, is in any tolerable degree acquainted with its varied surface, its hills, and its valleys, its lakes, its rills, its brooks, its streams, and its rivers? There is no land that we are better acquainted with from our very infancy; because the Sacred Book, which we are, and should be taught among the first to read-which ought to be our companion and our guide through life-and which alone will give us consolation at the awful hour of death, is chiefly employed in describing it to us in the simplest and sublimest language. Have not many of us, in youth and manhood, ascended the mountain of Moriah with the friend of God, and seen him bind and lay his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved, on the altar, and stretch forth his hand, and take the knife to slay him at the Divine command? while we have beheld the ram caught in the thicket, which, unknown to him, was to be substituted for his son. Have we not seen Joseph leave his father, clothed in his coat of many colours, to inquire after the welfare of his brethren and their flocks; and wandering in the fields before he could find them out; while, when they saw him, they conspired to slay him; and when, by the intervention of Reuben, they were prevented, they cast him into a pit; and while he was hungry, and weary, and sorry, they sat down, without compunction, to eat bread? Ah! how could they ask a blessing upon it; or how could they dare to touch it, while their hearts, if not their hands, were defiled with blood? Have we not often, with streaming eyes, pondered their necessary meetings with the seemingly stern ruler over the land of Egypt, while they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his sonl when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us; and Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also, his blood is required? Have we not followed the mother of Moses, when she hid the ark of bulrushes in the flags by the river's brink, while his sister was stationed as a feeling sentinel, to witness his fate? (but Hugh Miller, Esq., was difficulted to see her :) and have we not seen the daughter of the king, accompanied by her maidens, providentially led to the spot, when she came to wash herself in the waters of the Nile; so that she saw the ark, and had compassion on the weeping babe, and nourished him as her own son? Have we not seen the waters of the sea stand as an heap, while the channel afforded a safe and agreeable passage to the pursued and terrified Israelites? Have we not witnessed Sinai on a flame, and heard the thunder's awful voice, when Jehovah descended and promulgated His law? Have we not seen the rock smitten, and the waters gushing out, and running in the desert places like a river, for almost the space of forty years? Have we not seen the under-waters of Jordan cut off, and the upper receding back, and standing as an heap when the soles of the priests' feet touched its brink? Have not we witnessed Eli sitting on his seat by the way-side, while Israel and the Philistines were contending for the victory, because his heart trembled for the ark of God? Have we not witnessed the pledged troth and united affection of David and Jonathan ; whose love to him was wonderful, passing the love of women! Have we not attempted to get a glance of the three children in the furnace, while they were accompanied with One, in the opinion of a heathen king, like the Son of God? Have we not looked at Daniel in the lion's den, while these ferocious creatures couched and slumbered around him, laying their paws and head on his knees, and licking his face like a dog, looking upon him as their lord and master? To sum up all, which of us has not endeavoured to attend the Son of God in all His journeyings, while He tabernacled among men; and they beheld His glory, and heard His heavenly words, and saw His mighty deeds? Have we not especially followed Him to the garden, and seen His agony and blood-sweat, and heard His prayer thrice repeated? Have we not fearlessly attended Him to the presence of Pilate and Herod ; and, with indignation, seen the indignities offered to the Innocent and the Just? Have we not seen Him, after a mock trial, condemned, and afterwards going forth bearing His cross, until He sunk under it, and was afterwards nailed to it between two malefactors, until He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost? Have we not witnessed the consternation of His bereaved disciples, and beheld them resting, with impatience, on the Sabbath; and as soon as the day dawned, visiting, secretly, the sepulchre, fearless of the soldiers who were sta tioned around it, because unconquerable affection, and a righteous cause, inspired them with irresistible courage? Have we not accompanied Him and His disciples on the way to Emmaus, while their hearts burned within them while He opened to them the Scriptures? Have we not stood by His disciples upon Olivet's mount, and seen them gazing up to heaven as He ascended, and a cloud receiving Him out of their sight, and heard two, in the appearance of men, clothed in white, thus address them, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven? Time would fail to tell how we have followed the apostles in their wanderings through Judea, and to the utmost ends of the earth. It may be said, These are the flights of fancy; and we do not wish to deny it ; for we have not been favoured to see the garden of the Lord, and the land flowing with milk and honey; a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pome granets; a land of oil, olive, and honey; a land wherein there is bread without scarcity, and where there is lack of nothing; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills they might dig brass. But although we have never seen, and never shall see it in the flesh, yet, dull must be the head, and cold the heart, that does not think of it with mingled emotions of joy and sorrow, for the sake of the people of the Lord, once so highly favoured; but now so completely rejected and dispersed because they would not hearken to the word of the Lord, and said of God's beloved Son, His blood be upon us and our children. Although we have not the imagination of him who sung in the highest uninspired strains Paradise Lost, we would, at an immense distance, follow his steps, when he sung, But chief Thee, Sion, and the flow'ry brooks beneath, It was not because Jerusalem was the largest and richest of cities, or Judea the most extensive, or even most delightful of countries, that they are so much celebrated, and so much to be admired, and so often, in imagination, to be traversed; but because Jehovah was pleased to confer on them, as He has now transferred on our little isle of the Gentiles, the greatest and most valuable of privileges. But who among us is completely acquainted with the varied surface of our own little isle of the ocean? We may be able readily to tell its length and its breadth; but have we ever personally visited every city, and town, and village, and cottage? Have we ever ascended its hills and its mountains, and viewed all its glens, its valleys, and its carses? Have we followed the windings of its rivers, its streams, its waters, and its burns? Have we traversed all the indentations of the mighty ocean around its sea-girt shores? Had we done all this, then we could survey it in the mind's eye, and wander again over its ever-varying scenery. But though we knew perfectly Judea, and highlyfavoured Britain, and could add to them all the empires and kingdoms that ever existed, we would still be greatly unac quainted with the dimensions of our globe. Until we have explored completely earth, and air, and sea, we could not speak correctly of the extent of the dominions of death. Suffice it, then, in a word, to say, in a qualified sense, It is high as heaven, what can we know? and deep as hell, what can we do? the measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader and deeper than the sea. IV. We are to attend to the duration of His reign.-There is something very peculiar in the reign of death. When his reign commences over his subjects, it produces a complete change upon them-it dismisses them from one kind and state of being into another-it introduces them into a completely new state of existence, in the emphatic language of Scripture, He changes their countenance, and sends them away. The object of kings, is to protect their subjects, according to the laws of the land, and to administer and execute these laws in mercy. Instead of protecting his subjects, death. destroys them; instead of administering and executing the laws of his realm in mercy, death executes them with such invariable and inconceivable severity, that his laws may justly be said to be written in blood. He differs, in this respect, from the most absolute monarchs; and even the most despotic tyrants. His government is completely of its own kind. This is strongly set forth in the description that is given of him as the king of terrors. The whole of the description of him is of a peculiar cast, and exhibits him as a singular sovereign. A part of the length or duration of his reign is condescended upon in the text. There are also a certain kind of persons mentioned over whom he reigned in that limited period. He reigned, it is said, from Adam to Moses, which comprehends a period of about 2500 years. How immense even this period! Where is the dynasty of kings, or where is even the kingdom, that has subsisted for even half that period? If we were to take our own country since the Norman conquest, we have had the house of Lancaster, house of York, house of Tudor, house of Stuart, house of Guelph, and now the house of Gotha, all within 800 years; and we know nothing of our country, or of its inhabitants, 2500 years ago. We speak of thousands of years as we do of days; but we form no comprehension of their duration. A house that has braved the winter's frosts, and thaws, and storms, and summer's heat and drought for 500 years, we look upon with veneration and awe; and think of the families that have inhabited it--of the births, and marriages, and deaths, and other wonderful changes it has witnessed. What changes has that individual experienced and witnessed, who has seen the weary winter's sun return for threescore or fourscore years? A little portion of time is great to the children of a day, an hour, or who scarcely see the light. But death has not only reigned from Adam to Moses; but he is reigning still. Even at this moment, many of the feeble sons of men are falling under his inexorable arm. It has been computed, that there are about one thousand mil 1 |