young may live many years and rejoice in them all, yet the day of darkness and death will soon arrive, when they too must go the way that all the world have hitherto gone. But providence is every day telling us, that children and youth, and those in the midst of their days, may meet a premature death. No one knows what a day may bring forth to himself. " Go to now, ye that say, to-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that." The serious question now is, are you who mourn, and you who rejoice prepared to go to the dead? Are you prepared to go to those who have left you, whether they were prepared to leave you or not? Are you prepared to see them, whether they are holy or unholy, happy or unhappy? If you are cordially reconciled to God, and have secured his favour and protection, you are prepared to go into eternity, and to see all that is to be seen, and to know all that is to be known there; but if you are not prepared to meet God, you are not prepared to meet departed spirits, whether they are holy and happy, or unholy and miserable. The question is not, whether you are willing to leave this troublesome world, but whether you are willing to meet both the holy and unholy, the happy and the miserable in another world. This question demands serious selfreflection, and self-examination. The recent instances of mortality as well as another serious circumstance, imperiously call upon us all, to look into our own hearts, and inquire whether we are prepared to go to the dead, who have left us and gone into eternity, from whence they will never return. It would be strange if none of you should this day recollect, that I have finished the forty-eighth, and entered upon the forty-ninth year of my ministry among you. I have

April 1821.

buried, perhaps, seven or eight hundred hearers, who are gone into eternity, where I must shortly meet them. It would be strange indeed, if I should not habitually bear in mind the consequences of my preaching to them and to myself, and in some measure realize, that 1 watch for souls as one that must give account. And under this impression, can you think it strange, that I have said so much concerning the eternal happiness to be enjoyed, and the eternal misery to be suffered beyond the grave? ? I expect to meet those of my hearers who are gone before me, and those who shall follow after me into eternity. I wish to make divine truths and divine objects appear to you in this world, as I expect they will appear to you and to me in another world. It becomes me to call myself to an account how I have preached the gospel; and it becomes you to call yourselves to an account how you have heard it. It becomes me to view both you and myself in the light of eternity, and to preach as a dying creature to dying creatures. I shall soon cease to speak, and will soon cease to hear me ; but what I have said, and you have heard, will never be erased from our minds. It will be a savour of life unto life, or a savour of death unto death. I am preaching and you are hearing for eternity; and may God, in his infinite mercy grant, that the preacher and hearer may be each other's crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus! Amen,

you

SERMON XXVIII.

THE FINAL HARVEST.

MATTHEW XIII. 39.

The harvest is the end of the world.

AFTER Christ had spoken and explained the parable of the sower, "he put forth another parable saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came, and said unto him, sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, nay; lest, while ye gather up the tares, ye root also the wheat with them. Let both grow up together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn." This parable Christ spake to the multitude, in the hearing of his disciples, who, when Jesus had sent the multitude away, and went into the house, " came unto him say, ing, declare unto us the parable of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that sowed the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the

good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burnt in the fire; so shall it be in the end of the world; the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them who do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." By this parable Christ gives us a lively and striking representation of the last day. "The harvest

Then

is the end of the world." The time of harvest, is the time when men reap the fruits of their long and painful labours. So the end of the world is the time, when God will reap the fruits not only of his own labours, but of the labours of all whom he employs in his vineyard. The text in this connection plainly teaches us, That God will have a harvest at the end of the world.

I shall endeavour to make it appear, in the first place, that God will have a harvest, and in the second place, that this harvest will be at the end of the world.

God is the wisest, the most powerful, and most active being in the universe. He always proposes some wise and important end in all he does. No wise man will cultivate and sow his field, without a design of reaping a valuable crop. Who then can suppose, that God will be incessantly sowing, without any design of reaping? He had a wise design in creating the world, and he is constantly exerting his almighty power in accomplishing his primary and important design. He employs his powerful influence every moment in preserving and governing the world, in causing the regular succession of day and night, of winter and summer, of seed time and harvest, and in bringing about every event, that takes place in any part of his vast dominions.

And can we entertain the thought, that he will exert his omnipotence for thousands of years, without obtaining his object, and enjoying the fruits of his labours? The ultimate end of all labour is rest and enjoyment. Men labour in one season, in order to enjoy rest in another. God intends, that all his great and laborious exertions shall terminate in eternal rest and enjoyment. Though his plan of operation be immensely great in duration, as well as extent, yet it must be completely accomplished. Though his seed time may continue many thousand years, yet it is inseparably connected with the harvest. To suppose, that he should be eternally creating new worlds, or new modifying old ones, would be to suppose, that he has no perfect, consistent, and ultimate end in view. And to suppose this, would destroy all the wisdom of his operations. His ultimate end, therefore, in the creation of this world, must be completely accomplished, and the accomplishment of it must put a final period to all his operations, and to the operations of all his creatures here below. There must be a cessation of labour, and a time of rest, in the moral world. God must have a time to reap as well as to sow, a time to enjoy as well as to labour. It is just as certain, that he will have a harvest, as that he now has a seed time.

I proceed to show,

II. That God's harvest will be at the end of the world. It is more than three months, it is more than three years, and it may be more than three thousand years before his harvest will come. His field is the world. His labourers are now sowing, and preparing the way for the great harvest; but it will not come till the end of the world. For neither the wheat, nor the tares in the field, will come to maturity before that important period. But then all rational and accountable creatures will appear in the perfection of their natures and characters, and be fully ripe for a final separation. And when the wheat and the tares, or the righteous and the wicked, shall be separated and fixed in their