Sermons Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: ... SERMON XVII. PREPARATION FOR DEATH A STATE OF LIFE. Isaiah xxxviii. 1. " Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live." Perhaps the most awful moment of our lives is when we first feel in danger of death. All our past life then seems to be a cloud of words and shadows; one less real than another, moving and floating round about us, altogether external to the realities of the soul. Not only childhood and youth, happiness and sorrow, eager hopes and disturbing fears, but even our communion with God, our faith in things unseen, our self-knowledge, and our repentance, seem alike to be but visions of the memory. All has become stern, hard, and appalling. The thought of passing out of this kindly and familiar state, from loving faces, partial friends, soothing offices of religion, hopeful persuasions of our own peace at last, to go into the world beyond the grave, among souls departed, and the spirits who stand before the presence of our Judge; all things now wound up, all sins weighed and doomed: --this is full of unutterable fear. Such is the burst of consciousness which breaks upon the soul, when any great event in life says to us, " Set thine house in order." It is as if it were the beginning of a new existence; as if we had passed under a colder sky, and into a world where every object has a sharpness of outline almost too severe for sight to bear. Such was the effect of the prophet's words upon Hezekiah. Even he, a saint of God, was overwhelmed. He " turned his face toward the wall," and " wept sore." He said, " He will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt Thou make an end of me. I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will He break all my bones: from day even to night...