nant with death and hell, to protect them from national ruin, but all in vain; our text says, they were given up, judged out of the books, [the books of the law,] and cast into the second death. They were dead in sin; and this moral death exposed them to national death. "If ye believe not (says Jesus) that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." This certainly cannot mean that they should, in the future tense, die a moral death. They were already morally dead. But it means, in the same sinful condition you now are, you shall die a national death, because you believe not that I am he. To believe in Christ, who is himself the word of eternal life, is to have our names written in the book of life. Consequently, all the believing Jews escaped the second death, to which they, as a nation, were doomed. They fled, according to the directions of Christ, to the mountains of Judea for safety, till the dreadful siege was over. Not a solitary Christian perished in that destruction..

our text.

The hearer will bear in mind, that the second death and the lake of fire are used synonymous in We will here show, that God's judgments are not unfrequently represented by the figure of fire. Ezekiel xxii. 19-22. "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Because ye are all become dross, behold therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver,

and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger, and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you. Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you." Here you perceive, that Jerusalem is represented to be a fiery furnace, in which they were to be melted as metal. But by reading the chapter you may learn that it has reference to their overthrow as a nation, and their dispersion among the heathen. We will produce one more instance, where the Scriptures represent a nation in their destruction as having their land turned into a lake of fire Isaiah xxxiv. 8-10. "For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. streams thereof shall be turned into the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land. thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day, the smoke thereof shall go up forever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it for ever and ever. "" Here we perceive, that the dust of the land is represented as turned

And the

pitch, and

into brimstone, and all its streams as rolling forth floods of boiling pitch, and yet it means nothing more than the temporal judgment of God upon that people.

Our text is plain, we presume, to every hearer, and we now dismiss the subject. In conclusion, we simply inquire, are the Jews to remain in this second death? Let Paul answer. Romans, chap. xi. "For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead." ***** "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, (lest ye should be wise in your own conceits,) that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Zion a Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins."

Here we have evidence, that these dead are again to be brought to life. They are to come forth from their graves; the dark veil shall be rent from their eyes, and "the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

From this lamentable catastrophe of their over

throw and dispersion, and their present unhappy fate as a people, let us take warning, and not abuse the choice blessings God has bestowed upon us as a nation. Let us rightly value our civil and religious liberty, and remember, if we become corrupt as a people, and unmindful of that Being, who holds the destinies of nations in his hand, we too shall be hurled from our high station of honor to degradation and ruin. Ever bear in mind, that moral death is a sad prelude to national death.

SERMON XXIX.*

DEDICATION AT AMSTERDAM, N. Y.

"If a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"-1 JOHN IV. 20.

THE purpose for which we are now assembled is, to dedicate this edifice to the worship of the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, to the preaching of the ministry of reconciliation revealed to the world by Jesus Christ, and to the purity of that religion which gives to man his sweetest enjoyments in life, and his fondest hopes of surviving the ruins of death.

I stand before you on this occasion with feelings of peculiar interest. This is the home of my childhood and youth, sacredly endeared to me by many pleasing associations, — by many fondly cherished delights, around which memory still hovers with emotions better felt than expressed. I find myself surrounded with many of those who were the companions and associates of my early days, and with whom I have so often engaged in the sports attendant on boyhood. But alas, how changed the scene! - Those, who but yesterday,

* Delivered at the Dedication of the Universalist Church, in Amsterdam, N. Y., Wednesday, September 10, 1834.