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ADVERTISEMENT.

THESE Reflections were firft written with a Design to be published in a small Volume, proper to be given away by well difpofed Perfons at Funerals, or on any other folemn occafion. But the Editors of the CHRISTIAN'S MAGAZINE, fuppofing they might be of fome Service to that useful and well-esteemed Work, requested the Author first to print them there, and afterwards to purfue his original Design. Accordingly they were printed in feparate Chapters, and he hath Reafon to be fatisfied with the Reception they met with. His best Prayers accompany them in their present Form, that they may be useful to Mankind.

W. D.

The Notes and Illuftrations added to this Edition, it is hoped will not be thought altogether fuperfluous, or wholly unneceffary, as the Editor has aimed in and by them, to make the Treatife in general more agreeble to the Tenets, of the truly Pious and Evangelical Reader.

CHAP. I.

-To die-to fleep

No more and by a fleep, to fay, we end
The heart-ach, and the thoufand natural fhocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a confummation
Devoutly to be wifh'd--to die, to fleep-

To fleep!-perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub,
For in that fleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have thuffled off this mortal coil,
Muft give us paufe: there's the refpect

That makes calamity of fo long life:

For who would bear the whips and fcorns of times,
Th' oppreffor's wrongs, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of defpis'd love, the law's delay,
The infolence of office, and the fpurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes-
But that the dread of fomething after death
(That undifcover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns) puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear the ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.

SHAKESPEARE,

A FEW evenings ago I was called to perform the laft fad office to the facred remains of a departed friend and neighbour.*

It is too commonly found, that a familiarity with death, and a frequent recurrence of funerals, graves, and church-yards, ferve to harden rather than humanize the mind; and to deaden rather than excite thofe becoming reflections, which fuch objects feem excellently calculated to produce. Hence the phyfician enters, without the leaft emotion, the gloomy chambers of expiring life: the undertaker handles, without concern, the claycold limbs and the fexton whiftles, unappalled, while

Minifters who are often called to attend the dying beds and funerals of the young and old, the rich and poor, profeffors and profane, are beft calculated, or at least beft furnished with materials, to enforce on all, the neceflity of reflecting on death, and preparing for it.

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his fpade cafts forth from the earth the mingled bones and duft of his fellow-creatures. * And, alas! how often have I felt, with indignant reluctance, my wandering heart engaged in other fpeculations, when called to minifter at the grave, and to confign to the tomb the afhes of my fellow-creatures!

Yet nothing teacheth like death: † and though perhaps the bufinefs of life would grow torpid, and the ftrings of activity be loofed, were men continually hanging over the meditation-yet, affuredly, no man fhould fail to keep the great object in view; and feafonably to reflect that the important moment is coming, when he too muft mingle with his kindred clay; when he too must appear before God's awful Judgment feat; when he too must be adjudged by a fixed, irrevocable, and eternal decree.‡

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As I entered the church-yard,

Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap:
where- Each in his narrow cell forgotten laid,

many of my friends, my neighbours, and my fellowcreatures, lie mouldering in duft :-ftruck with the flow and folemn found of the deep-toned bell, and particularly impreffed with the afflicting circumftances of his death, whofe obfequies I was waiting to perform, I found the involuntary tear rufh from mine eyes, and the unbidden figh heave in my labouring bolom.§

*See yonder maker of the dead man's bed,
The Sexton

Poor wretch! he minds not

That foon fome trusty brother of the trade,

Shall do for him what he hath done for thousands.

+ Wait the great teacher death.

BLAIR'S GRAVE.
Dr. YOUNG.

It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

HEB. ix. 27. This is one of the most awful texts in the facred writings, and cannot be too much infifted on and inforced, both from the pulpit and the prefs.

The reader cannot but obferve thefe reflections are writ ten in a fimilar style to Hervey's celebrated Meditations; a

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