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WILLIAM CARDALE, ESQ.

MY DEAREST SIR,

NOTHING but your most urgent request could have induced me to allow the following very inadequate tribute to the memory of your venerable Father to be printed for private circulation. I felt at the time of delivering the discourse (long as it was, and occupying both the morning and evening sermon), that I was unable to do justice to so great and fertile a subject. And I am more sensible of the imperfection of my account, as it now appears, since your laudable fear of any thing which may seem to be ostentatious, has led you to require of me the suppression of many of those details of his piety and munificence into which a sense of gratitude, as well as duty, led me to enter when it was preached. There is, however, one thing, my dear Sir, which your utmost delicacy would not wish to prevent. You would not, and in

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deed cannot, prevent all who knew your eminent Parent from filling up in their own minds this defective outline of his character. He lives in the esteem and affections of all connected with him. Those who may read the subsequent brief notices, will not confine themselves to the few topics I have adverted to; but will dwell in fond recollection on all the various excellencies of a friend, whose high and consistent piety adorned the doctrine he professed, and blessed the community to which he belonged. I shall be truly happy if the circumstances of his death and character, as I have attempted to describe them, should at all tend to excite thanksgivings to that adorable Saviour whose grace was so abundantly displayed in him, and should encourage his family and connexions to pursue the bright example of faith and obedience which he has placed before them.

I remain,

My dearest Sir,

With the most sincere affection and esteem,

Your most obedient humble servant,

Chapel Street, Bedford Row,

October 31, 1816.

D. WILSON.

THE

FUTURE GLORY OF THE CHRISTIAN

CONTRASTED WITH

HIS PRESENT FRAILTY.

1 COR. XV. 49.

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

Few things more illustrate the excellency of the grace of Christ, than the support which it affords in seasons of affliction. At the very moment when all other resources fail, the religion of the Bible most effectually sustains and comforts the devout Christian. It teaches him to rejoice in tribulation, and to triumph even in death. It leads him, with the Apostle in the chapter from which my text is taken, and which the church appoints as the lesson in her office for the burial of the dead, to view the resurrection of Christ as the assurance of his own, and encourages him to believe, that as he has borne the image of Adain, his frail and earthly father, he shall also bear the image of Christ, his heavenly and glorious Redeemer. Let us

then meditate on the future glories of the saints, as contrasted with their present weak and suffering condition: and let us consider these two states in the order in which they naturally occur; noticing,

I. THE PRESENT FRAILTY OF THE CHRIS

TIAN.

II. HIS FUTURE GLORY.

The Christian in this world bears the image of the earthy. By the EARTHY, is here meant Adam, the first parent of our race; The first Adam, as he is called (v. 45) in opposition to Christ, who is The last Adam; the first man, as opposed to Christ the second man; the earthy, as distinguished from Christ the Lord from heaven. He was formed of the dust of the earth. His whole frame, though fearfully and wonderfully made, was created weak and frail, partaking of the nature of the earth from which it was derived. His soul, indeed, was formed after the image of God; and had he continued in his original righteousness, his body would have remained free from disease and death. But instead of this, he fell; and sin entered into the world, and death by sin. His spiritual life

1 Rom. v. 12.

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