Page:Biographical sketch of the life and labours of that eminent minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the Rev. James Hall D. D. of the United Secession Church, Broughton-Place meeting-house, Edinburgh.pdf/14

 garment, and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on a wedding garment? and he was speechless.” He showed that the marriage feast represents all the blessings which were purchased by the death of Christ, adapted his discourse to the circumstances of his congregation, in which the Lord's Supper was to be dispensed on the succeeding Sabbath, and pourtayedpourtrayed [sic], in impressive colours, the sad condition of those who come to the sacramental table without the wedding garment. He intended to preach on the communion Sabbath, from Isaiah x. 21—“The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob. to to the mighty God!” but on the morning of that day, he found himself so ill, that he was obliged to request an assisting clergyman to occupy his place, and in less than ten days afterwards he retired from the exercises of the sanctuary below to join in those that unceasingly engage the general assembly and church of the first born, in the temple above. He died a few minutes before eight, on the morning of November 28, in the seventy-first year of his age, and fiftieth of his ministry. He suffered much during the continuance of his trouble; but he bore his apparently excessive pain with an exemplary fortitude, unmurmuring resignation, and a patience which appeared to have produced its perfect work. He departed in the firm faith of those important truths he had been accustomed to preach, in a full dependance on the faithfulness of that God who cannot lie, and in the complete possession of that consolation which peculiarly belongs to the heirs of promise, who, like him, have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope that is set before them. His death was deeply regretted, as a sad obscuration of that burning and shining light, in which many for a season had exceedingly rejoiced. The interest it excited was obvious at his funeral and especially at the appropriate sermon preached in his church on the subsequent Sabbath, by