But where there is strong ground to ap

cence, by eloquent gratitude for testamenta- | inquiry, 'Are there few that be saved,' he ry favours. thus checked vain curiosity-Strive (you) It is an amiable though not a correct feel- to enter in at the strait gate.' On another ing in human nature, that, fancying we have occasion, in the same spirit, he corrected not done justice to certain characters during inquisitiveness, not by an answer, but by an their lives, we run into the error of suppo-interrogation and a precept- What is that sed compensation by over estimating them to thee? Follow thou me.' after their decease. On account of neighbourhood, affinity, prehend that the contrary may have been long acquaintance, or some pleasing quali- the case, it is very dangerous to pronounce ties, we may have entertained a kindness peremptorily on the safety of the dead. Befor many persons, of whose state however, cause if we allow ourselves to be fully perwhile they lived, we could not with the ut-suaded that they are entered upon a state of most stretch of charity think favourably. happiness, it will naturally and fatally tempt If their sickness has been long and severe, us to lower our own standard. If we are our compassion having been kept by that ready to conclude that they are now in a circumstance in a state of continued excite-state of glory whose principles we believed ment, though we lament their death, yet we feel thankful that their suffering is at an end. Forgetting our former opinion, and the course of life on which it was framed, we fall into all the common-place of consolation,-God is merciful-we trust that they are at rest-what a happy release they have had!'-Nay, it is well if we do not go so far as to entertain a kind of vague belief that their better qualities joined to their sufferings have, on the whole, ensured their feli

city.

Thus at once losing sight of that word of God which cannot lie, of our former regrets on their subject, losing the remembrance of their defective principles and thoughtless conduct; without any reasonable ground for altering our opinion, any pretence for entertaining a better hope-we assume that they are happy. We reason as if we believed that the suffering of the body had purchased the salvation of the soul, as if it had rendered any doubt almost criminal. We seem to make ourselves easy on the falsest ground imaginable, not because we believe their hearts were changed, but because they are now beyond all possibility of change.

to be incorrect, whose practice, to say the least of it, we know to have been negligent, who, without our indulging a censorious or a presumptuous spirit, we thought lived in a state of mind, and a course of habits, not only far from right, but even avowedly inferior to our own; will not this lead to the conclusion, either that we ourselves, standing on so much higher ground, are in a very advanced state of grace, or that a much lower than ours may be a state of safety? And will not such a belief tend to slacken our endeavours, and to lower our tone, both of faith and practice?

By this conclusion we contradict the affecting assertion of a very sublime poet,

For us they sicken and for us they die. For while we are thus taking and giving false comfort our friend as to us will have died in vain. Instead of his death having operated as a warning voice, to rouse us to a more animated piety, it will be rather likely to lull us into a dangerous security. If our affection has so blinded our judgment, we shall by a false candour to another, sink into a false peace ourselves.

It will be a wounding circumstance to the feelings of surviving friendship, to see a person of loose habits, whom though we love, yet we feared to admonish, and that because we loved him; for whom, though we saw his danger, yet perhaps we neglected to pray; to see him brought to that ultimate and fixed state in which admonition is impossible, in which prayer is not only fruit

But surely the mere circumstance of death will not have rendered them fit for that heaven for which we before feared they were unfit. Far be it from us, indeed, blind and sinful as we are, to pass sentence upon them, to pass sentence upon any. We dare not venture to pronounce what may have passed between God and their souls, even at the last hour. We know that infinite mer-less, but unlawful. cy is not restricted to times or seasons; to an Another distressing circumstance freearly or a late repentance: we know not but quently occurs. We meet with affectionate in that little interval their peace was made, but irreligious parents, who though kind and their pardon granted, through the atoning perhaps amiable, have neither lived themblood, and powerful intercession of their selves, nor educated their families in ChrisRedeemer. Nor should we too scrupulous-tian principles, nor in habits of Christian ly pry into the state of others, never, indeed, except to benefit them or ourselves; we should rather imitate the example of Christ, who at once gave an admirable lesson of meekness and charitable judgment, when avoiding an answer which might have led to fruitless discussion, he gave a reproof under the shape of an exhortation.-In reply to the

piety. A child at the age of maturity dies. Deep is the affliction of the doting parent. The world is a blank. He looks round for comfort where he has been accustomed to look for it among his friends. He finds it not. He looks up for it where he has not been accustomed to seek it. Neither his heart nor his treasure has been laid up in

heaven. Yet a paroxysm, of what may be. Thus the flashes of religion which darted

termed natural devotion, gives to his grief an air of piety. The first cry of anguish is commonly religious.

The lamented object perhaps, through utter ignorance of the awful gulf which was opening to receive him, added to a tranquil temper, might have expired without evincing any great distress, and his happy death is industriously proclaimed through the neighbourhood, and the mourning parents have only to wish that their latter end may be like his. They cheat at once their sorrow and their souls, with the soothing notion that they shall soon meet their beloved child in Heaven. Of this they persuade themselves as firmly and as fondly, as if both they and the object of their grief had been living in the way which leads thither. Oh, for that unbought treasure, a sincere, a real friend, who might lay hold on the propitious moment! When the heart is softened by sorrow, it might possibly, if ever, be led to its true remedy. This would indeed be a more unequivocal, because more painful act of friendship than pouring in the fulling opiate of false consolation, which we are too ready to administer, because it saves our own feelings, while it sooths, without healing, those of the mourner.

in upon their conscience in the first burst of sorrow, too frequently die away; they expire before the grief which kindled them. They resort again to their old resource, the world, which if it cannot soon heal their sorrow, at least soon diverts it.

To shut our eyes upon death as an object of terror or of hope, and to consider it only as a release or an extinction, is viewing it under a character which is not its own. But to get rid of the idea at any rate, and then boast that we do not fear the thing we do not think of is not difficult. Nor is it difficult to think of it without alarm if we do not include its consequences. But to him who frequently repeats, not mechanically but devoutly, we know that THOU shalt come to be our Judge,' death cannot be a matter of indifference.

Another cause of these happy deaths is that many think salvation a slight thing, that heaven is cheaply obtained, that a merciful God is easily pleased, that we are Christians, and that mercy comes of course to those who have always professed to believe that Christ died to purchase it for them. This notion of God being more merciful than he has any where declared himself to be, instead of inspiring them with more gratitude But perhaps the integrity of the friend to him, inspires more confidence in themconquers his timidity. Alas! he is honestly selves. This corrupt faith generates a corexplicit to unattending or to offended ears. rupt morality. It leads to this strange conThey refuse to hear the voice of the char-sequence, not to make them love God betmer. But if the mourners will not endure ter, but to venture on offending him more. the voice of exhortation now, while there is People talk as if the act of death made a hope, how will they endure the sound of the complete change in the nature, as well as in last trumpet when hope is at an end? If the condition of man. Death is the vehicle they will not bear the gentle whisper of friendship, how will they bear the voice of the accusing angel, the terrible sentence of the incensed Judge? If private reproof be intolerable, how will they stand the being made a spectacle to angels and to men, even to the whole assembled universe, to the whole creation of God?

to another state of being, but possesses no power to qualify us for that state. In cooveying us to a new world it does not give us a new heart. It puts the unalterable stamp of decision on the character, but does not transform it into a character diametrically opposite.

Our affections themselves will be rather But instead of converting the friendly raised than altered. Their tendencies will warning to their eternal benefit, they are be the same, though their advancement will probably wholly bent on their own vindica- be incomparably higher. They will be extion. Still their character is dearer to them alted in their degree, but not changed in than their soul. We never,' say they, their nature. They will be purified from all were any man's enemy.' Yes-you have earthly mixtures, cleansed from all human been the enemy of all to whom you have pollutions, the principle will be cleared from given a bad example. You have especially its imperfections, but it will not become anbeen the enemy to your children in whom other principle. He that is unholy will not you have implanted no christian principles. be made holy by death. The heart will not Still they insist with the prophet that there have a new object to seek, but will be diis no iniquity in them that can be called ini-rected more intensely to the same object. quity.' We have wronged no one,' say They who love God here will love him far they, we have given to every one his due, more in heaven, because they will know him We have done our duty.' Your first duty | far better. There he will reign without a was to God. You have robbed your Maker competitor. They who served him here ia of the service due to Him. You have rob- sincerity will there serve him in perfection bed your Redeemer of the souls he died to It 'the pure in heart shall see God,' let us save. You have robbed your own soul and remember that this purity is not to be con too probably the souls of those whom you tracted aiter we have been admitted to its rehave so wretchedly educated, of eternal hap-muneration. The beatitude is pledged as a piness. reward for the purity, not as a qualification

for it. Purity will be sublimated in heaven, I point of view, therefore, the same necessity but will not begin to be produced there. It for being religious subsists when we are in is to be acquired by passing through the re-full health as when we are about to die. finer's fire here, not through the penal and expiatory fire which human ingenuity devised to purge offending man

From the foul deeds done in his days of nature. The extricated spirit will be separated from the feculence of all that belongs to sin, to sense, to self. We shall indeed find our selves new, because spiritualized beings; but if the cast of the mind were not in a great measure the same, how should we retain our identity? The soul will there become that which it here desired to be, that which it mourned because it was so far from being. It will have obtained that complete victory over its corruptions which it here only desired, which it here only struggled to obtain.

We may then fairly arrive at this conclusion, that there is no happy death but that which conducts to a happy immortality:-No joy in putting off the body, if we have not put on the Lord Jesus Christ ;No consolation in escaping from the miseries of time, till we have obtained a well grounded hope of a blessed eternity.

CHAP. XX.

On the Sufferings of Good Men. AFFLICTION is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed. It is a kind of moral Here our love of spiritual things is super-Gymnassium, in which the disciples of induced, there it will be our natural frame. Christ are trained to robust exercise, hardy The impression of God on our hearts will be exertion, and severe conflict. stamped deeper, but it will not be a different impression. Our obedience will be more voluntary, because there will be no rival propensities to obstruct it. It will be more entire, because it will have to struggle with no counteracting force.-Here we sincerely though imperfectly love the law of God, even though it controuls our perverse will, though it contradicts our corruptions. There our love will be complete, because our will will retain no perverseness, and our corruptions will be done away.

We do not hear of martial heroes in the calm and piping time of peace,' nor of the most eminent saints in the quiet and unmolested periods of ecclesiastical history. We are far from denying that the principle of courage in the warrior, or of piety in the saint continues to subsist, ready to be brought into action when perils beset the country or trials assail the church; but it must be allowed that in long periods of inaction, both are liable to decay.

The Christian, in our comparatively tranRepentance, precious at all seasons, in the quil day, is happily exempt from the trials season of health is noble. It is a generous and the terrors which the annals of persecuprinciple when it overtakes us surrounded tion record. Thanks to the establishment with the prosperities of life, when it is not of a pure Christianity in the church, thanks put off till distress drives us to it. Serious- to the infusion of the same pure principle ness of spirit is most acceptable to God into our laws, and to the mild and tolerating when danger is out of sight, preparations spirit of both-a man is so far from being for death when death appears to be at a dis-líable to pains and penalties for his attachment to his religion, that he is protected in

tance.

Virtue and piety are founded on the na-its exercise; and were certain existing stature of things, on the laws of God, not on tutes enforced, he would even incur penalany vicissitudes in human circumstances.ties for his violation of religious duties, raIrreligion, folly and vice, are just as unrea-ther than for his observance of them.* sonable in the meridian of life as at the ap- Yet still the Christian is not exempt from proach of death. They strike us different-his individual, his appropriate, his undefined ly but they always retain their own charac-trials. We refer not merely to those 'cruel ter. Every argument against an irreligious mockings,' which the acute sensibility of the death is equally cogent against an irreligious apostle led him to rank in the same catalife. Piety and penitence may be quicken-logue with bonds, imprisonments, exile and ed by the near view of death, but the reasons martyrdom itself. We allude not altofor practising them are not founded on its gether to those misrepresentations and canearness. Death may stimulate our fears lumnies to which the zealous Christian is for the consequences of vice, but furnishes peculiarly liable; nor exclusively to those no motive for avoiding it, which Christianity difficulties to which his very adherence to had not taught before. The necessity of re-the principles he professes, must necessariligion is as urgent now as it will be when we ly subject him; nor entirely to those occaare dying. It may not appear so, but the sional sacrifices of credit, of advancement, reality of a thing does not depend on appear- of popular applause, to which his refusing ances. Besides, if the necessity of being re-to sail with the tide of popular opinion may ligious depended on the approach of death,

what moment of our lives is there, in which

We allude to the laws against swearing, attending

we have any security against it? In every public worship, &c.

compel him; nor solely to the disadvantages | luntary pain, however necessary the inflic which under certain circumstances his not tion, however salutary the effect. God grapreferring expediency to principle may ex-ciously does this for us himself, or he knows pose him. But the truly good man is not it would never be done, only often called to struggle with trials of large dimensions, with exigencies of obvious difficulty, but to encounter others which are better understood than defined.

And duller would he be than the fat weed
That rots itself at ease on Lethe's wharf,

A Christian is liable to the same sorrows and sufferings with other men: he has no where any promise of immunity from the troubles of life, but he has a merciful promise of support under them. He considers them in another view, he bears them with another spirit, he improves them to other were he left to batten undisturbed, in peace-ed by this world. Whatever may be the purposes than those whose views are boundful security, on the unwholesome pastures of instruments of his sufferings, whether sickrank prosperity. The thick exhalations ness, losses, calumnies, persecutions, he drawn up from this gross soil render the at-knows that it proceeds from God; all means mosphere so heavy as to obstruct the ascent are HIS instruments. All inferior causes of piety, her flagging pinions are kept down operate by HIS directing hand. by the influence of this moist vapour; she is prevented from soaring,

-to live insphered

In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call earth.

The pampered Christian thus continually gravitating to the earth, would have his heart solely bent to

Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown religion gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants.

We said that a Christian is liable to the same sufferings with other men. Might we not repeat what we have before said, that his very Christian profession is often the cause of his sufferings? They are the badge of his discipleship, the evidences of his Father's love; they are at once the marks of God's favour, and the materials of his own future happiness.

What were the arguments of worldly advantage held out through the whole New Testament, to induce the world to embrace the religion it taught? What was the condition of St. Paul's introduction to Christianity? It was not-I will crown him with heIt is an unspeakable blessing that no nour and prosperity, with dignity and pleaevents are left to the choice of beings, who sure, but-I will show him how great things from their blindness would seldom fail to he must suffer for my name's sake.' choose amiss. Were circumstances at our What were the virtues which Christ own disposal we should allot ourselves no-chiefly taught in his discourses? What were thing but ease and success, but riches and the graces he most recommended by his fame, but protracted youth, perpetual health, unvaried happiness.

example? Self-denial, mortification, patience, long-suffering, renouncing ease and All this as it would not be very unnatural, pleasure. These are the marks which have so perhaps it would not be very wrong, for ever since its first appearance, distinguishbeings who were always to live on earth. ed Christianity from all the religions in the But for beings who are placed here in a world, and on that account evidently prove state of trial and not established in their its divine original. Ease, splendour, exterfinal home, whose condition in eternity de-nal prosperity, conquest, made no part of pends on the use they make of time, nothing its establishment. Other empires have would be more dangerous than such a pow-been founded in the blood of the vanquished, er, nothing more fatal than the consequences the dominion of Christ was founded in his to which such a power would lead.

If a surgeon were to put in the hand of a wounded patient the probe or the lancet, with how much false tenderness would he treat himself! How skin-deep would be the examination, how slight the incision! The patient would escape the pain, but the wound might prove mortal. The practitioner therefore wisely uses his instruments himself. He goes deep perhaps, but not deeper than the case demands. The pain may be acute but the life is preserved.

Thus HE in whose hands we are, is too good, and loves us too well to trust us with ourselves. He knows that we will not contradict our own inclinations, that we will not impose on ourselves any thing unpleasant, that we will not inflict on ourselves any vo

own blood. Most of the beatitudes which infinite compassion pronounced, have the sorrows of earth for their subject, but the joys of heaven for their completion.

To establish this religion in the world, the Almighty, as his own word assures us, subverted kingdoms and altered the face of nations. For thus saith the Lord of Hosts," (by his prophet Haggai) yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry laxi; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come.' Could a religion, the kingdom of which was to be founded by such awful means, be established, be perpe tuated, without involving the sufferings of in subjects,

If the Christian course had been meant

for a path of roses, would the life of the au- But the Christian's trials do not all spring thor of Christianity have been a path strew-from without. He would think them compaed with thorns? He made for us,' says ratively easy, had he only the opposition of bishop Jeremy Taylor, a covenant of suf-men to struggle against, or even the severer ferings, his very promises were sufferings; dispensations of God to sustain. If he has his rewards were sufferings, and his argu- a conflict with the world, he has a harder ments to invite men to follow him were only conflict with sin. His bosom foe is his most taken from sufferings in this life, and the unyielding enemy; reward of sufferings hereafter.'

His warfare is within, there unfatigued
His fervent spirit labours.

This it is which makes his other trials heavy, which makes his power of sustaining them weak, which renders his conquest over them slow and inconclusive; which too often solicits him to oppose interest to duty, indolence to resistance, and self-indulgence to victory.

But if no prince but the Prince of Peace ever set out with the proclamation of the reversionary nature of his empire-if no other king, to allay avarice and check ambition, ever invited subjects by the unalluring declaration that his kingdom was not of this world'—if none other ever declared that it was not dignity or honours, valour or talents that made them worthy of him,' but 'taking up the cross'-if no other ever made the sorrows which would attend his This world is the stage on which worldly followers a motive for their attachment-men more exclusively act, and the things of yet no other ever had the goodness to pro- the world, and the applause of the world, mise, or the power to make his promise are the rewards which they propose to good, that he would give rest to the heavy themselves. These they often attain-with laden.' Other sovereigns have overcome these they are satisfied. They aim at no the world' for their own ambitfon, but none higher end, and of their aim they are not besides ever thought of making the 'tribu- disappointed. But let not the Christian relation' which should be the effect of that pine at the success of those whose motives conquest, a ground for animating the fidelity he rejects, whose practices he dares not of his followers-ever thought of bidding adopt, whose ends he deprecates. If he feel them be of good cheer,' because he had any disposition to murmur when he sees the overcome the world in a sense which was irreligious in great prosperity, let him ask to make his subjects lose all hope of rising himself if he would tread their path to attain in it. their end-if he would do their work to obtain their wages? He knows he would not. Let him then cheerfully leave them to scramble for the prizes, and jostle for the places, which the world temptingly holds out, but which he will not purchase at the world's price.

The apostle to the Philippians enumerated it among the honours and distinctions prepared for his most favoured converts, not only that they should believe in Christ,' but that they should also suffer for him.' Any other religion would have made use of such a promise as an argument to deter, not Consult the page of history, and observe, to attract. That a religion should flourish not only if the best men have been the most the more under such discouraging invita- successful, but even if they have not often tions, with the threat of even degrading cir-eminently failed in great enterprizes, undercumstances and absolute losses, is an unan- taken perhaps on the purest principles; while swerable evidence that it was of no human origin.

unworthy instruments have been often employed, not only to produce dangerous revoIt is among the mercies of God, that he lutions, but to bring about events ultimately strengthens the virtues of his servants by tending to the public benefit; enterprizes in hardening them under the cold and bracing which good men feared to engage, which climate of adverse fortune, instead of leaving perhaps they were not competent to effect, them to languish under the shining but wi-or in effecting which they might have thering sun of unclouded prosperity. When wounded their conscience and endangered they cannot be attracted to him by gentler their souls.

influences, he sends these salutary storms Good causes are not always conducted by and tempests, which purify while they alarm. Our gracious Father knows that eternity is long enough for his children to be happy in.

good men. A good cause may be connected with something that is not good, with party for instance. Party often does that for virtue, which virtue is not able to do for herThe character of Christianity may be self; and thus the right cause is promoted seen by the very images of military conflict, and effected by some subordinate, even by under which the Scriptures so frequently some wrong motive. A worldly man, conexhibit it. Suffering is the initiation into a necting himself with a religious cause, gives Christian's calling. It is his education for it that importance in the eyes of the world, heaven. Shall the scholar rebel at the dis- which neither its own rectitude, nor that of cipline which is to fit him for his profession; its religious supporters had been able to give or the soldier at the exercise which is to it. Nay the very piety of its advocates-for qualify him for victory? worldly men always connect piety with im