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?

But instead of converting the friendly warning to their eternal benefit, they are probably wholly bent on their own vindication. Still their character is dearer to them than their soul.- "We never," say they, were any man's enemy."-Yes-you have been the enemy of all to whom you have given a bad example. You have especially been the enemy of your children in whom you have implanted no Christian principles. Still they insist with the prophet that 'there is no iniquity in them that can be called iniquity.' "We have wronged no one, say they, we have given to every one his due. We have done our duty.' Your first duty was to God. You have robbed your Maker of the service due to him. You have robbed your Redeemer of the souls he died to save. You have robbed your own soul and too probably the souls of those whom you have so wretchedly educated, of eternal happiness.

Thus the flashes of religion which darted 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 to him, inspires more confidence in themselves. This corrupt faith generates a corrupt

morality. It leads to this strange consequence, not to make them love God better, but to venture on offending him more.

People talk as if the act of death made a complete change in the nature, as well as in the condition of man. Death is the vehicle to another state of being, but possesses no power to qualify us for that state. In conveying 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 raised than altered. Their tendencies will be the same though their advancement will be incomparably higher. They will be exalted in their degree but not changed in their nature. They will be purified from all earthly mixtures, cleansed from all human pollutions, the principle will be cleared from its imperfections, but it will not become another principle. He that is unholy will not be made holy by death. The heart will not have a new object to seek, but will be directed more intensely to the same object.

They who loved God here will love him far more in heaven, because they will know him far better. There he will reign without a competitor. They who served him here in sincerity will there serve him in perfection. If "the pure in heart shall see God," let us remember that this purity is not to be contracted after we have been admitted to its remuneration. The beatitude is pledged as a reward for the purity, not as a qualification for it. Purity will be sublimated in heaven, but will not begin to be produced there. It is to be acquired by passing through the refiner'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 ourselves 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.

Here our love of spiritual things is superinduced, there it will be our natural frame. The impression of God on

our hearts will be 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 controls 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.

Repentance, precious at all seasons, in the season of health is noble. It is a generous principle when it overtakes us surrounded with the prosperities of life, when it is not put off till distress drives us to it. Seriousness of spirit is most acceptable to God when danger is out of sight, preparation for death when death appears to be at a distance.

Virtue and piety are founded on the nature of things, on the laws of God, not on any vicissitudes in human circumstances. Irreligion, folly and vice, are just as unreasonable in the meridian of life as at the approach of death. They strike us differently but they always retain their own character. Every argument against an irreligious death is equally cogent against an irreligious life. Piety and penitence may be quickened by the near view of death, but the reasons for practising them are not founded on its nearness. Death may stimulate our fears for the consequences of vice, but furnishes no motive for avoiding it, which Christianity had not taught before. The necessity of religion is as urgent now as it will be when we are dying. It may not appear so, but the reality of a thing does not depend on appearances. Besides, if the necessity of being religious depended on the approach of death, what moment of our lives is there, in which we have any security against it? In every point of view therefore, the same necessity for being religious subsists when we are in full health as when we are about to die.

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 gymnasium, in which the disciples of Christ are trained to robust exercise, hardy exertion, and severe conflict.

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 tranquil day, is happily exempt from the trials and the terrors which the annals of persecution record. Thanks to the establishment of a pure Christianity in the church, thanks to the infusion of the same pure principle into our laws, and to the mild and tolerating spirit of both-a man is so far from being liable to pains and penalties for his attachment to his religion, that he is protected in its exercise; and were certain existing statutes enforced, he would even incur penalties for his violation of religious duties, rather than for his observance of them.*

Yet still the Christian is not exempt from his individual, his appropriate, his undefined trials. We refer not merely to those "cruel mockings," which the acute sensibility of the apostle led him to rank in the same catalogue with bonds, imprisonments, exile and martyrdom itself. We allude not altogether to those misrepresentations and calumnies to which the zealous Christian is peculiarly liable; nor exclusively to those difficulties to which his very adherence to the principles he professes, must necessarily subject him; nor entirely to those occasional sacrifices of credit, of advancement, of popular applause; to which his refusing to sail with the tide of popular opinion may compel him; nor solely to the disadvantages which under

* We allude to the laws against swearing, attending public worship, &c.

certain circumstances his not preferring expediency to principle may expose him. But the truly good man is not 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,

were he left to batten undisturbed, in peaceful security on the unwholesome pastures of rank prosperity. The thick exhalations drawn up from this gross soil render the atmosphere so heavy as to obstruct the ascent of piety, her flagging pinions are kept down by the influence of this moist vapor; 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.

It is an unspeakable blessing that no events are left to the choice of beings, who from their blindness would seldom fail to choose amiss. Were circumstances at our own disposal, we should allot ourselves nothing but ease and success, but riches and fame, but protracted youth, perpetual health, unvaried happiness.

All this, as it would be very unnatural, so perhaps it would not be very wrong, for beings who were always to live on earth. But for beings who are placed here in a state of trial, and not established in their final home, whose condition in eternity depends on the use they make of time, nothing would be more dangerous than such a power, nothing more fatal than the consequences to which such a power would lead.

If a surgeon were to put into 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.