what indifference shall we contemplate the charms of wealth and power, with what horror shall we turn away from the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, when we know that the one may, and the other most certainly will, cut us off from an eternal and invaluable inheritance!

Suppose yourselves for a moment in some foreign kingdom, where, after having been obliged to spend many years, you are at length suffered to return to your own country. Suppose further, that in this country you have left families that are infinitely dear to you, friends whom you exceedingly love and esteem, wealth and honours to the utmost extent of your wishes. When, with the most impatient longings after all these blessings, you set out upon your return to your native land, will any allurements that you meet with on the road tempt you from your main object? Will any accidental hardships or inconveniences deter you from pursuing your journey? Will you not break through all obstructions, resist all temptations,

and press forward with alacrity and vigour towards your beloved home? And why then will you not seek your heavenly country with the same ardour and perseverance that you would your earthly one? You are all "strangers and pilgrims upon earth." This world is not your home, though you are too apt to think it so. You belong to another city, you are subjects of a better kingdom, where infinitely greater joys await you than have been just described, or can by the utmost stretch of imagination be conceived. Every day you live, every moment you breathe, brings you nearer to this country; and the grave itself, dismal as it appears, is nothing more than the gate that leads you into it.

Conscious then of the dignity and importance of our high and heavenly calling, which renders us candidates for the kingdom of God, and heirs of immortality, let us persevere steadily and uniformly in our progress towards those celestial mansions which are prepared for all the faithful servants of Christ; where we shall be

released

released from all the endless anxieties, the vain hopes, and causeless fears that now agitate and disquiet us, and shall, through the merits of our Redeemer, be rewarded not merely with uninterrupted tranquillity and repose (the utmost felicity of the pagan elysium); not merely with a visionary posthumous reputation, which commences not till we are incapable of enjoying it; but with a crown of glory that fadeth not away, a real immortality in the kingdom of our Father and our God.

LECTURE XXIV.

MATTHEW xxviii.

HE last Lecture ended with the

THE

history of our Lord's resurrection. The evangelist then proceeds to give a concise account of what passed after that great event had taken place.

"Then (says he) the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain, where Jesus had appointed them*.”

By the eleven disciples he means the apostles, who, though originally twelve, were now reduced to eleven, by the defection and death of Judas. These Jesus had commanded to meet him in Galilee. "Go, tell my brethren, (says he to the women) that they go into Galilee, and there

*Matt. xxviii. 16.

there shall they see me." There therefore the apostles went about eight days after the resurrection, and many others with them; for this probably was the time and the place when he showed himself to about five hundred brethren at once. "And when they saw him they worshipped him; but some doubted." Here we have the authority of the apostles themselves for the worship of Christ. The women, when they first saw Jesus, paid him the same adoration: "they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him *." But some, it is added, doubted. And where can be the wonder, if among five hundred persons there should be two or three, who, like the disciples mentioned by St. Luke, believed not for joy, and wondered; that is (as is very natural) were afraid to believe what they so ardently wished to be true; or who, like St. Thomas, would not believe, unless they touched the body of Jesus, and thrust their hands into his side. But their doubts,

like

*Matt. xxviii. 9.

+ Ch. xxiv. 41.