blood of Jesus, to the presence of the Father, and of enjoying eternal communion with God and with Christ.

But take again a third class of persons, who, yet like the other two, are dwelling constantly in the midst of us, whom we have seen and known-I trust, also, have admired and loved -and look at their lives, and think of their deaths, and then how infinitely impossible does it seem to conceive that these can have perished. So true is it that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto him. Once think of any one as devoted to God, as living principally in relation to him, and it becomes as difficult to conceive of such a one that he is perished, as to conceive of any other that he will not perish. For here we have a man possessed with faculties and with affections, that nothing on earth has satisfied or can ever satisfy; his life is imperfect; he seems to have been cut off most untimely, if that God, whom here on earth the very best men can only see, as it were, through a glass darkly, shall never be known to him more fully. And when we see such a man living to God continually, putting aside the objects which other men live for, and manifestly setting before himself another object,

namely, the love of God in Christ;—when we see him going on quietly, attracting no great notice or glory on earth, yet ripening continually in all goodness; suffering with cheerfulness, labouring with unwearied zeal, meek and forgiving, temperate, yet not severe; making the best possible use of earth and earthly things, yet ever looking beyond them;it is manifest that his conversation or citizenship, as St. Paul calls it, is not here, and that if the grave close on him for ever, he who has lived better than any other class of men, will alone, of all men, never have reached the haven which he desired, nor attained the end of his being. It is like those foreign plants, whose flowers and fruit will not come to perfection in our climate; but whose natural strength and beauty make us feel only the more sure that they must have, elsewhere, a better and more genial climate of their own.

And conceive further of one who, thus loving God in Christ, has been chastened by his fatherly hand in a long course of severe suffering. Conceive, amidst the gradual weakness and decay of the body, which made earthly enjoyment utterly impossible, a growth of every humble and devout and affectionate feeling no less regular; a trust in God, and a

child-like love of him, drawing, as it seemed, its strength and nourishment from the very trials of his fatherly correction. Conceive this going on for years, the bodily suffering becoming more and more intense, the spiritual health and vigour becoming more and more perfected. Conceive this going on for years; yet having begun so early, so completely cutting short in the bud all earthly prospects, that even at the very close of the struggle, the sufferer was still in the opening, rather than in the prime of youth. Conceive such a one, so young, so suffering, so sanctified, finding in the very last hour no abatement of pain, but a fearful increase of it; yet while they who stood by were most distressed, and most wishing to relieve it, the faith and love of the sufferer were never clouded, and the trust in Christ, and cheerful submission to his will, never for a moment shaken. Conceive this; and shall not heaven and earth pass sooner, than that one so sleeping in Jesus, should not also be raised up by the Spirit of Jesus, and presented by him before the throne of his Father, to live for ever in the fulness of his blessing?*

* Lest some should possibly suspect here a different allusion, it is right to say that this passage was written with reference to a young person who died at Rugby, in the early part of the year 1834.

If there were many such, faith would scarcely be faith, but would be almost changed into sight so great, so visible, would be the assurance of God's power and goodness in those who believe; so evident would it be, that his Holy Spirit thus largely given, was, indeed, but the earnest of an eternal inheritance. But each of us may, in our ownselves-nay, we must, either add to this evidence or lessen it; we must either so live, as that it shall seem nothing extraordinary if our thoughts and desires being earthly, they and we should perish when earth perishes; or we must so show forth the grace of God, and so live to him, as to make it manifest that he is our God, and we are his people, that our lot is cast with him, and that nothing in the world can be so monstrous or impossible as for one of his children to perish.

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NOTE ON SERMON XIII.

Ir has been my endeavour in this sermon, in imitation, as I think, of the manner adopted by the Scriptures themselves, to express fully the particular view of truth with which the text was concerned, without entering into such other views as might be necessary to guard against opposite errors. I have argued, that none but true Christians can have a fair expectation of eternal life; that to other men, it would be nothing unnatural if death were to be the close of all. I have spoken here of death as opposed to life, not as expressing a life of misery; and I have left the great consideration untouched, as not concerning my immediate object, that as reason tells us that none but true Christians can hope to live for ever, so we have cause to believe, from God's word, that all but true Christians will be miserable for ever. But I do not think that our natural reason Iwould have ever enabled us to discover what Christ has revealed, that good left undone will be positively punished for all eternity, as well as evil done. The careless, and what we call harmless livers, cut off by reason from the hope of eternal happiness, are condemned by revelation to an eternity of positive misery. It is undoubtedly one of the peculiarities of revelation, that it threatens with the heaviest punishment not only committed evil, but omitted good. A better proof of this cannot be given, than by contrasting our Lord's warnings against riches, with the sentiments of one of the characters in Plato's Commonwealth, Cephalus the father of Lysias. Christ's words are known to every one, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven." Cephalus is represented as feeling comfort in his old age from the possession of wealth, because he was not tempted to the commission of those acts of fraud or violence which might be visited

*

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*Plato, de Republicâ, I. p. 331.